I don’t have fresh content for you this week, but I have a good reason.
The short version: since our Spice died on New Year’s day we’ve been in a stage of catless mourning. Once spring rolled around we started thinking it might be nice to have feline companionship again, and after some fits and starts we’ve adopted (accumulated?) three new cats (!) in less than a week.
I’ve not had kittens in my house for almost twenty years and I forgot how Relentlessly! Hyperactive! they are. The Wonder Twins* are ten-week old littermates (boy/girl) that we must play with with several times a day lest they destroy their room and keep us up all night.
And we must confine them: not only are they so tiny there are any number of places they can get into if we let them loose, we also have to isolate them from their two-year old “sister.” We named her “Sveta” after Svetlana Sorokina, “Babylon Berlin”‘s master spy because she revealed unparalleled hide and seek ability upon our first attempt to pick her up. I can’t get a good picture of her as she’s still undercover (or, under the bed).
We’ll introduce them eventually but first the kittens have to grow and Sveta needs to chill. Until we get a schedule of kitten play and older cat trust-earning established, I’m not making much progress on my out-loud read-through of my second draft.
Which is not bad because my beta readers aren’t done yet either, but as I have this guilty need to constantly be working on it I’ve decided to resume by reading it to Sveta. I’ll feel less like I’m talking to myself, accustom the new cat to my voice, and possibly scare her away from ever coming out from under the bed.**
Original content will come in future weeks: more link dumps, magical maguffins, more oddities as I find them. Just let me catch my breath.
*Until we have better names.
**I will not be reading it to the kittens. My book contains adult themes unsuitable for cats under a year old.
Although Shakespeare may not make a grand appearance in your book, perhaps his pen can grace your kittens. “Wonder Twins” hearkens back to Viola and Sebastian. Although those might not work as cat names. Hmm.