I’m a cat sitter.
I go to clients’ houses and stay with their cat while they are on vacation or away for business. This practice affords me a lot of time to myself, time spent, aside from the cats, in writing.
This week I’m staying with a beautiful brindled tabby diva. I’ve sat with her before, and in fact, appropriately enough, this is where I typed the first words of Ghost Cat on the Midway last summer. It’s fitting I should be here now, with the finished book set to publish in a just few days.
People ask where ideas come from.
Where do I get my stories? God and experience, is the short answer. Since basically I’m a visual person, ideas come to me in pictures as I write. I do my best to describe what I see, then take it as a jumping-off point to decide where the story is going from there. When I sat down with my laptop in that ivory-upholstered chair last summer—the one right over there with a cat on it now—I had nothing more than a picture in my mind. I saw an old fashioned county fair, the kind I went to as a child at the turn of the fifties. I’d already “seen” that my ghost cat hero Soji was destined to save a tiger. That could work with a fair.
Now that Ghost Cat on the Midway is finished, it’s time for me to sit down somewhere, maybe while cat sitting, and envision a new story. I already have the title: Ghost Cat Christmas. I see lots of red and green. A party. A murder. Maybe not in that order. And the question I always ask myself:
What will Soji do next?
Mollie Hunt: Crazy Cat Lady Mysteries and more 
I’ve been asked the same question, although my stuff usually leans toward absurdist humor. I tell people that I come across a particular situation, read something or see a movie scene, then imagine how ridiculous it would be if my cat were in that situation.
When I watched Inventing Anna, I thought “What if Bud befriended Anna Delvey?” When I rewatched The Wire, I thought “What if Bud was the head of a ruthless catnip cartel?” When I got one of those Nigerian 419 scam emails, I thought “What if Bud got one of these from a cat in Nigeria promising him a huge amount of catnip in exchange for a ‘small’ loan?”
The stuff practically writes itself. It’s a good opportunity to work on dialogue, and it’s fun to slip in references to books, movies and other pop culture to see if anyone picks up on them.
I’m a firm believer that everyone should have fun with their writing.
I love it! Now picturing how Tyler might solve this CSI mystery. Forensic cat uses superior senses to find killer…
Great insights. I think one has to be open to anything that comes to mind, no matter how crazy or weird it seems at the time. That is part of the creative writing process. I must go now, my cat is demanding to be let in!
Meows.
Plus you do have a super cool imagination!
Why, thank you. Lots of feline inspiration.
Poor baby had a rough time last week and we ended up at the vets. Rambo suddenly started passing blood which was a real worry. The antibiotics have helped but we now have to deal with the thyroid problem which is common in senior cats. He is not happy about taking the pills! Lynn
Once a character (feline or human) comes to life in our imagination, they seem to generate new ideas.
Yes.