No Claws, Kitty!

Daily writing prompt

If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?

I have three cats, and all three have very sharp claws. They work hard to keep these claws in perfect working order, and I can attest to the functionality of these appendages. The three use their claws in unique ways to keep me in line.

Chuckie reaches out with his claws when I haven’t petted him enough. He reaches with just enough claw to sting, hinting at how much worse he could apply his claws. Sometimes he reaches for my face, and I suffer five tiny points of pain.

Pumpkin lurks in the kitchen and claws at my feet as I walk by. She’s not a very social cat, and she’s asserting her boundaries. My feet are trespassing in her space. The entire kitchen is her space.

Chloe likes to dig her claws into me when she’s jumping off my lap. I appreciate her need for leverage, but I appreciate her claws less. I have claw marks on my thighs because she digs deep.

I could clip their claws — ha! Have you ever tried to clip a cat’s claws? My cats aren’t highly trained sweethearts — they’re cats. I would be shredded if I tried to clip their claws.

Claw marks are a small price to pay for the privilege of being owned by amazing creatures.

Comic Relief

I have written some pretty dark stuff lately. Riots with body counts, bombings, scenes that traumatize my protagonists. The United States is falling into disorder, and in two years there will be no United States.

I may write dark, but I don’t write unrelieved grim. There is always humanity. There is always hope. And there is always humor. My characters shine in small moments where humor peeks out, and sometimes I go from subtle smirks to full-out silliness.

Take, for example, Nephilim cats. One of my Archetype characters created a passel of immortal Archetype cats that teleport and procreate. Their offspring, like human-Archetype crosses, fly. They also get into trouble flying around outsiders. The beauty is that most humans can’t believe their eyes, and they ignore the obviously flying cats. But when the outsider recognizes this cat is actually flying, and the ten-year-old girls are scolding him for letting the secret out … a tense moment of an outsider knowing secrets gets silly.

I worry sometimes about my sense of humor. On the other hand, I worry that my writing can get too dark. I wonder if I have the balance right. I would love feedback on this, so if you’re one of my readers, please let me know! Link to my books here.

Are you trying to be funny?

I consider myself a pretty funny person, with stories, puns, dark humor — a pretty good complement of funny.

However, I tend to write pretty dark, picking topics that might be too close to home at times (climate change) or contemporary with fantastical elements (immortals, people with preternatural talents).

What are some ideas for a funny (maybe dark funny) short story?

A vampire at an NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting
A man who time travels to the future to find it’s being run by sentient cats
A man who tumbles an autocratic government by introducing them to cat memes
An “elixir of life” that ends up inducing extreme altruism

I’m actually having fun here! Let’s see if one of these becomes a short story.

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I’m almost to the point where I might take up Gaia’s Hands again for editing. I’m not convinced it has good bones, but I’m willing to wrestle with it. I might have Whose Hearts are Mountains on dev edit soon.

I have to come up with a novel idea (see what I did there?) for NaNoWriMo in November. Wish me luck.

Returning to a work in progress

I’ve decided to write on Prodigies again, and it’s been at least three months since I’ve touched it, because I’ve been working on my NaNo book, Whose Hearts are Mountains. I’m being drawn back to that book because of a few things:

First, the mystical sense of the book. One character survives a fatal shooting, and another can bring the freshly dead back to life. Discussions . We have a character who dreams. Characters have to deal with their religions, their morality, and where these change.
The group of four main characters are in close space a lot, and they’re being pursued because of their talents. They get on each other’s nerves.
There’s humor. I wasn’t aware of how little humor there has been in Whose Hearts are Mountains, as if nobody laughs after the collapse of the United States. People laugh in even the worst of circumstances. I don’t know what I was thinking. I think some of the best situational humor I’ve written is in Prodigies.
I love the characters — two teens and two slightly older adults: Grace, who is by turns blunt and guarded, denies her talent; Ichirou, an odd introvert, is so interested in the effects of his mind-influencing art that he doesn’t consider the moral implications; Ayana, Ichirou’s teacher, holds secrets that may endanger their lives; while Greg’s talent disturbs their sense of what is possible.
It’s a coming of age story from the viewpoint of Grace, an emancipated minor who spent her childhood in boarding schools.

I’m going to have to re-immerse myself into the characters, their conversations, their goals and purposes. I’m going to work back into feeling their voices in my head and heart. And then, hopefully, bring that attachment back to finish Whose Hearts are Mountains, which I feel has been lacking the humor and the heart that I’d been developing in Prodigies.