The Passage of Time

I'm late today because I "slept late" and only woke when Harry, my cat, began to meow outside my closed bedroom door. His stomach and the daylight had obviously told him that it was time for me to get up, brush, and feed him. The curious thing is that with daylight saving time, Harry, who is usually up and meowing between 8 and 9 in summer (because I am up late and he eats a bedtime snack) is now napping until between 10 and 11. Sometimes, when he is in my bedroom, he wakes up, notices that I am awake but not getting up, and cleans himself and goes back to sleep.

I'm writing about my cat and time because I wonder how it is to experience 24 hours if you are a cat (or a dog). What is it like to spend so much time napping? When we, who love our animals look at them and regret the speed with which the time with them seems to pass, do they have the same sense of time passing. Does my cat, Harry, who is now officially a senior at 13 years of age feel as if he has aged when he dashes through the house with even more glee than he did four years ago because he is much more "at home" than when I adopted him? Does he know about time passing when he plays like a kitten, chasing his own tail around and around? Maybe it's because of his breed, a Maine Coon mix, and how they age (or don't).

I'm thinking about all this because I had a birthday this month, and I've been pondering the passage of time. But I've also been thinking about cultural history and fiction. I woke up and headed to the computer this morning to do research because I've been thinking about the everyday lives of my characters in 1939. In my thriller, they are on the move -- traveling frequently by train because my protagonist is a Pullman sleeping car porter. Another character  is traveling back and forth between Georgia, where he lives on a plantation that his grandfather purchased before the Civil War. This character is involved in the state's preparation for the opening of the 1939 World's Fair in New York That fair is themed "the world of tomorrow." Another character migrates from a small city in Virginia to Harlem in New York City. And a fourth character moves from a summer home in northern Virginia to Nantucket. How do these characters experience time and place? Do they walk faster in New York City as I do when I go there from Albany? Or, did people in New York City walk slower in 1939?

With none of our modern technology-- mobile phones, Internet, television (debuting in 1939 at the World's Fair), are my characters really unplugged? Was radio an inherently slower experience? Or. were 1930s movies with chase scenes the equivalent experience of our chase scenes?

What about cooking with 1939 appliances? By virtue of technology, "slow cooking?"

I woke up and did a deep dive into a database called "America: History and Life" to see if anyone had written an article about this. What came up first was a wonderful book review in the February 1, 2013 issue of History & Theory by a scholar named Brian Fay. He calls his review "Hammer Time," a title that made me smile because it seemed a tongue-in-cheek reference to the performer who now does commercials. But the review is of a 2011 book by Espen Hammer in which Hammer examined what various philosophers had to say that might be relevant to our modern sense of time. Hammer, who Fay describes as a man of reason, takes as a given that we now perceive the passage of time as "a series of present moments each indefinitely leading to the next in an ordered way," We measure time by the clock. This allows us to have technological breakthroughs, but at the same time we have problems of "transience and memory."

In his review of Hammer's book, Fay was thoughtful and poetic in describing how he himself experiences time. He noted that as he watched his daughter running down the hall after her bath, he experienced time not only as moving forward toward the next moments of putting her to bed, but backward in time to when she was younger. Fay argues that any moment can be filled with "the what is, that what might-have-been, the what-will-be, the what has been, and the what was." These experiences reflect our perceptions, memories, expectations, hopes, fears, and regrets. Because of this, Fay argues, modern time seems to him to be "fundamentally multidimensional." And he wonders if there is any period (at least in modern history) when time hasn't been experienced in this way. How is the way T.S. Eliot perceives time in "Burnt Norton" and "Dry Salvages" differ from Shakespeare's Macbeth when he refers to "the petty pace from day to day" that lead to "dusty death " (Act 5, Scene 5, 19-28).

I know this may be a writer's dive "down the rabbit hole" of research. But I'm fascinated by this subject and I'm going to spend a bit of "my precious time" reading about it. I suspect that if I can grasp the sensory experience of the passage of time in 1939 (another period of uncertainty and anxiety but without the modern technology) than my book will be all the better for my deep dive.

Harry is awake again and after meowing and poking me with his paws to get my attention, he has stretched out beside my chair to remind me that it is time for his lunch. His stomach has told him that it is time, no need for a clock.

I look at the clock and realize half my day is already gone. Would I have experienced that in 1939? And if 40 is the new 30 now, what was it like then?

Harry's meowing. Got to go. 

Guilt as a Plot Device

I'm still trying to finish up summer projects, settle into fall semester, and set up a schedule. But I did have a thought this morning that I want to share.

I woke up when it was still early --or seemed to be. My bedroom doesn't get morning sunlight, so I always have to check the clock. I mention this because I looked down toward my feet and remembered that my cat, Harry, had knocked on my door (literally -- with large Maine Coon paws. He does that every morning when I haven't gotten up by the time he is ready to start the day. It's his follow-up to meows).

Last night, he knocked as I was reading, and I was surprised. I opened the door, he strolled in and instead of looking around and leaving, he hopped up on the bed. He stretched out and settled in. It was almost as if he had been reading my mind and thought this would be a good time to remind me that he is a cat who enjoys company. I had been gone most of the day, and first he curled up in my lap for a nap after he'd eaten, now he was getting in more quality time with me by sleeping on my bed instead of his favorite living room chair.

He seemed to have sensed that I was feeling guilt and decided to rub it in. Before he knocked on the door I was reading a book (research for 1939 thriller that I have on my nightstand) and debating a trip in 2020. I've been wanting to visit Ireland and Scotland. A friend is going on a guided bus tour of Scotland, and emailed to invite me to join her. I have enough travel points to cover my airfare, and it would be the perfect time to do some research for the seventh Lizzie Stuart book I plan to write (assuming I'll finish the sixth). Only problem: If I go to Scotland, I will have to board Harry with his sitter while I'm away. His sitter is one of his favorite humans, and he stayed with her when I was in Alaska. But he was really upset with me when I crated him up and dropped him off. He tried to hide under a chair when I returned to pick him up. Of course, we have been together almost three years longer now. He should know by now that I'll come back to bring him home. But I'm still worried that two weeks away from home would be traumatic for him.

Okay, I know, he's a cat. But I have to live with him. And I feel guilt about not being a good "parent" to my "fur baby" (guilt is built into this language). Even though my cat lives much better than some people and he's certainly lucky that even though I didn't intend to adopt a cat, I was persuaded. He has a good life, and it's not like he would suffer during those two weeks. But I feel guilty. On the other hand, Harry's sitter has a camera in the room reserved for the one cat she is boarding. I can dial in and even talk to him. So if she can keep him, I will probably go.

That brings me to how this is related to writing -- as I was thinking about Harry this morning, it occurred to me that what we feel guilty about provides a clue about what we feel important. I have a character that I'm trying to get a handle on -- two of them in fact -- and I'm going to ponder this.

It turns out there is a difference between feeling "guilt" and feeling "shame". The two emotions are aligned, but not the same https://digest.bps.org.uk/2015/10/15/guilt-prone-people-are-highly-skilled-at-recognising-other-peoples-emotions/

As you can see from the title of the article, people who experience guilt are attuned to how our behavior affects others. But the question is what we do about that guilt. If a character does something because of guilt -- or doesn't do something that everyone would expect him or her to do, knowing that the character would have felt guilty if he or she didn't  . . . follow that?

Of course, it's possible to make a decision and then backtrack. I'm still feeling guilty about going away later this year and leaving Harry alone at home -- even though he'll have twice-daily visits from his sitter. But I'm locked in, having paid. What if I wasn't, and he climbed into my suitcase as I was packing. . .

I'm penciling in time to think about what each of the characters in my thriller might feel guilty about. This could also work for the character who disappears in my next Lizzie Stuart book. I might as well put my own guilt to good use. 

Of Notebooks and Chocolate Bunnies

In the midst of my usual almost-end-of-semester chaos, I'm late to the discussion about how we keep track of ideas. But I did take a photo this morning. Here's my current notebook.  I've had this notebook for years. I bought it one Christmas as a stocking-stuffer for myself – intending to keep a journal when the new year began. I never got around to the journal. But I have enjoyed looking at the notebook's lovely pristine pages. A couple of months ago, I had an idea and no other paper handy. I grabbed the notebook and a red pen and wrote down my semi-brilliant idea before it could slip away. I am now using my notebook to record random thoughts.

This notebook is in addition to the five files I have on my computer with notes about potential books or short stories. I sometimes forget those files. But when I go back to them I'm always pleased that I have a plot factory quietly churning away. I'm also dismayed at how many ideas I have with limited time to develop them. But sometimes the ideas come together – as in the case of the short story set in 1948 that I have coming out in EQMM. Random thoughts became ideas that finally took shape and came together when I did some research.

That brings me to the chocolate bunnies in this post. Here is my cat Harry's plate. I took this photo this morning. His plate is one of the reasons I choked when I tried to eat the chocolate bunny that I bought during the Easter candy sale. I haven't had a bunny in years and I thought it would be a treat.

But as soon as I chopped the head off I remembered the headless corpse of one of the rabbits who was living in my yard. I came upon it one morning as I was walking to my car. The rabbit had apparently been the victim of one of the cats who pass through my yard. The memory of that headless rabbit – and that I could never eat rabbit stew (made by my mother when my father went hunting) when I was a child – gave me some clue about why I was having a hard time eating my chocolate bunny. Harry's plate this morning gave me the rest of the story. This is what he left after gobbling down his breakfast of rabbit and pumpkin. Harry has a finicky stomach so I didn't argue when his vet suggested I vary his canned prescription cat food, alternating between chicken and rabbit. I didn't argue but I did say, "Yuck!" Which suggested that I am much more squeamish about fluffy bunnies than about chickens. At any rate, watching Harry gobble his weekly canned rabbit reminded me once again that my sweet, gentle cat would hunt and kill his own bunny if he were allowed outside.

So because of a headless corpse, rabbit stew, and Harry's gourmet cat food, I choked on my chocolate. That got me thinking about characters and how something as simple as a chocolate bunny can be a way into understanding a character and revealing something about her or him to readers.

Thoughts?

How Much of an Escape

Last year in Albany, New York, we had days when there was nothing to do – nothing one could have been expected to do – but stay inside and look out. Last year, we stocked up on cocoa, made huge pots of soup, and anticipated our TV or movie-watching binges, and the books we would read when even adults had "snow days". This year, we have so little snow that I'm embarrassed to mention it when I talk to my relatives in Virginia.

Snow seen through screened window
this morning.

Harry's bored reaction to weather
in Albany this February.

Believe me, I complained along with almost everyone else in the Northeast when we had major snowstorms in mind-boggling succession last year. When I was reduced to tunneling a narrow path from front door to steps out onto the street, I would have been happy to see all the snow disappear. But this year, this lack of snow is spooking me. I know it has gone some place else, but that doesn't make me feel better. This is February in upstate New York. We should have snow – measurable, boots required, weather alert, go-home-before-it-starts snow. I should be complaining about the hard, icy chunks shoved across my driveway by the snowplow clearing my street.

I shouldn't be thinking about my Hannah McCabe books because it hasn't snowed. McCabe, a homicide detective, inhabits an Albany in the near future. I set The Red Queen Dies in 2019 with temperatures in the 90s in late October. A few months later, in What the Fly Saw, a massive January blizzard is headed up the East Coast toward Albany. The murderer strikes during this storm. The weather in McCabe's world is erratic and troubling. Now, the weather in my world is, too.

The thing about writing is that sometimes what one writes as fiction becomes reality. Or, at least close enough to reality to be reason for concern. My two McCabe police procedurals take place as a presidential election is looming. McCabe's father is a retired journalist/newspaper editor. They have several occasion to discuss the candidacy of a third party candidate named Howard Miller who is appealing to people's fears because his campaign begins to intrude into their lives.

Yes, freakish weather has happened in the past. Yes, politicians have often used fear- and anger-laden messages to ride into office. But having spent some time thinking about the future, it feels as if it is coming faster than I expected. My fiction may soon reflect reality.

Not that my fictional world is a dystopia nightmare. I'm not writing science fiction. But I thought by moving a few years ahead and creating an alternate universe Albany, I would be setting my stories in a world that was different from our own.

The lack of February snow in Albany and the 2016 presidential race have gotten me thinking about what I do as a writer. Or, I should say, thinking more deeply about what I do. I am at that point when I need to update my bio, take new author photos, and do some work on my website. I also should have a look at my neglected Facebook page. I know I should send out a newsletter, do the blogs I was going to do on my website about my research, and send out related tweets. I've been thinking about how to present a consistent image as a writer – not just because I read a book about how this is a useful marketing strategy. I have reached a point in my career when having a clear perception of who I am as writer will make my choices easier. I have a list of writing projects that I would love to do – ideas for books and short stories with my current protagonists, a proposal out there for a new series, a historical thriller in progress. And, of course, there is my nonfiction book about dress, appearance, and criminal justice. And a couple of other nonfiction books ideas that I've thought of while writing that one. I have enough potential projects to keep me busy for years. So the question of what to do next – decided in part by discussions with my agent and my editor.

Actually, the larger question is how to write. What do I want to put out there in the world? Do I want my books and short stories to be an escape for readers? Of course, I do. That is why I began reading as a child and one of the reasons I love curling up with a book as an adult. I went through a period as a teenager when I gobbled up romance novels. I still enjoy a good romance. I belong to Romance Writers of America. In my Lizzie Stuart series, there is an overarching love story. But the few times I've thought of writing a romance, the plot morphed into a hybrid romance/mystery. I'm a criminal justice professor. That is reflected in what I write.

I provide escape and entertainment. But I also need – want – to deal with social issues. I provide historical context. My books offer fictional springboards for discussions. That's what I do best.

But if I could write books with happy endings, I might be less concerned when there is so little snow this Albany winter and a presidential campaign season that would make Howard Miller smile.

Predictabilty

Last night I was thinking about the great posts from my colleagues this week about David Bowie, trends, and creativity. I was wondering what I could add to the conversation. And then I turned from the sink and encountered the fixed green-eyed gaze of my cat, Harry. As you know by now, Harry fascinates me. In part because we have become involved in a game of predicting each other's next move. He's more difficult -- one moment he is sitting under the coffee table dozing, the next he is dashing through the house. One moment he is meowing his apparent distress, the next he is cuddling up with his sock filled with catnip as if he hadn't a care. The one thing I can predict about him is that several times during the day or evening -- when the mood strikes him and I am sitting down -- he will come and leap into my lap. If my hands are in his way, he will meow to get my attention. Then he will settle down for a nap, and I will not be able to move without being heartless and disturbing his sleep.

But what is more fascinating, and what I was thinking about last night, is that Harry has adjusted to my unpredictable predictability. I am awful at keeping an eye on the clock. I forget to feed him on schedule. But last night -- as he does every night -- he started to watch me as soon as I got up to wash the dinner dishes that I had left in the sink. I do that every night without fail -- with a scene from the Mary Tyler Moore show playing in my head. Rhoda is staying with Mary because of a problem in her apartment. She has told Mary that she will wash the dishes. But she leaves them in the sink to soak over night. Mary creeps out of bed when she thinks Rhoda is asleep to wash the dishes. I'm not a neat freak, but I wash the dishes every night (a lingering fear of cockroaches in an old house even though I've never seen one). Harry has learned that in spite of my erratic concept of bedtime, I will go to the sink and wash the dishes as a part of my before bed ritual. And then I will pick up his dish, wash it, and serve him the snack he has before lights out. Every night -- whether it is 11 o'clock, 12:15, or after 1 a.m., Harry fixes his stare on me when I begin to wash dishes and as I reach for the sprayer to rinse, he strolls into the kitchen and sits down in front of the refrigerator.

There is a phrase that isn't used any more -- "You can set your clock by him." I've heard a character say it an old movie as the prosperous banker in his three-piece suit walked by, heading to his place of business, or a suburban father waved to his neighbor as he backed out of his driveway for his commute to his office in the city. It was a phrase used to describe characters who were predictable in their habits. But there is also predictability in the chaotic sprint of  Dagwood, the comic strip character, who is always late. The mailman never seems to learn that Dagwood will explode out of his front door, knocking him over as he races to his waiting carpool. But, then again, the detectives on Law and Order never learned that getting creative (e.g., sticking a toothpick in a keyhole to keep a suspect out of his apartment until the search warrant arrived) was likely to produce evidence that would be suppressed by a judge. Just as predictable was the annoyance of the prosecutor, Jack McCoy -- less so that of Lt. Van Buren (who was predictable in that she would stand up for her cops when their strategies seemed to be the only reasonable thing to do).

As writers, one of the aspects of a character's personality that we might consider and exploit in our plotting is his or her predictability. In fact, as we are developing our characters, we might build in those aspects of predictability that other characters depend on. It could be that this character is always punctual -- maybe even arrives early and waits for other people -- is always smug when other people arrive a few minutes late. Maybe at some point in the story, another character (our protagonist), annoyed by this smugness decides to arrive early for their Thursday lunch date. And discovers that her friend is not waiting and becomes increasing alarmed as their meeting time arrives and passes. Or, maybe this friend has been plotting a murder and assumed that our protagonist would be late as usual. But this time she isn't, and she, thereby, becomes a less reliable alibi and maybe even a danger.

In real life, my friends predict that I will be late if I have some place to be before mid-morning. Even with the best of intentions, I have a difficult time getting to where I need to be. When I have a really early flight, I'm afraid to sleep the night before. A few months ago, I almost missed a flight to Seattle (en route to an Alaska cruise) because I -- something I had always feared I would do -- set the clock alarm for p.m. rather than a.m. And then, so tired from being awake during the night, slept through the ringing of the phone as my friend who was leaving for the airport tried to check on me. It was only hearing the end of her voice mail message as she called from the airport that woke me up and sent me scrambling.

I should say that later in the day, I have no problem being on time (or much less of a problem). I try to design my life so that appointments that I have to travel to are after 10 a.m. I teach in the afternoon and early evening. If I were a character, I, the writer, could use that contrast between morning me and afternoon/evening me. Saying I'm not a morning person would be "telling". "Showing" the difference could well be an important plot twist. What if I, the character, had decided after that near-miss of my flight, to change my morning habits. Suppose I decided to start getting up at seven and going for a walk -- which might well put me some place I would not ordinarily have been.

In criminology, there is a theory about "routine activities". Some crimes depend on the routine activities of the would-be victims (e.g., leaving home, walking to the bus, depositing money at the ATM). This is a kind of predictability that we as writers also often rely on in plotting our books. But we might also give occasional thought to how our characters feel about their routine, about their predictability. What would happen if a character decided one day to shake up his or her routine? What might motivate that decision? And what might happen if he or she did?

I think I'll take a different route to the office today. Maybe tomorrow, I'll get up and go to a little diner I noticed for an early breakfast.

Moving up the Hierarchy

Last night I was watching Cupcake Wars. The four bakers were competing for $10,000. The winner would also have her fabulous cupcake creations served at the star-studded celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the iconic TV sitcom, I Love Lucy. I was watching this show because I love shows about food. But I was thinking now and then that I should be writing my post for today. But it has been a labor-intensive week, so I stayed there on the sofa with Harry, my cat, sleeping, belly up and paws in the air, beside me.

This week I finally finished the synopsis of a proposed book and sent it off to my editor. Actually, I sent a short version and a very long (34 pages) version. I had spent so much time on that 34 page version that I couldn't not send it along. When I was plotting this book, I used script-writing techniques to craft my scenes. Unlike when I simply outline, my characters had a great deal to say. They started talking to each other. Knowing I should type instead of telling them to shut up, I included those snatches of conversation in my synopsis. My characters were talking about what they needed. They were explaining how what they had done was related to what they wanted. In those snatches of conversations --either stated or implied -- they were telling me about the internal needs that motivated them.

My cat, Harry, had his bedtime snack early last night and at 7:47 am, he meowed politely outside my door. Harry has been incredibly considerate these past few weeks. A friend says Harry has "mellowed out" now that he knows he is really home and it's okay when I put him in his carrier and in the car (that I do intend to bring him home from the vet's or come back after my vacation to retrieve him from his sitter's house). Harry no longer meows and knocks on my door with his big paws (Maine Coon mix) because now he is not worried that I have disappeared and he is not going to be fed. He now sits on top of the radiator waiting for me to come out and raise the blinds so he can bird watch. Or he sits outside my door waiting for me to wake up and come out -- so quiet that I've almost stumbled over him a few times. But this morning, he was hungry, and he thought a polite meow would let me know that his stomach was rumbling.

Harry has reminded me of something I learned in Psychology 101 (or, whatever that long-ago Intro Psych course at Virginia Tech was numbered). It was in that course that I first heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs.


Offering a theory of human motivation, Abraham Maslow argued that humans are motivated by needs that range from basic physiological needs to self-actualization. Humans . . .

I had to take a break between paragraphs because Harry was standing beside my chair meowing insistently.

(Photo taken by his sitter, Russ, on another morning).

This morning, having had his breakfast (wet prescription cat food mixed with pumpkin) and spent some time looking out the window at the birds sitting in the leafless small trees, he felt compelled to remind me that I had neglected to carry out our morning ritual. Each morning, using a pet grooming tool that has a metal rake on one side and a bristled brush on the other, I attend to Harry's fur. When I adopted him in October of last year, Harry's back had been partially shaved because his fur was matted when he came into the shelter. Now, his fur has grown back and is luxurious and thick, and it tends to tangle on his stomach. I suspect that he knows he will be swallowing a lot of hair when he grooms himself if I don't brush him first.

But having me brush him each morning is also Harry's way of maintaining our connection. He is moving up his cat hierarchy. As he is being brushed, Harry is ensuring his continued security and maintaining bonds of affections. I'm pretty sure he's also nurturing his self-esteem ("I'm a handsome cat. I cannot be seen with my coat looking scruffy").

Observing Harry has reminded me about my character's pyramid of needs. My characters -- whether in my 1939 historical or the whodunit with the very long synopsis -- are not going to zip through my books without stopping for meals or bathroom breaks. Yes, the public stakes may be high in my thriller, but along the way my protagonist and his valiant team are going to have those moments I've always loved in books and movies -- the outlaws are lurking outside, but inside the safety of the jail Dean Martin is stretched out on a bunk and he begins to sing about his pony and Rick Nelson joins in and then Walter Brennan pulls out his harmonica. . . yes, I watch too many old movies.

But my point is that I have now found another way to think of that dictum that in every scene in a book or story, each character should want something. Harry -- meowing again, paws on my knees, before he jumps, all 16.5 lbs of him (he's a pound from his goal weight), onto my lap -- is working on his hierarchy. He wants to sit in my lap because he's ready for a nap. He could be much more comfortable on the sofa or curled up on the radiator or an area rug. But he wants to sleep in the crook of my arm as I type. His need to bond and feel secure makes him want to sleep in my lap even though he has better options when it comes to physical comfort. A cat's reminder that meeting ones needs sometimes requires trade-offs. I must keep this in mind about my characters.

How Can I Use That?

I may be speaking for only a small group of heartless, cold-blooded scribblers. But from the conversations I had over the years, I suspect this is true of most of us who write crime fiction. In an emergency, we do our best to respond effectively and with compassion. We do everything we can to help. Then we step back, think, "That was really interesting" and wonder how we can use it in our next book or story.

The following tale will illustrate my point. The cat in the photo below is Harry, my Maine Coon mix, who I adopted in October of last year. He is sniffing an old sock filled with organic catnip and experiencing total bliss.

 Last weekend, Harry was experiencing a completely different emotion. And it was my fault. I live in an old house, 100 years old. My house is one-story, attic overhead, well-insulated since I moved in four years ago. But there is nothing to be done about the basement. The basement has two sections. The smaller, front section is accessed by going down the stairs from the kitchen. The "laundry room" is located there. Gray outdoor carpeting covers most of the rock and dirt floor. The washing machine and dryer are up on platforms. The trim hot water heater sits against a wall. On the other side of that wall is the furnace. One can access that other section of the basement by taking a few steps. When I first moved into the house, I was sure a serial killer lurked on the other side of that wall -- in spite of my alarm system -- waiting for me to come down and do laundry. For several weeks, I would not do laundry at night. Until I really needed something to wear the next day. . .

I still take a flashlight and turn on the lights on the other side of the wall -- just to make sure everything's okay around there in that cavernous space occupied only by the furnace and the work table and tool cabinet on the other side of the room. And a radiator that my contractor told me I should save in case I ever wanted to re-install it. . . My basement isn't as scary to me as it used to be.

When I go downstairs, I always close the kitchen door so that Harry won't be tempted to follow me. Last Saturday morning, I was careless. I didn't realize this until I came back upstairs from putting clothes in the dryer. The door was ajar. I assumed, I had left it that way. But Harry was nowhere to be seen. Not out on the enclosed "sleeping porch" where he had been watching the birds fly by. Not on the radiator watching the birds fly in and out of the bird apartment house on a pole in my neighbor's yard. Not stretched out on the rug in the dining room or the futon in the sun room having a nap. Not under my bed or behind a chair. Nowhere. Harry was gone. 

But both front and back doors were closed and locked. He had to be in the house. I ran back down to the basement, thinking he must have slipped by when my back was turned. Of course, I was calling his name . . . calling with increasing desperation when he didn't respond.

No Harry in the basement. No Harry when I ran back upstairs and looked in all the places I had looked before as if he might have been invisible the first time.  

Back down to the basement still calling his name and reminding myself (the dog person) that cats often ignore their names being called. But he had to be somewhere. And then I head a "meow". It seemed to be coming from outside -- outside just beyond the window above the tool cabinet. Upstairs, I ran. And realized as I reached the front door that the window over the tool cabinet had been closed. 

Back down to the basement again. This time, I tipped over to the cabinet. The cabinet that was against the wall and should have left no room for a large cat to be behind it. But he was. And he hissed at me from midway between either end. Obviously, Harry didn't recognize me or was too scared to come out even if he did. I stopped to think about that for a moment. About what could have scared him so much. He must have been startled by the dryer that I had turned on and dashed into the other section of the basement and found himself there in that strange space. And he had hidden in the only place there was to hide. 

The question was how to get him out. I went upstairs to get the open can of cat food in the refrigerator. Surely when he smelled the food. . . .

That got him almost out, and then he dashed back when I reached toward him. Dry food. The dry food he isn't allowed to have any more because he needs to lose a couple of pounds. But I still had half a bag. Harry always responds to the sound of that bag being opened. 

And he did respond. To the sound of the bag. To the food in my hand. To my verbal encouragement. Slowly, step-by-step, as I backed across the room. Harry following, focusing on me and my outstretched hand. Harry crouching as we came around the wall, staring at the dryer and then moving closer for a better look. Harry dashing under the kitchen steps, but then peering out. Following me up the kitchen steps, one at a time. Harry crossing the threshold and realizing he was back in known territory. And instead of meowing for the dry food he was not allowed to have, dashing into the dining room. And sitting down by my chair at the table as I came with brush and wet wipes to clean away the dust and cobwebs clinging to him. Even allowing me to wipe his paws. Harry jumping back on the radiator to watch the birds.

And me, sitting down and taking a breath. Thinking that had been scary. If I had been that scared -- heart pounding, on the edge of panic -- when my cat disappeared, what would it have been like if the cat had been a child? And thinking the next moment -- "I could write that. I could write that scene with a mother and a child who vanishes. But I don't have anywhere to use it." And thinking maybe I should write it down anyway, while I can still feel the emotions . . .

I did have somewhere to use it! The book I was working on. My 1939 thriller with the first chapter that wasn't working because my protagonist was doing nothing. Yes, he was watching other people who had come that Easter Sunday to see Marian Anderson perform at the Lincoln Memorial. He was observing and he was thinking. He spotted my villain and then he thought about that. But my hero was static, passive. 

What if I moved him back a scene or two? What if that first chapter began as my hero was rushing to get to the event, running late, and concerned that he would be so far back in the crowd that he wouldn't be able to see. And then he encounters the woman -- the desperate mother whose child has vanished. People are rushing by. No one is listening to her. She grabs his arm because he is wearing his porter's uniform. Begs him to help. He tells her she needs a policeman, tries to rush on. . .but she clings. He stops. He helps her look and finds her child, who is hiding and afraid to come out because he thinks his mother will be angry.

My hero has done a good deed (and been heroic). But now -- from his point of view -- he is late. He is irritated. Since he is far back in the crowd, he looks around at the faces as Ms. Anderson sings. He sees joyful, transfixed faces. He sees a few people weeping. He seems my villain -- who shouldn't be there in that crowd. Their gazes meet. My hero is puzzled, disconcerted. . .

Thank you, Harry. I'm so sorry you were frightened. I'm so sorry I was careless and a bad "cat parent". I'm really happy you are curled up on the floor by the table as I write this. But, thank you for solving my first chapter problem. You are going into my acknowledgments.

And I admit I was reaching for my notebook within minutes of making sure you were safe. 

False Starts and Half-Baked Ideas

Yesterday I dashed out of the door for a 10 a.m. appointment. I was distracted, but on the Northway (the highway in upstate New York that takes up from Albany right up to the Canadian border), something caught my eye. A light pink Volkswagon Beetle. And, of course, I wanted to know who was driving such a "make you smile" car. I had only a glimpse as I passed at 55 miles an hour. But the driver was female, probably middle-aged, and she had her window half-rolled down and a cigarette in her hand. Immediately, I started giving her a life, creating a character that would turn up in a book or maybe a short story at some point. It also occurred to me that I had a topic for today's blog. Something about the cars that characters drive -- but the only character who came to mind was James Bond.

So, I thought, I'll do some research, and I can write about my character Lizzie Stuart, who drives a Ford Focus. Or, Hannah McCabe, my near-future police detective, who occasionally gets to ride in a high tech vehicle but isn't that interested in cars.

As I was thinking about McCabe's attitude toward cars and her partner, Mike Baxter's profound love of them, I realized that what I find interesting about cars is what they reveal about their drivers. That was when I wandered off into self-analysis. For years, I have leased my cars. In fact, I've never owned one. Every three years, I swap the car I'm driving for the newest model. The car I've been driving for years now has been a Ford Focus (economical, easy to park, safety features). My Focus has always been light gray (silver). But last summer, I chose a deep red (ruby) Focus. The question is why I -- who love color -- spent years driving a silver car. Probably because I love the color gray [or grey]. I find gray soothing. And thought-provoking. But I was in a rut, and I opted for a color that would give me a new perspective. My ruby red car has done that. If I were creating me as a character, how would my perception of me (the character) be different if I were first seen in my pale gray Focus (fading into the sea of other cars) rather than my ruby Focus (not flashy, but willing to stand out)?

By the time I had finished thinking about myself and the color of my car, I had lost the momentum that would have sent me to do the research for my cars and characters post. My cat seemed to come to my rescue. You may remember that back in October, I adopted a Maine Coon mix that I named Harry. Harry's movements fascinate me. He sometimes simply leaps up on a desk or a bookcase. At other times, he sits for several second contemplating a jump onto the radiator where he spends much of his time looking out the window. But he seems to need at that moment to think before he leaps -- as opposed to those moments when he hears birds chirping and dashes from across the room to sail up on top of the radiator cover. I am intrigued by why he sometimes pauses. He does the same thing when he is planning to jump up into my lap. He will "meow" or sit there until I look at him before leaping. This pause is understandable. He has had false starts when I shifted in my chair or moved my legs just as he was jumping. He seems to find that clumsy slide back to the floor embarrassing -- so embarrassing that he retreats to the table he likes sitting under to pretend he wasn't even trying to jump onto my lap. So now he waits for eye contact and then he waits for me to shift in my chair to accommodate 18 lbs of cat who now likes to turn over on his back and have me support his head as he stretches out. Harry knows his human needs to be in the right position for that maneuver to work.

So, Harry jumped into my lap, and I thought about his occasional false starts. And I thought that could be a metaphor for the false starts we writers sometimes make as we are looking for an idea that works. But it's the end of semester, and I'm looking at a pile of papers I need to grade. My thought process broke down before I could work through my second half-baked idea.

And that's why this blog is about false starts and half-baked ideas. It is my tutorial on how to write a blog post when you have nothing brilliant to say.

The Power of Trust

I think I've mentioned here that a couple of months ago I adopted a cat, now named to Harry. In this photo, Harry — eight year old Maine Coon mix —  is investigating the boxes I've collected for my decluttering project. Harry seems to share a number of characteristics — like loving boxes — with other felines. But he has other quirks that seem to be uniquely his own.

Much more of a dog person than a cat lover — having only had an outdoor cat briefly when I was a child — I have been surprised by the bond that we're forming. But what has surprised me even more is that having Harry in my life is giving me greater insight into human relationships. Harry is an opportunity to study close-up the profound power of trust to affect human behavior.

Yesterday, I dropped Harry off at his vet's to have his teeth cleaned while I made a quick trip to New York City. The night before, Harry seemed to pick up some anxiety on my part that I had received instructions that he was not to eat after 6 am. That meant I would either not be able to leave food out for him that evening or that I would have to wake up before 6 and remove his food bowls. But my greater anxiety was that he would somehow sense that the next morning I planned to put him into his carrier. Harry does not like his carrier, wisely associating the carrier not only with being caged but with a trip in the car to the vet.

At a little after midnight I went off to bed, having decided to set the clock and get up at 6 to remove his food bowls. For the next two hours, Harry wandered through the house meowing, with occasional stops in front of my close door to scratch and meow louder. The scratching at my door is something we dealt with early on. We established that I will not open my door because he scratches. At night, I go off bed, leaving him to do the same — and he is often asleep before I am. But he wakes up and plays cat soccer with his toys and dashes through the house and eats and does whatever cats do at night. His business, as long as he stays away from the door. Then in the morning, I get up and open the blinds so that he can look out. He is already on top of the radiator waiting. Over the past two months, we've worked that out. So the scratching at the door and the loud meowing was disturbing. I couldn't sleep and he wasn't in a mood to play.

At 2 am I gave up. I waited until it had been awhile since he scratched on the door. Then got up, went into the living room and set on the sofa. Now, that we have a pet cover, he is allowed to make use of the sofa without the balled aluminum foil that didn't keep him off anyway. Now, we sit on the sofa in the evening when I have the time. Easier than having an 18+ lb cat jump into my lap when I trying to work on my computer. So at 2 am, I sit on the sofa. He jumped up beside me. Exhausted, I stretched out. He stretched out in the curl of my arm, on his back, paws in the air.

When he was snoozing, I eased off the sofa. He turned over and curled up against the pillow and kept sleeping. He was still asleep when I woke up at 6. In fact, I had to wake him up a little before I scooped him up and put him into his carrier — actually, a carrier designed for a medium-sized door. I had lined it with a towel, sprayed it with a calming spray, but Harry still meowed his unhappiness as we drove to the vet. And I felt guilty, as if I had betrayed his trust, even though I knew the trip was necessary and that I would come back for him. And I hoped that 2 am time together on the sofa had helped him to believe that, too.

Harry has gotten me thinking about humans relationships, not just with animals, but with other humans. For most of us — those of us who have the power of empathy — being trusted by another human or an animal is a gift, but it comes with responsibility. The responsibility to live up to that trust.

As writers, particularly crime writers, we deal with trust in our work — usually betrayals of trust. But there are also those stories to be told about keeping trust. Harry has me pondering what I can do with that. Writer thanks cat.