In 2006, my neighbor’s feral cat adopted me. He was a lovely black kitty, and no one but me could touch him. I named him Ravenclaw and called him my familiar. He was my pal and I was his human. Yesterday I noticed my fuzzy buddy didn’t seem to feel well. Today I took him to the vet, and then, astonishingly, at not even ten years old, I had to let him go.
Late last year, I blogged about having daily excruciating eye pain and how it was affecting my quality of life. At the time, there seemed to be no answer and no real relief from the pain except prescription painkillers which was The Worst Plan Ever. Didn’t want to become an addict or spend my life in a drugged haze (for the record, all they did was make me extremely dizzy and loopy. Not fun, especially when you were dizzy to begin with…). So I did some digging.
Ah, the Hero’s Journey. A staple of not only fantasy literature, but an overarcing plot archetype that can be found in stories across time and culture and genre.
Six months ago, I blogged in this space about how I had lost my way as a writer. For the rest of the winter, I deliberately set writing aside. No pressure, no thinking about writing, just hibernating and reading and seeking out other fun things to do…and enjoying not feeling guilty about not writing instead. The absence of “shoulds” felt amazing. When winter finally started to ease up – and it took a while – I tiptoed back towards writing. So I started some fanfiction. I outlined the beginning of a completely silly novel in a completely different genre than everything I ever write. I brainstormed worldbuilding and backstory for a second, collaborative novel. But none of it is working.