I Strangled My Cat Today

I strangled my cat today. He’s dead. But before you conclude that I’m a vile person, read on.

It was the cat in my novel. And I am not the one who strangled him; it was the villain of the piece who did it, out of revenge. You see, I’m digging around in somebody’s business and someone else doesn’t like it.  I’ve hit a nerve.  Me, I’m a Washington lobbyist just trying to get a good piece of environmental legislation passed.  But a fellow lobbyist, a beautiful young girl, was strangled to death.  I’m on the trail of the killer because the police are missing the boat.  And, I have gotten to close to the truth.  That’s why my cat was killed.

My book is called The Hero of Gucci Gulch.  Why that title, you may well ask?  Gucci Gulch is a name for Capitol Hill, where all lobbyists are presumed to be patrolling the halls of Congress wearing, you guessed it, Guccis.  Except my hero, who can’t afford them.

I’m in the middle of the tale now and, true to form, I don’t exactly know how it’s going to turn out.  Except that my hero really will be a hero. Otherwise the title wouldn’t work, would it?

Anyway, I’ve included a photo of my cat Q-Tip, on whom I based the (dead) cat in the story.  He’s really sweet and very loving.  It was hard to write that section of the book.  I really got into the emotions and genuinely grieved him when I was writing about it.

I’m finished with 16 chapters so far and am looking to write about 30 in total.  That means I’m just a little over half done.  The writing is going quickly.  I love to write.  I’m turning out two to three chapters a week.  At this rate, I should be done with a first draft by the end of the year. 

While I’m a fast and fairly accurate touch typist, I am writing the first draft out in longhand.  Why would I want to do that?  I have a collection of fountain pens and love to use them.  So, I write out my chapters, then dictate them into a handheld recorder and transcribe the text using Dragon Naturally Speaking software.  It works very well. 

I’m not done with this subject.  I’ll write more about my book as it progresses.

I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Norm

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Tags: cats, fountain pens, ink, murder, mystery, novel, strangulation, whodunit, writing