Here is a ticky tacky pic to go with my latest project. If you told me a year ago that I’d be writing a novel about a cat detective, I wouldn’t have believed you. I guess that’s what NaNo does to your brain.
I’m learning lots of things about structuring and editing as I move the manuscript through my critique groups. The question is, will I like what I’ve done when it’s finished? I have abandoned so many first and second draft novels over the years. It seems a shame to ditch this one. On the other hand, I didn’t realize what cliched territory I was wandering into in that mad, 2 000 word per day rush that is NaNoWrimo. Can you imagine? I thought I’d come up with a completely original idea. Worse yet, I don’t read a lot of mystery or detective fiction and I don’t read that much Fantasy that isn’t SF. Who knows how many more cliches I will have put into this piece?
To help me figure it out, I read Sax Rohmer’s Green Eyes of Bast because it was free on Project Gutenberg. His work is so racist as to be utterly irredeemable. I can see why there needed to be a workshop devoted to racism in genre fiction (particularly anti-Asian racism) at the SFContario conference. More of this kind of examination is needed.
I now have a reading list of popular titles starring kitty detectives that I can potentially order from the library. I hope I enjoy them. At least I’ll find out if I’m wasting my time.