Signs and Portents

Awww. How's the kitty doing now?

zenwriter said:

Awww. How's the kitty doing now?

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What's wrong with you? Forget the cat - how's the laptop?

Sequestering the cat after it has vomited is a bit backassward.

That's weird. I'm the kind of person who sees "signs" in just about everything, though they're usually of the negative type (I guess that's standard with low self-confidence!). But for the life of me, I can't think of any regarding my writing! Which is weird, because writing is almost all I think about. Well, that, and Mackinac Island, and mythology, and Mackinac Island again. So I guess my answer is a yes, but with qualifiers, since I can't recall. And that's quite a helpful answer, I realize.

My cat once vomited on a rejection letter, but I didn't see that so much as a sign as that the cat picked up my own feelings about the letter.

I'll admit it. I do.

It's weird, because in the rest of my life I don't. But esp my first novel, I swear. It's been so freaky.

Thank gawd others have witnessed it or they'd lock me up.

And I do have witnesses. I promise I'm not a nutcase.

Like, I was trying to figure out a title. And I asked everyone for help--my writers' grp, family, friends--and they gave me some great ideas. But meh, nothing was really hitting me. So my book is set around this pastry shop and I wanted something related/foodish--I went to B&N and went thru all the cookbooks. And I pulled out two really good ones--one was from Serendipity, the restaurant in NYC.

It was called Sweet Serendipity and I was like ohhhhh I like this title, my book's about serendipity. I went to flip thru it to see if there might be something inside that would inspire a title and inside the cover are photos of celebrities who've eaten there. Right in the middle is Carey Grant.

I adore him, his movies. A black and white photo of him sits right over my laptop. And one of his movies was this inspiration for this book. A sign? Eh. But I'm not taking chances.

So I go home, start googling serendipity, to find ideas. I go to their website, starting drooling over their food porn and menus. And I point out their $1000 sundae to Hubby. I'm like one day this book gets published, for my next birthday I want THAT. He laughs, says it'll be a cold day. I google a little more. Find nothing. Log off.

We turn the t.v. on. The Travel channel. A special on ice cream. We both freeze. It's a woman, in Serendipity. Eating the sundae. For her birthday.

Nearly peed myself.

Hubby turned to me and said holy crap, serendipity better be in your title if you know what's good for you.

I said it is now.

It didn't stop there though. Because the next day, driving around, we found a little bakery that was closed. The name? The Gingerbread House. Ah. That's the name of the one in my book. Then we hit the gas and took off, because now I'm like this is getting creepy. And the car in front of us, the license plate says Siri. Name of my character.

Just some examples. The scary thing is more freaky stuff has happened.

So. Yeah. No idea what it means. It could just as well mean I'm supposed to throw the damn manuscript into the fire pit. But it happened.

I believe, Mulder.

My 3.5 yr old calico barfed this morning too--on the scratching post, over a trunk next to it and got the side of my comp table. All from one hairball--note to self--get more hairball med!

*Sigh* my writing kitty died. It's easier to reach the keyboard now, though.

A cat blukking over a computer might be a form of Microsoft-bashing, think on that. Now if pussums ralfed on a printout of a MS, that could mean something... like you're too cheap to buy decent cat food.

I wrote a fanfic once where I allowed a major character to get stabbed in the chest. Two days later, the actor who portrayed that character on television died of a heart attack.

I also wrote a fic for the same series where I burned down the house of one of the main characters. The story wasn't complete before that big fire broke out at Universal Studios. Guess what burned down.

Sign: give up fanfic so they can continue to make my favorite show, and only write about original non-existent characters.

It's a sure sign that when I like a television series, it will soon be cancelled. If I start getting into a musician or group - someone dies or the band breaks up (sorry about that Van Halen thing)

Absolutely! In fact, I was going to start a thread on the subject this morning and then found that you had already done so! Is that a sign?

Seriously, I think being attuned to signs/portents/coincidences ispart of what makes a good storyteller. A storyteller takes a set of occurrences and weaves them to create a coherent pattern - aka a story.

Furthermore, if you have submitted queries and manuscripts then you will spend a lot of time waiting. What should you do during this period? Everyone will tell you to go write another story to get your mind off the first. Right... Even if you're pretty disciplined and make progress on the next story, chances are your mind will wander back to the first story, and you'll wonder if there's anything you can do to improve its chances of acceptance. Everyone will tell you not much but still you'll wonder if you can influence the fates (or whatever deities are in charge of agents and publishers). It's the perfect recipe for superstition.

Never had a cat, and our beloved McDuff (Scottish terrier) died two years ago, so have never had any animal barf on my work. I have, though.

Sometimes when I re-read my "work", I barf, long and continuously, but don't count that as an omen.

Omens come to me mostly from words I've read, a name on a highway sign, the sound of the wind in the ponderosas, a manzanita bush all twisted and gnarled. Sometimes the omens are potent and I write, others are stored for future use.

But, if we ever decide to get a cat, which breed is the best portent-izer?

My cat actually peed on the first draft of my first ms.

Which was better than it deserved, I guess.

GeorgieB, the best breed is whomever is outside your door howling for a meal (or the most pitiful looking at the shelter, whichever).