Cat-e-chism...How to write around furry beasts

I'm home, I'm home...Call me Dorothy, but don't take the shiny shoes too far away!!

The best thing about going away is coming back and loving where you were once lost. I needed a break so badly, the business trip to DC (okay the one night of business followed by three days of sight-seeing, but for the sake of any IRS spies lurking around obscure blogs, all the milleage was for business) was a getaway long overdue.

If I'd had to write in my house one more day, I'd have booted myself to the curb. My poor family--what do you do when your writer wife/mother can't write any more and blames everyone and everything around her, including the paint on the walls and the neighbor's midnight-happy yappy dog? Why, you drive her 10 hours away (9 would be to0 few, 11 and you risk dementia from her having to use one public toilet more than the average germ-phobic writer can stand), plop her butt in a fine arts museum for two days, and say--"breath, honey...just look at all the pretty colors and breathe..."

And guess what happened... I actually could. Long deep breaths, as I gazed at creative masters, then strolled with the fam. through historic landmarks and the treasure trove that is the National Archives. And then, to my poor husband's dismay (though after travelling with me for near 20 years, you can imagine he wasn't all that surprised) I realized how much I really wished I was home... I loved feeling relaxed, but what better place to find your zen zone but at home? I wanted my bedroom and my comfy office AND my new state of "all's well with the world." Was the author just home sick? Manic-depressive? By-polar? Or just on deadline an starting to panic? Tough to say...

So, a click of my designer heels, a full day of driving, and two days of catching up on all that didn't magically get done while we were away, and here I am, creatively charged, covered in needy felines, sparkly red shoes retired to the closet but close enough to admire when I need a shot of, "you can get away again any time you need to," and, yes, actually working again!!!

I'm feeling a little spunky today, too, so let's have some fun and talk cat-e-chisms before I bury my head in my WIP and don't come up for air for the rest of the day... A catechism, the dictionary tells, is a tomb of (religious) instruction written in the form of questions and answers. I know, there's more to it than that, but this blog is a religion-free zone, because I want everyone here to believe what they're led to believe (as long as you make the effort to figure out what YOU believe, I'm happy ;O). But for our purposes today--that is, ridding myself gently of the paws and fur between me, the keyboard, the monitor and the deadline--it'll do.

So, my blog faithful (if you're still out there after my sporatic posting ever since the-spammers-who-shall-henceforth-never-be-mentioned-again sucked all the fun out of my early March blogging), lets do some Cyber Q&A! I'll start, but you guys chime in with whatever sounds fun and/or helpful... I'll post whatever you share in the comments back to the original post.

Anna's helpful guide to de-catting-e-chism:

Q 1) "I am all you need," says the cat as he plops his butt on your keyboard...

What exactly do you tell your editor when you miss your next deadline?

Anna 1) "Sorry, but my fingers kept bumping into a furry butt when I tried to type..."
Anna 2) "I was too busy scratching Bud's belly to write. You would have have done the same thing, if he'd rolled over and let you rub his little white tummy..."

Q 2) "Playing fetch is not a game, it's a state of mind," says the cat that's really a dog as he brings you his ball, hops into your lap, gives you his bottom to sniff (cats are big on the expressive power of the butt) and meows until you stop working and throw the ball...repeat sequence every 60 seconds for over an hour...

What exactly do you say to the feline who's smarter than you are because it took an hour of doing his bidding before you realized you could shut the door in his sad, sweet face and get back to work?

Anna 1) "Sorry, sweetie, you're going to have to play with your balls yourself, mommy's fingers are busy elsewhere..."
Anna 2) "Youre' not the boss of me!" You of course are saying this to yourself as you crank up the music in your office to drown out the feline whining from the other side of the closed door as Bud proceeds to argue with you about the virtues of devoting yourself to fun rather than work...after all, how much work are you really going to get done with that music blaring???
Jennifer 3) "That's what you think," her cats would say, posting themsleves on their sides (easier to slide paws under the door that way), scratching at the door, then when that doesn't work, heading outside to sit on the windowsill beside my computer to whine some more (you get the full visual effect of their surperiority that way ;O)

More questions to come tomorrow, as soon as I'm sure you guys aren't thinking I've lost my mind. So, try your hand at giving the brainey beasts who're so glad I'm home a voice to go along with their highly-skilled distraction techniques!!