cats – Page 2 – Mystery, fantasy and romance at the dangerous ends of the earth

With a Llama on Her Head: With Blisters on Her Feet

By Karen Abrahamson | March 28, 2011

Day two Lima and I have so many blisters I cannot believe it. This while wearing sandals I wore all through Cambodia with nary a problem. I don’t understand this. I have blisters on the balls of my feet and on the callus edges of my heels. I mean what’s up with that? I thought calluses were supposed to protect you from blisters. Sigh.

Anyway, I’ve walked lots and seen some, so let me regale you with it.

Lima sits on ocean cliffs in a spot Pizarro apparently chose after he was finished killing the last Inca King and Stealing his gold. Notthat those things are related or anything, but Lima wasn’t his first pick for the capital, nor was it the second, but it was the one that ‘took’, apparently because of the wide, flat-bottomed valley it sits in. Not that I’d know if we’re in a wide valley or not. I still haven’t seen mountains.

Barranco municipal square at twilight (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

The darn fog has barely lifted both days, but given the little I know about Lima it seems to be a place of broad, clean streets and friendly people. And pets. Limans (is that the right word) seem pretty devoted to their pets. My first day here I walked down to the sea cliffs and along the promenade that reminds me so much of the Vancouver Seawall. There were people jogging, people strolling and people making out under the statue of the lovers (that I could barely see for the fog). And there were dogs. Small fluffy ones, British bulldogs, German Shepards and even (thank goodness) a pair of Peruvian Hairless dogs that look a lot like a stockier Doberman Pincher, but with dark, almost hairless bodies and some even have bonded air on their foreheads that make them look like they’re wearing an incredibly bad toupee.

And there are cats. Yes, I managed to find them and I fell in love with Miraflores (the suburb I’m staying in). You see I wandered down to Parque Kennedy and there, in between the Municipal hall and the Cathedral I wandered into a wonderland of cats. There were black ones and calicoes and torties and every other color cats come in, and in every size and shape as well. Right under the sign that even I could understand that said “Don’t Abandon Your Cats Here”. Sure. Like that’s happening. Children play with and pat the kittens. The cats loll in the sun. Some kind soul has put out cat beds and plush cat houses so that it looks like there are ‘heaps o’ cats’ there. There’s even an older guardian of the cats keeping watch. I mean how can you not love this town?

Inside Monestary de Santo Domingo (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

So I ogled the cats and visited a ruin site in the City, and then caught a taxi to Barranco, the next suburb over, to see the old neighborhoods and the Puente de los Suspiros – the Bridge of Sighs. Unlike the bridge in Venice, this is nothing to do with people being dragged off to prison. Instead, this is a bridge dedicated to lovers. It is commemorated in romantic songs. All around it are quaint restaurants with little twosome tables set to watch the sun go down. There are Latin guitar players to serenade you, and flower sellers, selling perfect red roses, and to pay for all this are the lovers.

Let me tell you I felt out of place. EVERYWHERE you looked people were in love (or lust as the case may be) I saw more lip-locks than I could count. But it was kind of fitting given the sun finally came out in time to set.

I had dinner in Barranco, a Peruvian specialty of Anticuchos – brochettes of tender slabs of beef heart – and large white-kernel corn, with a drink of Chica Morades – a sweet drink made from purple corn. Lovely.

So today I went into central Lima, to the Plaza des Armas. I visited the cloisters of two monasteries, including their catacombs. Stepped into too many churches and watched the Changing of the Guard at the Presidential Palace. This involved a red-serge dressed marching band, and ranks of young soldiers with flashing bayonets and high kicks.

One thing that is very clear in Lima, there are security people everywhere. Outside banks and guarding parking lots, outside the palace the gates are barred and there are soldiers in large military vehicles with tactfully-covered submachine guns (who will grin at you as they talk on their cell phone). After the changing of the guard I decided to visit Plaza San Martin to see the statue of a mounted San Martin, the liberator of Peru. He was large and grand and the ubiquitous pigeons seemed to avoid him, but just under his horse’s chin was a lovely statue of Patria, the symbolic mother of Peru. She is supposed to wear a crown of flames, but something apparently happened in the translated instructions from Spain where llama means flame. To the statue makers it meant something else and so there is a lovely little llama on her head.

So while I sit here feeling sorry for myself about my sore feet, I remind myself of Patria. Heck, blisters will heal.

She has to wear a llama forever.

Patria andand her llama (and San Martin, too) (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Saying Goodbye – guilt and cats and manuscripts

By Karen Abrahamson | March 19, 2011

There is nothing worse than having to walk out the door with two little feline faces gazing up at you with that “you’re not going to leeeeeaaaave us, are you?” look on their faces. Worse than kids, I think, because kids you can explain it to. Cats, however, they don’t get it and regardless of what anyone says, I know they pine when I’m not there.

No, this isn’t me anthropomorphizing my animals. My regular cat sitter has spotted the signs numerous times. I’m their pride leader – the alpha female—and when I’m gone, they go off their food. They start tearing things up when they never would before. Or they come rushing to the door and throw themselves at my cat sitter’s feet for pats, they are so starved for human attention.

Knowing this has made it very hard to travel without them. These cats actually travel very well and I swear they like to show off on their leashes for new people. When I’m forced to leave them at home for a business trip there’s always a guilty part of me that worries that I’m a bad pet owner. And of course I miss them and their warmth on my lap, Shiva acting like a mountain lion and peering down at me from atop the cupboards, and Ben chasing his tail every morning (he has yet to catch it). All the little rituals of catdom.

I’ve realized as I’m getting ready for this trip, that saying goodbye to my cats is a lot like saying goodbye to a manuscript. (Except, thank goodness, a manuscript doesn’t pine – does it?) For this length of time away I considered a variety of cat spas for the boys and I have to say there are some very nice ones, but it doesn’t matter the quality of the care, any cat spa is not their home and they won’t have the space to run that these two little bad boys need. As a result I managed to find a live-in house sitter. Making the choice to go this route is a lot like making decisions about whether to send a manuscript out to the world, or to self-publish.

With the traditional publishing route you need to assess your work for what kind of publisher might publish it. Consider what genre it is, but also consider whether it transcends a genre. For example, there are best sellers out there that are Science Fiction, but you won’t see them shelved in a science fiction section of a book store, because they are ‘bigger ‘ than a science fiction novel. An example is Jurassic Park. Harry Potter went far beyond Fantasy and the Thornbirds (gag) went beyond romance to family saga. For my cats, I knew they were ‘bigger’ than most cats –maybe not in size, but definitely in attitude and activity level.

You need to assess your manuscript to decide what publishers to send your work to, just as I had to assess whether a cat boarding situation might serve Ben and Shiva. Then you need to research your publishers to know whether they publish your kind of work. You need to identify an editor you think might be your target audience. A helpful place for this is Publisher’s lunch, or by listening to editor presentations, or reading their blogs. Then, or course, you need to edit and package your manuscript and get it out the door. I often find that this work – the business side of writing—is the toughest part of the whole ride, and I have to specifically schedule time to do it, or it won’t get done.

Self publishing is more like what I’ve done to arrange a home stay for my cats. It all falls to you to determine your product – cover, blurbs, and how the manuscript looks – just as I had to arrange exactly what I could live with for the boys. For the cats, this involved interviews and the cat sitter spending time with the boys.

For self-publishing, this takes patience and willingness to learn a whole new skill set and when you have the manuscript ready to go, it involves a whole new level of anxiety because although you’ve presumably done due diligence to make sure you’re your manuscript is decent and clean of mistakes, you are putting the work out there without having an editor tell you it’s perfect.

So you put it out there and the first time someone comes back to you to tell you it’s not perfect, you cringe. Just like a cringe when I learn the boys were lonely when I was gone. But in both cases I did what was right. I had to go, whether for business or to refill my soul with travel, and the manuscript –whether self published or published in the traditional sense—had to go too, because we’re writers, right?

And what we write is meant to be read.

Spring path along the Yukon River (2010) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Routine, Flexibility and Permission (oh my)

By Karen Abrahamson | March 12, 2011

I broke routine this morning and slept in until almost seven a.m. The weird thing is, the cats broke routine, too, and let me. Usually they are right there, yelling, or pouncing on me (see here for a wonderful cartoon of the experience), or else Ben will go into the kitchen and bang cupboards or otherwise wreak destruction to get me up. After all, cat tummies are far more important than my beauty sleep.

But this morning they broke routine. Actually they’ve ‘broken’ routine for the past week or so, ever since the corner of my bedroom started to seriously collect things for my trip. Last night I actually began the task of inventorying and packing. I think I have them nervous. I think they know I’m going somewhere soon. After all, they’re far from stupid. But the simple act of letting me sleep is consistent with other behavioral changes they are showing. For example Ben actually managed to crowd onto my lap and fall asleep while I was typing yesterday afternoon, when usually he just plants himself on top of my desk and pushes everything else to the floor. He also made a point of sleeping on my lap last evening. Definitely things are up.

We all know cats have routines and heaven help us if we vary from anything that impacts their feeding, brushing or taking them for walks. (Yes, mine go for walks on leashes.)

Shiva wanting to catch a fly (2010) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

As writers we need those routines, too. For me it has always been a routine to get up at 5:30 and write for two hours before I have to turn to work. I’ve done that for the past ten years and produced about four books a year, until this January when I was ‘forced’ to give it up.

Okay, not forced. I chose to give up. There I was in the middle of manuscript revisions and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was over my head with work and preparing for this trip and had started having nightmares. So something had to give. It was a horrible choice. The guilt was enormous and so was the feeling of failure. But it was also a relief because I was hating everything I was doing because I didn’t have the time to do it well.

A friend of mine recently went through a similar experience for totally different reasons. He moved, due to a job change and then had to spend his time moving in and focusing on the new job. Time passed. He didn’t write. He blogged (here) about the challenge that posed for him because he, like myself, has been regimented about his writing and is a spectacular writer who recently sold his first four book series. His pain is that during his move he hasn’t written a word.

To me the ‘not writing’ has been a lot like what going through nicotine withdrawal must be like. I still find myself at the computer early in the morning, I know I should write (and I do—on work), but the most I’ve been able to write creatively has been these blogs. I tell myself it’s okay, but I know it’s not because it’s very easy to fall out of a habit that’s good for you and very easy to fall into a habit that’s not –like sleeping in.

On Thursday I received a phone call from the airline that is taking me to Peru. They advised that the flight times had changed and therefore I have to leave a day early and layover in Toronto overnight. Thanks goodness my schedule as a consultant is a little flexible. I was able to do it, even if it’s going to be tight for work. Be flexible, I said.

So I’ve decided that writers need to follow my cat’s lead and give themselves permission. Instead of being rigid and getting anxious about not writing, writers need to assess their situation and give themselves permission to not write. Occasionally the world intervenes, like my friend’s move, like another friend’s illness, like another friend dealing with a death in the family. I know all of them are back at the keyboard.

And I know I’m a writer, so I’ll be blogging while I’m travelling and writing when I get back from Peru. That’s promise, just as surely as I know Ben and Shiva will be back to caterwauling in the morning.

Shiva, imposing himself on thanksgiving dinner (2010) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Kitty Sitters – or choose your writing friends and governments wisely

By Karen Abrahamson | March 5, 2011

This post arises from the fact that I’m leaving soon for a month in Peru, and also from recent news casts about what’s happening in Libya. With regards to the former, my biggest worry in preparing for this trip has been how to ensure my two cats are cared for during my absence. In the past when I’ve travelled for a long trip my parents have helped me out by moving in for the month or so to care for my ‘kids’ or else I’ve had a wonderful spouse to take on the chore. But this time my parents are getting to an age where travelling for cats is a too much for them, and the spouse – well, that’s no longer an issue.

So I have to find an alternative.

On the boat upriver to Seim Reap, Cambodia (2008)

For short trips I have wonderful neighbors who come in and feed the boys and give them cuddles, but three to five days is about maximum I can leave because these cats are so darn needy of human affection. Given their high activity level, I couldn’t very well take them to a kitty resort (read kennel) because I’m sure they’d go stir crazy. I know I would, confined to a small ‘cell’. Even places that have a cat run, don’t have the space these guys need. I mean, these are cats that would explode if they were cooped up that long. Messy, I think. All that cat fur and innards splattered everywhere. They normally run circles around the house just for fun.

Luckily I’ve been fortunate to locate a lovely local grandmother who has agreed to come live with the boys for the month. She’d like to have a cat and she’d like to live in this area (her grandkids are here), so it’s the perfect arrangement. She’s come by a number of times now, just to get to know the boys and so we could check each other out. She’s even brought her grandkids with her (I fed them sugar and sent them home with her – guess I owe her an apology on that one).

Anyway, all of that effort to make sure my cats were cared for made me think of how we need to pay the same kind of attention to choosing our writing companions. I’m talking about the people we share our new writing with, whether in critique groups or one-on-one manuscript exchanges. I’ve heard a number of my writing friends (people I really admire) talk about hellish writing groups they are, or have been, involved with. Many of them tell horror stories of groups spending agonizing hours checking grammar and spelling, or fighting, instead of getting to the heart of the writing, or of writers who seem to be determined not to advance their craft, because they will not hear the advice of those farther down the road than they are. Others are caught in the myths of the publishing industry and choose not to educate themselves in what is happening to publishing at the moment and how that impacts us as writers.

Luckily, my first real writing group found me at the Surrey International Writers Conference. I ran into a work acquaintance and he introduced me to his all-male writers group, which was looking for a woman’s perspective. Good thing I got their humor, but they were serious about their writing and those friendships are some I still treasure to this day. I’ve been fortunate to be able to attend Clarion and made more friends that I still count on, and from there I found my way to Kris Rusch and Dean Smith and the outstanding cadre of writer’s they’ve created. I hope to have these friendships for the rest of my life.

What is it about these groups and individuals that are different than those other groups people have described? They are serious. They are committed. They are open minded. When they look at a manuscript they are looking at whether the manuscript works, not whether I crossed a T or put the comma in the right place. Most of all they are supportive and can not only tell me when a manuscript doesn’t work, but why it doesn’t and what might fix it. They do it in a manner that leaves me energized and ready to go back and face the rewrites. They fuel my writing and any time I can meet with this far-flung group is a VERY good day. Best of all, I think the feeling is reciprocated. We care for each other and we will help each other through the rough spots.

Early morning in the remote Tibetan village of Lamusa. (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson — Early morning in the remote Tibetan village of Lamusa. It's a long way home from here. (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Which brings me to Libya and my trip. You see, with all the trouble in Libya – things that could not be foreseen – I find myself appalled at how the Canadian government has acted on behalf of Canadians stranded in that country. You see the Canadian government didn’t act quickly to get Canadian nationals out of the country when things blew up. Instead they’ve made excuses that they couldn’t get insurance to take a plane in to Tripoli Airport. PARDON ME? You couldn’t get INSURANCE? You left Canadian citizens to beg their way on to other countries’ rescue planes.

I’m sorry to be political, but I’m not going to stay cosseted in a country where the current Prime Minister is trying to make bureaucrats officially describe our government as the “Harper government”, instead of Government of Canada. As a traveler I try not to put myself in harm’s way, but who could predict what was going to happen in North Africa? I always thought (hoped) the Canadian government would be there for me if things went bad. Seems I was mistaken. But then this is the Harper Government.

Shame on you Prime Minister. Seems I take better care of my cats than you do of your citizens.

Big Cats and Small – Nurturing what we have

By Karen Abrahamson | February 26, 2011

Male lion, Serengeti (1994) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

I’m trying to write this blog with a 16 pound cat yelling in my ear and grabbing my sleeve in his teeth to get my attention. He’s an insistent, not-so-little guy who knows when he needs me and I don’t know anyone who can completely ignore him. Frankly, some people wonder how I put up with his delinquency and I know that Bengal cats are frequently turned in to the SPCA for exactly the types of behavior Ben exhibits, but Ben is just asking for what he needs – in this case a few minutes of my time for pats and belly rubs. I can react to it either by ignoring him or doing what I signed on for when I adopted him – nurturing him just as he meets my need for company.

Sometimes, when I’m extremely busy or in the heat of writing, my first inclination is to ignore him—as much as you can ignore a 16 lb cat gnawing on your sleeve – but lately I’ve come to accept this is part of having this wonderful companion and that the best I can do is nurture him, just as I need to nurture myself as a writer.

For me, nurturing does not come natural. I once described myself as having been AWOL when they handed out the Florence Nightingale gene. I’m regimented in my life and always seem to put the hard work first, before I get to the things that nurture my soul, and giving cats attention. Thus, at this moment, I’m so swamped it feels like having a life just comes second. Of course, my life is what I’m using up while I’m consumed with work. Somehow I forget to take care of the little things – like spending five minutes of play with each of my cats. So little and yet it has such wonderful pay-off. There is just nothing like thick fur and a purring, ecstatic kitty-face to make me smile and relax from the rat race.

So as writers we need to give ourselves time off. We need to do things like stop to listen to the first birds of spring, read good books and go for walks alone or with friends, or just have a bubble bath – whatever makes you feel whole again. Nurturing yourself as a writer also means giving yourself a chance to celebrate what you have. The skills you’ve gained as a writer, and the determination to keep writing – or the fact that you’ve started or finished a short story, a novel, whatever you’ve written—should be celebrated. Writers shouldn’t let defeat and negativity make them blind to those assets and accomplishments.

This is a lot like recognizing the wonderfulness of the two little demons I cohabit with. They forgive me when I ignore them and are so thrilled when I pay attention.

There is something wonderful about cats, whether a placid housecat or the great wild cats. They both have something mystical about them. Or maybe it’s mythic, except there is such an element of the clown in most cats. I’ve never seen a tiger in the wild, and I likely never will given the decline of their population. But I have been fortunate enough to see a mother cheetah teach her youngsters to hunt and have watched their playful lounging after they gorged. I’ve seen elusive leopards hang limp in a tree after gorging on a gazelle that must have outweighed them. And I’ve seen lions – prides of them – sprawled on a sunny kopje in the Serengeti, and playing silly games in the game parks of Botswana. I remember one young female who thought it was fun to push over a small tree. Every time she did, it smacked another lioness in the face, and I swear the youngster knew exactly what she was doing. A lot like Ben knows what he’s doing when he takes a swipe at one of my pictures and sends it sliding.

Yup. Got my attention, little man.

I read a sad article in the Vancouver Sun newspaper the other day. It was about African lions and how they may disappear from the wild within 10 years. Their numbers have fallen from about 150,000 in the wild ten years ago to about 20,000 total today. IN ALL OF AFRICA. The article went on to say that once the numbers of a species fall below a certain level the race to extinction accelerates. I was so shaken by the article I couldn’t even read it all the way to the end in one sitting. A world with no lions? I couldn’t imagine it; or I could, and it broke my heart.

The article went on to talk about how a few National Geographic researchers and the Botswana government are working to try to bring them back in that country. Nurturing. And it made me realize that lack of nurturing is a huge problem in our world. From our children, to the oceans, to the jungles, to other cultures, to ourselves, to my cats – we are failing our world because, at least in the west, we’ve become far too focused on work and our own personal challenge to just get through it, to the point where we don’t appreciate the gifts around us.

I feel so fortunate to have heard the grunt-grumble roar of a lion and to have seen the magnificent sprint of cheetahs. To have smelled the dusty cat-scent of a lion as it nosed the side of the jeep I was in, and to have looked into its amber eyes. There was something there: intelligence, but different than a person’s. Something wild and foolish and wonderful that I see mimicked in Ben and Shiva’s gaze. And we’re at risk of losing the great cats unless we take the time to nurture the other inhabitants of this world.

So I’m going to step away from my desk and write a check to the National Geographic Society. I’m going to find out what I can do locally to help the environment.

But before that, I’m going to go pat my cats.

Creative Energy – Fatigue and Being Fit Enough

By Karen Abrahamson | February 19, 2011

Living with two Bengal cats, I’m astounded by their boundless energy. These are two year old cats. They should be getting more sedentary, but I swear a hamster wheel would do them both good. The galloping of paws on my hardwood floors, and the boundless, easy leaps up to ceiling-high windows is enough to exhaust me after a day of work. I think cats keep a perfect writer’s schedule. They work when they want. They play when they want. They sleep when they want. And when they know they’re in trouble they can vanish like the wind before you can do anything about it, leaving you to deal with the aftermath. I wish I had their energy. Of course I also know cats who only get up for a trip to their food dish, and whose ankles groan every time they leap down from the couch.

Which is a lot like what can happen to writers when they’re not fit enough.

Leaping cats of Inle Lake, Burma (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson — Keeping fit provides the energy to do amazing things like teach a cat to do tricks like the amazing temple cats of Inle Lake, Burma (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

It might not be leaping tall buildings, but writing is far more arduous than most people think. Physical ailments abound amidst writers: Carpal tunnel syndrome; bad backs; stiff necks and shoulders; not to mention the issue of midriff spare tires. All of which means that writers need to take care of themselves.

I’m a perfect example of someone who hasn’t always done so. I had my desk set up with the computer screen slightly off centre and ended up throwing out my back. I was immobilized with pain for six months (still writing using voice recognition software – now that was hilarious) before the Canadian Health Care system took pity and gave me a disc-ectomy. Thankfully the pain went away.

l spent a week at a writing retreat and turned out 50-70 pages a day. The result was carpal tunnel so badly that numbness ran from my hands right up to my biceps for about a week. Even now, three years later, typing any more than about 20 pages touches off the problems again.

Both of these issues were things I could have foreseen and both were issues I could have guarded against, but that’s the problem. Unless you are doing this a lot, many people don’t understand just how unnatural sitting in a chair is, and just how much repetitive stress our hands are under when we type.

So what do we need to do to keep going?

As professional writers, or even serious beginning writers, we first of all need to treat ourselves and our art seriously. To do this work we need the tools to do it. One things we can do is to set up our writing space properly, seated facing straight ahead, feet flat on the floor, with appropriate supports for our hands/wrists/arms and bac. Writers need to try out ergonomic keyboards, raised screens (that are directly in front of them), and appropriate chairs. Some people wear wrist supports, or small balls in their palms that help keep their hands in ergonomic positions. Remember, if you are aching when you are writing, or after you’ve written, something is wrong. You have to fix it if you are going to write long term.

The second action writers have to take is exactly that—action. Writers who believe that their only responsibility is to keep writing are mistaken. Yes, you need to keep writing, but you also need to keep fit to do it. As I said, sitting places stress on the body, and the fact that writing is sedentary means that old spare tire can easily seep in around our middles. The more weight you put on, the easier it is to remain sedentary. You’re more tired carrying that weight around. And so you don’t exercise and so you gain more weight.

This vicious cycle is one of the banes of my existence. As someone who still has to support themselves through a day job, the issue is exacerbated by the fatigue from the job that discourages those trips to the gym. The only defense a writer has is to take action. Drink water to keep hydrated while you write and that will, at least, force you out of your chair. Do isometric exercises at your desk or while you’re up taking care of that water. Best of all, take breaks and go out for a walk, a run, to the gym, kayak, play tennis, swim. Anything that will get your heart rate going.

This sort of activity not only gives your heart a workout, it also gets the endorphins pumping. You’ll find you are less tired and have more energy to devote to the writing—something a professional or the serious beginner needs to have.

If you can’t find the time for regular exercise, then try something like setting your writing space somewhere you have to walk up or down stairs to reach both the kitchen and bathroom. Then drink that water.

Or you can do things like I do to get myself fit: I set goals to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Or work up a sweat chasing after a couple of hoodlum cats that have just swiped my pen from the desk.

Voice: Kitchen Cupboards, Gleaming Mountains, and a Peeled Pommelo

By Karen Abrahamson | February 12, 2011

For all that Ben and Shiva are full brothers, they are very different cats with very different voices. Shiva, though much smaller, has the loud Siamese yowl that can shatter sleep like a siren. He’s a skitter-bug cat that loves to play and will make a toy out of anything he can get his little Velcro paws on. His favorite playtime is diving under the pillows on my bed and waiting, like a jaguar, for something to move so he can attack. He also likes to sit on top of the kitchen cupboards peering down like a vulture.

Sweet and evil (2009) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Ben, on the other hand, is much quieter, with mews more like muttering to himself, but there are dark waters swirling in that cat. This week the challenge has been that he has figured out how to open upper kitchen cupboards – in particular the one above the fridge that holds the wine glasses (maybe he’s developed a taste for the vino?). He’ll throw anything off the fridge that I put up to block him. The scary thing is I actually know when he figured out how to do it. I saw him watching me as I was getting something out of the cupboard and the spark of idea absolutely flashed in his eyes.

While both of these cats have watched me open cupboards numerous times, both of them (and me) come from different perspectives. Shiva comes from the perspective of “that’s interesting that she can do that”, while Ben comes from the place of “If she can do that, so can I – and no one can stop me”. One comes from the place of a gentle, clowning soul, while the other is just, well, evil? Me, I just want my wine glasses safe in the cupboards, all of which illustrates the underlying concept of character voice – different perspectives regarding our environment.

This is different from a writer’s voice. A writer’s voice comes through as style. A writer’s style may grow and change, but you can tell a Stephen King no matter when he wrote it, or under what name. Same goes for a James Lee Burke. There’s a certain attention to detail that comes through no matter what he writes.

But character voice can be the bane of new writers. What is it? How does it work? What’s all the fuss about when I can write a beautiful descriptive scene, or a terrific action sequence?

Character voice ilustrates the different world view each character possesses, just as Ben and Shiva and I each have different perspectives about my kitchen cupboards. I’ll share with you two different stories from my travels that illustrate how two people can live through exactly the same thing and have totally different experiences.

I lived in Thailand for a while and while I was there I travelled around with a wonderful Thai friend named Nin. Now, one of my favorite Thai delights was the large citrus fruit called pommelo. For anyone who hasn’t tried them, they are like a grapefruit only much larger, drier, and sweeter, and their rind is about an inch thick. As a result they are delicious, but incredibly labor intensive to peel.

So Nin and I were driving with her fiancée and we stopped and bought a pommelo and she began to peel it for me. Not that I was in any way incapable of peeling the darn thing myself. She not only peeled the rind, she then carefully performed delicate surgery on each segment to release the luscious flesh from its skin. Then she passed each delicious piece to me or her husband-to-be.

Now that I think back on it, it was one of the most beautiful examples of the Thai ethic of total focus on performing each action perfectly in order to provide pleasure to others. At the time, however, I was embarrassed. I thought she didn’t think I was capable of peeling a pommelo, and I felt uncomfortable having her serve me when I could have peeling the fruit myself. Yet to Nin this was just being the lovely woman that she was, and gifting a friend with something she loved. Two different people experiencing the same thing, but coming from different cultures, our understanding of the event meant something dramatically different.

What draws the eye: Little girl in Kashgar, (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

The other example took place along the Silk Road in western China. My friend and I were smashed side by side on an interminable bus ride across the Taklamakan desert and far in the distance across an eternally flat land, I saw a bluff gleaming in the low angled sunlight. I watched it change iridescent pinks, blues and mauves as the light fell in the late afternoon, so I hauled out my notebook and waxed on and on about the wonder of beauty in the midst of all that desolation. When I finished with my eloquence, I turned to my friend, a fellow Canuck and mathematician, and pointed out the mountain and prepared to launch into my ode to beauty. What did she say when I pointed out the mountain?

“Sure. It’s chalk.”

A perfect example of how different our minds worked. And that’s character voice. While I waxed poetry in my journal she was busy examining the visual data to determine the geological makeup of that mountain. The jar of the dissonance in our experiences shut me down – until I burst out laughing.

If only I could shut Ben down so easily.

Destructive Forces, or The Beauty of Making Things Worse

By Karen Abrahamson | February 5, 2011

I’ve mentioned in previous posts about the destructive force of Ben and Shiva. Ben has his penchant for getting in behind breakable objects and purposefully shoving them off of shelves. (I have much less brick-a-brack these days.) Shiva has developed a penchant for shredding paper—cardboard—plastic. Anything he can sink his little teeth and claws into and I constantly am catching him at this lovely trick on things like – oh – my business license, the cardboard box in the corner, or a manuscript stacked and ready to be mailed out.

I wonder if editors would understand a few chewed corners.

Hmm, maybe they would just figure I have mice, or was particularly nervous about mailing this one out?

Buddhist nun at Mingan, Mandalay, (1997) Photo (c) Karen Abraha

Anyway, in the midst of trying to preserve my manuscripts and various and sundry pieces of memorabilia from my travels, I got to thinking about destruction and its place in our lives and writing. At the same time a writer friend of mine sent me a link to some fantastic photos of the erosion and destruction of Detroit . The photos are bizarrely science fictional and evoked thoughts of Night of the Living Dead, Twelve Monkeys and War of the Worlds, and yet they are absolutely and utterly beautiful with their haunting look at faded glories. Maybe it’s just me, (but I think not, given the hordes of other visitors to places like Angkor, and Athens and Machu Picchu) but I am fascinated not just by the vestiges of what was once great and has now been destroyed, but also in the cracks in the great edifices and the things climbing through from the other side. As I watch the people of Egypt struggle for democracy I think of new life, like the fromages tree that grow from the Angkor ruins that I have on the home page of this web site. Or maybe it’s the wisdom and laughter that shines through from an age-ruined face.

What does this have to do with writing?

A writer’s job is to make things worse and to recognize that destruction is life. This is hard, because even though I think we are attracted to destruction—fascinated by it, even, if you notice the way traffic slows next to a serious traffic accident—we hate to inflict it on other beings. We are fascinated and repulsed by news of a slaughter of others. Haiti’s earthquake, for example, or Hurricane Katrina, or the Tsunami that wiped out so many in Malaysia and Thailand. And yet as a writer our hands pause as we destroy our character’s beloved possession, or reputation. We hold back from hurting them physically or mentally. We take heed of the cardinal rule and DON’T kill their cat or the dog or the horse, but we don’t do other things to wound them either.

Which makes our writing boring.

Think about it. Are we interested in a character skipping happily through life? No. Even all those Jackie Collins novels of the beautiful people carry their own carnage. That’s what makes us read those novels and all those T.V. magazines: seeing the crumbling of those magnificent edifices of the cults of personality.

So it’s not just thrillers and action stories that should have destructive forces, whether they’re external or internal to our characters, we need them to ignite the passion in the reader and make them want to read on. The ‘oh-no’ moment. The tension of anticipation of when the lover finds out that they’ve been cheated on. The implications when a character finds their home, their family, their life (insert your character’s loss here) is gone. We want to know and we want to understand how character’s overcome, because we all have those forces in our lives and we want to see what comes after.

Ruins and fromages trees, Angkor, Cambodia (2008) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

The difference is, in our writing (unlike all life situations), the edifices of the character’s old life may crumble or burn, but something lovely and fragile and – more – arises from the ashes. Like that fromages tree. Like the wisdom I see in those old eyes.

So get back to your destruction when you turn to your keyboard. I’m going to keep an eye on that chewed box in the corner to see what loveliness arises.

Sustenance

By Karen Abrahamson | January 22, 2011

My two cats have very different eating habits. Ben (or Big Boy, as I call him) weighs fifteen pounds and will eat just about anything I put in front of him. Shiva (aka Little Man) weighs all of 11 pounds soaking wet and after a good meal. I worry about his weight because when you pick him up and he feels like he’s all bones and skin.

Kashgar morning, before market (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

For Shiva it has to be the right food, at the right temperature, at the right age out of the tin, and (I swear) out of the right part of tin, or he won’t eat it. These days it’s venison – yes, venison. Nothing but the best for Shiva, dear. He’s the one who, when given a bowl of kibble with a mixture of the kind he really likes and the kind he tolerates but needs to eat, will, of course, fish the favored kibble out of the bowl and then turn up his nose at the rest. Blasted cats.

Now, while this illustration is indicative of the types of personalities of these boys, it is also a wonderful metaphor for something important in writing, which is feeding ourselves. No, I’m not talking about how some writers can plough through a mountain of food, or how some writers who shall remain nameless will not eat anything green, or anything that has passed within ten miles of a vegetable. No, I am talking about feeding our souls.

The writer’s soul (aka the wily muse) is a creature that requires constant feeding of the kinds of things that make you want to write. For some it’s the anger at some injustice in the world. For some it’s the inspiration of music. For me, the inspiration is travel and other cultures.

I was just reminded by a friend that people might want to know more about my travels in other places, like western China or Northern India. Let me tell you about one such event. It involves food, or at least tea, and is the type of experience that feeds my writing.

Apothecary, Kashgar (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

When, in 1998, I visited Kashgar, the westernmost city of China and an ancient Silk Road caravanserai, the railway from eastern China had not yet been completed and so ancient Kashgar still remained relatively untouched, though the Chinese were moving in, in droves. At the time I befriended a Uigher gentleman (the local, Muslim, Turkic people) and my travelling companion and I spent time with him talking. One evening, after he had learned that I might be interested in a Uigher carpet, he invited my travelling companion and I back to his rooftop home.

When I say rooftop, I mean rooftop. He had a small mud shack at the side of the roof on the top of a flat-topped mud-daub house, and his ‘house’ had interior furnishings that were only bits of cardboard. The rooftop itself was pink adobe that apparently you could fall through during the infrequent rains the oasis town experienced. So there we were, the three of us sitting on his rooftop in the ancient town of Kashgar under a pink evening sky with the distant aspen golden on the hills leading up to the Karakoram pass of the Himalaya Mountains and the smell of bread baking and roasting goat’s heads wafting up from the street. So we sipped bitter tea and talked of the Uigher ‘situation’ (see my travel page on China) and I looked at his rugs. None were outstanding, but one charmed me and my Uigher friend told me how he was trying to earn enough money so that he could get married.

So I bought the rug. I handed over cold hard American cash and my address and the next morning I climbed on the bus to leave town with the foolish realization that I’d probably never see my cash or the rug again.

Imagine my surprise when six weeks later I arrived home and the rug had beaten me there.

The experience left me with a very soft spot for this Muslim man who proved so honest. It also fueled the feelings that led to the writing of Ashes and Light when I read about how the Chinese government used the 911 ‘Muslim crisis’ to round up and execute Uigher men when they rioted over the destructions of their homes.

So just as with Ben and Shiva there are different ways of feeding our souls and so, when the rest of life can suck us dry, we need to undertake those things that fill us up.

The memory of sitting on that rooftop, of my Uigher friend’s utter lack of anything the west would consider household belongings, but his total honesty in the face of being handed a fist-full of American dollars, touched me far more than music or other forms of inspiration ever will. It’s those cross cultural encounters that feed my soul and my muse.

And the fact that my friend may no longer be alive.

Uigher men, Kashgar, (1998) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Controlling the Muse, and All Cats Have Aspergers

By Karen Abrahamson | January 8, 2011

Ben and Shiva 2008, Photo (C) Karen Abrahamson

My companions at home are two, two-year-old cats, Benares and Shiva. (People warned me about naming a cat after the god of destruction.) I like to think I’ve gotten through the wild and wooly kitten years and on to the years of peaceful coexistence. Except my cats are Bengals. For the first time in my life I didn’t go to a shelter or a friend’s place for a kitten and I didn’t adopt a mature cat. I’d just lost a cat and she had been marvelous. She was gregarious and liked to travel with me when I went on trips. I wanted that in my next cat and had read that Bengals were friendly, attention-seeking cats and I’d met one that was on a leash in a pet store with dogs all around him. The Bengal ignored the dogs and sat there imperiously. So I got my boys.

Since I brought them home my life has been in turmoil, or if not my life, at least my home. I won’t bore you with the destructive forces of kittens (well, maybe I will in a future post), but let me just say that attention-seeking is not the half of it. These boys will practically grab you by the throat if you’re not giving them enough attention. I’m talking the throw books off the shelves, swing pictures off the walls kind of attention seeking. I’m talking about shred the manuscript and steal my pens attention seeking.

It’s a lot like trying to control a muse. Now I’d never actually thought about having a muse until I thought I’d lost her/him/it. Suddenly every word came out harder and with a lot more doubt that it was the right word, in the right place, at the right time in my manuscript. It all started when I became REALLY serious about marketing my manuscripts. Everything was about producing a product that would SELL, the product the reader would love. And the words came out slower, and more doubts crept in, so I held on tighter and harder. And things got even slower and the doubts greeted me whenever I sat down at my computer.

So I tromped down on the doubts and the sense that something was wrong, and focused harder on finding those right words, in the right place, at the right time. I’m frighteningly stubborn, you see.

And it solved nothing. A lot like following the advice I got from a cat breeder that I needed to do something about my cats to make them behave—like take a rolled up newspaper to them when they were on the counters or pulling something off shelves.

I did what the breeder said and my big boy, Ben, reacted exactly as I didn’t expect: I’d swat him with the newspaper and he’d hunker down and purr at me. Hard to swat him again when he does that.

So it was suggested that I treat them as a big cat might a small one and so, when he was creating some form of havoc, I picked Ben up by the scruff of the neck, yelled, and locked him in a room. The results? Well aside from the room taking a beating from the temper tantrum he threw, nothing changed.

So I was stymied. I didn’t know what to do and believe me, my house was getting torn up, big time. And then one night I realized something. All this bad boy behavior was aimed at getting my attention and my reaction was to give negative reinforcement to the bad behavior by giving him attention. I realized that what I needed to do was just give them attention. Spend time with them. Love them.

And you know what? The destruction didn’t completely stop, but it slowed down immensely. (You see I can’t be at their beck and call ALL the time.)

So what I learned with my cats I applied to my writing. I had to get out of sales mode and focus on what made my muse happy—not right words, in the right place, in the right time, but the story I was telling. I met my muse again and spent time with him/her/it. I relaxed and stopped putting rules around my desk and suddenly I was writing again, focused on creation, not selling.

Which puts me in mind of a wonderful little book called All Cats Have Aspergers. It’s a little book, a picture book really, for parents of Aspergers children. (For those of you unfamiliar with Aspergers, this is a form of autism, but the children are higher functioning, just in a different way than most of us. The heroine of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo probably had Aspergers. So did the protagonist of the Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time.) But one of the messages of the book is that Aspergers children (and cats) have their own way of doing things. They want attention when they want attention. They like to play their own games. And they don’t like to be held too tight.

A lot like muses.