Tall Tails – The Writer’s Cat by Kait Carson

 

Cats have a storied place at the side (or on the lap or keyboard) of writers. From Hemingway to Highsmith, Dickens to Twain, cats have served as muses to their humans. I have had two very different feline muses. Hutch a brown tiger with more human characteristics than I care to consider who reminded me to write daily.

 

This was his “why are you photographing me when you should be writing” face. Hutch went to play at the rainbow bridge in August of 2018, but he didn’t leave before he trained his successor.

 

Cub takes his job very seriously. He provides plot and editing advice, and when things get too tame for his liking, he takes over the keyboard and through the magic of kitty osmosis, transfers his ideas onto the page.

 

I write traditional bordering on thriller and cozy bordering on traditional novels.  They have one thing in common – besides what I hope is a good story – critters. Catherine Swope in the Miami is Murder series is the proud human of Bullet – a retired police K-9 - and Paddy Whack a rescued silver tabby. Hayden Kent in the Florida Key’s traditional series has a brown tabby named Tiger Cat. Hank Wittie in the Southernmost Secrets cozy series has a brown tiger cat named Pirate Cat.

 

My critters don’t speak, or help solve the mysteries, but they do provide solace and stress relief to my various heroines. If you’re looking for crime solving critters, I suggest you check out Lilian Jackson Braun’s Cat Who series or Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy series. Both series are fun, easy, reads. The Mrs. Murphy series deals with weightier issues than the Cat Who series which is pure fun.

 

I had the rare good fortune to meet Jack (Bumby) Hemingway in the early 1970s when I was visiting Key West. He was hard to miss. He looked just like his father. As a life-long cat lover, I asked him about the cats on the estate. He shared with me that although cats were always around the property and often in the house, the family didn’t have cats in Key West. That, John said, was in Cuba. He went on to explain that because the cats at the museum were so well-cared for, and because it was likely that they were descendants of a polydactyl cat that had been on the property during his father’s time, he supported the myth whole-heartedly. I have no way of knowing if Jack’s version is true, or if he was simply a Hemingway making up stories, but either way, it speaks to a writer’s love of felines.

 

Why do cats have such an honored place in a writer’s life? Anything I write here is pure speculation, but as a writer with cats, I do have some standing to speak. Cats are self-contained creatures. Win a cat’s heart and you have a friend for life. They will grace your lap with fur and warmth, and purr like a motorboat when stroked. A cat sits quietly, content to watch the cursor float over the page. They won’t demand to be walked just as you find the perfect solution to a plot problem thus interrupting the flow of creative juice. Petting a cat is also said to lower blood pressure. I find that mindless stroking induces a near meditative state. In that meditative state free association flows and creative ideas bloom. They are the perfect natural antidote to writer’s block.

 

Readers, do you enjoy stories with critters? Writers, do you have a feline helper?