Alternate Universes, Nano, and the Loss of a Cat

Yesterday we lost a cat we’d had in the family for twelve years. He was fifteen. He was very sick, but that doesn’t make it easier. He was a sweetheart and a favorite and I used to spoil him almost as much as I do the namesake of Kabobbles. (I’ve been telling that cat he’s not allowed to die and better not even be thinking of it. He glares at me, but he’s gotten very skinny in his old age and he worries me.)

I flailed desperately for some kind of distraction. I was having a hard enough time before we came home from my sister’s, but when we were home, everything reminded me of Leo and it was worse.

Incidentally, crying with a chest cold is very painful.

So while we watched a movie, an old standby favorite that is one of our cheer up or “feel good” movies, it wasn’t enough. I didn’t have the ability to play computer games or read, couldn’t focus.

I wanted desperately to write. I started considering every possible angle I could after I failed to find any prompts online that I could use and annoyed a few friends asking for them. I thought of trying to create an alternate universe for some of my characters, only the ones that need it the most were ones I couldn’t bring myself to write for, much as I like them.

I would have done things with the original Effie Lincoln and Nick Tennant because their story is tragic and they should have a world where they have a happy ending, but I couldn’t get myself to do anything on it.

I almost went back to this project I had… a project I shouldn’t have started, in retrospect because I did it for all the wrong reasons (albeit subconsciously, my conscious mind didn’t think of them until much after the fact.) I’d just ended it the night before because I figured stopping myself was better, and I was only going to take away from it the basic satisfaction that if it had been my Nano project I’d have gotten 50,000 words on it. I don’t think I would have counted them, but I did have that. Only thing is… I did so much wrong with it that I couldn’t go back in even with the loose threads and the possible domestic cuteness it offered.

So then I went back to a few older pieces, not thinking I would do much of anything, but my brain actually came up with an explanation for the world in Even Better than Dreams that I liked and could run with. I talked it over some this morning, and I think I will try to resume my edits there. I really like Tolan, and I am looking forward to doing more with him, though it’s dangerous because he could end up taking over the story.

I owe Leo, I guess, because even in the darkness of that moment when I was missing him so much and needing a distraction… a bit of light came, and when I feel up to it, I’m putting him in a story to honor him. I don’t know when I’ll be able to do that as thinking of him still makes me cry, but I will.