Herding Cats
Recently, I found myself staying overnight in a hotel while I had some work done in my house. I have a cat and couldn’t leave her at home while the workers were there, so I had to bring her with me, carting her to the Comfort Inn around the corner in a pet taxi.
For most of my stay, I let her have the run of the room but on the afternoon of my stay, I needed to go out and have some lunch. I knew that someone from housekeeping would be coming to the room while I was gone and I didn’t want my cat to be loose in the room when the person came by. I didn’t want her to be a bother to whoever it was.
I decided to put her in the pet taxi but when I tried to pick her up, she ran into a corner, and under a bed so I couldn’t reach her. For a moment, I tried to coax her out but she stayed there, obstinately.
“She’s a cat,” the thought struck me. Cats live on their own time; you can’t train them as you might a dog. A cat has to decide she is going to give you attention. A cat has to decide to come out of the corner and from under the bed.
I walked away, sat in a chair and read the paper for a moment. She emerged, walked across the room and laid on the carpet at my feet. It was easy then to pick her up and put her in the taxi.
It strikes me that sometimes ideas for the novel are like that–sometimes you work and work and work and try to force them to come but they don’t. They crawl into a corner and under a bed and all you can see is the mere hint that they’re there. You reach and cajole and they stay out of your grasp.
So, sometimes, you have to walk away–not forget about them, but sit and wait patiently for them to show themselves, to give themselves up to you.
It’s not that you’ve surrendered. It’s just that you’re trying patient listening instead of brute creative force.
