You can read the first chapter of my novel excerpted here! https://conta.cc/3H9x56T
A poem to my cat
The Nineteen fucking year old cat
The Nineteen fucking year old cat that I got for my dear daughter when she was 6
And let her name “Purr”
That she left behind when she went off into her own life
As children are supposed to do if you raised them right.
Was such a cute kitty, long haired and tuxedoed, fluffy and sweet
Whom she called “Mr. Sleepy Guy,”
to differentiate him from his also tuxedo brother “Mr. Adventure Guy,”
Who died years ago.
But not him, he sticks around
He looks like a George Booth cat all skin and bones with whiskers that stick out in all directions.
He throws up on and under the bed
Which I, who also do not look as I did nineteen years ago
Must endlessly wash and scrub
My hands all knobby and covered in brown spots.
Someone once told me I could be a hand model,
I had such beautiful hands.
He meows like a tortured baby and
You can feel each bone of his spine as if he is never fed
Though he eats like a horse
My daughter is a grown up woman now
Who can move to California
And live with a boyfriend
And get another cute young kitty
“Cats like that can live to be twenty five,” the vet says.
Fucking cat
Who smells bad
Who curls up against my spine since somewhere in his kitty brain
he misses laying entwined with his brother
Who only wants to be petted, scratched and loved.
Advanced Novel Revision Workshop
This is a map of my whole book, color-coded by character. Challenging in a book where there is time travel and multiple points of view! Can you see the picture?
Read MoreGenetics!
I wanted to make the genetics in my book at least realistic to be a bit believable, so I met with a Biology Professor who works with my husband Adam. Sebastian was kind enough to sit down with me for two hours and discuss what could and what couldn’t happen and how it all works. I don’t think I have taken biology since high school, and they know a lot more about genetics now.
“Natural Selection throws everything against the wall to see what sticks. When there are errors, caused by mutation, the healthy parent’s genes see that they do not gain sway. But when they exist on both sides, or there is in-breeding these problems become more common. As in the case with the British Royal Family. Ashkenazi Jews are a limited mating group, though not as much so as the royal family.” So, diseases like Crohn’s disease and Bipolar illness, which are prevalent in my family, can become more common.
“Natural selection- greed, or paranoia may be atavistic. They were selected by nature for an environment that existed in the past then, it changed and these traits become mental illnesses.”
“Conspiracy theories today may be linked to early knowledge that the next tribe over tried to poison your dinner. Characteristics that were adaptive in the past are now detrimental. “
Fascinating