Lost in Fantasyland

This is for all you fiction writers. More specifically, this is for all you fiction writers who have talking animals in your stories (I know I’m not the only one).

Thanks to a recent lull in the editing action, I’ve had time to work on my own book. (I swear I’m going to finish it this time!) The book is called Queen Paisley the Magnificent, and it’s all about what would happen if our three cats and one dog thought that all the humans in the house had been eaten by wild animals. Obviously, what would happen is this: Paisley (a cat) would declare herself queen, after which some fun, chaotic things would happen. But none of that is my point.

The animals in the story have to communicate somehow, so I turned them into talking animals. All well and good, but if you’ve ever written a book you’ll know how it can more or less take over your life. I wrote the first draft of Queen Paisley two years ago, and it’s been floating around in my brain ever since. It’s floated around so much that I’m starting to think that maybe some of the stuff in it actually happened. If you knew Paisley, you’d know that her declaring herself queen is not so far-fetched.

Now I’m coming to my point. One day I closed down the book file after a few hours of work, I turned to the dog (Shannan, my faithful office companion) and said something to her, and then I waited for her to answer. I was actually quite surprised when she did not answer. For just a moment I thought she must be upset with me, or perhaps she hadn’t heard me. Then I remembered: Dogs don’t talk in the real world.

Looking back, I suppose I should be relieved the dog didn’t answer me. Blogging about the riveting conversation I had with our dog might be a great way to entertain my readers, but I suspect it would be really bad for the editing business.

So, for those of you who might be worried about me, let me assure you of this: Yes, I’m talking to animals, but no, they’re not talking back (so far).