Thinking or Not

It's sometimes scary where my brain will go if I let it. 

There once was a girl who started writing a novel.

It wasn’t easy.

“Crap, crap crap crap…” she muttered, staring at the empty notebook and tugging at her ponytail. “Why can’t I come up with an idea?”

The large, black and brown-brindled tomcat on the chair in the corner snorted derisively and licked a paw.

            “Because you’re thinking,” he answered her, licking down the length of his foreleg and up his back. The girl gave him an annoyed look.

            “I’m thinking as hard as I can,” she grumbled back irritably.

            “No, you heard me wrong,” the cat said. “I didn’t say you weren’t thinking, I said you were thinking. There’s a difference.” He moved on to his hind legs, his back toes splayed so he could get between them with his tongue.

            “What do you mean by that?” the girl asked, annoyed.

            The cat finished with his toes and moved on to his butt. The girl rolled her eyes as he extended his leg upward and his head disappeared around his haunches. When he was finished, he eased back into a relaxed position, licking his chops satisfactorily.

            “That’s disgusting,” the girl said.

            “What, you don’t do it, too?” he asked innocently. The girl rolled her eyes.

            “You didn’t answer my question,” she said.

            “Nor do I intend to.”

            “Oh, come on! Stop being so cryptic! You mean I shouldn’t be thinking?”

            The cat sniffed and melted backwards into the chair cushions. His tail twitched lazily, and his eyes closed in a satisfied squint.

            “You won’t tell me?” the girl asked.

            “Didn’t I say so before?” he countered.

            The girl glowered at him, and turned back to her blank page. “Fine. Be that way,” she grumped.

            “I will.”

            The girl stared at the sheet of paper for a moment, tapping the pencil eraser against her forehead. Her mind was still blank, but she’d forgotten about that for a moment and was now contemplating what her life could have been had she not gotten a cat. Without really thinking about it, her pencil scrawled down a few lines on the paper:

            There once was a girl who started writing a novel.

            It wasn’t easy…

I guess that's true, though. I generally don't come up with ideas when I'm thinking hard about it. Sometimes, yes, but my best comes by surprise when the logical part of my brain is shut off and the somewhat crazy, creative part is allowed to run rampant. I believe this is indeed what a cat would say if it could speak. 

The next chapter's up in the As Yet Unnamed Story (I really need to come up with a name already). It's still laying out the setting and the characters, so bear with me. I build slowly, but when the action comes, it keeps going steadily until the end. I hope everyone's following and enjoying the story, and that they will continue to do so! In the meantime, if you're bored, scribble something down on a blank sheet of paper (works best if you're half-asleep). From there, there's no telling where you'll go...