It all began on a typical Tuesday morning, around 8:47 AM. I stared at the blank page in front of me, feeling the weight of 50,000 words pressing down on my shoulders. I had always wanted to be a novelist, to craft tales that would transport people to far-off lands and make them laugh, cry, and scream. But as the cursor blinked on the screen, I felt my creative well drying up faster than a desert in the summer.
I tried everything: pouring over research papers, reading 50 books in a week, and even attempting to learn how to write with my non-dominant hand. But nothing seemed to work. The words wouldn't flow, the characters were flat, and the plot was as exciting as a lecture on crop rotation. I was on the verge of giving up when I remembered the wise words of my high school English teacher: 'A good novel starts with a cat in a tree.'
And so, with newfound determination, I began to type: "It was a cat in a tree." And then another sentence. "The cat was wearing a fedora." And another: "The fedora was a deep, rich purple." And before I knew it, the words were flowing like a river, and the cat was on the move, and the tree was... well, the tree was still a tree, but it was getting a lot more interesting.
And that's where I'm at now: 500 words in, and the cat is still in the tree, but now it's eating a sandwich. I'm not sure what comes next, but I'm sure it'll be something amazing. After all, as my friend said, 'A good novel is like a good pizza: even when it's a little messy, it's still kind of awesome.'
Read about the cat in the tree