The arrival of a new year has a special significance for Penna and me. It means we can feature a new animal! We've designated 2021 to be the Year of the Cat for our upcoming writing adventures. I'd started the tradition of associating our writing with an animal two years ago in honor of Penna's birthday which occurs in mid-January. The initial idea was to sneak references into my stories as Easter eggs for Penna. Penguins are one of her favorite animals so 2019 was the Year of the Penguin. Penguins popped in as Christmas ornaments and dancers. The penguin analogies in the stories I posted that year were all waving at her. I was thrilled when Penna joined in the fun by writing one of my all-time favorite Chocolate Box treats, Bah, Humboldt. The White Collar Psych crossover features a Humboldt penguin named Pilar.
Last year we expanded on the concept. Penna chose 2020 to be the Year of the Dragon where dragons refer to the challenges we faced during the year. We were determined to befriend any fierce dragons we encountered. Little did we realize what a Herculean task that would be! Along with the dragon night light which popped into Progress of Love, a dragon-centric plot in Merlin's Cave, and Neal's schemes to inject dragons into Arkham Files, several real-world ferocious dragons invaded our writing caves, threatening to incinerate our efforts to write.
This year, we selected the cat. A purr-ball of fluff—what could be more harmless? In 2021, our plot bunnies will be kittens. We're not naive. We recognize kittens scampering about our writing caves will present challenges of a different sort. They can be very demanding—sprawling on our keyboards and insisting we play with them rather than the carefully crafted ideas already on the agenda. Will they turn our plotlines into tangled knots? Will they wake us up in the middle of the night for playtime?
Our feline characters are unfrazzled by the coming kitten chaos. We've already introduced Mozzie's cat Betelgeuse (Arkham Files) and Maia's cat Daphne (Crossed Lines). There have also been a few other guest appearances. Mozzie's girlfriend Janet has a cat. Her name is Thalia and she looks forward to being featured in future stories. Both Penna and I have included cats in our original novels. Haiku hopes to soon preen before the public in Prime Conditions. Miu is excited about her debut in my novel Watling's Marsh which I'll post midyear.
Some of our characters remind us that cats can be scary too. What tigers, lions, and leopards will pounce on us as the year progresses? Can we hold them off by promising them their own years in the future?
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