Adopted!

My name is Gracie Lynn, I'm a two-year-old kitty and I have a story to tell! My new mommy says that everyone has a story to tell, so I figured she wouldn't mind too much if I borrowed her blog: she already thinks it's cute when I sit on her fingers while she's trying to type!

I lived in the humane society for a long time. One family adopted me, but then they changed their mind and brought me back. Feeling abandoned and unwanted, the humane society people did this annoying personality test (as if you can peg the kind of cat a kitty is in five to ten of the first minutes with her in a brand new place), and my timid, shy response led them to label me as a "Secret Admirer," a cat who would stay out of sight a lot until I got to know you. Then they put me in this cage that was clean, but small, and lots of people would come press their faces up to the glass to look at me, ooh and ahh, and then walk away without taking me home.

One day, a woman saw me but didn't stop to ooh and ahh. Instead, she ran and returned with another girl, a tall one with long, yellow hair. That girl smiled at me, her hand up against the glass not pointing, but more as though she wanted to pet me. I got up and rubbed against the glass to show her how badly I wanted to be petted. But then, she ran away! I knew she'd be just like the rest! I thought to myself as I crawled back into my box to sleep. I saw her walk by a couple more times holding a strange black circle in her hand, but I ignored her. I couldn't stand to have my heart broken one more time.

About an hour later, one of the humane society ladies came to get me. "Come here, Grace," she said. That was my name at the time: just Grace. She brought me into a room a lot bigger than my cage, but it was full of people! The first woman who had brought the one with yellow hair was there, two other men, a teenage boy, and another woman, all of them watching me and talking about me! The humane society woman left me in that room full of strangers, and I was so scared! That was more attention than I'd had in a long time, and I wasn't sure if I could deal with it! I kept trying to get through the door, I meowed as loud as I could to try to get the woman to come back, but nothing worked. "Come here, Grace," the girl said, reaching toward me. "My name is Kaycee." Out of options, I decided to go ahead and check out this girl with the long, yellow hair, who had now moved down to the floor to see me.

She took me in her lap and petted me, and as I started to fall asleep after such a long day, she started calling me "Gracie Lynn."

The woman came back in and talked to this crowd of people. She must have said something bad, because Kaycee looked up at the older man with wide eyes. They came to a conclusion, but I could tell that she was upset. I sat with the other girl while the one with long hair wrote on a clip board, then Kaycee took me back. Everyone else got up and left, but she was hesitant as I continued to nod off in her lap. "I don't want to leave you!" she kept saying.

She finally did though. For whatever reason, she left me there. But something told me that she loved me anyway.

The next day, the humane society people gave me a bath with some smelly, blue shampoo. Then I caught a cold, probably from being so wet! But after a few days, I was feeling much better. Then that older man came back! They put me in a box and the man took me home! On the way, he had this black device that he held up to the box, and I could hear Kaycee's voice. "Hi, Gracie Lynn!" she said. I stopped meowing and looked at the box, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. "It's okay, Gracie Lynn, I'll see you soon!" she promised.

The man took me into this room where I would be safe from the dogs that roamed the rest of the house. I could still hear them walking on the hard wood floor outside the door, see their noses as they sniffed under the door looking for my scent. I spent a lot of time under the recliner in the room until the people in the house finally took it out. I don't think they appreciated me sharpening my claws on it. I'm still not sure what else you would use such a thing for besides for a hiding place and scratching post.

The first girl who had found me visited me one evening and brought in a laptop. It had a strange, moving picture on it that kind of reminded me of Kaycee, and I could hear her voice coming out of it. I didn't understand how the girl could fit into these strange devices. "Hey there, Gracie Lynn!" she said as if she could see me. "Aww, I miss you, Baby!"

The family visited me often in that room over the next couple of days, and I started to warm up to them. They seemed to like me, and I could only hope that they wouldn't change their minds and take me back.

Then and elderly couple came, and they put me in a wire cat carrier. I could see a lot more out of the cat carrier than I could the box, and they put my special blanket from the humane society in it. At first, I was afraid that this was the day they would take me back, but we were in the car for a much longer time than we had been leaving the humane society. I was starting to wonder if I would ever get out!

Finally, we arrived at this tiny little building. The couple brought me inside where I was greeted excitedly by none other than Kaycee! She was there, and not just in a strange, electronic device again!

She keeps calling me Gracie Lynn. I like my new name, it sounds pretty. Kaycee says that she wanted to give me her name now that she's adopted me, but that her last name sounds funny and "hopefully" won't be the same for the rest of my life. So she gave me her middle name instead. I've been exploring my new home, and besides the sticky bug trap that I got my paw stuck in (I was so scared until Kaycee gently pulled it free, and then I had to lick all of the sticky out of my fur!) it's a pretty cool place! I'm happy to finally have a place I think I can call "home."

A Mother's Conundrum

I am the proud mother of a novel going through some intensive editing, a WIP that's being a little stubborn but I'm sure will grow out of it... And an evil stepchild of a NaNoWriMo idea that I'm trying to relinquish custody of so I can have a better one.

For those of you who may not know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It takes place from November 1 to November 30, and the goal is to write a novel at least 50,000 words long (we're talking 1,667 words every day for an entire month! It's intense!). You're allowed to prewrite the crap out of your story, but you can't write a word of the actual novel until November 1.

It was a decent idea that I was trying to work with, but I'm just not feeling it. It was kind of forced from the start, and it's just too close to nonfiction for my liking at the moment. Not to mention that my original inspiration grew out of the developmental phase that inspired the idea in the first place (sidenote: I still love my new job!). But at the moment, I'm working with my two other paper-and-ink children, I can't just abandon them, push them away and tell them to wait! You know uncompleted novels, they just don't understand!

But at the same time, November is just a few short weeks away, and if I can get a workable idea going on, I think I have a shot at it this year!

*head, desk*

So, I'm off to sift through some old notebooks and documents coated in technological dust deep in the back files of my hard drive, do several more writing prompts, and hope to have something I can work with soon!