Every book I write has a beginning, but I’m not usually able to pinpoint that moment later in the process of writing. Especially once I’ve neared the completion date. The first Katz Pajamas book was written in December of 2016, but that wasn’t the beginning. The beginning was several years earlier. Maybe I could go through one of my old journals and find that first moment when I jotted down the idea of a cat detective named Katz Pajamas, but the exact date isn’t that important. For me it’s just an understanding of how I generate ideas and eventually flesh them out.

When I wrote The Starving Artist’s Diet: A Survival Guide, I originally came up with the concept when I lived in California. As I started to develop it, I concluded that it wouldn’t attract a publisher, so why bother. A few years later, after moving to Indiana, indie publishing had taken off, and I decided to revive the project.

With my latest book, Katz Pajamas: The Catastic Carnival Caper, I started writing in February. Obviously, the Katz Pajamas had already been fleshed out in two other books, but the idea for this actual story developed from my speaking events as kids would throw out ideas of what Katz might do next. Their fun ideas help stimulate my mind along with my personal brainstorming sessions.

So while I started writing in February, I started this story sometime in the fall of 2017. The writing went pretty fast until the end of February. I had created a writing challenge for my students and fellow faculty to write a paltry 500 words every day. While I came up a little short of the 14,000 words for the month, I finally finished the first draft at the end of May. Since that time, I’ve been working with my illustrator, Max Rambaldi, on the one or two pictures per chapter. My hope was that we’d be done by the end of July, but we didn’t quite make that deadline.

If all goes well, I’ll have the proof copy of the book in my hands in about two weeks and I’ll be able to share Katz Pajama’s next adventure at C. T. Barncat’s Catastic Carnival soon.  If you want me to let you know when the next Katz book is available, send me your email address and I’ll add you to the newsletter.  And as always, feel free to check out Katz’s other mysteries at this link.

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