As I sat down to write this blog post, Taltos – our tuxedo kitten and youngest cat – jumped up onto my desk, marched across my touchpad and demanded to be held.

This, of course, led to a five-minute delay, followed by my trying to maintain good ergonomic positioning while he sprawled across my lap, held my left arm in place with one paw, and used my left hand for a pillow.

Such is the work day of a writer with cats. And I think most of us have cats, because cats and writers have a lot in common.

For example, when surrounded by strangers we can often seem withdrawn or standoffish. We might not even appear to notice you, if you don’t specifically try to get our attention.

On the other hand, when surrounded by those we know and trust, we can be downright goofy.

For those keeping track, Taltos has now moved down to the cat bed under my writing desk. Apparently I wasn’t keeping my left hand still enough to keep him sufficiently comfortable.

Mind you, he did not register any dissatisfaction before moving, which just goes to show that he understands that what I do while I’m here at my desk is sufficiently important to me that it deserves at least grudging respect.

This, of course, is high praise from a cat.

This blog post has gotten entirely off track. Which, I suppose, is only appropriate. Because I sat down to write about cats and stories.

And cats are fully capable of sidetracking a story and taking it somewhere you didn’t expect at all. It’s who they are, and what they do.

Sometimes, this can totally mess up a writer’s plans for a story. Not necessarily a bad thing, you understand, because the feline character will often find a more interesting story and drag everyone else along with him or her.

I’d give a few examples, both from my own stories and some I’m pretty sure happened to much more famous authors, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader, should you feel so motivated.

Other times, though, a writer can have a good deal of fun taking a story idea and simply handing it to a feline character and watching what happens.

This was what happened with The Captain’s Cat.

See, I’d just written a sort of metafiction story about a writer writing a space opera tale that began with an attack by pirates, and felt the need to write a story about a ship attacked by pirates. So I wrote a short story about it.

But I didn’t feel done with the idea. And I wondered what would happen if I tossed a ship’s cat into the mix.

I may or may not have cackled with glee as I did this.

Well, naturally, the cat got into everything. From the fights with boarding parties to the troubles in engineering to the conflict in the galley and still more besides.

And somehow that cat ended up saving the day.

Because of course the cat expected to be the star of the story.

Obviously, this is not the most serious story I’ve ever written. You may even find yourself laughing a few times before it’s finished. Assuming you read it. Which you can do right now, exclusively through StoryBundle.

Here is a link to the Catitude StoryBundle, going on right now, but only for a limited time. You can get up to ten books of stories about cats – from novels and novellas to short story anthologies and collections, including mysteries and fantasies as well as science fiction offerings like mine.

And right now three of these books are only available through the StoryBundlehttps://storybundle.com/cats.

Check out the deal and see what you think. If you like cats, I’m pretty sure you’ll like this bundle.

I can tell you that Taltos agrees with me.

(Click the covers to go to the bundle. Check it out now, we’re coming down to the wire!)