The Story behind the Book: How My Cat Made Me a Better Man (Feig)

 



This week's book back story features How My Cat Made Me a Better Man by Jeremy Feig.

from the author --

Books always seemed long to me. To be clear, their length was fine for reading, but the idea of actually sitting down and writing one was daunting. There are just so many words to write! Not to mention sentences, paragraphs, pages, and (gasp) chapters. And most challenging of all, everything has to work together in some cohesive way.


Despite my trepidation, the idea of writing a book intrigued me. Partly it was the challenge of it, to see if I could pull it off. And partly it was because I’d grown bored of the shorter writing bits I’d done for so long. Maybe it was time for a change.


But what could I write about? I took a walk with my wife down Santa Monica’s California incline to explore ideas. We talked about different book genres that might be fun to try. I didn’t feel like writing fiction (too many characters), anything historical (research is the worst) or poetry (because I’m terrible at poetry).


The one genre that interested me was non-fiction. More specifically, non-fiction about me. After all, I knew myself pretty well. I didn’t lead an especially interesting life, but I was sure I could piece together some amusing anecdotes.


At the same time, I knew I needed more. As we brainstormed ideas, my wife mentioned Shelly, my cat. And that was it. Right away, I knew writing about Shelly was the literary path to take. I could share some of her more interesting stories and also the life lessons I’d learned from her.


Ideas started popping into my head right away. I just needed to organize them and scribble them down in a Word document. Once I did that — and after countless revisions, it was time to get my silly cat book out into the world.


Note from the editor: That "silly cat book" has won the following awards:


Book of the Year Award finalist
Kops-Fetherling International Book Awards winner, legacy humor

For more posts about Jeremy and his book, click HERE.

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 in exchange for reviewing a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book?
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Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25)
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