Santa Cat?
Meanwhile, in the comics...
Okay, back to the comics!
I started a ridiculous story where Floof has an original theory about Santa’s helpers.
The suggestion came from Floof herself. Lynn Johnston told me that ‘when you run out of ideas, let the characters talk to you.’ It popped into my head in Floof’s character (I do not hear voices, thank you Doctor) and here it is.
https:/www.gocomics.com/furbabies/2024/12/08
The story continues until Christmas, with Sirius contributing an entirely new category of ‘eggcorns’.
Enjoy!
I love the story line. What's odd about a cat helping Santa? It makes complete sense to me. Well, none of my cats would have helped Santa, but I'm sure there are other cats that would happily volunteer. My cats were best at helping me remember to get out of bed in the morning and feed them. That was very helpful.
Nothing wrong with hearing your characters.
J. Michael Straczynski once described his creative process. He said he'd visualize entire films or TV episodes in his head and would "just" write down what he saw. He'd let the characters be themselves, almost independent from his own will, even if that would take the story in an unexpected direction. When he'd try to force them into doing something else, they'd come to him in dreams demanding to be allowed to be themselves. The result being that the story is always believable, even if it doesn't go the way it was originally conceived.
I'm not sure how much of this is a poetic way of describing the process vs. actually hearing voices and seeing movie scenes, but when I've shared this description with writer friends, none of them considered it to be unusual. They all experience something like this to some extent, especially during periods of peak creativity.
So, to make a long story short again, let Floof and the rest do the talking and just write/draw what they say. The result will be worth it.