I struggle with research. When I set out on this work, my inner voices invariably ask me the following questions: “But aren't you just procrastinating? I could understand it if you were writing nonfiction tomes, but you're writing talking cat fantasies! Shouldn't you be writing chapters or at least brainstorming an outline? How much of this material, if any, is going to make it into the book?”

I always try to answer these voices. If I don't, they just get louder. So these are my standard respo...