Alex Howard: Structure Is Golden

Alex Howard is an author, editor and theatre professional from Edinburgh. His TikTok page, Housedoctoralex, has nearly 300,000 followers and his been featured on television and in the national press. A doctoral graduate of English literature, Alex wrote his first book Library Cat (B&W Publishing) while completing his PhD. It won the People’s Book Prize in 2017, and has been translated into French, Korean and Italian. He also writes poetry, which has been published in New Writing Scotland, Gutter, and The London Magazine, among others, and his academic book Larkin’s Travelling Spirit was published in 2021 by Palgrave McMillan. Follow him on TikTok, X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram.

Alex Howard

In this interview, Alex discusses the process of writing his new historical fiction novel, The Ghost Cat, his hope for readers, and more.

Name: Alex Howard
Literary agent: Ed Wilson, Johnson & Alcock
Book title: The Ghost Cat
Publisher: Hanover Square / HarperCollins
Release date: August 27, 2024
Genre/category: Historical Fiction
Previous titles: The Library Cat
Elevator pitch: A Victorian cat strikes a deal with a Celtic cat-god to haunt his Edinburgh apartment 120 years into the future.

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What prompted you to write this book?

My wife and I had just moved into a rambling old flat in Edinburgh. When we brought our cat Tabitha over, she took an immediate interest in one particular room, hissing at the walls. “She’s seeing something,” we thought. “A ghost cat maybe?”

I love the proverb of “The cat with nine lives—for three he stays, for three he strays, and for three he plays.” I discovered that it probably had a Scottish antecedent before Shakespeare in the form of the Celtic god, Cat-sìth. I had also always wanted to write a book about an old house and its ever-changing residents ever since being a ghost tour guide on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Up until the 20th century, Edinburgh really was a Jekyll Hyde city—half glamorous, half wretched; half the home of Enlightenment luminaries, half a slum city heaving with paupers. It was a city that leant itself to writing interesting characters and twisty plots. Equally, I had found, through writing The Library Cat, that I enjoyed using a cat’s perspective to probe the difficult questions that humans often shy away from. Identifying the thought that lay behind a cat’s laconic steely gaze, for instance, or a terse flick of the tail, was hugely entertaining to me.

The final stage was realizing that cats are somehow innately Victorian. Just like a Dickens character—a Betsy Trotwood or a Lady Deadlock—they are measured, careful, and fastidious, with a keen eye for the finer things and who don’t suffer fools gladly.

One day, I just decided to mash all these notions together—a Victorian cat being sent on a mission through time to live the rest of his nine lives as a ghost. The Ghost Cat was born!

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Idea to publication, around 16 months. Oddly, a key breakthrough moment was when I came up with the strapline—12 decades, 9 lives, 1 cat—and that was about three months in. I realized then that I had a structure. So many authors try to effectively “direct a film without a script,” and I didn’t want to fall into that trap. I had a structure, and structure is golden.

Originally, I had intended for the Egyptian cat-god, Bastet, to send Grimalkin (The Ghost Cat) on his spectral quest into the future. But that just didn’t feel right. Why Egypt? Everything else about the book felt so Scottish, not just in the setting and tonality, but in the particular way I wanted Grimalkin to swerve in and out of the path of real Edinburgh historical figures. An Egyptian cat god just felt forced. Then thankfully I found Cat-sìth lurking in Celtic mythology, god bless him!

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I discovered that the balance between being an author, a theatre professional (I work 3.5 days at one of Edinburgh’s main theatres) and a husband/dad (my son was born a month before the manuscript delivery date!) is incredibly hard to balance. Ultimately, I learned to treat my writing days as a job, just like any other. This is tricky: I come from a pretty working-class background, and the idea of writing as something anything other than indulgent and a bit flouncy is hard to shift. Work, in my mind, involves wearing a suit.

I have also learned the value of a good people to discuss ideas with. Having written one book that’s done pretty well, it can be difficult to find friends who give you the sort of incisive, level-headed, and brutal criticism you need to hear. People inside the industry—former editors, reviewers, journalists etc.—are great and tend to know what’s at stake in giving good feedback.

But most of all, I’ve learned to give yourself time. A tricky project at work, a big life event, expected or otherwise can ping away two weeks from your schedule and leave you playing catch up. I like a full calendar—it makes me work efficiently and stops me procrastinating; but a calendar that’s too full ahead of a looming deadline is miserable. It can make you unwell.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I discovered that I write best on coffee and edit best on tea! This was a groundbreaking discovery for me.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I made myself a secret challenge at the outset of The Ghost Cat: to make the reader cry. It is one of those slightly grandiose, vain personal goals the likes of which many readers challenge themselves to in secret. If I can make the reader cry, I figured, then I lift the book out of the whimsy-mire that so many cat and dog books languish in. I knew from The Library Cat I could make the reader laugh; if I could make them laugh and cry, then surely, I have completed some kind of author “end-level boss” that will see me enter into next level of writing.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Take heart from the small breakthroughs. Gauging your worth as a writer against the six-figure book deals, the film contracts, the national prizes of others is endlessly painful, because those types of dizzying success markers are so rare. A little nice comment, a follow from a favourite author, a nice email from your editor/agent about an extract … these are the things that will keep you going through tough times. This attitude also stops you holding off joy for a huge reward payoff that might never come (or which, when it does come, immediately gets replaced by a need for an even grander reward!) If you don’t appreciate the little breakthroughs, nothing will ever feel enough.

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