Guest blog — Girly-Girl the cat

My name is Girly-girl, which I find a ridiculous name because I am a cat. I answer to Girly, of course, because that’s a good way to get petted.

I have a favorite human — the female one who lives in the house. She usually sits on a specific soft place in the gathering room, and makes clicking noises on the flat surface. It gets enough of her attention that I want to sit on it and get attention too. But she usually pushes me off it, making swears when she does.

I do not sit on laps. I sit near them. I’m sitting on the arm of the soft place next to my human. I try to look vaguely disapproving of everything, It goes with not being a lap cat. But when I get petted, I purr. No sense in playing completely hard to get.

I’m starting to get on in years. I don’t feel the need to feel charming anymore, not like that smarmy little Chucky who wants to play all the time. I do not play. But I get along with my human just by being me.

Callings and the Household’s Stories

First off, Marcie says hi. She’s just about done with her first novel, Chucky the Cat Saves the World. She’s tried to convince Chucky to illustrate it, but the negotiations haven’t been going well.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to convince Girly-Girl, who’s sitting next to me, to write a memoir. I’ve suggested the title I’ve Seen Everything and I Don’t Care Anymore. She didn’t care for that.

i’m trying to convince my husband to seek out an agent. He writes in science fiction and he understands the genre very well — its subject matter; its focus on machines, science, and battles; its masculinist roots. I believe he could find an agent pretty quickly, and I wonder if the reason I felt called to writing was to get him to write, and find him a career.

I’m still confused as to what I’ve been called to do, and whether I’ve been called to write. Callings are very important among Quakers — we believe that if we sit quietly enough, God will show us our callings. I haven’t felt anything as a calling for so long that I feel adrift.

When I start writing again, calling or no, I don’t know what I’ll start writing on again. I’m afraid of the creative memoir about bipolar disorder. Although it’s attractive being heard, I don’t want people to think of me as “THAT person,” the one you have to keep an eye on. Yes, as open as I am about my situation, I am afraid of people who judge. Sometimes I want to run away from this blog because I’ve talked about it here.

I feel stymied by Hearts are Mountains. It’s reading like a depressing travelogue, and I don’t know what it needs. It’s a bit flat. I might want to go back to Prodigies, but I wonder if that’s going very well either. I doubt everything since all the rejections.

I hope that I find my direction soon — in or out of writing, I don’t know. But I hope I find my calling.