Author Kitty

Our cat Custard believes that writing time is petting time. The kids aren’t around to disturb her, so we should be available to devote our attention to her, right?

Before we start writing, we’re getting something to drink or snack on, grabbing our laptops, and heading to our chairs. The rocking chair at the desk for TJ. The big blue easy chair for me.

The kids are having “Quiet Time” upstairs where they are given an hour and a half of downtime without computers or TV. Where they can have that unscheduled time each day that is good for a child’s soul. Where Mommy & Daddy get a break. And sometimes it stretches into two hours if we getting into the writing groove.

This is the time when the cat mysteriously reappears from upstairs where she’d been sleeping. Or hiding from the kids. Now that the kids are upstairs, she comes down.

And settles into TJ’s writing chair. She KNOWS he’s going to move her. When he does, she jumps up onto the desk and settles in such a way that he can’t possibly write. Thus begins the battle of the wills as she attempts to settle on his lap. Or his keyboard. Or his lap again. Or my lap. Or on my arms while I’m trying to type. Or on my keyboard … which is covered in cat fur, by the way.

She’s ripped TJ’s shirt when he blocked her from jumping up after he put her down on the floor. She was trying to grab on to him rather than fall back down on her ass.

She’s even ripped keypads off the keyboard as she tried to scramble up onto the desk. We couldn’t fix it, so we had to replace the keyboard.

This is a daily writing battle. So next time you read our stories, just know that there is a cat in the shadows of each and every scene, and she is watching you. She has even inserted her fur into the hidden network fibers of the documents.