I recently completed an enormous writing project, one based on an old autograph album found in family records. I used KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) to publish it, and my book is now on Amazon. I haven’t gotten my author’s copy from Amazon yet, so it still doesn’t feel real yet. By the way, for tips on using KDP, see my other blog, www.chessiewriter.com.

I’ve also written three children’s stories, based on stories I made up for my kids when they were little. I promised them that I’d write them down someday, which I finally did. Then I realized that I can publish them, like I just did with my autograph album book. I’ve always dabbled in art, so I decided that I’d illustrate my kid’s books as well. I figure that if I’m putting myself out there as a writer, why not an artist, too?

The first story I’m illustrating is about a cat. I’ve found that drawing cats, for me, is difficult. And in looking back at my old blog postings here, I was struggling with this cat drawing thing way back in November 2017 (“Cat Illustration Frustration”). Then I wrote about it again in March 2019 (“Difficulties of drawing a cat for a children’s book”).

And yeah, looking at the pictures I posted, I sure was struggling with drawing a cat. At the beginning of the story, people think the cat is mean, but he’s really just shy and a little lonely. In trying to portray a cat who looks mean but isn’t, I’m clearly beyond my skillset.

I started sketching cats again today, and I’m again feeling frustrated by my artistic limitations. And while I’m tempted to switch to one of my other stories, I’m not going to. I’m going to keep practicing, and crack the code for creating a cat protagonist that looks-mean-but-not-too-mean-isn’t-really-mean.

I’m posting my first efforts here, as a new starting point, and as a way of making myself stick to it. I mean, if I’m announcing here that I’m working on my cat story, I can’t suddenly switch to zebras or reindeers and get away with it, right? 🙂