Cats and Writers, with examples

My writer cat, Singi

Joanna here: Just a small blog today, about writers and cats.

Writers and cats are rather ham and eggs, Laurel and Hardy, beans and franks partners. Obvious buddies.

There must be a reason for it. Some cats are obviously born with printers' ink under their claws.

I think it’s because writers sit for long periods of time not doing anything exciting like pounding in nails or cutting hair or making fine adjustment to the sniper scopes on precision rifles. They go typetypetypetype typetypetypetype typetypetypetype typetypetypetype and then sit for several minutes staring into the middle distance.

This is pretty much what cats do, allowing for an absence of tapetty tap tap.

 

“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering, outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”
     Mark Twain

 

That's a high compliment from Twain there. A good writer never says a word too much.

“The cat is the best anarchist.”
     Ernest Hemingway

My cat is a very good anarchist, except she’s a lazy anarchist.
We can learn a lot from cats, I have always said.

 

 

“I believe that cats, descended from semi-social or asocial wild cats and having lived domestically with humans for probably less than 3,000 years, have no concept whatever of a rightful hierarchy of social or moral authority. It does not occur to a cat that any other being has any right, other than might, to its obedience, which is offered only out of immediate self-interest or personal affection. Cats are intensely opportunistic, practical anarchists.”

Ursula Le Guin

Not Giles (from Buffy) though it looks like him

Some authors keep (and are kept by) cats. Some also write books about them.
That's best of all.

 

Come around sometime when your face is clean and we shall discuss the state of the world, the foolishness of humans, the prevalence of horsemeat, although we prefer the tenderloin side of a porterhouse, and our common difficulty in getting doors opened at the right time and meals served at more frequent intervals. I have got my staff up to five a day, but there is still room for improvement.    
     Raymond Chandler, in a letter, writing as his cat to another cat

Who among us has not assumed the identity of a cat in our correspondence?

 

"They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Cruel. Her nature.”
     James Joyce

As with the rest of James Joyce, I have no idea what this means.
But he liked cats, so that is in his favor

“Then, bidding farewell to The Knick-Knack, I went to collect the few personal belongings which, at that time, I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”
   Colette

We just finished a post on travel and not one of us discussed how to pack your cat. This was an oversight on our part.  

 

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, there never was a cat of such deceitfulness and sauvity.
     T.S. Eliot

I have had a cat like that, (jo says darkly.)

 

 

 

So. In whatever path you take in life, do your pets make you more creative or do they just sit on your face at sunrise and demand to be fed?

Comments

[Lillian Marek]

Sometimes I think my writing career is doomed. I'm allergic to cats. And what may be even worse, I'm not crazy about chocolate.

[Beverly Abney]

I would tweet this if I knew how to tweet. Since I don't, I will email friends and family to look it up at "Word Wenches".

[Mary T]

As I am writing this, my kitty is chasing a fly around the house. The fly came into the house late this afternoon but kitty just now discovered it. I feel a little sorry for the fly, but kitty needs the exercise - she's been sleeping all day. I just hope she doesn't wreck anything in her quest (smile).

[Piper]

OliverB blogs on Facebook. His insights often hold me in something less than the highest regard. On occasion, he even suggests I treat him unjustly relative to the treatment his brothers receive. This frustrates me. After all, who provides his food? Who buys his fuzzy mice? Who cleans out his scuzzy water bucket? And who intervenes to save his FLB when his big brother bullies him? It is I, of course. But do I get credit? No. Instead, he gets into scraps with his brother right under my chair and ends up painting my leg with his claws (and my blood). Then he admires his handiwork in his blog, essentially characterizing his claw marks on my leg as works of art. To quote that cat, "Where's the justice?"

Hi Singi! Glad to see you're still kicking!

[Kareni]

I've never had a cat, but I enjoyed your post nonetheless. Thanks for the smiles, Joanna.

[Helen]

Oh I do love my cats and although I don't write I read and they do love to be purring on my lap while doing so and as for packing them for holidays they often try and get in themselves :)

Have Fun

Helen

[Joanne Bourne]

Some writers keep dogs.

There, I've said it.

This is not widely discussed in the Writer Community. But I think it's time we brought this out into the open.

I'm with you on chocolate. I like it well enough but it doesn't call to me like a siren.
I will say that European chocolate is MUCH better than American.

[Joanne Bourne]

Sounds like a family of cat lovers.

I had cats underfoot, (and dogs,) while the kids were growing up, but neither of them keep cats as adults. There's just no telling.

[Joanne Bourne]

My cats and dogs, when they were young and spry, were quite good at ridding the house of flies and wasps and flying things,

(One of my dogs would catch wasps and ALWAYS look surprised when they stung the inside of her mouth. She never caught on.)

This has all seemed to me to be good fun for the cat and dog, though less fun for the flies.

[Joanne Bourne]

Our Feline Overlords are not gentle with their serfs,
but it is still a privilege to serve them.

Singi is 15 now, which is getting on in years. The vet says she is in excellent shape for her age.

About the only difference I notice is that she's not bringing me mice the way she used to. No longer the Olympic champion mouser, she sits on her cat perch in the sun and watches the very healthy people jog by.

Come by and see my new little cottage ... (I've planted roses.)

[Joanne Bourne]

It is odd, isn't it, how many writers are VERY fond of their cats?

I'll have to do a companion post on writers and their dogs.

[Sue McCormick]

We're cat people. Lilian Marek says she's allergic to cats. I go the less common way: cats are OK but I'm allergic to dogs. There have been some dogs in my life, but cats are much preferred.

When our last cat died, Bob decreeded that we were too old for more pets. He was correct; keeping up with cat sand and feeding was getting to be too much for us. We still miss our cats.

[Amy J]

Brilliant! I'd fear that my cats would be as 'helpful' to any writing as they are to trying to Google things on my keyboard.

[Elf Ahearn]

Sufie likes to consider herself my muse, but the fact is, she has little patience for those lovely moments when the writing just flows. That's when she parades through the framed photos of my family, "accidentally" knocking them over and leaving a trail of destruction akin to the path of Dorian. Still, I couldn't write without her.

[Elf Ahearn]

BTW, last night I finished Mary Jo Putney's re-release of Dearly Beloved. It's so good, it's become one of my most 'dearly beloved' books.

[Margot]

I am not a writer but a reader and there is nothing like sitting comfortably, reading a wonderful story and have a cat on your lap. The gentle purring, the connection with a live body while reading about another life is wonderful. Cats usually do not like to be disturbed while sleeping all day, it can make for a good excuse not to move and keep on reading.

[Margot]

I totally agree - I fell in love with that book as well. I am just now on the last of her Fallen Angels and am eager to get back to reading it once I do some chores around the house.

[Annette N]

I presently do not live with a cat. In the past, I have lived with wonderful cats. Each of them were cats who marched to different drummers. Each of them were absolutely beautiful. And each of them took a piece of my heart when they were no more with me.

When I was very young, I got to hear T S Eliot speak. He was a very charming man. I believe that cat took some cues from Mr Eliot. Or maybe it was the other way around.

[Piper]

I just lost my Chip, who was 15. His littermate, Flop, is still in good shape, though we've had an uphill battle this year after he tangled with a raccoon...recurrent infections in the back foot. But Flop is healthy and even robust, though he misses his lifelong buddy. I'm actually down to four cats now--the fewest since I moved here.

[Margaret]

The cats I share a home with drive me crazy!! (I would never be so silly as to call them my cats.) They continually knock all my papers on the ground. They gag up God-knows-what everywhere. They make an ridiculous mess around their litter box. They demand breakfast when I'm still wanting to sleep, thank you very much, and then often have the audacity to walk away from it uninterested. My dog is smarter, more loving, and more intuitive in every way. But he, too, often seems perturbed by my yearning to sit still at a desk and work. If I'm not up and about doing something, then I should be playing! I look at people who have no animals in their life and can only think--what in the world do you do with all that extra time???!

[Kareni]

I'd happily read that, too!

[Karin]

I grew up with cats, although I don't have any now. There are so many great stories about authors and their cats,from Dickens and Samuel Johnsonto Raymond Chandler.

[Joanne Bourne]

They WILL fight with racoons.
You may reason with them and scold them and predict disaster, but you cannot keep them from it.

As to dogs and racoons ... don't get me started.

[Joanne Bourne]

If you have good young friends with a cat, you might offer to catsit for them from time to time.

That lets you get in those sweet cat moments, but isn't an overwhelming commitment.

I used to catsit for my neighbors out in the woods. Always a pleasure. I'd drop in twice a day to feed and water and, eventually, bestow a few strokes.

[Joanne Bourne]

That can be a problem.

And there are Macavity cats who do nothing but cruise the net looking for tabby porn.
So embarrassing.

[Joanne Bourne]

It is such a perfectly lovely book. I can return to it again and again.

[Joanne Bourne]

There is many a cat that has held me down and MADE me keep reading. Just impossible to move them.

Anyhow, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Joanne Bourne]

The world would be a poorer place without Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.
And without the musical CATS, though they'r only distantly connected, I suppose.

[Anne Gracie]

Beverly, the wenches are on Twitter, so you could follow us on @wordwenches8 -- and then retweet our tweets. *g*

[Joanne Bourne]

You remember Christopher Smart --

"For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit."

That's my take on cats, anyway, though mad Christopher put it so many times better.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45173/jubilate-agno

[Joanne Bourne]

I love Hodge, Samuel Johnson's cat.
Here's a look at him.

https://www.thegreatcat.org/cats-enlightenment-part-3-samuel-johnson-hodge/

[Joanne Bourne]

True words, Anne. True.

[Janice]

My cats would wander in front of me and sit on the keyboard when I was trying to use it. This would give me time to think about the next sentence :)

[Joanne Bourne]

I have dealt with this myself. I just never realized it was a Clever Plot on the cat's part to make me pause and consider sentence structure ...

[Binnie Syril Braunstein]

My friends know that I am a gazetted dog person and would never have considered owning (i.e., being owned by) a cat. Of course, one of those friends is Mary Jo (5 cats now) and Ruth Glick (3 cats) and Diane Gaston (I've lost count.) I'd had a dog (I'm monogamous - only 1 animal at a time) but she died in 2005. Then life intervened. No animal for awhile. Until 2009, when my late friend's husband died and I was informed if I didn't take the cat (Mitzi) she would be put down- because better she should be dead, rather than having a bad owner. Unless, of course, I would take her. Well, you can guess how that ended. I was terrified but agreed to take the cat. I knew nothing of catness, so to speak. My cat-owning friends then became my go-to's for everything cat. Why does she (fill in the blank - not let me cuddle her, snarl if I pet her too much, throw up, etc.) My friends had an answer for just about every cat behavior/conundrum I reported. Their answers usually would begin with: well, she's a cat...) My writer friends are brilliant, are they not? I had Mitzi - who became known as Mitzer - from 2009 until late May of 2019. It is very hard to adjust to being catless. Sigh...BTW - aside from cats in romance novels and novellas, I would highly recommend a book by Paul Gallico (of Too Many Ghosts, The Snow Goose, and "Lily" fame.) He wrote a book for children called The Abandoned, in which a little boy is injured (nowadays we'd say TBI) and when he awakes, he is reincarnated into a cat. Of course, he has no idea how to be a cat - but he is adopted into a feral colony. And learns a very important cat mantra from his mentor: "When in doubt - wash." A very thing for all of us to remember. Thanks for your post, Jo.

[Karin]

That's a lovely story, Binnie. Our family also had a cat named Mitzi.

[Joanne Bourne]

I didn't have a dog when I was growing up.

(My mother had five kids and many many cats and said she liked dogs very much, but couldn't cope with another living thing in the house.)

And I didn't keep a dog when I was living internationally because the cat was about all I could cope with. (I am my mother's daughter.)

But once I came back to the States and started having a dog I never looked back.

I am an equal opportunity pet keeper, except for bird which delight me but I'm allergic to them.

[Serena DuBois]

I love the cat chatter. We had dogs growing up, but since I left home, it's only been cats, usually only one or two at a time. I rarely went looking for them. Rather they found us one way or another. I remember reading once that dictators don't like cats, which makes sense. They would drive their dictating minds crazy. It also explains why most writers like cats since it takes a free ranging unfettered mind to write.
Serena DuBois

[Joanne Bourne]

When I'm working at my laptop -- THAT's when my cat comes and places herself (furry butt in my face) between me and the writing.

She only does this when I'm intent on the screen, of course.

[Joanne Bourne]

With cats, you don't have to so much wander around ingeniously seeking them out.

If you sit still and think about something else . . . the cat will come. They will come.

I get my cats from the animals shelter, but most of my friends and certainly my family attract ferals as if by some psychic magnetism. Could there be a genetic basis for this?