But, you know how a lot of folks know who they are/what they wanna be from a young age? Not me. For a long time, I didn't know what I wanted to be "when I grew up." Like, I'm talking, even in my 30's... I always wished I was one of those kids who knew all along.
Then, the other day, my brother uploaded a bunch of old family pics on the web and shared them with me and my sisters. And amongst them, I found this pic of my room when I was a kid:
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Uh, it's almost ALL cats. There's ONE picture of a dog (a beagle to be exact, eating peanut butter). I had zero memory of my room being full of lions, tigers and kittens. Oh my!
I mentioned here before that (a) I'm allergic to cats (at least at first) and (b) Rita hates cats, so we won't be owning a cat any time soon.
But apparently, my inner child is a cat person. How do I reconcile that with writing Fido-friendly fiction?!
The old photos also prompted me to dig for a journal from a cross-country trip we took almost 40 years ago. I found it in my keepsake box - but it was all of 4 pages long. (Cross-country and I could only write 4 pages?? And I call myself a writer?) Then I also found all my old sketch pads--FULL of drawings.
Cat drawings, you ask?
Well, I asked the same thing, and the VERY FIRST PAGE in the first sketchbook was this:
Luckily, the next page was this anatomically correct drawing of our beagle, Barney:
And, phew, there were other Barney drawings including this one:
And this fine Gonzo. . . who is . . . a bird?? Maybe? Anyway, he's an animal of some sort.
Okay, so maybe I wasn't a Dog Writer when I was ten. But at least I was drawing dogs - thinking about them artisctically. At least I was an animal loving artiste as a kid. Maybe I did know who I was back then.
What about you? Did you know who you were and what you wanted to grow up to be as a kid?
Thanks to BlogPaws for hosting Wordless Wednesday. (Sorry, again, about all the words...)
Interesting that you like cat photos and drew them too. The drawings are great :-) Happy BlogPaws WW. Golden Woofs
ReplyDeleteFunny, cuz I don't even remember having all those cat pictures in my room! I remember some of them - but I remembered the beagle poster more.
DeleteVery interesting to look back. My first pets were cats, and my family had dogs. I loved them all, but I didn't know I would become a 'crazy dog lady' when I grew up.
ReplyDeleteI think I was even a black cat for Halloween one year as a kid. Yeah... didn't know I'd be the Crazy Dog Lady either! :)
DeleteLOL cats everywhere. Love the sketches and Gonzo made us chuckle. Have a wonderful Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes Molly
I have to admit, I was impressed with my Gonzo-drawing ability!
DeleteHahaha! I love finding things from growing up that I had long forgotten about. Memories...
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how we only remember certain things. (Or maybe that's a good thing!)
DeleteYou were quite the talented young artist. Have you kept it up?
ReplyDeleteSeems we know you haven't kept your love of all things kitty up. lol I love cats. It's because I love them that I don't have one. I have reason to suspect Bella would not be a fan. ;)
Have not really kept it up. I was on a water color painting kick for a while a few years ago, but dropped it in favor of writing. I also used to "draw" a bit on my iPad, but I'm VERY SLOW at drawing so I dropped that too as it just seemed to take forever to finish anything.
DeleteAnatomically correct, LOL!
ReplyDeleteAs a kid (and with thousands of sketches to back it up), I was all about the horses! I even seriously considered going to a equestrian-based college.
I had a lot of horse drawings in there. And a lot of saloon drawings too. (Cowboys and whatnot). Not sure what that's all about?! Too much Bonanza as a child I guess...
DeleteI'm sure I was born a crazy dog lady since my first memory of life was about dogs, the puppy i dropped by accident and didn't get to take home and the one I got a few days later when my dad brought home a baby Chihuahua.
ReplyDeleteI don't know any dog lover who doesn't love all animals unless there was some unfortunate experience with one.
BTW, love your Gonzo. He should get his own comic strip.
Very true that most dog lovers love all animals. Funny about your first memory. One of my earliest memories involves a dog too - our beagle came to live with us as a pup. he was too little to get up the 2 stairs from our family room to the dining room, so he would just charge at them and run into them with his chest.
DeleteNo worries. My mom was actually a serious cat person, did not even like dogs as a young girl! Terrible! Then in junior high, she discovered dogs and that dogs could run and walk with her and slowly her focus switched over. Now she is a crazy dog lady that happens to have two cats :)
ReplyDeleteOh, that's very interesting that she didn't even like dogs as a girl. My hubby was not a dog person either as a kid, but now he is totally a Crazy Dog Guy!
DeleteThanks for that chuckle. I always wondered what an anatomically correctly drawn dog would look like. (Not really.)
ReplyDeleteI draws 'em like I see 'em. :)
DeleteApparently you were an aspiring illustrator too!
ReplyDeleteGosh no, like you, I never knew what I wanted to be until I was in my 30's. I thought I knew, but as it turned out, I was wrong about a lot of things. Though I did always want to be a writer, I just never became one (until the blog).
I was a cat person when I was younger, I didn't become a dog person until I was in my 30's!
I thought I knew for a while. And I did actually like being an accountant for a while - and I owe a lot of great things to being an accountant (like living in another country and meeting my hubby) - and, surprisingly, there's a lot of writing involved in accounting. (At least, in the non-tax side of accounting.)
DeleteIntersting that you were also a late-blooming dog person!
Gonzo is a Chicken Wrangler. Everyone knows that. Geez. And the anatomically correct beagle? HILARIOUS.
ReplyDeleteYou can be a cat and dog person. We have a cat. Somewhere. Upstairs. That does ... something. Something valuable, I'm sure, or he wouldn't be allowed to live here.
My POINT is, you could so write about cats. Your peanut loving poochy owner loves to read and owns a used bookstore with a resident cat. Yes?
Well, chicken wrangler is his occupation, no? Not his species. What IS he??
DeleteHmm. You're right. Maybe I should add a cat to my next book! It's been such a long time since I lived with a cat though (we did have one when we lived in Bermuda. I'll have to do a post about her at some point). It's a bit late to add a cat to the current story as it's 70,000+ words in. But you've given me something to think about! (I would actually love to have a cat now - but Rita won't stand for it!)
This was awesome, isn't it funny how we change. Love the drawings.
ReplyDeleteAnd they say people don't change. Sure we do! We just don't usually like to!
DeleteI'd kinda forgotten that I was actually a pretty good artist! I was always better at copying someone else's stuff though, rather than coming up with my own thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm always fascinated by people who have known from early on what they wanted to be when they grew up!
I had a Barney Beagle when I was a child! I didn't know that I was destined to be a dog author until two years ago! BOL!! Bark More, Growl Less Barking from the Bayou!
ReplyDeleteGreat drawings!! I always wanted to be a writer / journalist when I grew up - now I have a cat blog and a day job in marketing communications. So, I'm definitely doing what I love. And with a maternal history of cats, cats and cats - I was always going to inherit that gene.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to be a vet until I realized that I might have to give animals shots. The thought of causing them pain like that couldn't be reconciled with my inner child! lol
ReplyDeleteI knew from third grade that I wanted to be a writer and have been writing pretty much ever since. And even though I worked in the writing field most of life, I was never passionate about my writing until I started my blog…oh, yeah, it is about my cats. I grew up as a dog person. XO, Janet and Kitties Blue: Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Jo
ReplyDeleteI had zero idea what I wanted to be, I still don't. LOL
ReplyDeletePretty good drawings for a 10 year old, I must say! You'll have to write - and illustrate - your own books from now on!
ReplyDeleteI think if you went back to my doodles, you'd find a lot of horses. That makes sense for someone who grew up in small town Alberta, as I did, but also doesn't make sense, because I've probably ridden horses less than 10 times in my life. I did love those Saddle Club books as a kid, though.
What I wanted to be varied between veterinarian and marine biologist as a kid. (Yes, someone from the Canadian prairies wanted to be a marine biologist... no idea where that came from.) Unfortunately, childhood me didn't know you had to like and be good at organic chemistry to realise that dream.
I have always loved dogs and cats, but probably dogs just a little more only because that's what we had growing up. But I always wanted a cat as well. Now I have both.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I've always known is that I am a writer. That's just something that is a part of me. Growing up, I knew I wanted to work with dogs and I was already writing about them. So I guess it makes sense that that is what I've ended up doing. I am self employed as a blogger and dog walker/pet sitter.
I think your wall says you had a yearning for exotic places where the lions and tigers just happen to live. :)
ReplyDeleteThose are some cute drawings - and a good sign that so many were of Barney! I went thru so many stages as a kid that the crap on my walls changed pretty regularly. I was into dinosaurs. Then horses. Then heavy metal. Then cats. Yes..cats. But I've seemed to settle on dogs nowadays. Oh, and wine. There's a bit of wine art on my walls now. :-)
ReplyDeleteNo worries.. cause you surely are one good dog writer and we all love your blogs. cheers !! :D
ReplyDelete