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THE CAT HOUSE

2/20/2015

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Last year, my Muses told me to get tickets to the Twilight Tour the Cat House. 

The Cat House, also known as the EFBC's Feline Conservation Center, a cat sanctuary in Rosamond, California, is dedicated to the protection and preservation of the world's endangered felines. They have more kinds of cat species than I even knew existed. It functions similarly to a zoo, in that you can pay to tour the facility and observe the cats, which supports the work that they do. But one big difference from a zoo tour is that there aren't moats and ravines separating you from the animals. Another is that they have a Twilight Tour. Apparently, the really good stuff happens in the evenings after closing hours. So three times a year, the Cat House opens its doors for a big Twilight Tour fundraising event where you can see the animals at their active, doing things like eating dinner, or engaged in enrichment activities with their caretakers.

There are a lot of Were-creatures in my book, TRUST. Writing the 'Were' parts requires imagination, of course (and I've got a good one), but I really wanted to get as realistic as possible about that 'prey in front of predator' experience. My Muses agreed that I couldn't write realistically unless I spent time watching the animals my Weres turn into. I listened to them and bought tickets to Twilight Tours, hoping I could observe a few jaguars.

I arrived at sunset and headed over to the jaguar section where I stood with ten other amazed people who were also watching these stunning creatures from an incredible five feet away. The sight of the immense muscles in the jaguars' backs thrusting out and in as they paced caused me to hold my breath and wrap my arms protectively around myself. I witnessed them napping, grooming and leaping up and down from the perching spots, all while the guide informed us about how they hunt: waiting up in trees for hours and then jump down from trees onto unsuspecting prey.

One of them was lying in a corner, sleeping rather peacefully. It was actually sucking on its own tail, which the guide explained was the equivalent of human thumb sucking. Awww, someone said. Then the cat yawned. One glimpse of how wide those barely hinged jaws opened - and the sight of those fangs up close??? The word 'cute' swiftly exited everyone's mind. As the guide recited a list of why jaguars were one of natures most efficient killing machines, the caretaker showed up in carefully secured pathway behind the large cages, wheeling a huge cart of large boxes. The guide then announced that in order to keep them stimulated, they'd created a variety of ways for the cats to 'work' for their food, since that's what happens in the wild. That night, in honor of the Twilight Tour, the jaguars were getting special treats: whole raw turkeys frozen in big blocks of ice. The trick: to get to the meat, the cats had to figure out how to break or melt the ice. Our treat: we got to watch!

When the first cat got his treat, thunder boomed and I felt the earth begin to quake. I looked around frantically, ready to follow whatever earthquake guidelines the sanctuary had (we are in California after all), only to realize that what I was experiencing was actually the purr of an excited jaguar. Several people stepped back, despite the bars, the curiosity, and the fact that they paid to be there. I have been in love with animals - big cats in particular - since I was a little kid. But every time one of those cats looked at me, my DNA screamed at me to get the hell out. Watching them break the ice with swats of paws, melt it with their gigantic tongues, and then devour those turkeys was an experience I will never forget.

I went expecting to do research and fall more in love, which absolutely happened. I left ready to write endless chapters about jaguars. I also took with me an even greater respect for mother nature and her creatures, as well as the work the sanctuary people are doing for endangered species. It was a pretty amazing experience. If you can make the Twilight Tour, I highly recommend it!

For more information on the Cat House Sanctuary go to: 

http://cathouse-fcc.org/genInfo.html

There are many more types Were-creatures in the world of my book, which means I have many hours of animal watching to look forward to. The series is called Between Lions, after all. I will definitely be going back for another twilight tour this April!


Do you have a favorite place to get your animal fix/creature research on? A zoo, a sanctuary, or even a youtube station that I should check out? I'd love it if you'd leave your suggestions for me in the comments below!

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MY LITERARY LOVE

2/15/2015

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As a teenager I only loosely dated writing. We definitely had good dates with lots of potential, but I was having fun with other arts at the time. I didn’t really want to settle down with something so serious, but I kept flirting with it because everyone thought I was cool for doing it. I eventually admitted I was just using writing since, even if I ignored it for weeks, it would show back up and support me through every emotional crises. Writing would hold the sanity anchor while I vehemently & explosively scribbled poems in the corners of my notebooks. I would have left me a long time ago, but writing just lovingly assures me that even though it was hurt at the time, it was proud of me for picking up pens instead of screaming at everyone (Writing believes that if everyone just wrote poems when they were pissed off the world would be a better place).

But I wish that I had - just once - not walked away from those little poetic offerings while they were in their infant stage. If only I’d given them more than ten to fifteen minutes to birth themselves! Discarding precious, not-yet-fully-formed, muse-gifted ideas is the worst of the worst: pure, ungrateful evil. Baby ideas are treasures. Luckily for the world, they (and the Muse who gifted them to you) know what they are worth, so a really great idea that you don’t take care of will eventually leave you and gift itself to someone who will. Writing, however, sticks with you through better and worse. It loves you unconditionally, even in your messiest moments, and no matter how you treated ideas in the past it will always bring you more. 

I met my art when I really young. Thankfully, writing’s great at teaching patience. I learned to honor a thought by validating and developing it in the exact, specific way that only I could. It taught me how to delve deep into ideas and then it showed me how to walk away, giving them as much distance as I could stand in order to edit like an Impressionist painter: considering them from every angle so as to enable ideas to grow bigger and stronger, or sometimes more quiet and uglier, but always more authentically beautiful. Writing knows that there is nothing sexier than a killer, emotional and visually visceral line that sears onto your skin, and then days or months or even years later, will reach out unexpectedly and pinch you in the right spot, waking you up and reminding you that you are so vibrantly alive. 

I was correct to recognize that writing isn’t a fling. It doesn’t do affairs. You gotta put a ring on it. I’m so glad I got over my commitment phobia and can happily say that writing and I are officially living happily ever after.


Happy Valentines Day Writing!! I love you!

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WHY I WRITE FOR KIDS

2/6/2015

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People keep asking me. Here's the real story:

Once upon a time I was having a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad day. People were mad at me, I was mad at myself, and I was going crazy trying to decide what I was going to do with my life. Yup… one of those. So bad that I went for a walk in the middle of a New York snowstorm, but it was so bitterly cold that I ducked into a bookstore to get warm.

I walked past the well-intentioned self-help books, the adult fiction shelves with gorgeously written, epically complicated stories about other people’s pain and misery, and then somehow, found myself in the children’s section. 

I hadn't been in that part of a bookstore or library for at least a decade.

The first thing I saw was a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth. It made me smile. I picked it up, but kept wandering. Anne of Green Gables was staring at me from a display, so I grabbed that too. A Wrinkle in Time, Harriet the Spy, and The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Franweiler also made the pile… and then, a half hour later, I had at least twenty old friends stacked around me on the floor where I was sitting between the short kiddie shelves. I thumbed through, one after the other, hearing what they had to say. Each book spoke to my true self; the part of me that knew things - knew better. This was partially because of the formative time we had spent together, and also because every single one of them had a soul-searing, optimistic wisdom that still, in my now adult brain, rang clear and true.

I remembered who I was, and knew what I had to do, because they said the most amazing things:

“They didn’t think I was what they wanted,” Anne Shirley reminded me. “Someone sent me by mistake. But mistakes are how great stories begin.”

“Being you - not being like anyone else - is powerful,” Meg and Charles Wallace insisted. “You are made of stardust and the world is full of magic. Big adventures can begin on a dark and stormy night.”

“Sometimes it looks to other people like you are missing or lost, when really, you are finding yourself,” Claudia Kincaid said wisely.

“You can do anything, as long as you don’t know it’s impossible,” Milo whispered.

“No more nonsense.” Ole Golly told me.

I write for the young and young at heart because I felt at home there, between bookshelves, between pages, between worlds, and most importantly, closer to Truth. I believe that the simplicity and clarity of that 'Emperor’s New Clothes' type of honesty speaks to all of us - to all of our higher selves - at every age.  

I’d love to know… What are your favorite, most delicious wisdom bits from children’s lit?

Please comment and share so we can remind and inspire one another by passing forward the truth zingers from our favorite kindred-spirit characters in kids books! Direct Quotes, lessons you learned… all of it! 

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