Washing a Cat

I decided to take a creative writing class this semester to hone my writing skills.  For class each week, we are to select quotes from the two books we are reading and respond to them.  My teacher thought this particular thought was a great metaphor, so I figured I'd share it with you too.

 “Telling the truth in an interesting way turns out to be about as easy and pleasurable as bathing a cat” 
            –Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

I have never bathed a cat, but I gather that it is not the most enjoyable of activities.  This nugget of truth helps me to understand my own writing process.  I have stories that mix themselves inside my head, long novels, but I avoid them.  Why? Because as fun as washing a cat is, I’ve never found myself with a burning desire to wash a cat for an hour every day.  So I don’t write novels, even though they sometimes tease me and beg to be expounded upon.  This is why I write blogs instead.  I wait for a kind cat to slink up to me, to play around my legs and work its way between my hands so that I will pet it.  I then grab it, shove it in the water, get as much out of it as I can, and let it go.  This results in short, sporadic blog posts and everyone thinks I’m incredible.  They don’t see that I’m taking the easy way out.  I think it’s time to try to actually wash the cat.