Cats, Writers and Truth

Knowing your own truth is important. Knowing it’s subjective, even more so.

This is Heathcliff. Heathcliff is the household supervisor of an old friend (and new colleague) of mine. Visiting them both yesterday, I was reminded of how very much I learnt from my own former household supervisor, Theodore Abraxas (a.k.a. Teddy the cat, c.2000-2019), coming into my life. Teddy and I were together eight years. In the time I had with him I learnt a huge amount about the kind of human I could choose to be, thanks to cat behaviour and their instinctive assumption of freedoms that, without his example, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to take.

Thinking about this made me revisit an Instagram post I wrote in May 2022 on what cats taught me about humans:

1)    They will come to you if you keep your own centre of gravity.

(Reach out a welcoming hand by all means, but stay in your own zone. Don’t lean too far off your own balance. Otherwise you’re either a threat, or a bit desperate!).

2)    Gratitude and confidence look just the same.

(Be appreciative, show your interest but keep it simple, gentle and clear; then your cat – or human, or humans – can have the space to enjoy responding without pressure. They can feel it was kinda their idea.)

3. We have so much more time than we think, when we live in it moment by moment.

(Cats are rich in time because they make it their own and communicate their intentions without compromising who they are. It’s not that they think they’re perfect – probably – it’s that they know how to be unapologetic in communicating their needs.)

As I watched Heathcliff yesterday, I was reminded of what a good influence ‘Being More Cat’ can offer. A cat will look at you if/when they’re interested, and will walk off when they’re a) bored, b) feel something more interesting is elsewhere or c) feel like it. Unlike many humans at their most overthinky (and the more important something is to us, the more we have the tendency to try to solve it in our head instead of in the world), you can rely on a cat to tell you if they need or want something you can provide: food, attention, entertainment. Asking for what I want or need is something that was always much harder for me, with my three degrees in, you know, communication through words.

It’s not about being selfish; it’s about unapologetically knowing what you’re feeling, and offering, and expressing it. That truth doesn’t need to be the truth for everyone. But it’s yours.

This week has been a submissions-filled one, as I approach my favourite magazines and other platforms ahead of the release of my new short story collection, Twisted Branches (launching at Barnes Bookshop on 26 October). Because I’m only approaching people I think are relevant to me and to my work, and who I like and admire – and unlike the Sponsored Write where I have the confidence of thinking, “Sod fear, this is for charity, I’ll just go for it”, this is about me – that’s scary, and embarrassing, and yes of course it needn’t be – but that’s the truth of the feeling. Truth isn’t objective. It’s very, very subjective. So it’s not about changing your feelings. It’s about knowing them.

So, where does Be More Cat come in? The word I had to have with myself is this: remember how it used to be? Remember being too shy to ask for what I want? Or even to tell myself the truth about what I really wanted? Remember when it was easier to rely on external validation rather than building the muscle memory of imagination and creative confidence? Remember using respect for other artists as a reason to look up to others at a distance and stay invisible, instead of as a reason to reach out with what you can offer?

Yes, I remember.

I remember it felt like being polite. It felt like being respectful. The truth is that when we’re not acknowledging we can imagine and then create opportunities, we’re already using the same software on autopilot: to imagine and create reasons not to try. To stay exactly where we are. If we do overcome the perfectionism enough to get one enquiry or submission out in that mindset, if it’s a ‘no’ (and statistically we’re all gonna get more of those than yeses) we’ll easily use it as ‘proof’ we shouldn’t have tried.

Here's how I used my fear this time around:

1)    I acknowledged it.

I acknowledged I was scared to ask, and that the reason was because I cared about the answer. I acknowledged what I feared was directly related to what I wanted – and that meant I knew what I wanted. Good. That was clarity. That meant I could reach directly for it.

2)    I was brief, and unapologetically enthusiastic, in reaching out. I read the submission guidelines. I followed them. I said to the specific person exactly why I was approaching this specific platform. In other words, I was unapologetic about liking those publications. I was a fan, but I was also a player. I was my whole self.

3)    As a result, I got equally straightforward and friendly messages back. And, as it happens, so far they’ve all been yeses: I can send them my book, I can arrange an interview. There is a next step.

It can happen. But only if you channel your inner cat and ask for what’s right for you.

Recognition only happens when you show up. My not doing so in the past entirely came down to a self-created lack of permission. So now I make sure I know the truth: what do you want, and what do you fear? Because it won’t always be a ‘yes’, but if I never ask in the first place that’s more destructive to growing into the truest version of myself than any ‘no’.

If you can’t make the London launch of Twisted Branches, please join me online.

Catch up with me and John-Paul Flintoff celebrating Green Ink Sponsored Write 2023 for Macmillan Cancer Support meeting its total earlier this week: