I am starting a new children's book project entitled, 'Psycho-Cat'. It is the story of a brave little toy-pinscher named, Tony who saves his unsuspecting parents (his owners) from a psychotic cat who they unknowingly bring into their home.
The story is sort of inspired by real life. In our first apartment, in the first year we were living together on our own a couple of months after we got our baby puppy boy, Tony we were out for a walk in the village of New Hartford one summer afternoon. They were having some sort of a pet expo for the Humane Society at the New Hartford Park and had all sort of pets for adoption. Now at the time we were still getting use to having one new member of our family and I was hesitant to get anymore yet. However we fell in love with a kitten at the show. I tried to resist getting the little guy but my wife, who at the time was my fiancé, fell in love with it fast and so we decided to try it for a while. We got all the right stuff for it and everything and brought it home. It was a very cute cat and we liked it a lot, however our little guy Tony did not care for it. We played with it and fed it and tried to train it a little, as much as you can in one night and then we all went to sleep. Well, so, my wife and I and our dog all sleep in the bed together so we had our new kitten sleep in our living room and closed our door. Somehow that night the cat had slipped itself underneath the door and curled up to my head. Tony was in the sheets but then he sensed this and started barking and trying to get out of the sheets (which was hilarious) to get at the cat. So then I got the kitten and put him back in the living room, however Tony would not go back to sleep. The next day we talked long and hard about it and decided that the kitten wasn't for us, so we returned it to the shelter. I chalk this experience up to the fact that we were still new at being on our own and we still were learning to take care of our little puppy, and we just got scared I think. Luckily though I heard that our little kitten got adopted the next day and is very happy.
So I had been mulling over a short humorous story for a landscape style children's book for a while now. Then one day I was staring at my dog and thinking how cat like he is, yet how much he despises those felines and that sparked the recollection of that night and thus I began writing. The story will be narrated by Tony from his perspective, so as to bring it down to an accessible level for kids to get into but also cross that line so that YA and adults will like it too hopefully. Pictured above are just some sketches I've done so far. More to come.
