Pumpkin, my old, yellow, fluffy cat, is over 80 years old in human years. She’s had a stroke and limps with one back leg from that event. She is partially blind in one eye from an infected scratch. She has constant goopy eyes because of allergies. She sneezes a lot, throws up huge hairballs frequently, and she occasionally misses the litter box with a big one. Besides all this, she was declawed on all four paws and cannot hold onto anything very well. Oh. I forgot the arthritis in her back, too.
However, Pumpkin is also smart and wise. And clever. She has figured out how to unlatch the cat door to the cat run. We don’t know how she does this, but she manages someway to pat it just right so it unlatches.
The other three cats, all of whom are much younger, know now that she knows how to do this, but they can’t do it themselves. They, however, do know how to persuade her to do it! This means that, while Pumpkin herself might not go out into the cat run at night, she can let the other cats do it and does let the other cats do it!
We latch the cat door when it gets dark because, despite the wire walls of the cat run, we do have very large racoons and possums and rats that roam at night, and we don’t want to take any chances. Now, we have to block the cat door shut with a large weight as well as latch it because of Pumpkin, the oldest and the most physically frail of all four of our cats.
I don’t think we can train her not to unlatch the door because we can’t seem to catch her in the actual act of doing it; she’s always just approaching the act or just completing it.
What is true of Pumpkin can also be true of an old person who is writing for children.
An old person can produce a new book. Age has its advantages. You tend to remember your childhood more clearly as you get older, the early years. And, if you’ve been writing and reading for most of your life, your ability in these skills can greatly increase with the years.
Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote new books in her 60’s. Some critics want to give her daughter, Rose, the credit for Laura’s books, but you see, Laura had been writing and reading for over fifty years. She read good books. And she wrote good writing long, long before she wrote her children’s books. As old people, do, she started to remember more and more clearly what her childhood had been like.
She didn’t produce one new book for children in her old age. She produced several in the last years of her life. Somehow, old age seemed to unhook the latch for her creativity.
It’s why I don’t worry that much about when I sell a new book. Unhooking the latch is what matters for me!
Here’s a rindalink to Laura: http://www.lauraingallswilderhome.com/
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