The Misadventures of a Cat Named Blossom

Today I welcome Suzanne Wilson, a friend and fellow writer from my writers' group.  We have been meeting together with Night Writers for nearly ten years now since I joined in September of 2006.  During that time, Sue has been the one of all of us--a core group of about a dozen during these past ten years--who has the group laughing out loud as she reads her children's stories about the antics of Blossom, a cat who tries so hard to please Mrs. H, and yet so often finds herself in situations not quite the way she envisioned them.

We were all very excited when The Misadventures of a Cat Named Blossom, a collection of short stories, was published just a few months ago!  It's over a hundred pages of entertaining tales, the kind that parents will love reading as much as kids will love hearing.

Welcome, Sue!

1. How long have you been a writer and what got you started? In 2005 I took an online writing course intending to write a children’s storybook.  My final assignment ended up being a chapter book about Blossom.  I didn’t think it was very good but I continued writing more Blossom chapter books after that.
2. Did you always know you wanted to write, from the time you were young? No, I didn’t do any creative writing until 2005. I took a composition class my senior year in high school and I was horrible.
3. What were some of your own favorite books as a child?  Are the Blossom stories anything like those? My favorite was a library book called Pitschi, written and illustrated by Hans Fischer.  I think I almost loved his drawings of the characters more than the story itself.  I’d take my pencil and tablet of paper and create my own stories with drawings of Pitschi, a little cat, and the other cats and dogs living in the same house, Mauli, Ruli and Bello.  There were more characters than that but those are the ones I chose to remember.
4. You used to have cats yourself.  How much is Blossom like your cats? Nothing, other than much of what she does is self-serving. I think Blossom is more like me. People have told me they can see me in Blossom’s character.  I'm not sure what that is, possibly striving to be something I'm not?
5. What sorts of things have inspired your Blossom stories? A lot of my stories are inspired by my own home and our big back yard--a lot of critters live out there. I like to write about seasonal things. Some characters are based on our neighbors. Or, I try to think of something ridiculous and make a story out of it.
6. How long does it take you to write each one? Some have to be rewritten three or four times, thanks to my husband’s suggestions and my writing group’s critiques. I think the better stories are the ones that just come to me and can be written up in a few hours.
7. What has been your favorite part of writing about Blossom? I really don’t like creating the story. What I enjoy is getting a rough draft down and then going back and embellishing. Or trying to come up with a silly twist to make the story funnier.
8. Do you have a writing routine?  Do you write at the same time every day, or for a set amount of time?  Do you have a particular place you like to write? I just write whenever, morning or afternoon. I used to envision myself being a great novelist, at my PC until 2:00 in the morning. Unfortunately, I’m not a late-night person. I also thought drinking a glass of wine while at my laptop was so romantic.  But once I start drinking I’m not good for much other than watching sitcoms.
9. There's a fun cast of recurring characters in the Blossom stories--Merle the Bulldog, Riley, Blossom's Best Feline Friend Forever, Sheba the Glamour Kitten, the mice and squirrels and the Hatcher Family.  Apart from Blossom herself, do you have a favorite character in your stories? Not really, although Sheba the Glamour Kitten reminds me of a friend I grew up with. She was cute, had nicer clothes than I did, and she got mad at the drop of a hat. We’d start out having a perfectly good time and something would make her huff off and not talk to me for days.
10. Now that Adventures of a Cat Named Blossom is published, what will you do next? I’ll keep writing short stories until my mind goes blank. I think my next creative outlet might be ink drawings with watercolor.

AUTHOR BIO:

Sue Wilson took a children’s writing course in 2005 with the intention of writing children’s storybooks. Instead, her final assignment was a chapter book about a cat named Blossom. She’s been writing about Blossom ever since. Sue is currently posting short stories to blossomsblogs.com. Before retirement, she worked for 26 years at Target’s corporate headquarters. She currently lives with her husband in Maple Grove, Minnesota. They have three adult daughters, all living in Minneapolis.

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