Creative Discipline? Ask My Cat.
What my cat taught me about writing, rhythm, and not apologising for taking up space.
I’ve always lived with cats. Barbecue and Rice were the first — mother and daughter, one all Victorian drama, the other a living haiku. Barbecue knew exactly what she wanted from a room. Rice made quiet feel like wisdom. A few years later came Space and Time — the continuum of cats. One black, one ginger, both adorable and a bit ridiculous. Time was sociable, would often lick the marmalade off my toast, and was always vanishing to lead the local cat gang. Space was more domestic, more lap-sitting, and oddly more philosophical. They still live with my ex, in the house they grew up in.
And now there’s Compton. More dog than cat in some ways. Vocal and needy, he loves to be the centre of attention yet has the clearest boundaries I’ve ever seen. If I’m writing, he watches. If he wants to play, he brings over a toy. If he’s done, he walks away. Calm. Decisive. Unbothered.
I think I could learn a lot from him.
The cats I lived with before Compton had very distinct genres. Like the rules we're taught at school, we’re told to stay in our lane — to be a poet or a novelist or a playwright or a memoirist, as if the form defines the voice.
But my voice has always moved more like Compton does. Surreal, expectation-defying, unrelentingly playful, and something that always keeps me guessing.
Genre is structure. Boundaries are rhythm.
Both are useful until they start getting in the way. The second they become restrictive? That's a problem, and a uniquely 21st century one that mimics our obsession with putting things in neat little boxes.
Rigidity has never really worked for me. Not on the page, and not in my body. What works is rhythm. Knowing when to push. When to pause. When to stretch. When to sleep.
Compton never questions whether he’s earned the sunbeam. He just lies in it. He never overexplains. He doesn’t ask if now is a good time. He assumes his presence belongs. That’s the part I’m trying to write toward.
I used to think boundaries were about building walls. Now I think they’re about making space that’s mine — on the page and off. A rhythm I can return to. A rhythm I can write inside, even when it changes.
And as for Compton? He’s asleep right now on the sofa opposite me. One paw over his eyes.
No notes. Perfect ending.
