Indie Friday: Avalon: a Heartwarming True Cat Story

Guest post by Vanessa Morgan

“Avalon is the spawn of Satan. Either you throw your cat out, or I'll throw you out!” my landlord said.

Yet this feline demon taught me several important lessons about life and love. The most important of those lessons is that love is a decision - you decide to love and take care of someone, no matter what.

However, reminding myself of that decision was challenging. Describing my cat as jealous and possessive would be too mild. When another pet (or human) tried to approach me, it was a matter of life and death. On top of that, he vomited on my guinea pig, vocalized every complaint with a set of decibel heavy meows, stole from the fridge, scared visitors half to death, and threw my dates out by towing their coats toward the front door and tapping the keys to the doorframe.

But no matter how intolerable Avalon was, I kept to my decision to love him. After all, if he behaved like a criminal, it was probably because he had been deprived of love early on in his life.

After several years, my patience paid off. Avalon turned into the gentle cat he was meant to be. He even became a feline celebrity. Avalon landed a role in the horror movie The Strangers Outside, appeared in a music video, played a part in A Good Man, and is now cast in the short film Next to Her.

That's the subject of Avalon: a Heartwarming True Cat Story.

I started to write this book a few days after Avalon's passing. I think I wasn't willing to let him go. Writing a book about my cat was a way of keeping him in my life.

But it became so much more than just a cat story. One of the things that sets Avalon apart from other cat books is the depth and honesty with which I treat the subject. I wanted the reader to understand why our bond was so intense. Therefore, I had to dig deep into my own insecurities and failures.

That was the hardest part of the writing – being honest about things I hadn't been honest about before, and portraying myself the way I was instead of how I wanted to be.

But the most satisfying parts were the ones about Avalon's many feline shenanigans. I knew I was onto something good when I described how Avalon made a hobby out of vomiting on my guinea pig, how he spoke a few words of French (I swear this is true), how he became the most feared criminal in the neighborhood, how he developed special techniques to throw my dates out of the house, and how he charmed everyone on movie sets.

I'm sure that Avalon: a Heartwarming True Cat Story is a book that will touch you. You will laugh, but you will definitely cry as well.

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Avalon: a Heartwarming True Cat Story by Vanessa Morgan 

Available on: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon FR

Blog: vanessa-morgan.blogspot.com

Twitter: @eeriestories

Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Vanessa-Morgan/50159391888