Welcome to Taro the Zen Cat

The day after I defended my dissertation in July 2017, I woke up, had nothing to write, and immediately experienced empty nest writer’s syndrome. It was a horrible, prickly feeling. I wandered around the house all day, literally with nothing to do.

Then I saw a post on my neighborhood Next Door for a 4-week Writing Intensive. Other than technical writing for my dissertation, the only writing experiences I had had were some UCLA creative writing classes and a year of blog posting fun animal exchanges. They were great but nothing I had written could pass as a book idea. And that was undoubtably reinforced by the woman sitting across the table from me in our first class when she leaned in and said to me, “It’s not about blog posting, Jennifer. We’re serious writers in this class.” Other than being a little miffed with her hoity attitude, it turns out this was the best thing said to me that day. It got me thinking in an entirely new way. And we did become friends. Eventually.

My writing teacher said “if you want to write, you should write about something you are either passionate about or know enough about to at least fill a few blank pages. Then you just keep going.” However, some people say just the opposite. Better not to know anything - then you're free.

In my case, decades of Zen training and practice, along with decades of cat ownership, is how that fusion became my book, Taro the Zen Cat.

And you know, somehow the pieces of the story all came to fit together in ever-changing, perfect tangrams.

In closing for now, may your life be passionate and filled with blank pages that will allow you to freely keep going and going and going.

— Jennifer