In elementary school I was constantly surrounded by imaginary horses, glowing dogs (I'd seen an episode of Sherlock Holmes with a glowing dog that both terrified and fascinated me), and a small gray tabby named Tiger. In middle school, I started writing short stories about talking cats and spent most of my time with my imaginary friend Trugo, a river otter who was permanently one inch taller than me.
After college, I was able to replace all the imaginary animals with actual pets -- three dogs and five cats. (Though, Trugo still comes to visit sometimes when I need him.) And I started writing science-fiction full time. It was a struggle to write about human characters, but I thought my short stories would be more accessible to most people if the characters were... well... human. I eventually gave up and wrote the novel in my head, "Otters In Space," anyway, despite the fact that I had no idea how I'd ever manage to sell an otherwise serious sci-fi novel starring talking cats and dogs. I mean, who would want to read that, right? (Seriously, a lot of people asked me that while I was working on it.) Then in what felt like a complete leap of insanity, I started writing a webcomic using photographs of my dogs with captions. It lets me give them voices, like I wish they had.
Anyway, I felt a lot less weird about all of that when I discovered the furry fandom this summer and realized that there really were other people out there who could understand spending the majority of my time pretending that cats and dogs can talk. 'Cause, while everyone I know is okay with it, they all seem a little confused by me.
