What Do Cats And Chess Have In Common?
What do cats and chess have in common (aside from this blog)? NOTHING! There should be nothing in common … and yet, here it comes, creeping into my blog.
Before I reveal my finding, I want to thank everyone in this chess community for being so generous and nice with your comments, trophies, and uplifting messages about my blogs. I am so happy that many of you enjoy them immensely. I also want to thank a few people who are encouraging me to write more and to get more exposure for my writing, outside this blog.
So, I decided to follow your advice and take my writing to the next level. So far, I have four articles published under my name (three on chess.com and one in The Globe and Mail) and, as you guessed, they are all about chess. As such, I decided to challenge myself as follows: if I can write AND get published an article that has NOTHING to do with chess, then I can happily start calling myself a writer.
With a quick Google search, I came up with the following topic and publication platform: Cats! Yes, I will write about cats, a subject I couldn’t care less about AND that has nothing to do with chess. Then I will submit it to the Chicken Soup For The Soul and, if it gets published, bingo! I’m officially a writer!
For those who are interested to write about cats for the Chicken Soup For The Soul, here are the guidelines:
https://www.chickensoup.com/story-submissions/possible-book-topics
So, I set out to write. My thought process went like this: “Hmm, cats. What do I know about cats? They are so useless. Oh wait, I used to have one when I was 8, while still living in Russia. I totally forgot. He was no ordinary cat, come to think of it. He was, in fact, a genius cat!” … And then it hit me like a rocking ball. “Nooooooo!!!!”
Guess what? Yes, he was Siamese, black and white cat.
But, really, guess what? Guess his name? Yes, it was Chess!! We named him Chess because of his physical appearance and our long family history of chess mavericks. In Russian, the word “chess” is meaningless. No one we knew back then spoke English, so there was no problem calling a cat after a boardgame.
But not only that, our Chess also played chess by moving pieces, ever so gently, with his paw. All his moves were illegal but who cares. My.cat.played.chess!!
And there you have it. Chess and cats could have something in common after all.
Now, is there really ANYTHING I can write about without it ending up on my chess blog?
