We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chris Widdop. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chris below.

Chris, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I had always been a bit of an artist and writer growing up, but learning how to write a full novel length work took a lot of time and effort developing my skills. I first started out by participating in National Novel Writing Month, which gave me practice writing works of such length. Each year I would take what I had learned the previous year and apply it to my next year’s project. After about three of these, I was ready to branch away from NaNoWriMo and give novel writing a shot outside of the boundaries of a specific month, and with each new project I continued to learn and grow as an author.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am an author and filmmaker. I have written the Velcro the Ninja Kat series, as well as the chapter book spin-off Ninja Kitties, and two short story collections, Down the Fox Hole, and Life as a Cat. I primarily work within the realms of fantasy, though I often like to splash in little pieces of real life into my works.

The project that I’d say I’m most proud of is definitely the Velcro the Ninja Kat books. It’s a five novel fantasy series about a cat who becomes a ninja to save the world, and it took me over a decade to complete. Most of the characters in the books are based on real life animals, most notably the title character Velcro, who is based on my cat I had growing up. My goal with these books was to capture the various animals’ personalities and really bring them to life in this lively fantasy world I had built for them, and to share their stories for the everyone else to enjoy. It has been truly rewarding to see this series and these characters be read and loved by so many others over the years.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Presently, my goals revolve around trying to get my story out there in an effort to help others, which will become more prevalent in upcoming releases. I want to write the stories I wish were available for me to read when I was struggling, so that I might be able to perhaps help those who might be similarly struggling now as I was.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There’s so much that’s rewarding about being a creative. Getting my thoughts down on paper and out of my head is a reward all itself. Fine tuning those thoughts and transforming them into a story that flows is always a rewarding experience. But really, I love it most when people have read my finished works, and have either found joy or even inspiration from them.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.velcrotheninjakat.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/velcrotheninjakat
• Twitter: https://x.com/Velcro_NinjaKat
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Chris_Widdop

Image Credits

Chris Widdop