Out of the wild imagination and visionary capability of an 8-year-old cat lover emerges the author, Cyan Li. Cyan creates an exciting and riveting plotline of science fiction fantasy about the coming of age of two simple housecats. Taking 4 years to complete her first epic novel, Flashing Visions, became an eBook reality just days after she turned only 12-years-old.
Her idea began one morning before going to school, when Cyan was watching Angela, her own housecat, eat breakfast. Oh yes! Angela loves to eat! Thinking about how the food would be gone soon, Cyan thought “she would probably still be very hungry even after the food was gone.” It was at this point Cyan’s mind began to spiral into the wonderful tale of Flashing Visions. All day, she thought and thought, imagining all the adventures Angela might experience in her very own cat universe.
The next day in the cafeteria at school, she decided to tell one of her friends, Olivia, about her cat universe and some of the fantastical experiences Angela might encounter. As you might imagine, being 8 years old and a cat lover herself, Olivia became enthralled with the idea and excitedly encouraged Cyan to write it all down. Together they dreamt and talked about how great it would be to have a book with these adventures.
Well, Cyan was so intrigued, after finishing with her obligations of the day, she spent many hours over the next number of months immersed in her imagination writing her story on her iPad as she created a whole cat universe. But, this was HER cat universe, her own private thoughts. So, she decided to tell virtually nobody about her writing.
Although most of the characters were contrived from her imagination, the first Character, Angela, was based on her own cat. Then, two more cats, Frost and Shadow, on her friend Maxcy’s two cats creating more depth to her story. But, Angela had to have a best friend to grow up with, so she decided to use her own friend Maxcy, who she may not always be so close too in real life, remain lifelong friends with Angela in her book. So, Angela and Maxcy would experience a coming of age together for better or for worse!
Well, you can just imagine the life of an 8-year-old little girl! Cyan would then take the next 4 years to finish her book, stopping periodically, sometimes for extended periods of time from writing, to explore many new avenues. And, as you can imagine, many times school would take president. But, as Cyan got older, she decided she wanted to finish this book. It became a very important quest for her.
To gain the time for her to finish it, she eventually had to tell other people. She had to, at the very least, tell her mother. Well, you can imagine her mom’s excitement! Teaching her a very important life lesson, she kept her on track, reminding her and pushing her to continue and finish what she had set forth as a goal for herself.
However, Cyan’s talents don’t end with writing. Of her many talents, include her yearning desires for music, instruments, dancing, drama and drawing. Although her obsession with reading has taken her into a world of cat facts and fiction, her desires have given her the innate ability to create a world of movement, imagination and expression through written, audio and visual forms.
So, typical of Cyan’s perfectionist personality, she decided to take her book to another level and create all the artwork for the book, beginning with the front cover. The book is a combined expression of what she has learned in school and in her extracurricular such as private classical piano and flute, private drawing, dance and drama and even Russian Math lessons. Oh, I doubt that at such a young age, she understands how the successful study and accomplishments work together to give her the ability to write such an advanced piece of art. For her, they are ways she can express and enjoy herself, catalogue her private imaginative thoughts into her own written reality. Cyan is wild eyed inquisitively innocent perfectionist who wants to know and experience all she can find and imagine. I remember, a couple of years ago, when she won a competition in classical piano and was invited to play at Carnegie Hall. She came to me and asked “Why is everyone so exited for me? What’s Carnegie Hall?” I believe she was only 10 at the time.
By December of 2018, at age 11, Cyan completed her first novel, Flashing Visions with its captivating cover; an exciting coming of age science fiction magical fantasy epic of two-house cats learning to live in the wild out of necessity, a story of strong bonding friendship overcoming tremendous obstacles within a cat universe consisting of 3 realms: a real cat world, a devastatingly dangerous game simulation and a magical cat realm of extraordinary talents.
Lucky for us, the readers, she decided to share this spectacular imaginary world of cats!
