by Robert Stewart

    Her mother calls it a "gift," but to 13-year-old Katie Dymock it is just something she enjoys doing. Writing stories and drawing cartoons is something to pass the time and exercise her imagination.
     "It's just fun to make up things," Katie said.
     Katie said she has been drawing for some time.
     "When I was younger I really liked to draw," she said.
     Then, a couple years ago she received a boxed set of drawing utensils for her birthday and she has been working steadily ever since.
     "Just about every day I end up working on something," she said.
     Her collection of drawing tools now fills up a drawer in her room, where Katie does most of her work.
     "She has a lap desk. That's what she draws on," Jeanette Dymock, Katie's mother, said.
     Jeanette said Katie is constantly creating something new.
     "It must be a gift, because I can sit there for hours and not come up with anything," Jeanette said.
     Katie writes and illustrates adventure stories, makes greeting cards for family members on special occasions and writes and draws cartoons.
     "I really like drawing cartoons because they can look really funny. They can be really funny," Katie said.
     Jeanette said humor has always been a strong point for Katie.
     "Her humor is good. Even when she talks it's very sharp and witty," she said. "It's always been like a natural thing for her."
     After drawing for some time Katie developed both her technical skill and a direction for her output.
     "Eventually, I just came up with a character," she said.
     The character, featured in many of the cartoons, does not have a name. Katie can use the anonymity of her main character to increase the freedom with which she comes up with ideas for cartoons.
     "I kind of make each one up as I go," Katie said.
     Katie's favorite comic strips are Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes, but when it comes to sources of inspiration for her own work, she said she keeps it close to home.
     "Mainly my family. They're all a very interesting group," she said.
     Apart from an inspiring home life, Katie said she does not think she has been influenced by one specific source for ideas.
     "I've thought up a lot of the stuff myself," she said.
     Having written 10 stories and drawn "a lot" of comics, each comic strip taking "about and hour," the well of her imagination is still brimming and Katie said she has no plans to stop dipping into it. She plans to continue drawing and writing as long as she can.
     "It's something I want to keep doing because I really enjoy it," she said.
     Katie's 10-year-old sister Emily offered her opinion as to why Dymock kept creating.
     "She really enjoys drawing and she's a lot better at it than me," she said.