Do you collect coffee spoons? Lapel pins? Commemorative cups? Cats? Unicorns? Elephants? Books? Law enforcement patches (as my late husband did)? Antiques? Old guns or cars? There seems to be no limit to the variety of collectibles many of us choose to enrich, or perhaps clutter, our lives.

What you have chosen to collect reveals a great deal about you and your tastes or interests. Any collection can be a gold mine of writing inspiriting.

There’s likely to be a story behind each item. Where did it come from? How did you get it? What does it mean to you? Why is this particular item worth collecting? Focus on your favorite items and tell their stories.

For example, I’ve always been a cat lover. I’m fascinated by cats’ independence and idiosyncratic personalities, their expressive faces and tails, their interesting postures and actions.

I’ve never had more than two real cats at a time, usually one, and now I’m temporarily catless. However, my cat figurine collecting continues. I have cats of all sizes and shapes. The largest, a painted Venetian glass cat with a “fish skeleton” inside, sits on a corner cabinet. It is very heavy, and it once fell from a higher cabinet, hit me, and gave me the worst black eye I’ve ever experienced.

My china cabinet collection contains a smaller, safer version. Both cats have smug, satisfied expressions, probably due to eating those fish.

It amazes me that artists can depict cats in so many different ways and so many different materials. I have wooden, ceramic, glass, and fabric cats. One of the more interesting is a smooth egg-shaped stone painted with muted stripes, alert eyes, ears, and whiskers. It’s amazing how cat-like a stone can be. The cat’s name is Rosy, according to the artist’s inscription.

One very fat tan-and-brown ceramic cat wears a little bell around its neck and a rather stupid, questioning expression, perhaps asking, “How did that bird get away?” A shiny gold-and-black one, probably from Thailand, has a mysterious Oriental look.

I have sleeping cats, alert cats, pouncing cats, and sitting cats. They range from a brightly-painted Mexican version to sedate stained wood. Some of the more modern versions aren’t anatomically accurate at all, yet they all covey the essential idea of Cat.

My last real cat, Lyon, died more than two years ago, but the cats in my cabinet live on. During my teaching years, I sometimes selected two cats as subjects for a description and/or comparison and contrast writing exercise. Cat lovers or not, my students usually handled that assignment very well.

What do you collect? What does your collection mean to you? Whatever it reveals, it can inspire some very interesting writing.