MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. — While the COVID-19 pandemic brought many challenges, for some, it was a new way to form hobbies and create new opportunities.

Ever since Lily Wojtkowski can remember, she’s had a crayon or marker in her hand.

“It’s the fact you can make anything you want but on the paper,” she said.

Drawing is second nature to her — in fact, one thing she remembers from her childhood is drawing characters from the television show “My Little Pony.”

“I always liked doodling things that I had seen on a show or in real life,” she said.

Now, at 12 years old, she draws the animals she reads about in wildlife books.

“This is a double-crested cormorant. They do live in North America near Florida off the coast of Mexico, and then this is how I drew it,” she said.

She also loves creating a story with her imagination. She says it started from reading comics in newspapers.

“But I wanted to make a whole page like a graphic novel, so I decided to do this interesting style of a comic book where each page is a different plot but all of them sort of all go together,” she said.

When the pandemic hit, Lily had an idea — to create her own comic book, centered around her pet rats, Pretzel and Dot, (and yes, their favorite snack is eating pretzels).

The book is called “Pretzel Rat.” Her comic book is about her pet rat who is a mailman and loves adventures.

“I love how social and playful they are,” she said.

At first, it was hard finding places that would publish her comic book, but after her mother Kate did some digging, she found out about self-publishing on Amazon.

“We also reached out to a local printer who printed copies for us to sell through Suitcase Sweets,” she said.

Suitcase Sweets is a candy shop in Lakewood Ranch that is selling Lily’s comic book.

The book has been doing so well that Lily and her family are delivering more copies of it to the store.

She’s making the impossible possible by drawing.

“I love that I can make pretzel a character that can talk and explore and I love him,” she said.

Creating new characters and a way to share her stories with the world, she’s drawing her own future one page at a time, moving closer to her dream of becoming a cartoonist.

Lily is working on the second comic book called Pretzel Rat, A New Era. Lily hopes to complete the comic book by the end of the year.