Life is Full of Surprises

I am four days away from a deadline, working through line edits on a novel coming out in December. At the moment, I wish I could pull this particular heroine to life. You see, she’s a veterinarian. Okay, so now you’re wondering: “Why one earth does she need a veterinarian to help with line edits?”

It’s not the line edits, it’s the surprise I got yesterday while I was working on those line edits.

“Mom?” my teenage son calls as he skids around the corner of my bedroom to my office. “You have to come quick. Bramble has puppies in the dog lot.”

Trying to wrap my mind around the fact the dog was still bouncing up and down off furniture just the evening before when she was brought in for dinner and play…trying to wrap my mind around the fact that my husband had checked her and felt nothing…I came back with the classic parental response. “Are you sure?”

Oh, duh.

“Yes! Three. Come ooonnnnn.” That’s teenager speak for: “Get your fingers off the keyboard and back away from the computer.” (I might add he’s actually said something close to that in his best future police officer voice.)

So, out to the dog lot I go. Yes, indeed. Three little spotted puppies. Two dogs and one bitch. Two that will be tri-colored and one that’s black and white…unfortunately, that’s not the bitch. But they are very cute—what puppies aren’t?—and our first time mother is doing a wonderful job. Mama and puppies are now in a towel-lined box inside the house.

So, while this wasn’t a total surprise—i.e. yes, we had her in with our male—here’s what led up to it. I have seen Bramble do nothing but snarl and snap at Digger. I checked her every day when we fed for signs of her coming into heat. Nada. But obviously, at some point, she was—and Digger, the sneaky weasel, managed to do what males do very well. Two weeks ago, I looked at my husband who has lots of experience with dog breeding and said, “Take a look at Bramble. Do you think she’s pregnant or just fat?”

“Fat.”

Still, I had my suspicions. So when he got home Thursday, I mentioned it again. He checked her and couldn’t feel a thing. Now, over the years, my spouse has bred Dobermans and terriers. He worked for a vet at one point in his life. My experience is much more limited, but I do remember Bramble’s mother. She waddled like a duck, looked like those little statues of Buddha, and would never have been able to bounce up and down off all the furniture less than 12 hours before giving birth.

So where’s Digger, the dad, in all this? Well, like a lot of new mothers, Bramble snarls at him anytime he gets close. I remember that feeling. So, at the moment, Diggy is confined to outside. And don’t tell him now, but it looks like separate living quarters from now on.

And I still have four days to finish line edits. Dr. Barlow, where are you when I could use a good vet, even if it's just for moral support?

The Importance of Being Flexible

My mother just sent me a cartoon by Dave Coverly that reminded me very humorously what it means to be a writer, not just of fiction, but in any sense of the word. It shows a poor, hapless author sitting across the desk of an editor who is obviously reviewing her work. He says, "We loved all the words in your manuscript, but we were wondering if you could maybe put them in a completely different order."

Whether it is a news story, a script for a corporate video, or a manuscript, it isn't easy to have someone make changes to what I've written. After all, I labored and sweated and agonized over whatever it is that I wrote. It should be perfect. I want it to be perfect. I want my editor, reader or viewer to find it equally perfect.

And that so often is not the case.

Many years ago, when I began in television news with my cocky "I'm a Mizzou Journalism Grad" tattooed all over my ego, it led to some explosive outbursts of artistic temperament. (Translate that into kicked trash cans and arm cleared desktops and you'll get the picture.) My first lesson in biting my tongue and making changes was in writing to please a client when I worked on my first corporate video. I believe it was draft 10 of the script that finally gained approval... After all, if I didn't please them, I didn't get paid. Starvation is an incredible motivator in the art of flexibility.

In television news, deadlines often inhibit just how much perfection can be attained. "Just crank it out" is a common refrain. But working under deadlines did teach me to write fast and write right, if not always as poetically as I would like. Having the opportunity over the years to write and produce several specials and documentaries was the dessert after a steady diet of meat and vegetables.

Now, writing fiction, I have that luxury to take my time, to find just the right word, to rework a sentence or a scene until it flows as I like it. And guess what? It's still not perfect. But I now know that I can change what I've written. I am capable of it, and I'm willing to do it. And God bless the technology that now makes that infinitely easier than the days of typewriters and carbons!

But can flexibility go too far? Yes. The cartoon is a prime example of that. While I like to take the attitude that I can make almost any change for which an editor asks, there are times when I believe I must stand up for my characters. (Okay, yes, they are make believe people I have created from my own imagination, but they do take on a life and personality of their own). If I feel that a change is fundamentally in opposition to how a reader would expect this character to act, then I must defend my writing. Flexibility should work both ways. It is the give and take between an editor and an author that I believe results in the best product possible.

So ultimately, the important thing to remember is to be flexible, but not breakable.