Photo by Kern Morris on Unsplash.
THE SAGA:
My dog, Chubster, gave birth to puppies two days after Super-Typhoon Sinlaku passed. She dug out a tiny crawl space under the board walkway to my fron deck and delivered them there. I couldn’t see them or reach in get them, but I could hear their little whimpers and cries and nuzzling noises. We had a little more rain, and I was worried about them. I laid down a table cloth and anchored it, as the best “roof” I could provide over the boardwalk, that had gaps between the board.
After two weeks, I didn’t hear anything, and the mama dog seemed a little freer and, after a few days of looking sad, she seemed livelier. I thought the puppies had died, and felt saddened, but accepted the inevitable. A premature birth induced by a terrible storm, followed by hot sunny days, a little more rain and cool, windy nights—and life would go on.
When I finally got my gate repaired and returned to closing it, Chubster got locked out of the yard one day and came running back in when I came home, but not to greet me—off to the far side of the house. But a few minutes later, she came looking for supper. I didn’t think anything of it.
Nearly four weeks after the storm, I awoke to sounds of puppy yelps and found a fat black puppy wandering about the yard. Relieved that one puppy had survived, I quickly brought it to the back porch. Chubster was beside herself and kept running around, back and forth. I finally followed her and found three more puppies, all holed up under a big boulder in the side yard.
All pups are now crawling around the back porch, where I can help keep a watch on them, but Chubster is still nosing them a lot. They are all starting to wander and investigate. Today, one moved away to sleep next to the dryer; another got stuck behind some bins; and the other two were easily tracked as usual. But Chubster kept nosing around, dancing uncertainly, until I pulled all four together from their hiding places. Later she cleaned up a little puddle (dogs can be so yucky at what they lick up!). Save me the trouble, though!
EDITING LESSONS:
This isn’t just another doggy story. I find editing lessons in this saga.
1. Storms induce events, pushing everything forward. If you need to get on with editing, I suggest catapaulting forward after some unusual or unexpected disruption. Or if you need some drama in your story, a storm helps.
2. You can relocate your characters if your initial place is too small, too cramped, leaky, drafty or just unsuitable for further growth.
3. Characters, like puppies, can get adventurous and wander about, moving out of sight, getting stuck. It’s important to keep track of all of them. Do the character count. Get them all together again. While they may take on lives of their own, you are still the mama-dog and need to know what they’re doing and where they are all the time.
4. Editing is not like writing a first draft, where you can run freely and forget responsibilities. While Chubster was used to running out of the gate and hanging out, she also knew she had to take care of those puppies, and couldn’t be locked out again. She hasn’t run out of the gate since that one time. With editing, you’ve got to stay close at all times. Whatever your writing habits and free-style movements where before, editing imposes new responsibilities. Time to hang in there.
And last but not least:
5. It’s a dirty job, but editing is cleaning up messes made by those self-actuated characters. For every little piddle puddle you clean up, there’s the reward of a neater manuscript, a tidier space, and one less mess the editor-in-chief has to make.
WRAP-UP:
My dog has taught me a little bit about character development and mothering a manuscript by her own mothering ways. What do you think? What writing or editing lessons have you learned from your dogs? cats? other pets?