My Plot Producer and Print Investigator by Allison Knight
With four kids, animals were always a big part
of our lives. We had cats, dogs, and fish. Then there was the day my oldest son
wanted to add a nest of garter snakes to the group. Needless to say, he was
almost my deceased oldest son, because I do not like snakes.
It was easy for us to say, when all the kids
left home and we retired, there would be no more animals. Period. (Don't you
love those definitive statements!) So we retired and moved south sans pets.
Then one night, the phone rang late at night.
With four kids, like most parents we were concerned. I was the first one to
answer the phone, only to hear this sad little voice ask to speak to 'Grandpa'.
I turned the phone over to him and started to bite my nails. After a couple of
minutes my DH indicated it was not that serious and the next thing I heard was,
"Yes, we'll take him."
"Take who?" bounced off my lips. To
make a long story short, our young granddaughter's cat had taken a chunk out of
her father's hand and the cat had to go. So, Grandpa, being the softie that he
is, agreed to add a cat to our retirement castle. The cat still liked to bite
and was prone to do things his way so we quickly changed his name to Little
S---. It what we said to him all the time. "You little s...". You can
guess the rest. Our vet calls him L.S.
After several years, a much calmer L.S. ruled
the roost. He had his own cat tree, daily treats, no longer liked to sink his
teeth into people so when the offer came to adopt another kitten, I said, why
not. Wally, found under the back shelves of Wal Mart, joined the family. L.S.
wasn't much of a playmate, so we decided Wally needed a younger companion. A
trip to the vet brought Celine into our lives. Celine also liked to bite, hated
being touched after the sun went down, had lived at the vet's for two years
with twenty other cats, and is cross-eyed, which was probably why no one wanted
to adopt her. However, when we arrived at the vet's she jumped into my DH's lap
and that was that. Celine came home with us, all silver gray, part Siamese,
noisy beasty.
Wally has decided that he is best working with
my DH on all my promotional materials, but the other two insist on helping me.
Celine is my plot producer. I'm a plotter, write historical romance and I work
from a time line. I draw the time line of a large sheet of paper, surround
myself with my notes, historical tidbits and colored pens, a different color
for each character.
Celine will almost always take a flying leap
to look over the plot. If she doesn't like it, or maybe if she does, she plants
herself in the middle of the paper, stretches out and sends notes, pens and
paper flying. Removing her doesn't help for in about thirty seconds she's back
to survey the plot again. In a couple of cases, her interruption has benefitted
the story, believe it or not.
Now the Print Investigator is L.S. All he has
to hear is the printer clicking on and he races to the office, jumps on the
printer and waits for the first piece of prose, reading each page as it clears
the rollers. Unfortunately, he never lets me know what he thought of the story.
Does anyone know how to talk 'Cat'?
In the hospital
they keep calling her Sam and telling her she's married to Alex Porter but she
doesn't know this Alex. Then she discovers she's lost more than a year of her
life and Alex can't, or won't, tell her what happened. He refuses to let her
see or talk to her father and there is also something very important about
Samantha, she can't remember.
Alex Porter
can't explain how Sam was either pushed or jumped from a moving car traveling
away from him, or why Sam's memory disappeared but he's sure her father played
a role. All he can do is offer support as she recovers and wait for her to come
to him as she had before the accident, hoping against hope, Sam's father has
not ruined his marriage and driven away the woman he is starting to love.
Excerpt:
Sam opened her eyes and felt more alert. Her head ached, but the pain wasn’t as sharp. Morning sun shone through a window opposite her bed, but the bright light didn’t seem to start the awful pounding in her head the way it had before. The thumping sound beside her head didn’t seem as loud. She was even aware of noise outside her door.
The doctor said she’d been in an accident. She blinked, trying to remember what had happened to her.
A blank.
She closed her eyes, hoping she could concentrate and remember how had she gotten hurt. Driving home from work? Her dad would know. Knowing how possessive he was, he’d be here soon. Then she’d ask him about this marriage nonsense.When more voices registered, she strained to hear what was being said. The first doctor and the familiar deep, husky voice were talking. She needed to open her eyes to see if they were close, but that would mean twisting her head and she wasn’t ready for that.“Post traumatic amnesia...”“But it won’t last, will it?” The man’s voice rushed through her, and she drew a rapid breath. Why did it sound so familiar?“Look, Mr. Porter, I know this has been difficult for you, but your wife sustained massive injuries.” The doctor’s words jolted her. Wife? No!“A head injury…her coma was not unexpected. We still don’t know how much damage was done nd it will be some time before we do. You have to be patient. She is talking and beginning to move, so that’s encouraging.”“How long before you know the extent of damage?”“Well, after I’ve run more tests...” The voices faded away.Sam struggled with what she had heard.Injured.Coma.Damage. What had happened to her?She couldn’t remember, but they had it all wrong. This was some kind of horrible misunderstanding. They had to have mistaken her for someone else, someone who looked like her.
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