Week 16’s prompt: Family, friends, and pets that I’ve written into my work.
I don’t use family and friends as characters but I have written two of my pets into my books so far.
The first one is Lucy’s cat Frank from The Lost Art of Second Chances. I wrote extensively about Frank for a prior blog post here.
We found Frank as a kitten, along with his sister Carolina, in an abandoned barn on my father-in-law’s farm. He was a wonderful companion to me, especially while I was on four months of bedrest during my pregnancy with my son. Unfortunately, Frank had a congenital feline heart condition called hypertropic cardiomyopathy and we lost him far too soon, at just seven.
The second pet to get a guest appearance in my book is my sister’s dog, Casey. He appears as Kyle’s dog in Once a Bridesmaid. My sister adopted Casey as a puppy. He was such a sweet, kind, loving family dog. My father trained him to fetch the newspaper every morning, while my gray cat, Mischief, looked on as supervisor. They loved earning their morning treat together. Both have long since passed on to the Rainbow Bridge. When I drafted Once a Bridesmaid, I thought Casey was the perfect sidekick for my wounded photojournalist hero, Kyle.
We don’t currently have any pets due to Fox’s severe allergies. I’ve had pets all my life though and am sure that I’ll rely on the memory of my furry and feathered friends whenever a book calls for a pet. I’m in the drafting phase of Never a Bridesmaid right now. The heroine wants to be a veterinarian so I’m sure I’ll have more opportunities soon.
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