I’m working on my third cozy at the moment, but earlier this week I found myself stuck and unable or unwilling to move forward with it. The reason behind that is what I find the most interesting…
The cozies are pure self-indulgence where the main character and her dog are very much like me and my dog if we were to live in the Colorado mountains and trip over dead bodies every time we turned around.
And it occurred to me as I was writing this most recent one that I was giving the dog in the books a better life than I was giving my own dog. The dog in the books has friends to play with and a stream to wallow in and gets far more attention from people than my poor dog who is always sleeping away in the hall while I write.
It stopped me cold. Because I was like, “Why am I giving this fictitious dog a better life than I’m giving my own dog?” So I spent a lot of the next couple of days hanging out outside with my pup and reading while she watched the world go by rather than locking myself away in my office and writing.
I can’t do that all the time, of course, or else the bills won’t get paid, but I figured sometimes you have to step back from the fake reality you’re creating and pay attention to the real world around you and the actual people (and dogs) that you love.
M.L. Humphrey 