Jingle's Collar

Darth Jingles came home without her collar, again.

This may not seem a big deal to most people, after all, none of my cats growing up ever wore a collar. The thought was ludacris to even try to collar a cat. (Also, why does Word want to change “ludacris” – a perfectly normal and acceptable word in the English language to “Ludacris” – the rapper? Really?) Anyway … Jingles has a collar because of our HOA. Technically she’s also not allowed to stray outside of our yard, something I understand but I have no idea how to enforce. Thankfully she tends not to roam far and the neighbors don’t mind her. Actually, a lot of the neighbors like her. But she’s required by city and HOA code (our HOA is scarier) to wear a collar. She’s chipped, so it’s not like if she gets picked up they won’t know who to call. But that cute little piece of feline jewelry lets everyone know she’s not a stray.  Also, her tag actually says “please don’t shoot me” on it. Hubby has a warped sense of humor.

Actually, it was Jingle’s collar that gave her the name she has today. Other contenders included “Stinkmuffin,” but I digress. When she was a kitten, scampering around the house, the single bell on her collar would sound her location. Remember It’s A Wonderful Life? There’s a line in there a couple of times: “every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.” We had a cat winging angels all over the place. Being the dark people we are, naturally we came to the conclusion there couldn’t possibly be any angels left in heaven waiting to get their wings, therefore our dear black cat had to be killing people to create angels to wing them. She’d run down the stairs and wipe out entire villages in third-world countries, according to this theory. Only a Sith could be so efficient. Hence ‘Darth Jingles.”

History aside, Jingles wears a collar, usually, and occasionally loses it. They’re stretchy so she can get out of them if she snags on something. You know, cat collars. The quick-release clasp on the one she had originally was lost and never recovered. The one she lost a few days ago has been lost once, and a neighbor picked it up in their yard and walked it over. Our phone number is one there, just in case, but he recognized who it belonged to. We also meet new people in the neighborhood when they find her collar and call us, so we go retrieve it. Nice people.

The rule is: if Jingles isn’t wearing a collar, she doesn’t get to go outside. This is where a cat losing a bit of elastic with a pendant becomes a bigger issue. She didn’t want to stay in and wait for someone to find and return it, or wait for Mommy (me, I’m a kitty mom) to give up and go get her another one. In fact, Jingles was making enough of a pest of herself in her attempts to relay how urgent it was that she be allowed out to frolic in the spring air, that I sent The Girl on a quest to find an old retired collar. (One we got a call about just hours after I succumbed to her plaintive meows and purchased a replacement collar and tag.)

Jingles wouldn’t even sit still to let us put the ratty old collar on her. It took two of us to bell the cat. This is unusual, she generally recognizes collars and/or the harness and leash torture as a prerequisite to being allowed out. Yes, she will walk on a leash. No, she’s not happy about it. I think she does it because she likes to humor the kids and they always release her to run off eventually. Anyways, little furry wiggle worm finally has a tattered Christmas collar on her. It’s pathetic. The bells (three on this one, her last one didn’t have any because it doesn’t stop her from catching birds – a neighbor witnessed that – and it’s noisy. Of course it is, it’s a bell. At one in the morning, that bell sounds much louder.)

So the three bells have the paint worn off, and the nail polish I used to re-paint them a glossy red is also gone. Just little metal bells in the remains of tartan bows on red elastic. I dare say she’s going to try to lose it this time. Hopefully she won’t ditch this collar before someone finds the previous one.

Jingles isn’t vain. She rolls in the gutter before coming inside (thanks for that, by the way, you little brat). But she keeps herself clean (after the gutter-roll) and has decent manners considering she’s a cat. Aloof, yes, but not on the table or kitchen counter. Since we wrangled her into this collar, she hasn’t tried to wiggle out of it. Yet.

That being said, The cat is loose again in the neighborhood. And angels are getting their wings. And/or whole third world villages are being wiped out and then getting their wings. I should check the news.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

The Girl just spent her allowance pumping quarters into one of those silly machines at the mall trying to get a complete collection of one-inch plastic Adventure Time figures. She failed. She still doesn’t have the Ice King. She has a lot of little hard to open plastic containers to comfort her in her failure, and extra figures to give to her friends at school (why high school students need small plastic figures from a cartoon I have no idea) but it isn’t enough.

She knew, somehow, that I just didn’t understand how great these little bits of plastic were, so she brought some in to show me. She set up a tiny Jake (the dog) on my computer, and he promptly fell over because he was molded at an angle where physics simply wouldn’t allow him to remain upright. That’s fine, a bit of Plasti-Tac on the base can compensate for that. Also, his eyes weren’t white, they were grayish. The girl licked a finger and tried to clean them. She was careful not to lick the same finger on round two.

“Lead-based paint,” she explained.

Good girl, she understands where her tiny treasures were made. I reminded her that we have white nail polish if she wanted to fix Jake’s eyes, or someone at school might have white-out. Even white paint might be obtained. She acknowledged the plan as sound and stopped licking fingers in an attempt to fix the problem.

I have not, however, agreed that these things are the greatest thing ever and this disturbed her. She went and got more. Soon my computer keyboard was covered with little figurines falling over in an attempt to look … cute, I think. I’m not sure. I’m not into Adventure Time in the first place so that could be where the problem is rooted.

Hubby came in and was appropriately excited to view her finds. He’s usually the one who sits and watches that ridiculous show with her. It’s their thing, I’ll let them have it. They somehow wandered off topic from Adventure Time to school, to Interstellar (the movie and that line where they invented something new every day – it was amazing), to it really seemed you could find almost anything in this country. Case in point: inch-high badly-painted Adventure Time figurines that don’t stand up. The Girl gathered her herd of small toys and smiled.

“Isn’t America great?”

“Yes. Especially the bits made in China,” I replied.                        

“Mom, that’s most of it,” she said with an exasperated huff and walked off.

Out of the mouths of babes. Yikes.

There's Something Wrong With Me ...

There is something wrong with me. I’m writing a book – that’s not news, it’s what I do – and finishing The Thousand Words Series. Fine. And I have the prequel/sequel to The Lexi Frost Series partially finished and the unfinished bit roughly outlined. Okay. So why take time to reach into the future to (peacefully) write the death of a character that doesn’t matter anymore? I did that the other night. 

I don’t know what’s worse, that I’m killing off characters again, or that I’m wasting time writing a scene that will never be used. Probably. If there was a purpose, I wouldn’t mind. Like if I was really mad, and someone had to die, then it’s a good thing it was a fictional character and his death was not in vain. But I wasn’t mad. There was no reason he had to die. And I will most likely never use that scene anyway. So what was the point? 

All right, I was irritable. I haven’t been blazing through this book(#4) lately like I wanted to since I got notes back from my editor on the next book(#3) in the series, which still doesn’t have a title. That irritates me too. That working title for the genie-Lexi Frost crossover, Desperate Wishes, may end up being the actual title simply because I’m title-stunted lately. I don’t have a title for the one I’m working on either(#4). Or at least not one I like. Would you believe I actually submitted the book to my editor under the name Waiting For A Title with the proposed cover work and everything? I got a note back that I should think of a different title because that one didn’t really fit the book. Um…yeah. I got a lot of other notes back too. More than I have in a long time. That didn’t make my day, but that was a week ago, and that book barely had the doomed character in it. And no notes about said doomed character. Nothing to incur my wrath or even attract my attention. This poor schmuck is just flying under the radar and whack!  – a lesson in the pen is mightier than the – whatever. There are no swords in this series. Yet. I may add one now just for the hell of it. 

No, I’m not going to tell you who dies, and no, it’s not included in the next book. It’s not his time. 

And it’s not about him dying anyway, it’s more about the after-effects. His death sets off a chain reaction that turned out to be … unexpected. Wow. I don’t know why, I created these characters. Anything they do is just a consequence of actions I made them take before or personality strengths/quirks/flaws that I gave them. In theory nothing that they do – whether I plan it consciously or not – should be a surprise. I know them better than Hubby or my kids. In theory. 

*Hand twitches toward phone to call therapist, who will probably giggle. Upon that realization, hand stops.*

So why exactly did this one (minor) death cause a couple of other characters to start spinning out of control? I would say god only knows, but hello, I wrote this mess. I hate to go tromping on theology here, but I’m their personal god. That’s a lot of responsibility and, I should say, I’m not taking it well. Chalk it up to free will and be done with it? In life, sure. In literature, I’m not sure I can get away with that.

*Eyes phone. Reconsiders calling therapist. No.*

Some of you are probably wondering if I am, in fact, crazy as a caffeine-infused lemur. I’m talking about my characters as if they’re real and have their own will. Some of you are writers who have experienced something like this (perhaps not quite to this extent) yourself. To those who are slowly backing away shaking their heads and muttering exorcism incantations, let me explain:

No, I’m not nuts, and I’m not possessed. To many writers, characters are very real. Not that we talk to them or set a place at the table or anything. We know they’re part of us. But they’re like a good friend who moved away. Unseen but not forgotten. If we were children, they’d be imaginary friends, I’m sure.

To me, it’s sort of like watching my own private miniseries, except I only get bits at a time. Really long commercial breaks, I suppose you could say. I don’t get to talk to my characters or interact with them, so kids with imaginary friends score one over me. I watch my characters’ lives and dramas unfold, and I write some of it down. Some I edit or even embellish, some I don’t need to because they’re pretty good at getting into trouble on their own.

While I know a part of my own mind created these characters, it’s still a surprise what they do sometimes. When I don’t like where they’re headed and I try to direct the story another way, I find things usually don’t turn out well. That’s not how the story goes, so … it’s their way or not at all. (Note on that: in revisions, however, I can take whole scenes and even chapters and change it around because it’s already been written and decided, as long as the outcome remains the same. I can’t change major players, for example. If someone’s dead, they’re dead. There are simply no lines/actions left for them so writing in a great doctor and last minute save doesn’t do any good. Yes, I’ve tried something like that before.)

*Hand twitches toward phone again.*

I need to stop dwelling on this before someone else dies. I just imagined someone being bitten on the ass by a rattlesnake. This is getting ridiculous.  Mostly because it was Jess I imagined being bitten when it’s more believable for it to be Dev (if you know what I do, which you will shortly). See? I’m out of control here. Whatever, never mind, I’m not writing it.

*Throws hands in the air, then reaches for phone.*