The Whites and the Neighbors

Yesterday you met the Whites.  This is Sarah and George.

Today we'll move on the the neighbors. Aimee and Darius Brown are Deon's mom and dad.  Darius owns the local paper.  Aimee in in charge of the local library,

Darius bought the paper several years before when the previous owner was found to be in collusion with some very unsavory characters that had infiltrated the village.

Mrs. Brown took over the small library because no one else seemed to want the full time responsibility.

They were delighted to find their new next door neighbors had a son the same age as their own.  The two boys became best friends from the moment they met.

Not long after the Browns moved in on one side of the Whites, the Huangs, Lian, Liu and their daughter Lin, moved in on the other. 

Originally from Hong Kong, Liu was in the states to lecture at the university in Metroberg on Chinese art history.  Lian was an accomplished artist in her own right.

While exploring the countryside around Metroberg they discovered the Village of Serenity and immediately fell in love with it.  It was everything Hong Kong was not, so they decided to apply for and were granted residency.  They opened an art gallery and created within it studio space so Lian could continue her work.

Like Bud and Deon,  Lin and Sis also became best of friends. Lin was more quiet than Sis but the two of them made a formidable pair.

The four kids together were always up for adventure and if they couldn't find it, it would find them!

There are more characters to come so stay with me...

Have the Dog, Define the Characters

                                                                                                                                                                                       The old adage to write about what you know went right out the window when I was told the kids needed to be different ethnicities. Talk about 'politically correct'! 

 Okay, I can do that. I'll just create the kids to be exactly like the kids I knew when I was growing up only have them look different.  They won't care.  They're about the same age, best friends and neighbors.  That'll do.

So I created the families. The Whites.  Dad George, mom Sarah and their kids Bud and Sis. George is a stockbroker.  The only one in the small village of Serenity.

 Sarah is a stay at home mom but helps out at the local library or art gallery when they find themselves shorthanded. She has her hands full with Bud and Sis. Especially Bud since he's the mischievous leader of the Gang of Four.

Sis is smarter than she acts.  She finds it easier to deal with Bud that way. Their best friends and neighbors are Lin Huang and Deon Brown. More about them in the next post as this saga continues.  I hope you'll come along for the ride!

Shedding Light on the Beginnings of Slobbers Story

 As you can see in a few previous posts, I had a few false starts upon discovering my old blog was still functional.  I guess I had the same experience with Slobbers story. But perseverance willed out. Three books have been published.

There is some truth  to the saying people come and go from your life for a reason.  I guess that's why I've been fortunate enough to meet some bona fide writers in my time.  I've become good friends with a few of them

What do friends do?  They talk.  Especially female friends. Naturally, in discussing books, I finally let it be know that I had this "spoof" locked away and was immediately told to get it written out.  Would they read it? Absolutely.

I had no clue where to begin so I just hen pecked away on the old computer, wrote a half manuscript and half outline. This was all the way back in 2018. The first friend I showed it to gave me some invaluable advice and, contrary to my nature, I actually took it. Advice like what people were and were not reading those days, whether it should be first person or third, that my characters must be diverse, etc. She also told me no one was reading spoofs of monster movies.  I wasn't sure I believed that but I decided to trust her.

What's the saying? Trust but verify?  So I showed it to another friend who promptly told me it would make a great kids story.

A kids story?  I felt lost again.  I even contacted a much younger friend who, too, was a Saint Bernard enthusiast and asked him if he'd like to collaborate.  I felt he could put the kid into the kids far better than I could.  We got started, but as happens, life intervened and that association was not to be.

I took a deep breath and told myself it was a good story and if I was going to have to stumble through it on my own, so be it. I sat back down at my computer and began again...

New Beginnings for an Old Lady

 I have a birthday coming up in a few weeks at which time I will begin a new decade and most likely my last.  Who knows. 

That being said, I've decided to revive this blog and invite you into the wild and wonderful life I've had since taking up writing couple of years ago at the ripe old age of 78.

For years I had harbored a story in my head that  formed when we were living in a time during which high school athletes were into performance enhancers,  our gardens were infested with snails, neighborhood kids were always up to mischief, a brewery brewmaster was a neighbor and we had a Saint Bernard.

How does all that, one day years and years later, become a series of children's adventure /mysteries with the Saint Bernard, Slobbers, doing the telling?  If you're curious, stick around, for I will be telling the tale. Dogwalk Musings still fits, in a sense, though those walks are long gone.  They are missed.  The dogs, however, are still with me in my head and my books.  I'd like to share the journey with you.

The Good Old Days and Writing About Them

 It is always gratifying to me, as a writer, to see readers from other countries post pictures of my books  on social media showing where they have been discovered.

As much as I want success for my Saint Bernard hero, his pals and his human counterparts, I find myself wondering if at some point we might be "canceled". Probably not, since I am an unknown except to the owners of Saint Bernards I've been cultivating, but still...

The reason I wonder is because the basics of my stories, geared to the seven to twelve crowd, is a reflection of the values with which I grew up.  Girls were girls, boys were boys.  There were Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and they didn't intermingle.

Kids were allowed to play freely because their parents trusted them.  Parents also couldn't imagine being turned in to social services for having allowed their kids to do so. Heck, I don't even think there was anything known as "social services" in those days!

I'll keep this post short and to the point.  Otherwise I could write a book about the differences between the ages.  I just remember when my Mom was getting up in years she'd so often say, "I lived in the good old days." It wasn't meant to be a cliche.  It was a statement of fact. Now I find myself saying the same thing.