Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Labradors

Writing metaphor: two dogs, shedding a little of the dark and the light

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Two sides to writing

It is Wednesday evening and for two days running I have not been writing on my #wip. Arggg! I even am a bit late on my blog. Not good.

So what is the status on Book 4 of Students of Jump you ask. Well, so far it is the longest book I’ve written, coming in at just a bit under 100,000 words.  Besides watching out for typos and diction errors, I’ve been adding a scene here and a scene there. My fabulous beta readers, friends and fellow writers Marcy Peska and L. A. Hilden have pointed out some issues and areas for expansion and those have been keeping me quite busy this month. (By the way, all my books are available at Smashwords, Amazon, Kobo and other fine ebook retailers.)

I have been busily writing and content editing. Until yesterday. Family stuff, a bit of Trivia Crack and dog maintenance. Let’s deviate off the path of wherever I was going and focus on dog maintenance a moment. I have two Labradors, lovely ladies. We call them the bookends because they tend to take positions right next to each other and either mirror each other or lay identically. Of course, one is a chocolate and the other a yellow so they are always opposites in one way. The yellow sheds year round, while the chocolate sheds twice a year.

Consider this: they are both Labrador retrievers, not quite a year apart in age and they live in the same air conditioned residence. Yet, when I brush Cagney, the yellow, I am left with enough hair to cover a whole other dog. Lacey, however, produces about half a tennis ball size of hair fluff, unless it is the start of spring or early fall when she drops considerably more. After an hour of brushing Cagney, I simply give out. If I keep brushing, she just keeps letting go of hair. I look her over, and other than looking sleeker, she’s still well favored in soft yellow hair.  Do you remember those dolls that had hair that you could pull out of the top of their heads or roll it back in by pressing a button at the center of her back? I had one of those, still do in a cedar trunk. Cagney is like that. No, no buttons, but it sure seems like there is an unlimited supply sprouting from her skin, perhaps brush activated.

Where am I going with this? Well, I will admit, I had no idea at first. But something came to mind, just now as a matter of fact. Here it is. Sometimes writing is like this. There are days when I am a Cagney and the keys just keep activating my word production and other days I wonder if I am trying to write in the wrong season. See Cagney is the lots of words day and Lacey is the drought day. And if you think about it, they are the same but opposite too. At the end of the day, something was written. Good/bad, a lot/a little, brutal/effortless, willingly/forced, ears back/ears forward, mouth open and panting/mouth clamped shut.  Writing is like having two dogs, same breed, but different.

It was a struggle, I know, but I found a connection. I challenge you to write about something that enters your mind and show how it is an metaphor for an activity you love. It need not be writing. But if you got to the bottom of this twisted doggy run, you are probably a writer, or at least a reader. Thank heaven you exist.

#writing
#creativity
#dogs

A post about the constancy of life and New Years

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Blossoms to hold onto.

It is that time of year again when everybody is writing
either their New Year resolutions or their accomplishments for the past year.
My thought is more along the lines of what is still present, still ongoing. So
here is my New Year list post.

  • My Labrador companion Cagney it turns out is not
    turning ten years old in a few months but in fact is going to be nine for
    another year. She and I are quite pleased about this turn of events now that
    she is over me aging her faster than she needs to. 
  • Cagney is still an excellent backwards tap dancer
    and gives a show every night when I measure out her evening meal. 
  •  I am still working on Book 4 of the Students of
    Jump series, which appears each day, (though I keep writing more scenes) to still
    have another 6K of words to get to the end. My book apparently has some Dr.
    Who Tardis qualities: the inside is larger than one would expect. 
  •  I am still disappointed with the movie version
    of The Hobbit. Where in heck did this
    white orc come from and since when was a dwarf the main character of a book
    titled The Hobbit? 
  •  Don’t get me started on Ender’s Game. But I still feel the same. Good news: no white orc.
  •  When building a house, everything takes longer
    than expected, still. Yet the roof is on, windows are in, garage doors are
    going in as I write and siding is going up. I remind myself daily that I could
    still be smoothing the concrete in the garage, and suddenly I feel as if we
    have been moving along quite swimmingly. 
  •  I am still getting older and expect to continue
    aging in the future 
  •  Teaching has been, is and will continue to be
    very hard work. Fortunately, students still have the capacity to learn despite
    their nearly all out effort to avoid this. I get updates a year or two after
    graduation that show that these kernels of learning take root and remain
    exponentially active for many years. As of this year, I began teaching my first
    grand-student. He is a much better student than his mother. Appears kernels
    imbed themselves in the genes. Who knew? 
  • Creativity still begets creativity. I am testing
    a theory: One can never run out of creativity. I’ll let you know the results,
    but you have to hang around. I won’t make the post until shortly before the
    end, and I plan to live a very long time. 
  •  There are in fact motor homes that one can be
    comfortable in. You just might not want to bring along two Labradors and two
    family members to test the comfort level. 
  •  You should still floss the teeth you want to
    keep. 
  •  Teenage girls notice teenage boys faster than
    the speed of light. Boys might be a little bit faster noting girls. Research is
    still coming in. 
  •  Having to pay bills teaches responsibility.
    Politeness, consideration, appreciation, timeliness, good work habits and
    sympathy are also benefits of this experience. Earning grades through one’s own
    personal effort teaches the same lessons. 
  •  A kind word still makes a difference worth
    noting and is therefore worth giving. 
  •  Still keeping company with the best of writer
    friends, Marcy Peska and L. A. Hilden. 
  •  Another year with the best man in my life and he
    assures me he is looking forward to another. 
  • The finest of daughters continues to grow into a
    woman who will one day also be my best friend. Though I don’t look forward to
    letting go of her girlhood, I am already reaching for her adult hand. 
  •  My daughter’s Labrador is still terrified of
    white floors of any material. She treats them like ice and skates on her curled
    black nails in a comic lack of control that promises to end with all four legs
    spread out like Bambi but never happens. It seems an appropriate phobia
    considering the time of year. 
  •  I expect to continue blogging for another year,
    and probably longer. 
  •  Based on my current writing projects, I see
    several years of writing ahead. Theory on creativity appears well supported.

#NewYears
#Creativity

When dogs make us look good, it’s because they are great

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Cagney looking good at making us look good.

There are days when my students make me look good.  They don’t know they are being observed or that I would love it if they were interested, busy on their assignments, immersed in learning and my principal is watching.  But there are days when all of them seem to be in sync with me and each other.  When that happens, they make me look, they make themselves look good.  But this post is actually not about my students. It is about my dogs.

My husband, daughter and I went to visit my in-laws for Thanksgiving, and we took the girls (our Labradors) with us.  And they made us look really good.  Put two big dogs with one little dog (the resident canine) in a small house with five people, two who are not too steady on their feet.  Just imagine it a minute, and you’ll understand why we always put the girls in the enclosed porch area.  My husband’s parents feel bad that the girls are out of the family society for the few days we are there. But we always fear that unexpected movement and an elderly person falling. However, this time, we let them talk us into allowing the girls to stay in the house just for the first few hours of our visit.

Cagney and Lacey never ended up in the enclosed porch.  They were tranquil (probably hoping we would not notice we forgot to put them out of the house.)  They moved slowly when slow people came near.  They sat along side a slender leg, looked up and backwards at the sitting senior and then lay their heads gently, still and calm to received kind pats.  They wagged considerately (only took out two leaves from the ivy by the door).

They made us look good.  They made themselves look good.  I don’t think they’ll be spending any time in the enclosed porch ever again.

#dogs #family

Things my dogs do that make me laugh

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Life with the ladies
  • Lacey (the chocolate) jerks up, ears alert and forward, nose twitching.  Cagney  (the blonde) runs through the kitchen with deep questioning growls.  How could she even know what the other one was doing in the living room.  And nothing was happening anywhere.
  • My husband is out and will be gone for several hours with no definite time of return.  Three minutes before he pulls into the driveway, my dogs start running from window to window, pushing the blinds aside in front of the sliding glass door and all around noisily announcing that he will be home soon.  They don’t stop until he has walked inside the door.  How will I know if there is going to be an earthquake if this is how they behave when he just pulls into town?
  • When Lacey wants to go out, she sits next to me, taps me with her paw, and when I look, she leaps straight into the air, flips both rear feet high up on one side and lands like a bucking bronco.  No matter how many times I ask if she has to go out, she will just sit and look at me like I am deranged.  Apparently, she does not believe in repeating herself.
  • Outside Cagney is the aggressive dog.  Inside Lacey takes control.  What did they do, draw up a contract?
  • Cagney runs around the backyard with her bottom tucked nearly beneath her, tail practically non-existent, a regular golden blur.  Lacey races the same track, legs flying out to her sides, tail out like a flag tail deer, ears flapping and beats Cagney to the door.  How?  She has so much wind drag she should be taking air and circling the yard.
  • When asked if she wants more water, Lacey gives me her paw.  Cagney shoves her nose in her water dish. If I ask Lacey again if she wants water, Cagney will put her nose in Lacey’s water dish.
  • Lacey sleeps with my daughter.  In the morning, if my husband or I try to let her out, she will not exit the bedroom until our daughter climbs out of bed and walks her into the hallway.
  • We know who pooped in the wrong place because one stays in one place and the other walks around leaving a trail.
  • Lacey will not use the back steps, even if it means taking a header every time she goes out and must leap from the doorway to the brick pathway below, avoiding the three steps down that would be so much safer.
  • My daughter’s bedroom is up a flight of thirteen steps.  It took Lacey six months before she learned to go down the stairs without ending up a ball of tumbled dog at the base.  Going up was no big deal, even exciting, but heading down in the morning, well, it was a good thing Cagney was willing to catch her at the bottom.
  • Cagney gets the greatest kick out of my husband. All he has to do is grab the back of the dining room chair and lean it toward him.  Cagney will spring to her feet and go into attack mode, a wide-mouthed grin spread across her long snout.  Don’t get me started with how she reacts if he pulls his t-shirt up to cover his face below the eyes.
  • When Cagney pretends my husband is a burglar (t-shirt collar pulled up to his eyes), Lacey will nip at Cagney’s feet until she agrees to play with her instead of him.

So what are your four-pawed friends doing to keep you content and entertained?