Evil Editor's Blog, page 43

Face-Lift 1380

Guess the Plot

Hidden Identities

1. Emma White and Veronica Black hate each other, even though they don't know each other's identities, or even their own identities. Maybe it has something to do with their last names.

2. Boy-girl twins, separated at birth, now swingin' YAers, chance-meet at a rave. #Eewww.

3. Jude is in Witness Protection, but his cover keeps getting blown, forcing a change in place, name, and life. At his fourth home this month he realizes that wherever he moves, there is always a young girl with red hair next door.

4. Assistant librarian Harriet has hyperthymesia; she forgets nothing . . . until the day she loses her way walking the five blocks to work. When she finally gets there, homicide detective Dan Bruno is waiting. He’s investigating chief librarian Robison’s murder and needs the library identity records. Harriet disappears into the subbasement and gets lost again. Will her memory return in time to solve Robison’s murder?

5. Everly Smythe's multiple personality disorder gets a little out of hand when s/he discovers sixteen new identities have taken up residence, and they have soap-opera-esque relationships with each other.


Original Version

Dear Agent,

Hidden Identities never stay hidden for long.

There are secrets waiting to be revealed connected with two teenage girls in a small beach town of Sliver Den in sunny southern California. Emma White and Veronica Black never liked each other from the beginning. Emma has been crushing on Nick Storm, for as long she can remember. [So when Emma's archnemesis] Veronica [Black] had befriended Emma, only to betray her from behind and in turn, [now] Emma avoids her at all costs. [If Veronica and Emma never liked each other, why would Emma accept Veronica's attempt to befriend her?] Her archnemesis has stolen him [puts the moves on Nick] from her and claimed [claims him] Nick as her boyfriend. Emma must reveal her feelings for her long-time crush [Nick] before it’s too late. [If V has successfully stolen him, it's already too late.]

What Emma and Veronica don’t know is that they are natural born enemies in their world of living among angels and demons. [Not clear what that means.] They notice the weird occurrences that have been happening to them. Emma can foresee the future with her dreams and her visions, and Veronica hears voices in her head and she does unspeakable things that no human would ever dare to do. [For example?]

The closer they are to finding out their identities, the sooner they realize that they are more connected than they think. Veronica will get her revenge [She stole Emma's crush. Isn't it Emma who would  want revenge?] and Emma will have to find a way to stop her. [If you declare that Veronica will get her revenge, you probably shouldn't suggest that there's a way to stop her.] It’s only a matter of a time until they find out the answers to who they truly are... [What will happen when they find out who they truly are? I think we need to know that.]

LOVE, REVENGE, and HOPE: HIDDEN IDENTITIES, complete at 93,000 words, is a young adult paranormal romance that follows the journey of these two teenage girls. I think it will appeal to readers to fans of THE MORTAL INSTRUMENT SERIES by Cassandra Clare and HUSH, HUSH SERIES by Becca Fitzpatrick. This is a novel with series potential.

I graduated from University of Redlands with a B.A in Creative Writing. I am a member of O.C Writers group and I am involved with SCWA. My works will be written under my pen name, Jasmine Bell. 

Sincerely,


Notes

I assume LOVE, REVENGE, and HOPE is the series title, and HIDDEN IDENTITIES  is this book's title? If the whole thing is the book's title, you need to rethink that.

Somehow I totally lose interest in whether Emma and Nick get together once it's revealed that angels and demons are running around. Maybe it's better not to tell me they're at the beach and then switch the setting to hell.

What are their identities? Are they angels? Demons? Is everyone else an angel or demon? How can they not know their identities? Are they in some alternate universe even though they believe they're in Sliver Den, California?

Start over. Paragraph 1: Who's the main character, what does she want, what's her current situation? The answers could be Emma White, Nick Storm, she's cluelessly living in a town populated by angels and demons and Nick is involved with that bitch Veronica.

Paragraph 2: What's Emma's plan? Just to win Nick away from Veronica, or is she consciously trying to find out her identity? Why does she think Emma White, teenager, isn't her true identity? Because her dreams come true? What goes wrong in her attempt to reach her goal?

P3: What's at stake? Their lives? The town? The world? What decision must Emma make that couls lead to success or failure in reaching her goal?

Naming them White and Black is not a good idea. Especially if Ms. White is an angel and Ms. Black is a demon, but I'd stay away from it no matter what. And Sliver Den isn't the greatest name for a beach town. Though it's better than Slaver Den.

Fake Plots Needed

A new title in the query queue needs your amusing fake plots.

http://evileditor.blogspot.com/p/quer...

Why am I not posting comments?

Because I didn't know I was getting any. Which was pretty unlikely, but not impossible, since there've been so few queries and openings to comment on. I figured the blog was dying a slow death.

I went into my blogger page and clicked on comments and then clicked on needs moderation, and there are about 60 comments waiting. I never had to do this before; but I don't see anywhere where I've changed the settings. Comments used to come directly to me for moderation, rather than me having to go to them. Anyone know what I need to change to get back to that?

For now, I'll go through these comments that need moderation tomorrow morning, and any comment you made from May 20 on should at last appear. If your query appeared since May 20, you should soon have comments other than my own.

Face-Lift 1379

Guess the Plot

Covert Cinderella

1. When mice Hickory, Dickory and Doc overhear plans for murdering Prince Charming, they come up with a plan: Send some underling in his place, while having the poor girl from the Step family stand in as his lady love. If they can get the three drunk fairies who live under the stairs involved, they can't fail!
2. It's like the Cinderella story, except this time Cinderella is an enemy undercover operative who attends the ball to get information from the prince. Needless to say, they fall for each other.
3. What happened after the slipper fit? Cinderella became the princess and lived happily ever after? Well, yes, eventually, but first she had to exact revenge on her evil stepsisters by disguising herself as a church missionary and hounding them mercilessly.
4. Cinderella infiltrates the home for forgotten fairy tale characters and recruits Snow White, Rapunzel and Gretel for a MeToo rebellion against the brothers Grimm. 

Original Version
Dear AGENT,
I am seeking representation for my YA fantasy, Covert Cinderella. Complete at 85,000 words, this novel provides a covert twist on the classic fairy tale. [It's not the twist that's covert.] [I think Undercover Cinderella would be a cooler title.]
When Cinderella is recruited from the Grimmalds Academy of Espionage to [by] Sprice special forces, she is excited. [Sprice is not a name I would expect special forces to use. Is it a name from some version of the Cinderella story? The Disney version has such names as Tremaine, Charming, Drizella, Anastasia. You use Cinderella and Fairy Godmother, so why not other Cinderella names?] Also very green, she is prone to mistakes. On her first mission, Cinderella is sent [Sent] to attend a royal ball where she is told to try and flirt out an explanation [, Cinderella's first mission is to learn] from the prince of Illyria as to why his kingdom has suddenly started to [been recently] spend[ing] significant amounts of [so much] money. Nervous, Cinderella bumbles her words a few too many times. When the prince starts to look at her strangely, she is worried she might have [worries she's] blown the opp. [op] That is when Cinderella decides to leave suddenly and warn her fellow agents that their mission may be compromised.
Their leader, code name Fairy godmother, decides the team should wait to see what happens [await further developments]. The next morning, heralds pour into the town with an announcement. The news is surprising. It turns out that [seems] the prince was more smitten than suspicious and wants to find the mysterious and intriguing maiden from the night before. Thrilled at the prospect of having [being?] an agent on the inside, Cinderella is sent back [returns] to the castle to see what intel she can gather. After a few days, she learns that Illyria’s sudden wealth is due to a goose that lays golden eggs. The mission goes “afowl” though as Cinderella becomes torn between loyalty to her team and the feelings she is developing for the prince.
With a strong and capable heroine, Covert Cinderella is similar to [should appeal to readers who enjoyed] Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine and Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It combines the nostalgia of a familiar story with fresh humor and gives a more reasonable explanation as to [of] why a shoe that “fit perfectly” would fall off on the castle stairs. As per the submission guidelines, the first ## of pages are included below. Please let me know if you are interested in seeing the full manuscript.


Notes

That they have a golden egg-laying goose isn't really an answer to why they're spending a lot of money. The mission would be better worded as finding out where they're getting all the money they've been spending lately. 

What have they been spending all this money on, and why does Sprice special forces care? I assume Sprice and Illyria are on opposite sides of some issue or argument or war. In which case I would expect the mission of an undercover agent who infiltrates the castle to be more useful. Like stealing the source of the money. 

It seems, though I can't be sure, that you've removed the magical aspects of Cinderella, i.e the fairy godmother changing mice and a pumpkin into horses and a coach), so that the golden egg-laying goose seems to come out of nowhere. It's like you're watching a James Bond movie, and at the end he casts a spell that changes his martini into a flying saucer to escape the island that's about to blow up. In other words, you need several instances of stuff that's not based in reality, or none.

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured most recently here, would like feedback on the following version of the query:


Dear Mr. Evil Editor:

She-wolf is a nickname twenty-eight-year-old Verity Hearst earned as one of the world's highest paid assassins. She spends her free time adding to her Louboutin shoe collection and relaxing in bubble baths, but lives for the pleasure of the kill. When she's told she'll have a partner on her next assignment, taking out men at the head of a billion-dollar human and drug trafficking operation, a partner sounds like a good idea. Until she meets his ego.

Verity's new partner Cy looks like a Greek god, and frequently checks himself out in mirrors. He's the world's most elite assassin, and Verity's instincts mean nothing to him. When they're sent to a booby-trapped island to eliminate their final target--a psychopath with kidnapped children in cages--Cy insists they use his maps [do everything his way]. Too bad [But] Verity isn't sold on his version of strategically winging it. ["Winging it" seems to me like what you do when you have no specific strategy. Maybe: But Verity isn't sold on his "strategy" of simply winging it.]

Verity knows Cy's plan will [probably] get them killed. He refuses to back down, and prepares for their mission with whiskey cocktails and a power nap. She could break the rules and kill their target on her own, but she needs Cy's help fighting off the island's guards. She'd rather step on a landmine than reason with a reckless man-child, but she has little time to weigh her options. Their target is expecting them. Working with Cy is the only way Verity will survive, and she sure as hell isn't letting a dangerous pedophile get away.

KILLER IN HEELS in [is] a 70,000-word suspense novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration,


Notes

If you change "psychopath" to "pedophile" in P2, we'll know you're talking about the same person in P3.

Face-Lift 1378

Original Version

Dear sirs, 
I am writing to you because you have published authors that write Fantasy and Urban Fantasy.            In my 55,500[-]word fantasy novel, titled THE HOUSE AT THE CROSSROADS OF TIME, a young woman discovers that she is to be the Great Queen of Faerie.  As the story unfolds, she realizes that to become this “Great Queen”, she must kill her aunt, who had been the Queen of Faerie two-thousand years ago, and her aunt’s brother, who is presently [currently] the ruler of Faerie, and absorb their essences. [Two sentences is all we get to decide if your plot is worthy of our time?]            A graduate of the University of Redlands, with of [a] BA in Liberal Studies, I hold a CA Teaching Credential and am currently teaching elementary school.  My interests include Celtic Mythology, which reflects heavily in my first novel. [Your school, degree, and job aren't needed. That you teach a course in Celtic mythology would be more relevant than that it's one of your interests.]            Thank you for reading my query. 
Sincerely,


Notes

If this character with no name doesn't kill her nameless aunt and (uncle? father?), what will happen? The nameless ruler will continue to rule? Is he a good ruler or a bad ruler? If good, why not let him continue? If bad, maybe absorbing his essence isn't such a good idea.

Is your main character a human, Faerie, or combo? How young is she? Is she torn with regard to killing two "people"? Does she want to be queen? Either way, what's her plan? What goes wrong? What if she fails? 8 to 10 sentences should be enough to answer these questions, giving us a better idea of what happens in your book.

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1375 would like feedback on the following revision:



I am seeking representation for Hamilton Boggs, a 91,000 word YA fantasy novel that will appeal to fans of writers as diverse as Diana Wynne Jones, Philip Pullman, and Diane Duane.
When orphaned 13-year-old Hamilton Boggs comes home to find his apartment destroyed and his grandmother mortally wounded, he learns he is a young wizard with a price on his head. [Who tells him this? Does he just figure it out?] After barely escaping capture by the chimera Ruzgar, the right-hand monster of the mysterious Yellow King, Hamilton travels to Savannah, Georgia, one of the last neutral cities in the war-torn wizarding world. There, he is given refuge at Westley House, a southern manor converted into a school for magic for the refugee children pouring into the city.
But Savannah, Hamilton soon learns, is anything but safe. It is crawling with spies and mercenaries, all of them looking for a secretive monster and the terrible weapon it is said to possess. [Usually we don't think of monsters as having weapons other than their jaws and claws and laser vision and fire breath.] Befriended by Daisy Blue, the only daughter of the manor-turned-school’s scions, and Ozzie DeLillo, Savannah’s young magical genius, Hamilton begins to his own search for the monster, intent on doing what he can to fight the Yellow King and avenge the death of his grandmother. Aided by a series of unlikely allies (including a Bartleby Cat, a bad omen dealer, a Voodoo prince and the last king of the Dalwyn, a magical race banned and persecuted in previous centuries), Hamilton, Daisy and Ozzie work to find the monster before its weapon can fall into the wrong hands. 
Along the way, they unearth the duplicitous scheming of Savannah’s Mayor Wallace, discovering the lengths [how far] he will go to profit off the misfortune of the refugees. As asylum seekers continue to flood into the city, ghettoized in a camp on the outskirts of town and vilified by the mayor and his followers, Hamilton and his friends must race to secure the weapon before Wallace’s secret pact with the Yellow King can be concluded [Do they know about this secret pact? If so, it's not really secret. Also, if there's a pact, why isn't it "concluded"? They haven't signed the paperwork yet?] and the Savannah they know destroyed forever. [Why would the mayor of Savannah want Savannah destroyed forever? He's already the top dog in the city. What more does he want?]

Though originally from Boulder, Colorado, I currently live in Istanbul, Turkey, where I teach and do freelance writing and advertising work for several magazines and companies. I am a member of SCBWI. 

Notes
Hamilton's goal is to find the monster who has a secret weapon. Which is pretty much stated three times:
P3, S3: Hamilton begins his own search for the monster,
P3, S4: Hamilton, Daisy and Ozzie work to find the monster before its weapon can fall into the wrong hands
P4, S2: Hamilton and his friends must race to secure the weapon

The stakes, apparently, are that if they fail, the Savannah they know will be destroyed forever. Still not clear how Savannah is described as neutral if there's a war of sorts in progress there.
Characters mentioned in query: Hamilton, Daisy, Ozzie, Yellow King, Ruzgar, monster, grandmother, Mayor Wallace, Voodoo prince, Dalwyn King, bad omen dealer, Bartlelby cat. (Not to mention spies, mercenaries, refugees, and mayor's followers). Too many. We can do without the four unlikely allies, and if you start when Hamilton arrives in Savannah, we won't need grandma or Ruzgar.
How do these kids plan to get the monster's terrible weapon when all the spies and mercenaries in town can't do it? With their great magical powers? Hamilton has progressed from not even knowing he was a wizard to being a really powerful one pretty fast. In between their goal and what happens if they fail, we need to know their plan, what goes wrong, what they do about it. 
Is the monster working with the Yellow King, or are they on opposite sides? If you don't tell us how they're connected, maybe you should limit the query to one villain. We can assume the mayor and Yellow King are working together as one villain. But I'm not clear on what the two (or more) sides in this war are fighting for. 

Face-Lift 1377

No Need to Guess the Plot

Beast Weaver


Original Version
Dear Agent,
In all the nine kingdoms there is no place quite as safe and boring as the village of Ruthaven, no mythical creatures and no adventures to be had, the perfect place to hide a future king. [I'm not a stickler for sentences actually having to be sentences, but this being the first sentence, and the first impression, I'd go with: In all the nine kingdoms there is no place as safe and boring as the village of Ruthaven. With no mythical creatures and no adventures to be had, it's the perfect place to hide a future king.] Edmund Olivale has done his best to raise Lancel, the future king, alongside his daughter Kira, [Is Lancel Edmund's son? Stepson?] but when an assassin shows up at their front door the village is no longer a safe place. 
Edmund flees with his family to the eastern mountains, searching for an old friend. With the head and wings of an eagle combined with the torso of a man and the arms, legs, and tail of a lion, Edmond’s friend is a beast of his own creation. ["His" meaning Edmund's friend or Edmund?] [Sounds like a griffin, although a griffin doesn't have a human torso. Then again, what difference does it make what kind of torso it is? If he were smart he'd have given it a torso of something less vulnerable, like a rhinoceros or a dump truck.] Now Kira knows why her father taught her the beast language of Rarack. He’s a beast weaver and with a little practice, she can be one too. 
[English to Rarack Translator
Human : RarackLioness : RarackWeapon : RarackVillager : RarackCovfefe : Rarack
Typical Beast Conversation

Beast 1: Rarack rarack!
Beast 2: Rarack rarack rarack!
Beast 1: Rarack.]

Kira will need her new ability to help her brother earn his rightful place on the throne of Vanderhelm. The creatures she creates become increasingly valuable [vital?] when the children are separated from their father. [What role are the beasts playing? Scouts? Guides? Bodyguards?] With little knowledge of the nine kingdoms, they place their faith in a well-traveled fifteen-year-old boy named Varro to guide them from kingdom to kingdom as they try to build an army.
To win support they must embark on quests like defeating an army of vengeful battle-toads, gathering ingredients to cure a paralyzed king, and recovering a flightless groundhawk that serves as a kingdom’s mascot. Soon the three kids find themselves with an army of followers, but how can they best assassins that seem to pop out of every corner and how can they ever beat the warlock king who can turn himself into the most fearsome beast imaginable, a three-headed dragon? [They have no chance of success. The good news is you won't have to write a sequel.]
Beast Weaver is a middle-grade fantasy novel, clocking in at 60,000 words. [I haven't seen "clocking in at" used for anything other than time. "Coming in at" might be better, although you could say Beast Weaver is a 60,000-word middle-grade fantasy novel.] I chose you as a literary agent [I'm writing to you] because you have represented M.G. fantasy before. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 14.0px; font: 12.0px Georgia; color: #222222; -webkit-text-stroke: #222222; background-color: #ffffff} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 14.0px; font: 12.0px Times; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; min-height: 14.0px} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px; font: 18.0px Georgia; color: #222222; -webkit-text-stroke: #222222; background-color: #ffffff} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} span.s2 {font-kerning: none; color: #0000ff; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #0000ff} Unless there's a good reason for your future king's name to be so similar to Lancelot, change it.
Why is Edmund's son the future king? Who is the current king? Why and from whom did Lancel have to be hidden, and how come he's now free to travel everywhere recruiting an army instead of finding another hiding place? What enemy is Lancel's army going to fight, and why?
If you've got two beast weavers in your family, wouldn't it be better to create an army of beasts instead of recruiting a bunch of puny unreliable humans? 
Why would soldiers be willing to join an army led by kids, and if they are willing to do so, why weren't they willing a few weeks ago? Just because the kids rescued their mascot and stomped on some toads?
I think you need to rewrite the query in a way that answers some of my questions and doesn't inspire me to ask so many other ones. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Georgia; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Georgia; color: #222222; -webkit-text-stroke: #222222} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} span.s2 {font-kerning: none; color: #cc0000; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #cc0000} span.s3 {font-kerning: none; color: #0000ff; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #0000ff}

It might help to focus the query on one character.
Even when I offer Guess the Plot, they're all written by me and the same two or three other people. Maybe no one comes to this blog anymore?p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 14.0px; font: 12.0px Georgia; color: #222222; -webkit-text-stroke: #222222; background-color: #ffffff} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 14.0px; font: 12.0px Times; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; min-height: 14.0px} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 21.0px; font: 18.0px Georgia; color: #222222; -webkit-text-stroke: #222222; background-color: #ffffff} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} span.s2 {font-kerning: none; color: #0000ff; -webkit-text-stroke: 0px #0000ff}

Face-Lift 1376

Guess the Plot


The Power of Dusk

1. The power of dusk is a curious thing / Make a one man weep, make another man sing. 

2. 17-year-old Morgan forms a bond of friendship with Jonathan and his sister Ava. But he soon wonders if the siblings have anything to do with the gruesome murders that have been committed lately . . . at dusk.
3. After Carrie Silver's fiancé departs in his sailboat on the short trip  to the mainland, he mysteriously disappears. Three days later, Carrie sets out . . . at dusk . . . on a stolen sailboat with her little terrier, Fickle, to find him. 

4. They come out . . . at dusk . . . and terrorize the small town of Loganville. But are they werewolves or vampires? Or both? It's up to blind sheriff Paul Matthews to end the carnage.

5. Lulu never worries about daytime, but as the sun sets, and night approaches, a cold sweat shakes her body, for she knows this could be the night she dies. That's . . . the power of dusk.
6. Surgeon Gene McAdoo has never separated conjoined twins, but not only has he taken on the task, he's also planning to perform the operation outdoors . . . at dusk.



Original Version


I'm seeking the right agent to represent my manuscript THE POWER OF DUSK. The novel is New Adult – suspense with a word count of 85,459. Based on your varied interests, I believe you're the ideal fit for my manuscript. [Everyone has varied interests. Which specific interests are relevant to this book?]

THE POWER OF DUSK is the saga of MORGAN, a seventeen-year-old striving to escape life with his alcoholic and neglectful father in small-town Pennsylvania. [Seventeen is a good age for Young Adult books. New Adult books usually feature twenty-something MCs.] When Morgan must earn money to feed himself, he develops a friendship with AVA and JONATHAN. [After reading the first half of that sentence, I expect the second half to be something like . . . he takes a job at the local Exxon station. How does developing this friendship get Morgan money to feed himself?] As their bond deepens, Morgan receives the guidance and love absent from his life. [How old are these people giving him guidance?] Soon he learns the siblings have a secret. A dark secret he promises to keep. [What is the secret? Don't worry, this agent isn't going to reveal the secret to the world. She just wants to know whether the secret is they're vampires or they're sleeping together. Or both.] Meanwhile, the small town is on edge following a series of gruesome murders. [Is this the same small town where he was living with his neglectful alcoholic father? If I were trying to escape from my home life, I'd go farther than across town. Especially if the town I'm in is the scene of a recent series of gruesome unsolved murders.] A stranger from Ava['s] and Jonathan's past threatens danger. [Too vague.] When the threat becomes too great, Morgan must conquer his fears and alter his plans for the future. [Also vague.] But the consequences bring an extraordinary danger Morgan must defeat on his own to survive. [Still vague.]


Notes

We need to know what Morgan's goal is, how he plans to achieve it, what's stopping him, what he does about that. With specific information. Danger is threatened. The threat becomes too great. The danger becomes extraordinary. Who is the stranger, and why is he/she threatening our hero? Without specifics, we don't know what sets this book apart from other books.

New Beginning 1082

As I look back over a long life I must admit I miss my two Dobies, my show dogs, my dear companions, more than my kids. Of course I love my kids, but we’ve not been in contact for decades. Shit happens.
Don’t get me wrong I’d give each kid a lung or kidney if they needed a body part – but those two dogs, Spock and Sugar Bear, [I'd even give them my heart or my tail.] [Sugar Bear, obviously named after the 60s cartoon Bing Crosby-sounding spokesbear who convinced kids that Sugar Smacks would give them super strength, and Spock, obviously named after Spock.] well they gave my life meaning in a different way and they loved me as I loved them. [Unlike my kids who haven't sent me a Mothers Day card in decades, after I carried them in my womb for nine months. Ingrates.] Animals are different from kids. I don’t know why. [If fish could talk, they'd say, "Humans are different from fish. I don't know why.] It is what it is. 
Like my horses, but that is a different story. What is heaven? Will I have my boys back – those lovely dogs who made my life worth living when a marriage was busting apart? I had to say goodbye to each one – as they died, too young, big dogs don’t live long.
The joy, the funny sense of humor each had. So I remain grateful I had these lovely, whacko (at times) dogs that loved me as I loved them. [The end.] 
In the grand scheme of things what I hope for is . . . a decent, hardworking man who does crazy butt-dances while wiggling all over when I get home from the store, howls at the moon, pisses on fireplugs, and chases cats. Knowing how to make a good martini is a plus, but you can't have everything, can you?


Opening: Wilkins MacQueen.....Continuation: khazar-khum/jcwrites


Notes

Though Spock and Sugar Bear can never be replaced, I think you should adopt a couple new dogs.