I belong to a writers' group that meets once a week at the Copper Rock North, a coffee shop. We meet to present our fiction, usually short stories, for the others' critiques. Wade selects a topic each week and we try to work out a story following his suggestions. Once a year in November, we participate in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.
Every so often I kill off some fictional character. We have all committed murder on paper. Where I have drawn the line is killing a dog. Wade was the first to commit canine-cide, if that is a word. I told him it was terrible. Then Nikki joined in and even worse, she murdered a sweet, harmless family pet. Last week, Joe jumped in with a hit and run doggy death. Awful, I said.
Wade told Jen and me that we were the only two writers who had left dogs alone. Our assignment was to get it out of our systems. "It's holding you back," he said.
So after thinking about it for over a week, this morning, I did the deed. I wrote a short story wherein I killed off Puddles, a tiny dog my neighbor Linda refers to as a "drop kick mutt."
Wade was right. A writer should not avoid any topic. The story was funny. It's already gone out to face rejection by editors.
No matter my fictional proclivities I truly am a gentle person who has never hurt anyone. Seriously.
As another benefit of the exercise, you can no longer introduce me as "This is Wade. He kills dogs in his stories. Isn't that awful?"
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