Random thought: My problem with kleptomaniacs? They always take things literally!

If you’re here, that tells me you made it through Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, and whatever fake commercial holiday somebody made up for yesterday. Congrats! According to my calendar, today is National Cookie Day and National Sock Day. Do we really need two national days today? Let’s combine them and just have National Socklate Chip Cookie Day. Socks that smell like piping hot, fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies? That could almost motivate me to do my laundry!

OK. Enough with the madness. Let’s get to the Story of the Week. Our prompt comes to us from Eileen (et) Tichane. That could be her real name, but I’ve heard bluffs before, and this may be one. Either way, thanks, et!

      Teaching New Dogs Old Tricks

Grammy never worried about her mischievous grandchildren becoming thieves. They weren’t that clever. Whenever twins Parker and Riley snuck candy from her dish, they always left evidence.

One day, Grammy, hoping to teach them a lesson, heavily salted the candy. She later found pieces spit out in the sink.

Next visit, the kids asked for something healthy. Grammy, thrilled, suggested they all enjoy yogurt. Riley offered to serve it.

The kids suppressed grins as Grammy took a spoonful. “Yuck—it spoiled. I’ll get cookies to make up for it.”

When she returned to the kitchen, the kids shared high-fives.

Lesson learned.

Prompt: Hand in the Cookie Jar

Novel News & Notes:

I had another funny moment during this week’s writing adventure.

I was writing a scene with Blake (my undercover protagonist), and Ski (a homicide detective who is slowly becoming his unofficial partner). I pulled up the prior draft so I could paste the scene into my current draft, but guess what? Not only could I not locate the scene in the earlier draft, but I couldn’t even find a single mention of Ski. That’s when it hit me—he wasn’t in the original draft! That’s right. The character I’ve lived with over the past few months who has become such a huge part of the story, did not even exist in version #1. I gotta admit, it gave me quite a chuckle when I realized I was looking for someone not even the Missing Persons Unit could locate.

Just another glorious moment in storytelling.

You’re welcome!

Scotty out

P.S. Don’t forget: I’ll be at River House Books in Carmel this Sunday, Dec 8th from 12:30-2 p.m. Feel free to stop by. Hecklers welcome!