Random thought: Best arrest of my career? Busting the devil for possession. (Sorry)

Welcome back, and for those of you new to my bi-weekly adventure, welcome aboard. Speaking of the new folks, I owe an apology to my regular followers. In an attempt to add all my new subscribers to the mix, I accidentally sent out a welcome message to my regulars. That was the bad news. On the plus side, it included a little bonus book that all the newbies get. So much for my mastery of technology.

Enough babbling. Here’s the Story of the Week. The prompt came courtesy of Michelle Morongo, all the way from somewhere in Texas. Thanks, Michelle.

Finding Humanity in the Animal Kingdom

Like the United Nations, members of the Animal Congress debated almost everything.

“Frogs are slimy,” said the cobra.

“And snakes are creepy,” the frog retorted.

“Enough with the barbs,” the porcupine said.

“Really clever,” the sloth added. “I’m slow but even I know only the lowest life forms resort to puns.”

“Why are you dragging us into this?” the amoeba objected.

“I’m talking about humans. They’re simple, but at least the smart ones steal our animal names.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Yeah? Tell that to Wolf Blitzer…Tiger Woods…Sheryl Crowe…”

“OK! Point made!”

And with that, the dysfunctional congress finally reached consensus.

Prompt: Frogs & Snakes

NOVEL NEWS & NOTES…

Since attacking all of the latest notes from my editor, I’ve been very happy with the way my debut novel, Questionable Characters, is shaping up. I can definitely see where her suggestions have made this latest draft stronger. I had one major bit of a timeline shift. To do it, I needed to invent a little James Bond move where my hero got sneaky (always a good thing). That led to him being able to see something the antagonist was up to (as opposed to the earlier version where only the reader knew what the antagonist did). The editor has really focused me on keeping the protagonist front and center. This fix really helped with that.

Speaking of the hero (known by you civilians as the “protagonist”), up to this point, his last name was Haskett. After asking you to weigh in on a possible name change, you all agreed with my proposed name change to Hackett, hence his new name. Wonder if I have to go to the DMV to make that official. Thanks, Mikey, for the original suggestion. It was a good one.

Scotty out