In the Minds of Pets...

I enjoy having cats and dogs in my fiction -- fiction I write or that of others -- as long as they don't dominate most scenes. Only in my Mildred Mistletoe Christmas series is the story told from an animal's point of view. I believe the black cats I've owned have cast a spell on me.

When we started redoing the covers of the Jolie Gentil series, I realized that Jolie had taken care of and relied on her cat, Jazz, in every book. Jazz was her primary concern when moving into Aunt Madge's B&B at the Jersey shore (would she get along with the prune-eating dogs?). Jolie also worried that Jazz would feel overlooked after her marriage and growing family. No worries.

Thus, Jazz is featured on all the new Jolie Gentil covers. You could say she's the series glue.

Now I'm writing a new series, one that features an amateur family historian named Digger (birth name Kathy, but it was overtaken by events). Digger has a large dog named Bitsy, and her uncle Benjamin has an oversized cat that goes by Ragdoll.

The working title of the series is the Ancestral Sanctuary Series.

I'm paying more attention to where the pets are when action is underway. For example, Digger would be upset if she found a body, but so would the dog. And probably the cat, but cats won't act like anything matters.

I've been writing too slowly, so I've given myself two months to finish through first draft and one full revision. Gulp.
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