by Jenna Kernan
Writing romance is such a glamorous business. I thought I’d give my fans a little vignette of how alluring my life can be.
This photo is of me, in one of my glamorous oversized flannel shirts, working on a story. You might notice that I have a bird on my arm. That’s Mango. She used to be Captain Mango, until she laid thirteen eggs and I had to concede that he was, in fact, a she. Now I call her, Mango, Buttercup or ‘Stop Chewing My Keyboard Wire!” depending on the situation.
She is suppose to sit on my chair or my shoulder, but recently has begun climbing down my arm to sit on my arm or, on one memorable occasion, to pop the return key off my keyboard. But usually, she just tries to encourage me to scratch her head, and I try to encourage her to take a nap.
In March, she decided that the area behind my keyboard would make a sung little nesting box. As you can see in the photo, she has made a fine little nest by chewing up my manuscript pages. Everyone’s a critic!
There is no Mr. Buttercup in my home, so she sat on her eggs for some time, in vain. The annoying part for me is that she is so quiet, and I am so distracted when writing, that I forget she is there until I try to use my mouse. She considers this a threat to her brood and so comes shooting out from behind my keyboard like a moray eel, screaming and lunging at my fingers as I scream and throw my weight into my wheeled chair to flee in the opposite direction.
Sometimes her tail crosses over my typing area, at which times I feel it is just to try to pin it to the keyboard with my fingers. She hates this game as much as I hate the ‘defend the mouse’ game she has invented, but turnabout is fair play.
She is currently chewing my stack of important emails into tiny little bits of confetti, including the one from Sybil asking me to write a guest blogger in June. I fear my moray eel is returning.
So when you wonder why it takes so darn long for a writer to finish a book, please recall the gremlin behind the keyboard.
When not defending my keyboard from attack, I’m hard at work on my next Western and awaiting the July RITA contest results. My first Christmas novella in the collection A WESTERN WINTER WONDERLAND is a finalist. Cheryl St John’s story, in the same anthology, is also a finalist. Two RITA finalists in one story, if that is not enough to make you run out and buy it, I don’t know what is! Excerpts and news on Mango can be found here.
Kogg]638[uii
Mango wrote that last line for you.
So, what does your pet do to get your attention?
I loved hearing about Mango, Jenna! What a hoot!
Hi Jenna,
And I thought I had distractions with my dog waiting for attention expectantly at my feet! I enjoyed all three stories in Western Winter Wonderland. Congrats on finalling in the Rita! If you win, will the statue be off-limits to Mango?
Kathryn
HAHAHAHA! Love it. Glad to see that I’m not alone in blaming typos on gremlins in the keyboard.
And, by the way, this Mango keeps popping up in my head when I read your post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mango_(Saturday_Night_Live)
Hi all~
To answer Katheryn’s question…nothing is off limits to Mango. She has full flight. The Rita might be safer with Cheryl.
Mango laid another egg since I wrote this post. She’s anxiously awaiting the unfertilized egg to hatch. But she keeps busy being a gremlin behind my keyboard.
The other day I stepped away from the keys (but not before pressing save) and came back to see the pitch I’d been working on for over an hour had been edited down to something brief like…yrwwrq.
Mango was sitting on her egg as if she’d never left her post, but I have evidence.
Really funny post.
What do my pets do to get my attention? Well, my Boxer burst out of the screen door today to chase the Golden Retriever next door. I went out to my car to look for my cell phone, and it hadn’t quite closed behind me. Of course, she had no collar on, because my dogs always pull each others’ collars off. A hilarious game. So I had to carry her 75 lb. butt back to my house. The extremely overweight Pug had followed of course, but she got tired and sat down in the street. So I get the boxer safely into the house, and am going back to get the chubby Pug, when my son opens up the screen door to see what’s going on. Out Murphy goes again, so I kick off my slippers and chase her down the street, and drag her home again.
Thank God she didn’t bite the dog. She’s not the biting type, more of a mother hen, but she was so hyper…you never know. Plus, she looks scary. I was on the verge of a heart attack by the time everyone was back in the house where they belong.
And I still can’t find my cell phone.
Devon – please forgive me for laughing at your predicament. I can relate, though. I have two dogs who will chase anything – there are no squirrels, cats, birds, or other stray animals in our yard. Not live ones, at least. Luckily there’s a fence fully around our yard, or I think I’d be chasing the pups into the next county on a regular basis.
Jenna – be more worried if you come back and your document says, “I know it’s your fault my eggs don’t hatch!”
I dread to think what I looked like running down the street, shouting her name. And of course I felt like an idiot, for not double checking the door in the first place.
My next pet will be a turtle.
Devon–You sound like you have enough on your hands.
Gwen, if I ever find that Mango is writing to me, instead of over my documents, I’m done with pets. An animal that can talk is freaky enough and I don’t think it is my fault that her eggs don’t hatch, since I’m not capable of fertilizing them. She’s still have two if she were smart enough not to nest on an inclining board…she isn’t!
Jenna – LOL! That’s too funny.
Doesn’t it make you wonder though? ::cue Twilight Zone music::