Dog Willing by Neil S. Plakcy

Author:Neil S. Plakcy
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: amateursleuth, amazonauthor, booklover, bookstagram, cozymystery, cleverdog, cutedogs, detective, doglovers, Dogmysteries, Dogwalking, funread, goldenretriever, goldenretrievermysteries, greatdogs, greatread, pedigree, pennsylvania, plakcy, puppies, readerswanted, smartdog, sniffouttheclues
Publisher: Samwise Books
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

13 – Painful Memories

Lili’s phone rang and she stepped ahead of Rochester and me to answer it, as we walked back to where we had parked. Rochester stopped to sniff a pile of typewritten pages that someone had tried to throw away, but just missed the trash can. I picked them up to complete the process when I noticed the heading “Food Truck Reverie.”

The pages were clean, so I folded them over again and stuck them in my pocket. Probably someone’s bad poetry, but I was interested in any information I could find about the trucks.

Rochester and I caught up as Lili spoke to her mother in Spanish, then ended the call with “Te amo, mamita. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Once again I was impressed with Lili’s ability to dart back and forth between languages, and the way her accent was perfect in each, even when she cited a Yiddish expression my great-aunts might have used.

We drove back home, and while the information was fresh in my mind, I tossed my jacket over a dining room chair and sat down at the table with my laptop to enter what Lili and I had learned into the spreadsheet. I added my impressions of the other vendors I had met, and what Lili had told me about Roly Ramirez and his run-in with Darlene Nowak.

By the time I finished, the spreadsheet still had big empty patches, but my plan was to return on Friday evening to the rally at Oxford Valley Mall and continue to collect information. I shut down the laptop and picked up my jacket to hang it in the downstairs closet. As I settled it on the hanger, I found the sheaf of papers I had tucked into my pocket.

I sat on the sofa with Rochester at my feet and began to read. It looked like the first five pages of a short story, which had been heavily marked up with a red pen. I thought the first line was pretty good. “A chill wind whipped through the orange and red leaves of the trees fringing the parking lot, swirling the smells of fresh pastry, rich stews and barbecued chicken wings.”

Next to it, someone had written, “Elmore Leonard says never start a story with the weather.”

Leonard was entitled to his opinion, I thought. But this sentence wasn’t really about the weather, though it mentioned the chill wind. It seemed more like a descriptive introduction.

I continued to read through the story. Whoever had marked it up had hated nearly everything, though he or she had been careful to back up every statement with some piece of evidence or expert testimony, sometimes quite bitter. “Why should I care what this guy is wearing when I don’t even know who he is?” was one of the more polite comments.

I’d never taught creative writing, but I had critiqued hundreds of college-level essays, and I had learned that you had to balance the amount of positive and negative messages you sent. I always tried to begin with a positive note, even if it was just “well-written” or “great introduction.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.