Duck, duck, blurb!

Hello, everyone!

The topic of today’s blog post involves ducks, blurbs, and my husband’s unhelpfulness with both issues.  Do I have you thoroughly confused yet?  Excellent.  Let’s jump right in.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I love animals and have a six year old black Labrador retriever.  She’s a completely docile little girl that loves food, stuffed animals, and stealing my spot on the couch every time I get up to go in the kitchen for anything.  I’ll come back holding a bottle of water only to find her snuggled comfortably in the place I just vacated with an innocent look on her face.

“Oh, were you sitting here?  I had no idea you were coming back so soon.  My bad.  I guess you’ll just have to sit on the small loveseat.  Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

Do I yell at her and shoo her off the couch?  Hell no.  She knows I’m a pushover and she exploits my generosity at every turn.

Well, we went outside a few days ago for a walk.  Lo and behold, there was a female duck in our yard.  I love ducks.  When I was little, we took family vacations to Florida and I got to buy a loaf of bread and feed the ducks.  This was almost as exciting as actually going to Disneyworld.  Ducks are beautiful creatures, they quacked at me to feed them, happily gobbled up the bread, and I got to be ‘master of the birds’ by deciding which ones got a bite.

“No, you fat pig, you just had three chunks.  Share with the rest of them!”

Yes, I like to be in charge, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Anyway, I was thrilled at having a duck in my yard.  I understand that this is a wild duck and not a Florida duck that regularly gets fed by humans, so there was no illusion that it might waddle over and expect some wonderbread.  I kept the dog on her leash and we went on with our lives.

In case you need a visual, here is a picture (not taken by me!) of a female mallard:

The next day, I saw the same female duck along with her husband.  Hell, maybe he was just her boyfriend and they’re living in sin.  I’m not here to judge.  Let’s fast forward to this morning.  It’s Saturday…aka…the weekend.  I’m relaxing and not in the mood for a full blown walk, so I just took the dog out (with no leash) so she could take a quick pee and I could get a little fresh air.

I gave her a stern warning as I rubbed her belly, using a voice that meant business.

“I’m letting you outside with no leash.  There is a good chance the ducks will be in the yard.  Stay the hell away from my pet ducks or I’ll kill you.  Okay, that’s an empty threat.  If you scare away my ducks, I will NOT give you any cookies all day long.  It’s getting pretty serious, dude.  I mean it.  Go out, sniff air, go pee, and leave the ducks alone!”

Do you think she complied with my simple request?

Hell no!  She’s a dog.  She doesn’t speak English, and certainly doesn’t understand complex sentences.

So…we go outside and there’s a female duck in the yard.  It’s actually laying low and blended in with the yard.  The dumb dog walked right past my duck and kept on going.

But then her nose kicked in and she turned around to check out the wild creature that dared enter her territory.

Needless to say, I started screaming, the duck waddled away, the dog took a piss literally SIX FEET AWAY FROM THE DUCK, and then the whole circle started all over again with the duck waddling away, the dog following, and me screaming.

This whole fiasco ended with the duck in the middle of the street, the dog hunched down in fear not understanding my shouts of “LEAVE IT” when she was bred to HUNT BIRDS and just doing her damn job.

Clearly I could not just waltz back into the house.  If the duck got run over by a car, I cannot be responsible for that.

I herded the dog back into the house and chased the duck across the street into the neighbor’s yard.

Of course we’re not done there.  I stared out the window once back inside and saw the duck sitting on the edge of the yard staring forlornly at my house.  Evidently it lives here now.  Obviously, it waited five minutes, walked back into the middle of the street, and plopped its ass down just waiting to die.

Lovely.

I threw on some shoes, went back outside, and chased the duck into my yard.  Anyone out for a morning stroll would have gotten a nice eyeful of me wearing sweat pants, a jacket to cover the fact I had no bra on, hair completely uncombed and looking like a rat’s nest, wildly flailing my arms in order to get the duck ‘home.’

The duck was fed up with my bothering it by now, so it actually flew away when I tried shooing it out of the street.

Where did it go?  High over the houses, circled back around, and landed right in my yard where the whole episode began.

Now I can’t let my dog out without being on a leash, and I’m pretty sure this duck is just waiting for her man to get home so she can tell him the whole story.

“This psychotic lady who totally looked homeless started chasing me!  We need to shit all over her car for vengeance.”

“That sounds horrible, babe.  Was she alone?”

“Nah, she had a dog.  The beast behaved itself; it’s the lady that was a nutcase.”

Once I got back in the house for the last time, I told my husband of our wild adventure.

“There’s a duck in the yard.  It tried to escape, but I made it come back.”

His response?

“It’s not going to be there for long with you and the dog harassing it all the time.  You two dorks need to leave it alone.”

THE END…or is it?

No, not quite.  Since we’re on the topic of my husband, and one of the purposes of my newsletter/blog is to actually sell books because I’m a writer, let’s talk about authorly stuff too.

I’m about 75% done with my current novel.  Usually at this point in a story, I become obsessed with the blurb, aka ‘the synopsis,’ aka ‘let’s sum up an entire lengthy tale in a couple paragraphs and try not to freak out when this seemingly easy task becomes impossible.’

My husband and I were driving somewhere in the car and I was trying to work on the blurb.  By this point, I was on the fourth day of trying to figure the damn thing out and getting desperate.  I summarized the storyline for him and then threw out some blurb examples for his feedback.

Let me explain that my husband does not like to read.  He never has and never will.  Unless it’s a magazine with pictures, he’s not interested.  The man has never read one word of one book that I’ve written.

Is it annoying and heart-breaking?  No, not at all.  I’m constantly asking him questions regarding plot.  “What tools would a plumber have in his truck?”  “How do you make a car catch on fire?”  “What does it feel like for a guy when [insert sex thing here]?”

I also make him critique my covers and blurbs.  He usually dislikes both.  The man is honest to a fault and doesn’t sugar coat a damn thing.  So, it came as no surprise he got nit-picky when it came to my latest blurb.  What DID come as a total shock, was the fact that he decided to try and write the entire blurb himself.

This basically involved him throwing out one sentence and telling me to write it down.  Here you go:

“When Andi accepted the invitation for a friends’ night out, she had no idea of the sinister motives at play that would end up turning her life upside down.”

Um…what?  I waited for him to keep talking, but he was finished.  My response?

“Thank you, but that sucks!  It is a mystery?  A horror?  Can you be any more specific on what the actual fuck happens in the book?”

Clearly, ladies and gentlemen, I can’t let him ‘ghost write’ my blurbs.  After much staring at blank paper and crossing out words, this is what I’ve come up with:

“Andi Cartwright is intrigued when her best friend invites her to a concert and insists it is not a set-up.  Yes, she’ll be meeting Cara’s new boyfriend and his cousin, but it was made abundantly clear that this is not a double date.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Roman hits it off with Andi.  The normally antisocial man recognizes a kindred spirit, and can’t stay away from her no matter how hard he tries.

After a series of group outings including an escape room, family game night, and a food eating competition, it becomes apparent that all is not what it seems.

Once Roman’s true motive is revealed, will Andi be able to put her feelings aside and move on…or will she simply become another victim caught in a web of lies?

This is not your typical ‘boy-meets-girl’ story.  With plot twists around every corner and sinister intentions behind seemingly innocent actions, who can really be trusted?”

It is my strong hope that you like my synopsis better than the one my husband came up with.  If you prefer his to mine, please don’t tell me!

Basically the story is a suspenseful romantic hybrid.  I can’t give away too much in the blurb without spoiling the surprises.  I’m having fun writing the novel and that’s all that matters!  I have a few covers designed, but nothing solid yet, so I can’t do a cover reveal at this time.  Hopefully, I’ll get my ass in gear and have the book out soon.  If I give myself a deadline, I’ll just freak out from the stress.

That’s all we have for today.  Have a nice weekend and be kind to wildlife!

Grace

P.S. In case you were wondering, once we got back in the house I did NOT give my dog a cookie.  I’m being a hardass and following through with my ‘duck harassment = no dog treat’ threat.