Page 2 of Death on Gallows Path

Earlier today, at the café over pastries after yoga class, I tried the excuse that it was mean to leave Murphy alone, since he was staying at my house while Teague was at his conference.

Okay, it wasn’t because of the conference. Murphy stayed at my house most of the time. So did Teague.

Nothing official.

Clara had looked at me with her clear, wide eyes and said, “Give him a treat and a toy, he curls up on his bed, and is happy as a clam.”

Whoops. She’d cared for Murphy more than I had before I gave up pretending Teague and I weren’t heading into a serious relationship.

Neither yoga nor pastries helped me on the writing front, either, which was why I was sitting at my desk, staring out the window instead of writing a young adult sci-fi/fantasy.

Or is it fantasy/alternate universe? Because there’s not a lot of science. Although I think of fantasy as creatures such as werewolves or mermen or— Anyway, my story doesn’t include those, though it’s not exactly what you’d expect to encounter in real life.

Writing this was a challenge from my great-aunt. Kit’s made her living as an author for decades, which is a much smaller demographic group than most people expect.

I like this story. Like it a lot. But I’ve been sidetracked by the question of what the story is. You need to know that to find readers, because — oddly — most readers won’t take a risk on a book described as it’s not exactly what you’d expect to encounter in your real life and the author likes it a lot.

So, the author, along with writing a book, must determine the perfect genre/subgenre/sub-subgenre and three to seven keywords from a list that never includes anything remotely appropriate, which is still supposed to help readers who would like your book find your book.

Write the thing and worry about that later.

That was Kit’s voice.

Not because she was with me in my home office in Haines Tavern, Kentucky, but because she was in my head, wherever I go.

Get the words down. You’re making excuses to put off writing.

Am not.

I’m thinking about my dog’s need for structure and discipline.

Also thinking about books.

They went together. Really.

CHAPTER TWO

My dog, Gracie, is a rough collie, the breed with the big coat and long, pointy nose. Those of a certain generation — or any generation familiar with old TV reruns — will say, Lassie.

I gusted out a sigh that set Gracie’s ears twitching.

Lassie Syndrome sets expectations for Gracie of dignity, beauty, calm, courage, and the ability to warn everyone that Timmy’s in the well.

I think she’s beautiful. Otherwise . . . Perhaps to avoid thinking about those other qualities, I reminded myself that Lassie Syndrome pre-dates Lassie.

It started with a real dog named Lad, the subject of fictionalized stories that writer and Lad-owner Albert Payson Terhune started publishing in 1915, then compiled into a sort of novel in 1919.

I read the book as a girl, during the stage when I ingested copious books on dogs and horses. Misty of Chincoteague, Big Red, Black Beauty, The Black Stallion, and of course, Lassie Come Home.

Even stripping away the fictional aspects and Terhune’s early Twentieth Century lens, Lad was quite a dog. Loyal, smart, and with a moral and ethical code lacking in many humans.

And, yes, he was a collie.

Then, along came Lassie.

She arrived in the 1938 book Lassie Come Home, set in England. Nothing would stop her noble heart’s determination to reunite with her boy.

Okay, I’m getting a little sniffly. (Which is why Bambi, Old Yeller, and The Yearling were not among my childhood reads, thanks to my mother’s accurate assessment of my tolerance for tragedy.)