Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?

In honor of Halloween I thought I'd write a short mystery about a missing treat. Enjoy!

“Who stole the last cookie from the cookie jar,” I yelled upon discovering the Oreo cookie I’d been dreaming about all day was gone.

My husband looked up from where he was reading the newspaper.

“Was it you.” I stood, hands on hips, nodding pointedly at the glass of milk in front of him.

“Wasn’t me. I’d never get between you and your Oreos.”

“Hmph,” I replied turning back to the scene of the theft. I spied a small crumb on the corner of the counter, and another one on the floor. Aha! The thief left a trail for me to follow. Down the hall, past the bathroom and into the guest bedroom, I followed the crumbs.

“Grandma! You stole the cookie from the cookie jar.”

“Who me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Couldn’t be,” she said, pointing to the half-eaten blueberry muffin on the desk. “You know I don’t like cookies. They’re too sweet.”

“Then who?” She shrugged her shoulders and took a bite of her muffin.

Back to square one, I returned to the kitchen. Who else could have stolen my cookie? I picked up the jar and turned it over. A smear of red caught my eye. Finger paint!

I tiptoed to the den. I could hear my kids, three year old Jenna and seven year old Max, laughing. I peeked around the corner. Max had clearly been teaching Jenna how to finger paint. Briefly I noted he had remembered to spread out newspaper, so that the mess was easily erased. Was that worth my last Oreo though? I think not.

“I’m ho-ome,” I sang ala Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

“Mommy,” Jenna jumped up and ran to hug me. I held her back for a moment. “Let mommy take a look at you. I missed your pretty face today,” I said searching the corners of her mouth for tell-tale signs of chocolate. Nothing.

“You didn't steal mommy's cookie from the cookie jar, did you sweetie?”

Jenna leaned toward me, pushed my hair out of the way, and whispered into my ear. "Max took your cookie, mommy."

"Max took my cookie from the cookie jar?"

Max wiped his sleeve across his face, leaving a touch of blue paint on his cheek. "Whoma," he gulped. "Who me?"

"Yes you!"

In reply, my son smiled at me, all that was left of my Oreo spread across his teeth.

Breakthrough!

I had a breakthrough today. I realized that because I kept telling myself that I didn't want my main character to be too much like me, I was actually pushing her away from me and so couldn't get a grip on her. What I realized was because the book is in so many ways based on my own experiences with the travel industry, it would be impossible to separate myself and my experiences from her and her experiences. Trying to do so left only a vacuum and a very flat one-dimensional character.

So I began to think about what parts of my own backstory I could give her and what parts of my personality I would want to change and suddenly she started to become alive.

I don't know if this makes me a weaker author or not, but I now realize, for me at least, I can't create a character that doesn't have parts of me in it. I can't just pick a backstory I think sounds interesting and some character traits and create a main character who feels genuine. Maybe I could if the story line were completely seperate from my own life, but not when its somewhat based on my own experiences.

Abi's not complete yet. I still have to try writing her and see what happens and I need to do a new character sketch but I can feel her inside me for the first time.

I've never been pregnant but I'd hazard to say that it's like I can feel the first few kicks, the first glimmers of a living being inside of myself. And for the first time, I'm excited about her.

I've been excited about my plot. I've been excited about some of the secondary characters but I've never been excited about Abi before.

Now that I'm feeling some life from Abi, and after the positive phone call I had with the editor a few days ago, I'm feeling pretty good about this mystery novel of mine!

Some good news, some bad

So I had my very first "meeting" with a book editor on Saturday and it went much better than I expected. Oh, I did learn that my main character is totally unlikeable and a real bitch and that I need to rip apart the first chapter and re-write it, but neither of those criticisms were a total surprise to me.

Not a TOTAL surprise I said. I've been saying for awhile that I'm having a hard time getting my characterizations down pat, and I've known, or thought, that my main character was too flat. I didn't realize she was unlikeable. Which, perhaps, is better than flat. I mean she did elicit a response from the editor, right?

And while I knew the pacing was off in my first chapter and that perhaps there was not enough tension, I didn't realize the whole thing would need to be scrapped.

Apparently I introduced too many characters all at once, which I'm guessing may be a novice writer's mistake. Throw everyone in the mix all at once and see what happens. Apparently, that's not the way to do it. Ok, now I know.

Also, while big gala parties are fun in real life, they're not so much fun to read, at least that's what I was told. Do you agree? I kinda liked the description of my party. :(

Oh, there was a bunch of other things I've got to work on and fix and re-work on and re-fix, but I still came away from my meeting feeling pretty good.

First of all, the editor told me I should just finish writing the book before I even begin to do any of the edits, which takes a lot of pressure off. Of course, I kind of ignored the advice (just a teeny bit) and already made some edits because I want to submit my first 50 pages to a mentorship program and don't want to get back the same critique.

But the main reason I feel pretty good is that overall, this editor thought I had a lot of talent and had done a pretty good job for what is my very first attempt at writing a novel. She had some other nice things to say but I don't like to toot my own horn so I'll stop here.

But I will say its so nice to have a "real" person (i.e. someone in the book publishing business, and not, say, my dad) read some of my manuscript and have mostly good things to say about it. That just makes me want to keep writing!