It’s so quiet in the house when the kids are at their dad’s for the weekend. I consider that prime writing time and I make the most of it. I’ve had some great weekends where I’ve knocked out over 8,000 words and I’ve had some crap weekends where I succumb to the lure of Netflix or stupidly convince myself I can write on the couch with Harry Potter on as “background noise.”

Right.

And then there are the days when I’m tapping away at the kitchen table, in my groove, cruising along and suddenly…a paw!

She’ll bat at my fingers, or get up and sharpen her face on the corner of my laptop, raining a floating cloud of fur down on the keyboard as I absently scratch her ears. And this furry little jerk…

He just walks right across the keyboard. Or he finds something he can deliberately swat off the table. He’s the one who makes things go bump in the other room, making it necessary for me to get up and investigate, completely derailing any train of thought.

Dogs have owners, they say. Cats have “staff.”

I think it’s clear who’s in charge here, and it isn’t me. I’ll show them. I’ll give my protagonist a dog. A really big dog.

At least I’ll be smirking as I clean out the litterbox.