Hello world of blogging. I’m back, I got distracted by Melissa Hart’s wonderful Humors Essay class and canning season. I’ve been canning since I was 9 years old and this is the first season where I was not able to easily get tomatoes from the Willamette Valley. Global warming? Dragons? All I know is I’m glad I know how to can and watch out inflation when you’re at the grocery story this winter.

Glaring Dragon/Dog

I knew I should be writing today, but life was busy. I really knew Jess' dragon was mad at me as his writer when I drove off for a walk instead. As I turned my car around a Schnauzer was glaring at me from my neighbors window.

Keep in mind my neighbor doesn't have a dog. But there he was staring right into my guilty writer's mind. Jess's dragon is a Giant Schnauzer. Some times in the writer's life characters take on a life of their own. Jess' dragon has done just that.

Now that you've met Jess and know that he has a dragon stuck in a Madrone tree. See what happens when he tries to show his younger cousin his dragon.

As Jess spoke his cousin looked back, hesitating, one leg through the wooden rail fence. Simon burst into laughter. “Some dragon. That’s not even a real dog.”
Jess giggled. His cousin was right. The mutt was lean and scruffy with matted steel blue hair. The mutt’s tuffs of long hair on his ears shook as the dog growled and shook his bag. “Let go.”
“Come on Grannies getting up. She’ll check on us.” Simon spoke.
“But my dragon?” Jess tugged at the bag again as the dog let go.
“That’s not a dragon. Come on. Hurry.”

Wolf Island: How I met Jess' Dragon

I first met Jess' Dragon at the House of Mystery, Oregon Vortex. Jess my hero in my YA Wolf Island (working title) came into my writing life in San Francisco. His dragon, my creation appeared after I visited the Oregon Vortex.

Sighing, Jess leaned back against the wall of the cabin and closed his eyes in relief. Suddenly he saw! Just a flicker but he saw it. A Dragon! A dragon trapped…No… growing out of the Madrone tree chained to the twisted planked shed.

Jess shook his head. No the dragon was the Madrone tree or was the tree the dragon? He opened his eyes, before him was the red hued Madrone tree. He blinked slowly then he saw it again a blue golden, long body Chinese dragon. The heavy thick chain was anchored by a large iron ball dangling in mid air. The dragon seemed to be hibernating, frozen in place and time.