Sunday, March 12, 2006


One writing friend of mine reckons all writers need a dog to add the necessary element of chaos to their life (what, not enough already?); another is trying to train up the perfect writing dog - one that will sit for long hours patiently during 'writing time', but always be ready to go for contemplative walks when needed. My own dog, Tally, is the very opposite of this as she wants to go for action walks the whole time and whines when she's not the centre of attention, so I was all set to replace her with this intelligent robotic guinea pig I found. It looked wonderful - can even find its way out of a maze - until I read on and saw that if you don't play with it, 'he becomes lonely and scared and he will go hiding in a dark place' (sic). Just like a writer, in fact.

So here instead is one of the best short stories featuring a dog (just to keep the theme), Anton Chekov's Lady and Lapdog, but my writing prompt for today is ... a dark place.

2 comments:

Myfanwy Collins said...

Look at Tally! What a sweet face.

Sarah Salway said...

I know. She couldn't really be replaced by a robotic guinea pig, could she?