Writing Bad Guys

One loves one's literary characters and doesn't want anything bad to happen to them. I am really starting to like my Columbian Drug Lord, as I flesh him out. He sees himself as a businessman with "product" and all of these disasters descend on him--supposedly loyal employees skimming money, a missing laptop, employees swimming at the shallow end of the gene pool, bad luck, smart opponents, a greedy girlfriend, huge outlays of cash for his little submarine fleet, and this woman who has disappeared, a woman who has caused him so much grief, a woman who needs to be killed. But where the hell is she? He has a grudging respect for her, and she for him. Throughout the book they will be doing this dance. I love the way he cusses and views the world and what he really wants, which is to go home to Cartagena. But of course he can't. Life is complicated. For all of us.

Tonight I took the scraps of chicken (some pretty big scraps) and made a tasty chicken pot pie with homemade crust, again the food processor recipe which takes one minute and rolls out like a dream. I had chicken fat left over, and all the savory pan juices, garlicky and lemony and chickeny. I bought a few mushrooms, but the peas, carrots, celery and onion came from the fridge. There was one problem. So good we couldn't stop eating. Not a good thing. About a million calories. Thank the lord I didn't add any heavy cream as the Food Network recipe called for. The recipe made enough for three, so there is a lunch to die for in the fridge.

We have been very busy getting ready for the mystery conference, the New England Crime Bake, and I've done mail merges for labels, which I have to relearn every time I do them, although I hope that I'll remember at least enough to do the Christmas card labels. Doing the mail merge is NOT like riding a bicycle. You forget practically everything.

Late fall is here. The colors are mostly drab and there are more leaves on the ground than on the trees. I put the acorn squash seeds outside for the critters and fed the Highland Scottish cattle their fruit and veggie scraps. The little herd has increased by four new cows with tags in their ears. A second bull has been added. Everyone seems to be getting along. They liked the acorn squash skin and the grapefruit rind and the apple cores. Banana skins always popular. We have taken recycling to a new level.

More anon.

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