How has it been six years since Eenie Meenie MyNemo passed away? It's been a blur, especially coming on the heels of me thinking I had gotten past the trauma of chemo and surgery, but the body holds that stuff in way too long unless you do some serious effort to purge it.
Sure, drawing pet portraits has always been an uplift for me, and hopefully for those whose departed pets I try and honor with my artwork.
But something was still stuck.
Creativity isn't just one facet of ourselves. It's part of our complete being, soul and spirit. I have always believed it doesn't come from within us so much as we allow it to flow through us, personalizing our expression of it as we are gifted to do so.
If anyone missed the newsletter I (finally!) sent out a week ago announcing that I published a New Thing, I hope this one didn't land in your spam folder and you get to see it.
Splashing around at low tide in the saltwater coves with Nemo near where I live, I always called the flats with around a foot of water "Dog Cove."
So, when I gave myself permission to unblock the creative muse this year, oh, my, didn't the tide come rolling in of pent up creativity.
If you missed last week's announcement, check out the newsletter at news.bigblackdogstudio.com and hopefully, you'd like to enjoy a positive, upbeat, sweet romance story this summer set in my fictionalized little world of Dog Cove, Florida.
Boating with Nemo was something I loved doing. While the Chris Craft I still enjoy isn't my main character's vessel (it's his friend's, whose story will be Book 3), a 28' 1967 Hatteras Express is what's featured in the cover above.
As fellow animal lovers, we try to prove to our rescued and adopted pets that not all humans suck or mistreat them, that they are worth revolving our entire worlds around without apology, and proving that even the most traumatized pup can be healed by the love we devote to them - a lifetime of love poured from our own broken hearts into the too-short years we have them.
Our rescues are our "found family," but many, many times we ourselves find healing when we let friends we've grown to trust into our hearts, making them the found family we as orphaned pups surviving in the world bond to as our chosen family.
That's Dylan's background in the first book of this new series that's clean because IYKYK that Miss Ryan don't write anything she'd feel awkward having her former Middle Schoolers with kids (and grandkids - holy moley, I must be old) of their own read.
Just wanted to share that bit with y'all in honor of Nemo's birthday today. And I still cry missing that Big Boy.
Okay, I'll be here working on Book 2 and remembering Eenie Meenie MyNemo. And while "Big Boy" who lives at the marina is a blond, my Big Black Dog surely still inspires me yet, and I know he sent itty bitty Jen here to help me heal.
