Cozy Critter Characters

At one of our critiques, I mentioned to my friends gathered around the table that I should start a third mystery series starring them, the Cozy Critters! Everybody liked that idea and started choosing names for themselves and cautioning me not to kill them off in my book.

“Well, why not?” Helen said. “You have two other series, surely you have time for a third!”

The truth is, a person can usually make time for what she wants to do. Have you ever heard or used the excuse, “I just don’t have time?”

Sure you do. I once said the same thing to a friend, a Cherokee artist who was teaching me to paint using oil colors.

“You have just as much time as I do,” he said. “We both have twenty-four hours every day.”

And that’s the thing! The older I grow, the more I’m aware of the swift passage of time and how I use it. Believe me, I am well aware that nothing can bring back years that have passed. I am also aware that there are things that must be done, perhaps things that we do not enjoy but are essential which take up a large hunk of the day. That makes the other hours even more precious.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom – Psalm 90:12

So, I’m thinking about a new series. First came Darcy and Flora living in Levi, Oklahoma. Then, just last November, along came Nettie Elizabeth Duncan McNeil (Ned) who moved from Atlanta to Ednalee, Oklahoma. So, how many critters should inhabit the pages of a third series? What should be their names? Where should they live? Should they be actual critiquers who gather as we Cozy Critters gather?

It’s cold this morning–seventeen degrees. Snow possibilities flurry about like rumors in the air. Is it a good day to create Cozy Critter characters? Hmmm.