My Dog Made Me Do It: A Guest Post by Emma Brodie

Can you rewrite the script to your life? Two former friends find themselves thrust into the comedy world in this journey of fate, romance and human connection. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Emma Brodie on writing Into the Blue.

An epic, decades-spanning love story that blazes through the worlds of acting and comedy and charts a connection unlike any other.

 

So much of what we do as writers is break the rules of time. We take fleeting moments and stretch them out across a page. We leapfrog over years with three strokes of the asterisk key. We reimagine the moments we don’t like, and we relive the ones we do.

Time does not move this way for my dog, Freddie.

Freddie loves a schedule. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a Capricorn or because he’s a dog—I never had a dog before Freddie. But for the last six years, he’s been our fluffy little task master. Bedtime, dinner time, walk time are his passion projects. Freddie will. Have. Order.

Writing makes no sense to Freddie. He doesn’t understand why the light-box I’m normally all too happy to look away from in order to pet him has suddenly made me unresponsive. But he hates it. He stares at me from the floor, emitting low whimpering sounds as if I’ve opened a brand-new tub of peanut butter and am slowly ladling it into the trash.

When we brought Freddie home, I was not prepared for the ways he would invade my heart. I had a cat in college, who would curl up on top of my head if I was having a bad dream. Now if I’m having a nightmare, it’s not uncommon for Freddie to appear beside me: as in, I’m about to miss my flight (always), and suddenly Freddie is there with me at security, tail wagging. Like he scampered from his own dream into mine to make sure I’m okay. 

When I’m writing, I also go into a bit of a trance. I’m not asleep, but I’m also not really awake; omniscience is strange. I’m both everywhere and nowhere, an invisible hand guiding my characters through their heady, all-consuming lives.

So imagine my surprise, when a little puppy flopped onto the page.

I had no intention of having a dog in Into the Blue. It wasn’t at all part of the plan. But when Bud arrived about halfway AJ and Noah first summer—cuddly, and sweet, a brand-new cavalier puppy—I instantly recognized her impish energy.

I looked down at Freddie, snoozing innocently beside me and wondered—if he can follow me into my nightmares, can follow me into my daydreams?

Over the course of Into the Blue, Bud constantly inserts herself. Once AJ insists Noah adopt her, the dog becomes a tether between them for the next thirteen years—a reminder of their summer together and living proof of their impact on each other. Whenever I had to write a difficult scene, Bud would usually find a way to make an appearance. Almost as if the dog was protecting me as much as my characters.

Freddie’s vocabulary is about a hundred words. He will never read this book, but I’m convinced he knows everything that happens in it. And if anyone ever asks me how Bud wound up getting cast in a TV show, the answer is simple.

My dog made me do it.