Loose Cannons is finished. It is a little story that almost wrote itself. The inspiration for the story came from overhearing a conversation between a husband and wife about their daughter's career choice. Essentially, the daughter was an exotic dancer. The man was pissed and the mother kept talking about the money. I wondered how many other couples had that same problem.
One might wonder why Cody wasn't a more central figure in the story. He showed up early and then only in the last chapter. In a way, I think I told his story rather succinctly in the email of the last chapter. It could have been told in a few chapters, but how many times is it necessary to read about a man calling his daughter a whore? Not that many.
Max's daughter, Barb, was taken from another real life example. I knew of a girl who was headed towards a bad future. She often made comments about using her body to get what she wanted. Whenever she was asked what she would do for money, she'd just say she'd sell her body. Her father stopped that kind of talk in much the same way as Max.
This is one of the first stories where the most popular character appeared to be the cat. I got more emails about the cat than any other character in the story. It is funny, but I often forget to include pets when I'm writing. I get so involved with the human characters that I fail to remember that people have pets and the pets do occupy an important place in people's lives.
In a way, my favorite character was Selena. I guess I like a character who isn't the prettiest girl of the bunch or a guy who isn't movie star handsome. I think that sometimes we forget that everyone is looking for love regardless of their appearance. In this story, Selena found it.
I think that Max and Marylou are interesting characters. Adversity didn't drive them apart, but pulled them closer together. Too often we see couples fall apart because of money problems. Rather than working together to solve them, they fight. I wish more couples would sit down and figure out how to address the real problems so that they can be solved rather than trying to assign blame for their problems.
Some people are going to think that the story ended abruptly. I don't feel that way. I mean, I could have spent a chapter describing the hand job Selena gave Guy. It would have been stroke material, but not a good story. Sometimes, things are best left in the reader's imagination. What was the first date for Selena and Guy like? I'm sure every reader has some idea of how it went.