Peek-a-boo! Woof!
Well, I’ve finally come up with an idea for a story that features a black dog spirit, and it came from the most unexpected place. You see, I was writing the latest chapter of Snake while listening to some Native American meditation music on YouTube. I paused to go and take my medication, and while I was taking it, I had epiphany: why not bring together the black dog spirit–normally a harbinger of death and occasionally an emissary of Hell–and meld it somehow with a Native American ceremony? It might require a lot of research, but the payoff would be enormous.
After I took my medication I went and filled out a sticky note, which I then put on my tackboard, bringing the new total to fifteen ideas on that tackboard. As you can tell, I’m going to be extremely busy when I’m done with Snake, but I finally figured out what I’m going to do with that idea for a story and I’m very happy with it.
Now, I know very little about Native American myths involving dogs. I know some of the Plain Indians equate the coyote with evil spirits and sometimes the Devil or King of Darkness. I’ve also heard of something called a “manitou”, but I think that’s some sort of shapeshifter. That’s all I really know, to tell you the truth. However one of my two majors is History, so we’re trained to do research. In addition, I’m at Ohio State, one of the biggest and most diverse schools in the country. More likely than not, we have a department that deals with Native American history and culture, and I’d be more than willing to ask them for help. And if I have to make a trip to our humungous library, all the better; I like to read, and I love that library (if you’ve seen it, you know why).
So before I go, I thought I’d embed the video that inspired me in this post. You should listen to it, and since it’s a long video, you should listen to it when you’re working on something and you need a little background music; you might find yourself inspired, or at the very least you’ll feel relaxed while you work. Enjoy.
Rami Ungar The Writer 