Bound, Gagged, and Edited
By Jay Stoeckl, MAT, OFS, Jan. 16, 2026
I awoke this morning,
tied to a chair.
There was gorilla tape over my mouth.
In a dark room, only a single light shined into my eyes from a light hanging above.
Where was I?
What was happening to me?
I wanted to scream, but couldn’t.
“Get a hold of yourself,” I told myself. “You’ll be all right.“
I recalled it yesterday, before this nightmare started, (And it is amazing. I am alive right now to tell the tale!), I had announced to Jennifer,…
“Hey! I finished my book!“
It was a short-lived celebration.
After my announcement, the people of the bustling, small mountain village of Dogllani, Italy, we’re dancing in the streets, Chianti bottles in every hand, celebrating the completion of my book, Abbott and the Stone.
They were lighting firecrackers in the streets of Paris.
There were fireworks in Lake Placid, New York.
They were writing songs about me in Athens, Greece.
And our dogs at Dire Wolf Project headquarters all gave the victory howls half the night.
Then… it all came to an abrupt halt.
Italy and France became silent.
The music stopped in Athens.
Darkness enveloped the skies of upstate New York.
The dogs all ran for cover.
BECAUSE…
My Jennifer had gotten a hold of my draft!
Now, as you may recall from my previous emails, Jennifer told me it was now her turn, and that she would “rip it apart!”
She’s a very strict editor with very, Very, VERY high standards.
“Do your WORST!” I told her with an elevated pride.
Boy, did I live to regret those words!
The moment the worldwide celebrations came to a halt, I heard my wife in the next room, going over the first chapter…
- RRRRiiippp!!!
I could see the tatters of paper hitting the floor.
Rrrriiippp-Riip—tear—-Crumple!
My words and phrases came out in a fluster of paper particles, barely visible in the shards of sunlight, and toxic to breathe in.
Yeti, Barracuda, and I all scampered into the corner.
We huddle together until it was all over.
And that was just the first chapter!
But that was not good enough.
And that is where you found me this morning… bound, head to toe in ropes, heavy chains, and gorilla tape over my mouth.
I thought at first it was the FBI, or… Or… the KGB come to squeeze secrets out of me.
But no!
It was my wife!!
She had me tied up in the night to a wooden chair.
There was an interrogation table, there in front of me.
A 12 V battery sat at the base of the table.
Electrodes were attached to various parts of my body.
And there was… a… remote control!
My wife appeared out of the darkness.
She placed my laptop computer down in front of me, the screen open to Chapter 2.
“What is this run-on sentence doing here in the third paragraph?” She said with a menacing look and hit the big red button.
ZZZZAAAAPP!!
My body convulsed. “What do you mean?” I said.
(Wait… that’s wrong… I forgot I have gorilla tape over my mouth…)
RRRRiiiPP!!
(Half my facial hair went off with the tape.)
“What do you mean?” I said for real this time now that the tape was gone.
ZZZAPITY—ZAP—ZAP—ZAP!!
Oh! The emotional writer!
We all think that we put down our sacred words as if angels had dictated the words to us.
Yet, when the criticism begins, we just cannot believe our words and sentences aren’t perfect.
We are indeed at the editing stage now for Abbott and the Stone, a painful place to be when you’re the author.
When the criticism begins, it feels a little like pine needles being pressed underneath the fingernails.
Note: If you’ve ever submitted a book to me and had me assess your writing, you know what this is like!
But honestly, this is the necessary stage in the writing process.
When we are typing in our first draft.
(Or even if we’ve edited through a couple of times.)
We tend to push forward with the plot in the chapters as if life depends on it.
So, we inevitably miss stuff along the way.
When Jennifer and I composed the “Dr. LaBrea Evans Email Adventure,” we wrote it together.
She gave me the idea, and I begin writing the opening scene.
Then she would take my draft and add her own bits.
We were a perfect team, because there is so much of each of us in that story.
Some of the humorous ideas came from her and others came from me.
Jennifer makes me the best writer I can be.
Writing is never one person.
If I were to submit my works out in the world, there would be agents, publishing companies, and a myriad of editors who would go through my book, ripping and tearing like hungry lions in the Roman Colosseum.
In the end, our New York Times best seller arrives.
Autographed copies to follow…
You all may now recommence the worldwide celebrations.
And if you just can’t stand to wait any longer to read something… anything… about this amazing new mystery adventure coming out as soon as Jennifer finishes her editing, then go ahead and click below to get a sneak preview of this epic story’s plot.
https://direwolfproject.com/direwolf-publishing/coming-soon1/abbot-and-the-stone/
And if you love reading adventure stories as much as I love writing them, here’s a link to Amazon to get a copy of my first official adventure trilogy, the “Jacob Lake Series.”
https://www.amazon.com/Jacob-Lake-Trilogy-3-book-series/dp/B09FKQDZN6
Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.