Changes in publishing and letting go while writing

 I have been living with Duffy Barkley in my head since my own sons were children playing on the beach and in the redwood forest with me, and I would tell them stories, based in part upon the places we found ourselves, so the world Duffy finds himself in, shares many details with the Redwood Coast where I raised my sons, and the Northwest Corner of Wyoming where my grandfather, my mom, and I all grew up.  But it also has a lot of details from out lives, blended with real and imaginary things from the books, movies and news of out time.  In short, when my Mom read my fiction, and told me that she could find me on every page, I was only surprised until I thought about it.

I realize there are only so many plots in the world, and it is how we take in the world around us, take it apart, mix it up and give it our own special twist that makes each storyteller still have something only we can share because only we have experienced our unique life.

So in Duffy's world, you can see the fact that I work with handicapped children and the fact that I love being out in nature far more than being in a city, and that I believe there is strength and joy in diversity.  The times have changed since I started telling these stories.   Even the way I write them and share them has evolved. My first manuscript was written on a typewriter, then when I got a computer, scanned page by page into it. Then I had to go through and change everything the scanner had misread, like g's turned into s, or worse.

Then I edited once on screen and printed it out and read it out loud to my husband and both sons, who were in Jr. high by then but went on long car trips with us when they were a captive audience.

Duffy's "first printing" and the "books" I wrote in grade school

While I read, I penned in changes and additions and corrections and then had to fix it on my computer, which by the way was still not online, then print out a copy and take it to the office supply store and have 4 copies printed (which cost over $100 dollars) and then mailed those around to editors and agents, paying postage and waiting months each time.

 When things finally started to change and books could be attached as a pdf file and sent with an email, it was a great relief for my dwindling savings and when I discovered createspace and print-on-demand I was thrilled and terrified.  Could publishing this way ever make sense?  Anyway, I could rough out a cover and get a proof copy from them and see my story as an actual book, for about $7, way less than the stack of loos photocopied pages.

The first proof copy

Even since I did print that novel in 2010, things keep changing, giving both authors and readers more options as time moves quickly in the book world now.  Kindle and Nook readers seemed incredible with their replica of the printed page at first, and now have kept evolving to come in color and interactive, have kept changing what can be done.  I'm slowly evolving and learning some of the new tricks like actually getting my hand drawn map into pic monkey and adding color, but there is so much more to learn, and the skills of other artists and authors and editors keep it exciting.

The most exciting thing of all to me though, is that once my books started finding readers, I had to realize they were not just mine anymore.  I might have given them to the world, but each reader adds their own interpretation, and takes away different things.  If I write that someone is in a house and I'm seeing a cabin, I can't always know how each reader will visualize the house unless I have been really specific, do they see a plank house, a trailer, an apartment?  I don't control Duffy and friends anymore, now they have slipped into the world as surely as my sons have done.

Princess SeaBee and Boo

When ideas are offered as gifts

I don't know why I didn't think of asking you this before. It's a question that has really bothered me but . . . sometimes the brain overlooks the obvious.  It is a question that has to do with talking about your writing as it is a work in progress, and having other people, either in person or on line, offer you suggestions and ideas which feel perfect.

Then when you use the idea and flesh it out in your story, do you really own it?

Anyway, while my two boys were in grade school, playing youth sport soccer we'd spend a lot of time at the park and to pass the time with the one who wasn't practicing at that time, I'd tell stories and they'd add challenging ideas and a few years later they had developed into my first NaNoWriMo Novel which I published through createspace and kindle. 

But in one of those soccer side, story sessions one of their friends was there listening, and got really into it, and told me to use a character he made up. She was perfect and fit so well and I drilled him on wether he had seen her in a game or book or movie and he swore he made her up just then. Well it was five years later when I took his basic framework and used her as a minor character, but her name was perfect and she seemed so well imagined, I was always afraid he'd stollen her from somewhere. So has anyone heard of

Miskva, Guardian of the singing trees of belle island, who is a seer of prophecy and riddles in a giant but broken pyramid that came into the world as it was being created.

Any manga creation or TV show come to mind, a game or movie or comic book? I'm pretty sure it's a case of can't be too similar the way I created her story from the bare outline above but still I'm curious.  I even had people run her through plagiarism testers and they came back clean, that it hadn't been used in any book - which of course shows how many people have read Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog, because she was used in both my Duffy Books and they are out there.

 I'm remembering this kid was into Star Wars but wasn't allowed to read Tolkien due to parent's religion and ideas about wizards being evil. He loved some card collecting game but it wasn't Pokemon because that also was taboo. He was home schooled so the kids only knew him through soccer and we've lost touch or I'd ask him again

You know I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt using ideas from the NaNoWriMo Website challenge thread too, like it is somehow wrong even though those challenges are put up with the intent that people would use them, but I've incorporated a baby dragon who gets sick in water and loves baths and is named Fred. That was on the nano site forums dare thread, telling anyone who thought they could, to incorporate him into the story, but I don't even know who suggested it, to thank them in my notes.