Close Hauled On the Edge of the Winds of Plagiarism

Gwen Brown
5/21/2016

As I have said enough times before that it is likely getting tiresome, I have been working on a story for years, perhaps fifteen of them. It’s been an off and on project and I’m not sure why I didn’t just sit down and finish it. Perhaps the answer is that the fates had not completed parts of it.

I hadn’t set out to copy anyone, and believe that when I have become aware that scenes in the story are similar to something I’ve read, I’ve changed it. However, there is that old saw, “there is nothing new under the Sun”, and I have considerable fallibilities.

Further, I have found myself having lapses in my memory and in my writing ability and must face that dementia might be setting in because, after all, I am 69. Disturbingly, I have been taking two drugs that studies now show may contribute to the premature onset of dementia, Trazadone, and Omeprazole. Accordingly, I have stopped or greatly reduced the dosages of said remedies and decided to try to live with the symptoms of sleeplessness with nightmares, and acid reflux.

So, in talking about this much touted story, it does have tg characters, one of them involuntary, and gay and lesbian and some, several gender aliens. In the story, I am imitating David Weber’s management of race, meaning that it does not matter one iota, nor does it matter if one is male, or female. All of that is a non-issue. I am trying to decide if the characters live past the 120 year Biblical model; methinks they do.

There is one set of chapters in the story where our protagonist makes friends with a large ape like character and he becomes her protector, but not like Honor Harrington’s Treecat. I do remember reading a book perhaps 50 years ago where something similar happened to the protagonist, but cannot remember the story, or author to see if I am too close to his work. I also remember a story, perhaps a Poul Anderson one, where the male members of the Space Navy wore skirts to official functions, and the women wore elaborate gowns. The reason for this was the skirts were simply easier to get on and off quickly. In some parts of the world neither men nor women wear pants, so this obsession with males wearing pants has been an abnormal obsession. For several years after my own transition, I did not wear nor own pants and became very angry if forced to wear them. I am sure that many t folk can understand that.

I’ll continue to think about the ways to avoid copying the work of others in a wrongful or illegal way, though in my reading over the years when I was young, I often noticed that various writers shared their devices quite often.