It all started back in 2000. That was the very first time I posted a story on one of the sites. It was fictionmania and I posted “The Wishing Blanket.” It was only three parts, though I intended it to be more (blue screen of death killed the fourth installment and I never could get it back again). The response was immediate and it was positive. For a person like me it was better than drugs and sex combined. I lived for praise, and, to be honest, I still do. People where telling me how great the story was, what a big and welcome departure it was from what was being offered back then, and how they couldn’t wait for more.
Soon after that I wrote How Life Can Change. It was vastly different from my first posting. It was dark and I sort of winged things, but people kept commenting and people kept asking me for more and I craved it.
I put out a few more stories in quick succession, trying to keep up with the demand of an audience that never did seem quite satisfied. As soon as one story ended, they wanted another. It was a treadmill that would never end.

Before long, I was scrambling for ideas. I couldn’t come up with the next story, the next character, the next scene. But I needed my fix. So I did something to remedy the situation that would make everyone happy.
The first story I wrote that plagiarized off of another was A Different Kind of Life. I took the story How Life Can Change and made a few tweaks, altered a few names, and took out things that didn’t really work that well.

I know what you are thinking, “Didn’t you write How Life Can Change?” The answer is yes, I did and the author I plagiarized from was myself.

I wanted to bring this up to authors who are struggling with ideas. After a while, you find yourself growing as an author. When I wrote How Life Can Change, though the response was good, it was only the best I could produce at the time. The thing is, I got better. I learned the craft of writing. I found what worked for me, what worked for audiences, and what I needed to cut off. If you look at the two stories, the concepts are quite the same – a boy winds up losing his genitals through forces outside his control. In HLCC it was a car accident. In DCOL it was cancer. Even the stages of grief are in their and are similar. But DCOL is vastly superior because I was a more seasoned writer. I knew better what I was doing. I knew what worked for me. I knew about outlining and character development, I knew the difference between then and than.
There is no shame in revisiting old story concepts when you realize that you are a better writer. Not only that, but you are also older, wiser (hopefully), and your perspective has changed. When I revisited HLCC I had 2 years of writing under my belt and could address my concept fresh. When I first started, a story like A Different Kind of Life was beyond my skills of writing. Now I am onto more complex story ideas, stories with better substance and nuance.

I would like to point out another story I plagiarized from. A long time ago I wrote the story “The Adoption of Little Orphan Danny.” Not many people realized that I revisited it, but I did. It goes under the title of Unreachable. It only goes to show you what seasoning and practice can do. The two stories have the same premise, but Unreachable may be the best work I ever penned. But at the time of writing Danny, I would have been unable to execute a tale such as Unreachable.

The reason for the post is not to toot my horn. It is to show others that those concepts you had when you first started writing might be worth revisiting. I don’t mean editing the same story, but writing something new and seeing how far you’ve come. Perhaps there was something that wasn’t executed the way you wanted and you couldn’t figure out why. Perhaps your skills weren’t honed the first time around and it’s time to give the concept another go around. I hope you will consider it.