This a note from the blurry edged duo, author and main character, to my writer/artist compeers:
It gets a little pissy towards the end of a production like one’s first novel, when reading for escape pleasure happens to highlight one’s own character names. For me it's happened not only with my confusion over the lead. (See letter to FF.) I also in the last few weeks before the book's release came upon one of the names and some similar characteristics of another. Those were too key to my story to change so I overlooked them, settling for one minor tweak in a home description. Then, I was right down to the final read-through and in another chance read from the library, I came upon a third character’s name. Now this one, Spike, had come to me out of nowhere and was, I thought, a perfect thrust to the sort of Buying Team boss in the ‘but who could’ve predicted the fire’ chapter. I changed her name simply because it was beginning to bug me. When I also found almost an identical sentence to one of Tawanda’s in a nonfiction book by a well-known author, I decided to make a wide birth around the library during this final stint. It sucked (though in suckiness I admit this is pretty far down on any scale of bothers) to find names and phrases pop up 'out there' when I know I had never read those books before, and my own similar phrases came rough drafted years back. I’m just mentioning, in case any of you writers have come across this, here’s to waving a “howdy” to the collective unconscious as it sails by, and never mind the sniggler in our head that tries to stir things up.