Behind the Novel: Author Dixie Dawn Miller Goode

Being this book was too harsh and emotional and real for us to finish. My mom thought to contact the author to see where her inspration came from. Though my question focus around Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog Mrs. Goode has published 3 books. So here we have it... Welcome everyone to February's Edition of Behind the Novel!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dixie's Bio...
Before I ever dreamed of being a writer, I was a storyteller. I remember that the games I used to play with my brother and the neighborhood kids were not games of football or frisbee, but games of imagination. We would, in reality, be riding our bikes in circles around the block and the city park - but the whole time we would be following my imagination as the bikes became wild mustangs with names like "Singing Moon." we would wrestle a sled to the top of the monkey bars and sit balanced there while I told of our adventures in outer space aboard our spacecraft. we would clamp the metal roller skates to our tennis shoes and dart around the full basement, but we would be people who had been born with bone wheels on our feet and had become inventors simply to deal with the needs that created, a way to transport pants onto our bodies, a way to zip up mountains and so on.

My brother was surprisingly willing to allow me to direct the play, even following my cues when I ordered, "Now you say . . ."

Then I lost my confidence in my stories. The kids at school did not understand how I played, and I became a bearer of "Dixie Fleas" who had to have invisible disinfectant sprayed on any desk I had occupied before another child would sit there. At school at least. I lost my voice.

Then Jr. High and our school blended with two others to create classes where not everyone knew I was outcast. Some people actually asked to see what I was writing all the time behind the curtain of my long red hair. Amazingly, the comments were positive and they asked for more. But I was still timid and mostly believed that my stories were not as good as the books I loved. After all, there was nothing coming from my pen that didn't share aspects with things others had written.

So as I grew, I wrote poems and stories and tucked them away, I had to write but the only writing I shared was the letters I wrote by the mailtruck load to friends and family.

Then, the books I loved fell into a wide range, but one category completely claimed my heart. The Narnia Books, A wrinkle in Time, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I wanted to write about my own creation of a world, but it felt like they best stories had been told and so were off limits.

That is when I found the Harry potter series. Like most people, I loved Harry and Company, but I was astonished at how so much of their story was elements from other stories. It was old stories re-told in a new and delightful way, not because no-one had mentioned a castle or a three headed dog before, but because of the compelling friends we could make in that world.

So I started thinking of the stories we all love. They are different but they are all the same in one thing, Harry potter, Narnia, Cheers, Lord of The Rings, Friends, MASH, Star Trek. The addictive stories we beg for more of, have the kind of friends where you felt safer and more included than you had ever felt at home, friends you had always wanted, who made you look around with a lump in your throat, wishing you could stop time? They were a group of imperfect, overwhelmed and harassed people who became winners because they didn't have to face the overwhelming odds, alone. Even in the face of dark wizards, popular girls, bad hair days or War, they had each other's back. When one of them had a weakness, another had a strength to balance it out. When one was a jerk, someone else saved the day, and forgave them eventually.

So I started realizing I needed to develop characters we could love, before creating the world for them. Then I walked into a Big Dog Outlet store and there was a wall of Punny T-shirts about Hairy Pawter and the Goblet of Fur, Or The Sorcerer's Bone. I was amazed that an author could be popular enough to be infiltrating the public mind like this, and thought I'd love to have the Big Dog shirts make fun of my character.

That is when I started to dream of a boy, with Cerebral Palsy, who walked with crutches and so had a kind of 4 legged gait. He was 9 years old and named "Duffy Barkley" but he definitely was not a dog. He , survives tragedy in the form of a school shooting in which his younger sister is seriously injured. Falling into a new world, he regains his health but finds himself the focus of historic prophecy. While trying to deny his place in their prophecies he discovers his own abilities & changes his life & that of others in both worlds. He enjoys being physically strong but must give it up to save the villain, and find his way back to save his sister, Izzy.

I finally wrote the book, With the help of NaNoWriMo, and got a free proof copy from Createspace, but now the doubts come again. Do I go ahead and let Createspace publish it, do I try to find an agent? I love "Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog" and so do the people I've shared it with.

It has those friends we all want. Now times are turning more difficult again. The world needs that kind of support. We need a source of encouragement so that we can find a way to be that kind of support when we are needed. As times are dark, people look for a reason to laugh, love and hope again.

Duffy Barkley is not a dog, a middle grade fantasy, gives you those friends, that escape, that voice of hope in the darkness. Duffy is alone, handicapped, desperate. He is picked-on, lost, & yet, never defeated. In the most alien of places he finds friends. In the most dire of emergencies he finds courage. In the most evil of villains he finds compassion and a solution. In giving away what he most needs, he gains everything.

Now I have to find away to share him with todays kids. I can be found on blogspot at both "Echo's Voice", and "Duffy Barkley's "Mom" "

 

And, now for the interview:

 

  

I want to thank Dixie for taking time to answerer several questions! Being the trooper that she is, she was very understanding and answer. She answered each question and I missed the interactions between each one and one day hope to give it a real go at an interview filled with banter. Also thanks for my mom allowing me to use this. You are the best!

Question: What inspired you to write your book, Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog?

Dixie: I always knew I was meant to write, I started telling myself stories before I even knew what words were. I wrote poems and outlined stories on every scrap of paper that came my way and yet, I cheated myself by letting life get in the way. I only wrote when I had a deadline, an assignment to fill, or when I was writing long Holiday letters to copy and send out en-masse.

Then I began telling my stories to my kids, until there was a young handicapped boy named Duffy Barkley, already living and breathing in the air with me. And then I heard about two extremely helpful on-line sites, one being NaNoWriMo, and they changed my life from, "Someday" to "Do it Now!" Flylady.com, was mainly a site where I was encouraged to give up perfection and just bless my home with 15 minutes at a time. What can you do in 15 minutes a day? Create a warm, welcoming home out of Chaos, and write a novel in your spare time. Learn to Finally Love Yourself (FLY) as you do it. And in bursts of inspiration and the willingness to just jump in where I was, my first dream of a book became a real thing that can be found on-line and in stores and held and hated or loved and has begun a life without me.

Question:What sparked the idea for your novel?

Dixie: I started thinking of the stories we all love. They are different but they are all the same in one thing, Harry potter, Narnia, Cheers, Lord of The Rings, Friends, MASH, Star Trek. The addictive stories we beg for more of, have the kind of friends where you felt safer and more included than you had ever felt at home, friends you had always wanted, who made you look around with a lump in your throat, wishing you could stop time? They were a group of imperfect, overwhelmed and harassed people who became winners because they didn't have to face the overwhelming odds, alone. Even in the face of dark wizards, popular girls, bad hair days or War, they had each other's back. When one of them had a weakness, another had a strength to balance it out. When one was a jerk, someone else saved the day, and forgave them eventually.

So I started realizing I needed to develop characters we could love, before creating the world for them. Then I walked into a Big Dog Outlet store and there was a wall of "Punny" T-shirts about Hairy Pawter and the Goblet of Fur, Or The Sorcerer's Bone. I was amazed that an author could be popular enough to be infiltrating the public mind like this, and thought I'd love to have the Big Dog shirts make fun of my character.

That is when I started to dream of a boy, with Cerebral Palsy, who walked with crutches and so had a kind of 4 legged gait. He was 9 years old and named "Duffy Barkley" but he definitely was not a dog. He , survives tragedy in the form of a school shooting in which his younger sister is seriously injured. Falling into a new world, he regains his health but finds himself the focus of historic prophecy. While trying to deny his place in their prophecies he discovers his own abilities & changes his life & that of others in both worlds. He enjoys being physically strong but must give it up to save the villain, and find his way back to save his sister, Izzy. I told the stories to my little boys and they kept growing and adding detail as the boys grew too.

Question: Which comes first; the character's story or the idea for the novel?

Dixie: In this case just the character, the idea that there was a boy who could be made fun of on a Big Dog T-shirt.

Question: How did you start writing?

I always wrote, I wrote big loopy lines of scribble that I believed were cursive and cornered people to sit and listen to me read aloud, when I was a preschooler in a world of Grandparents and great aunts and few other children.

Question: What is your writing routine?

I don’t write in order, I write what I’m thinking of, and if nothing comes to mind, I scroll through the document until something catches my eye and work there. I am currently writing an Oregon Trail, time travel book with the first 11 chapters and the last 3 completed but about 7 in the middle just a paragraph or outline done. I write like crazy in November for NaNoWriMo and edit and add the rest of the year. I'm a teacher, so writing has to fit in the cracks of time around the paying job.

Question: Do you outline?

Not always, but for some stories, when the ideas come really fast, and I would forget them long before I could get them all written down, then YES. An outline is a great idea storage device.

Question: What is your favorite part of the book(s)?

Duffy is bullied, and is handicapped and the only person at his school who really sees him is his little sister. When the school bully turns the gun from Duffy and shoots the sister, and he is sent to live with a great aunt, The aunt's farm is completely based on the Great-Uncle's farm I loved to spend summers at, where my grandmother grew up. I loved reliving the sensory things about the farm.

Question: What was the hardest part to write in the book(s)?

Not in the two Duffy books, which flowed easily for me, but in the one I am working on, and have been working on for 12 years, Double Time on the Oregon Trail, which is about two 15 year old girls, 150 years apart, travelling the same routes, and sometimes able to open the lap desk they both use and see the contents, including a journal, that the other girl had in that wooden box at the same place in their journey. I have outlined everything extensively, and my mind wants to be done, but there is a middle section that is unwritten even thigh I know exactly what goes there.

Question: What do you wish was different about the book(s)?

I love them, and yet, I know that if I had a big budget, the publicity and the editing could be so much more. I wish I could give them the kind of launch into the world that the big publishers can.

Question: What are the author's favorite books?

I love so many books! There are several I have carried with me forever, that I reread and have become part of me, I love Mere Mortals, by Neil Ravin, Ghost Bot by Iain Lawrence, Watership Down, the Once and future King, Ender's Game, all Harry Potter Books, Trixie Belden Mysteries, Books by Kris Radish, Jim Butcher, Jodi Picoult, Tamora Pierce, Timothy Zahn - All The Thomas Covenant books, clan of the cave bear. I can't stop. Can we just say, Book addict?

Question: What advice do you have for someone who would like to become a published writer?

Nowadays? Just do it. Everyone has a story worth telling, and it will be meaningful to some other people in this world. But when you put yourself into it, make it the best you can. Don't do it halfway and then say, "Hey! I'm a writer." Tell the story only you can tell.

12. If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

My Dad. He died young, and I'd love to tell him about my life now. The writing, yes, of course, but even more, my babies are young men now and he would be so proud of them.

 

Thanks for sticking in until the end. Being the author has no idea she is the focus of this months Behind the Novel and they always accompany a swag pack of goodies or books sometime both for our followers. I'm still going to host one out of my pocket. Who know with any luck the author may notice and jump in. Good Luck to everyone and thanks to author Dixie Dawn Miller Goode and my mom!