My Mind Is Playing Tricks On Me

As I spent the last few days away, I have been gathering my thoughts and turning my attention to my manuscript. Well, I wrote a few lines and they sound a little bit familiar. One character says to another:
“Go home for the holidays. Your mama not for always, you know.”
I think this line comes from somewhere in my memory. That expression “your mama not for always” is a sort of southern feeling thing. (Translation for those who are not familiar: your mother won’t always be around.)
Although I am not worried that I am accidentally plagiarizing another writer, I worry that one of my characters in another book or story has already said that. Maybe it’s someone in The Untelling, but I can’t figure who would have occasion to make such a warning. (Hermione is just not sentimental like that.) It sort of sounds like Berenice, a character in my favorite short story, “Have You Known Me Lately”, but I checked and it wasn’t Berenice. (She’s the girl from Opelika, Alabama who learned sex-ed from the Bookmobile Lady.)
Then the next thought is what does it mean that I am thinking of my characters like they are real people. I could be either brilliant or insane. Recent events suggest the latter….