The best fiction allows me to lose the line between the author and the story. They’re tangled together, inseparable. Does the author love cheese fondue or is it just the character? Has the author been skydiving and felt that rush of adrenaline, ran a marathon, rescued feral cats? Does the author hate oatmeal, love cherry pie?

A well-written book will often make the author and the narrator feel like one and the same. Authors need to be aware of this, because it can sometimes backfire.

I recently read a book I won’t name because I hated everything about it. This book was filled with the most unlikeable characters I’ve ever come across. The pages overflowed with vitriol. The characters spewed bigoted statements at every turn, as if their insight into their city and its people was fact rather than opinion. All the characters shared these intolerant, prejudice views. Because of this, the characters and the author easily became tangled in my mind. I not only disliked the book, I disliked the author.

I don’t know whether the author shared his characters’ opinions, though I find it unlikely that he’d be able to – or want to – give every character this same mindset if he did not agree. Had the author given only one character this trait, preferably not the narrator, he and his characters would not have fused together as they did.

Books like this make me wonder how much of myself I spill onto my own pages. Hopefully, I don’t leave readers spitting nails, as I was while reading the unnamed book. For those who have read my books and wondered if it’s me or the character, I thought I’d share a couple secrets today.

Some of my readers know I have late-stage Lyme disease, with neurological complications. A few of the symptoms I contend with show up in two of my characters.

Corinne, from Hit List, suddenly lost her mind. She can’t hold onto a thought, is easily distracted, and has forgotten much of her past.

Corinne sucked in her bottom lip. The wallpaper behind Dr. Endicott’s head had little pastel flowers scattered about. She’d had flowers in her garden once. Now just weeds grew there. She’d been telling Ian that they needed to pull out those weeds and buy new plants. Hadn’t she told him that?

My symptoms are nowhere near as extensive as Corinne’s. I’m not quite that crazy – yet.

Corinne shuddered. An image flickered like a dying light bulb in the recess of her mind. Too elusive to grasp. Too intrusive to ignore. Words attached to strange voices skittered just out of reach.

Corinne’s character came to me easily. My own frustration with my brain’s malfunctions showed up in her character. This caught me by surprise and was completely unintentional. Corinne popped into my head one day with a story and, somewhere along the way, the two of us intertwined. This is not to say that she and I are the same. Her life and personality is absolutely not autobiographical in any way. But bits of me are sprinkled in there.

The other character with flashes of my Lyme symptoms is Nicki from No Justice: A Michael Sykora Novel and Beyond Salvation: A Michael Sykora Novel. When Nicki talks to Michael, she often jumps from one topic to another so fast that Michael has a hard time keeping up.

Michael had gone to Sal’s and rented a Toyota Camry for the night. He didn’t plan on doing anything illegal but he also figured that it wasn’t wise to be driving around Dover Street in a flashy Porsche.

“Pick a topic and stick to it for five minutes. You’re making me dizzy.”

This, I will confess, is a trait I intentionally gave Nicki. I do this exact thing to my husband all the time. I can be midsentence and suddenly shift to something else. Sometimes I do it because my brain loses the original thought. Other times I’m not even aware I’ve done it. Nicki, of course, isn’t dealing with Lyme brain. But she is a high energy character, whose mind works quickly. A more coherent version of my flightiness became a good fit for her character.

And now you know. Bit and pieces of me are scattered throughout my books. Pick them all out, fit them together, and I’ll be fully exposed.

Whether you worship God, Allah, Mother Earth or nothing at all, the holiday season has the same basic meaning – love and be kind to one another, and give what you can to those who are less fortunate. We shouldn’t need a holiday to remind us. We should behave this way all year.

Enough said. I shall not step up on my soapbox today. It’s the holidays!

I am excited to be helping Santa out this year. I don’t have a lot to give. (In fact, my bank would probably argue that I have nothing. ) But even the little stuff counts, right? In my role as Santa’s Helper, I need your help. What I have to give is books. And I’m looking for someone who loves to read and is in need of a boost this holiday season. Here’s the deal…

Are you having a difficult year and can’t afford to give gifts to all the people you love? Do you know someone who doesn’t have much, who probably won’t get much, and you’d like to make that person smile? Do any of these people love to read? If so, tell me about them! Choose one person and tell me why you think he/she deserves a gift. You don’t have to give me a lot of personal details. Maybe you lost your job and can’t afford to buy your best friend something. Or you’re buried beneath a heap of medical bills (I can relate to that!) and you need a gift for your child’s teacher. It could be someone you know who lost a job, a house, is going through a divorce, and that person is special to you. Tell me why!

I’ll pick two ‘winners’ from the comments. If your nomination is picked, I’ll send you an email requesting the person’s name and mailing address, as well as your choice of one of my eight titles for that person. I’ll wrap the book, include a card letting the person know the gift is from you, and ship it – all free!

Sound good? I hope so! Here are the guidelines in simplified form:

1. Submit your nomination of one person who deserves a surprise gift this holiday season. You do not need to give this person’s name.
2. You cannot nominate yourself. (But you can get someone else to!)
3. Include your name and a valid email address.
4. Nominations are open between 8:00 a.m. EST on Saturday, December 3 and midnight EST on Wednesday December 7.
5. Due to shipping time, I have to restrict this to people living within the U.S.
6. The person you nominate needs to be at least 16 years of age.

That’s it. Please help me be a Santa’s Helper this year by nominating someone you care about.

Many of you know that a character by the name of Max has been chattering in my head for some time now. The book Max stars in is called Into The Light. Max is a ghost, you see. A stubborn, somewhat clumsy middle-aged man who is not at all happy with being dead. Max’s story is not what I’d set out to write. He had other ideas. (Hence, the stubbornness.) Then again, I hadn’t set out to write his story at all. I was working on something entirely different but he popped into my head and refused to go away. He talked to me constantly, kept me up at night. The other characters were forced from my head, that project was put aside, and Max took center stage. I’ve got a very cool cover design in the works and will be unveiling that, along with the book’s blurb, soon. I hope to have Into The Light out in July.

Next up: Free books! May is International Giveaway Month over on my contest page. Joining me in this giveaway is friend and author Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick. I’m offering two print copies of my novel Hit List. He is offering two print copies of his tantalizing novel Breathing Into Stone. Have you entered? If not, what are you waiting for? This is international. You can live anywhere. We’ll send the book as long as you have a mailing address, even if it’s a igloo in Antarctica! You need to enter by midnight EST on May 31. All you need to do is fill out the form: www.QuietFuryBooks.com/contests.html

Wait! don’t run over there yet! I have one last piece of news.

I’ve remodeled my website. The look is a little different and I’ve added a bunch of new stuff. You’ll find a Free Downloads page, where you can download short stories and anthologies. And you’ll also find a Things of Interest page, with a bunch of random nonsense written by me. I’ll be adding to these pages and, hopefully, keeping you entertained. I hope you’ll check out the site and let me know what you think. In case you’ve forgotten the directions there: www.QuietFuryBooks.com or www.DarciaHelle.com (Same building, different address. Weird, I know.)

As always, thanks for hanging out with me!

Today I’m sharing an excerpt from my novel Hit List. This scene is from Corinne’s point of view. She’s a little crazy, you see. The truth is locked somewhere in her mind but she refuses to set it free. This story is about many things, including betrayal, resilience and hope. At the heart of it all, is a son’s unwillingness to give up.

Corinne’s eyes snapped open. Vague remnants of the dream challenged her to remember. Pictures, all out of order, as if a photo album had been dropped and its contents scattered throughout her mind. She shuddered, blinked. Finally the black curtain descended and the pictures faded into the nonexistent.

Sunlight poured in through the bedroom windows. Had she forgotten to draw the blinds last night? She glanced at the bedside clock. Three o’clock. In the afternoon? Yes, it had to be afternoon. The sun was shining. Had she slept all day?

Corinne shoved the covers off and climbed out of bed. She reached for her tattered robe, slipping it on as she walked toward the kitchen. Ian was always after her to buy a new robe. But she liked this one. The fact that it was well worn only made it that much more comfortable. Or comforting. Maybe both.

In the kitchen, she filled her teakettle with water and placed it on the burner. She turned the knob to high, then set about getting her mug and a tea bag from the cabinet.

This was Corinne’s favorite room. Large windows formed a half-moon around the breakfast nook. French doors opened onto a mahogany deck that Ian had built himself. The back property was lined by woods that led out to a peaceful brook few people knew about. Back here she felt as if the world belonged to her alone.

As the kettle began to whistle, Corinne switched off the burner and poured the water into her mug. She considered eating something. When was the last time she had done that? Ian kept telling her that she needed to eat more. She should probably try, since it would make him happy. And he deserved that much.

She placed her mug on the table and slid onto the chair. Birds sang outside the window. She watched them flutter about.

A flicker of movement in the distance caught her eye. Out by the trees. Her breath caught in her chest. She stared into the woods but saw nothing. Just her imagination.

She was lifting the mug to her lips when she spotted more movement. This time her eyes found the source. A man. He was standing in the shadows of the trees. Just standing there, staring back at her.

Corinne’s heart thudded wildly against her chest. The mug slipped from her fingers, smashing against the tile floor. The scream burned in her throat but never found release. She crawled beneath the table. Gathering her knees to her chest, she rocked slowly.

You can find Hit List on Amazon in both print and Kindle format:

You can also find it in various other online stores, including all ebook formats on Smashwords.

Thanks for reading!

I get lost. A lot.

I’ve never written from an outline. Often I have no idea where my characters are going until they take me there. For me, writing is sort of like jumping in a cab with a bunch of strangers. Occasionally they look to me for guidance when we get to a fork in the road. Now and then we’ll stop and pick up an unexpected passenger. And once in a while we’ve found ourselves backtracking because the road we chose is filled with too many potholes. The story is a journey and I’m often just as surprised as my readers when we reach the destination.

When I wrote Hit List, I went in to the story blind. No map. No compass. Not even a flashlight. One character popped into my head from out of nowhere. I saw her pacing in an empty room. Disheveled. Nervous. Scared. A little crazy. That character was Corinne. She named herself. I had nothing to do with it. One minute I was cleaning my house (I know, not very glamorous for an author) and the next minute this person was in my head demanding I tell her story. I had no choice. I grabbed a notepad and wrote:

It didn’t rain today. She thought it might but it didn’t. Not that it made any difference.

Now she walked on too thin legs, back and forth. The clock continued to tick. She listened, finding the sound comforting. Shivering, she wrapped the tattered robe tighter around herself. She felt as if she were a hundred. She was forty-eight.

I had no idea what was wrong with Corinne. I had to wait for her to tell me. The story unfolded as I wrote. Corinne, it turned out, did not want to be the main character. That role was taken by her son Ian. An only child, he was struggling to find the answers to his mother’s sudden psychological breakdown. He turned to Lucianna, a sexy P.I. willing to track down his mother’s activities during her last sane days.

Sometimes when I write, I think it would be nice to have a roadmap and a flashlight. Most of the time, though, I’m content to take the journey along with my characters. They invite me into their world, so that I can tell their story. That story belongs to them. It would be rude of me to interfere.

I am currently giving away downloads of my romantic suspense novel Enemies and Playmates! You can download the e-book free on Smashwords and on Scribd. This is temporary giveaway. I haven’t decided how long I’ll let it run, so download Enemies and Playmates soon!

I’ve also uploaded my other five novels onto Scribd and they are now available as e-book purchases on that site!

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DarciaHelle

http://www.scribd.com/darciah

Good luck!

This contest runs from 10 a.m. EST on Sunday, June 13 until 10 a.m. EST on Tuesday, June 15. Everyone 16 and older in the U.S. and Canada is welcome to enter. Each contest on my page can be entered once per person.

To read an excerpt from Hit List: www.QuietFuryBooks.com/hitlist.html
To enter: www.QuietFuryBooks.com/contests.html

Enemies and Playmates
Hit List
No Justice
Beyond Salvation
Miami Snow

All you have to do is fill out the May Contest form on my contest page. Anyone 16 and older in the U.S. and Canada is welcome to enter. (I apologize to all those in other countries but the shipping is too high.)

www.QuietFuryBooks.com/contests.html

Good luck!

The title is Hit List. Interested? Let me know!