Family. We often include them in our daily lives. It’s odd, however, when they seem to make it past your steel-reinforced barriers and onto the pages of your latest novel.

My sisters have an odd way of doing this. I will be plunking along and my mind will drift from the project at hand to something idiotic my sister did as a five year years ago. Next thing I knew, the character who was supposed to be a one and done turns into the carbon version of my little sister and a recurring character. Or when you base an entire planetary population on one person… and said person is a sister who decided it was a good idea to go sledding down a hill and onto a busy street because she would get more speed.

I have a decent filter and can catch these slip-ups before they make it too far into the novel, thankfully. However, in Corruptor I made the mistake of not doublechecking my character makeup before I submitted the novel to the publisher. One day I was peacefully reading along one of the final edits and wham, there’s this recurring character who reminds me a little bit of my youngest sister. I scratch my head and thought nothing of it… until a few pages later when I had to close the file because I was wondering if my sister was going to track me down and hurt me after she read the book.

How does an author keep their personal and “professional” mindsets apart?