I’m kidding. Honestly, I’m not going to steal your brains—or your personality. Sometimes, when I share with new acquaintances that I’m an author, they flinch away, saying, “Don’t put me in one of your books!” Others ask, “Where do you get your ideas from?” while giving me suspicious looks, as if I’m in the process of mentally robbing them of their identities. For me, it doesn’t really work that way. There are tiny bits of a whole army of real-life people in each character, but I don’t decide, “Okay, Daisy from In Safe Hands is one-third my Aunt Betty, one-quarter the guy who works at the gas station, and five-twelfths my third-grade teacher.” My heroes and heroines jump into my head fully formed. Their quirks and foibles are not really conscious decisions on my part; the characters just are how they are. Daisy is Daisy, and Chris is Chris. Because of that, they constantly surprise (and frustrate) me. When I write, the characters are driving the bus. Sometimes...
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