Unsung Heroes - by Diane Kelly

I’d been working in the tax industry for over 15 years when I first learned of IRS special agents. These criminal investigators are essentially “tax cops,” making sure tax cheats pay their fair share so that you and I don’t have to shoulder an unfair financial burden.

When I first began writing my Death and Taxes series, which stars a criminal investigator for the IRS, I performed research to learn what IRS special agents do and how they do it. I read over facts and statistics about tax fraud. I subscribed to email alerts from the Treasury’s office of financial enforcement. I also interviewed a group of special agents. I was very impressed! They were incredibly smart, driven, attractive, and physically fit. They work hard and take personal risks. I’m so grateful for what they do! The special agents offered me lots of interesting and important information. I took copious notes, even attended the trial of a tax preparer accused of fraud so that I could see justice in action. I learned a lot about what it’s like to be a special agent.

Then I sat down to write my book. I took the truth and played with it, rolling it around like it was Play-Doh, mixing the colors and forming it into different shapes. It’s a fiction writer’s job to create an interesting story and that often means bending the truth for the sake of the story. Just as well-behaved women rarely make history, well-behaved heroines are not as entertaining as ones who break the rules.

Tara Holloway, the special agent who stars in my Death and Taxes series, is hardly a model agent. She pursues justice at all costs, even if it means doing things that, in reality, would get her fired or land her butt in jail. In writing my series, one of my hopes was that I could introduce people to the fascinating world of special agents and create some appreciation for the people who do this tough job. To that end, I’d like to sort out fact from fiction.

FICTION: Tara and her fellow agents operate by the seat of their pants, making snap decisions on the fly without approval from their superiors.

FACT: IRS special agents carefully plan their investigations and actions in advance, with input and approval from those up their chain of command.

FICTION: Tara accesses taxpayer data without authorization.

FACT: IRS special agents are not permitted to look up taxpayer data willy nilly and can be terminated for improperly accessing information.

FICTION: Tara and the other agents combine their personal and work lives, sometimes driving personal vehicles on the job and running personal errands on work time.

FACT: IRS special agents drive only government vehicles while on the job and do not drive them on personal errands.

FICTION: Tara is a sharpshooter who hits everything she aims for and can shoot things out of a person’s hand at long range.

FACT: Fact may not be so far from fiction here. Special agents are required to re-certify on their weapons on a regular basis. So, yep, they not only know numbers, they know their guns, too.

Many of my readers have told me that they first learned of IRS special agents via my novels. Do you know of any other unsung heroes with unusual jobs? Tell us about them!

One person who posts a comment today will win a copy of DEATH, TAXES, AND A FRENCH MANICURE, book #1 in my Death and Taxes series. The winner will be posted around 9:00 pm Central Time. Look for book #2, DEATH, TAXES, AND A SKINNY NO-WHIP LATTE, in bookstores now. Read an excerpt at www.dianekelly.com.

What if Rhett Butler HAD Given a Damn? by Diane Kelly

A while back, I wrote a manuscript that included some characters from Ireland. To get a feel for their language and culture, I loaded my Netflix queue with Irish movies and watched as many as possible. My family was patient for a week or two, then they tired of me hogging the DVD player. They rebelled and logged into the Netflix account, rearranging the queue to add some zombie, action/adventure, and chick flicks to the mix. Thus, my selection Rory O’Shea was Here, was pushed far down the list.

Slowly the movie worked its way back to the top, and last weekend it appeared in my mailbox. I’ve long since finished the manuscript with the Irish characters, but figured I’d go ahead and watch the movie anyway. It was here, so why not?

The movie was touching and poignant, even funny at times. The plot involves two disabled young men in their early twenties, both of whom are wheelchair bound. One has cerebral palsy, and the other, Rory O’Shea, suffers from muscular dystrophy. The two live in a home for the disabled. Rory has difficulty dealing with the loss of independence and strives to find a better life for himself and his new friend.

I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone who might see it, so I won’t give specifics about the plot. But after I watched the movie, I noticed my TV screen displaying the option to watch an alternate ending. I clicked on it and watched.

The alternate ending was more uplifting and pulled the themes together more fully. But it also tied up everything very neatly and didn’t leave the viewer with as much to think about afterward as the original ending did. If given a choice, I'd have to say I preferred the alternate ending, though both endings had their own merits and were satisfying in their own ways.

Have you ever read a book or seen a movie that you wished had ended differently? How would you have ended the story? We’d love to hear about it!


Diane Kelly is the author of the humorous Death & Taxes romantic mystery series. Her debut novel, Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure is in stores now. Visit Diane at www.dianekelly.com

HAIRY SITUATIONS by Diane Kelly

That's me and my mother in the photo. The photo reveals several things about me:

1) I'm not a real blonde. (Is anyone???)
2) I'm from Texas, also known as The Land of Big Hair.
3) I have a mother who's such a great sport she allowed me to use this photo in my blog! (Thanks, Mom!)

The hair. Wow, huh? I can't imagine why this hairstyle hasn't come back!

My mother's hair must have been the subconscious inspiration for the beehive worn by Lu "The Lobo" Lobozinksi, Tara's stuck-in-the-sixties boss in my Death & Taxes series. Lu's beehive plays a major role in Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray, which will be book #3 in the series and will be out next summer.

I've never worn a beehive, but I have sported some other questionable haircuts in the name of fashion. I was in high school in the '80's, during the New Wave/Punk Rock era. I once had my hairdresser cut the top of my hair in one of those spiky hairdos that made the strands stick up like a palm tree on top of my head ala Kajagoogoo. (Remember that band? I Googled them. They're still around!) My high school boyfriend had long bangs that he bleached to an odd shade of orange-blond.

I once got a spiral perm. The rollers were so heavy they nearly broke my neck during processing. Between the bleach in the blond dye and the chemicals in the perm, my hair was fried beyond repair. I looked like I was wearing a tumbleweed on my head.

Got a bad hair story? Share it with us! One lucky poster will win an ARC of my debut novel, Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure. The winner will be announced here at 9 PM central time, so be sure to check back! Thanks for stopping by to visit us at Killer Fiction!

Dance as if No One is Watching - by Diane Kelly

Dancing as if no one is watching . . . with a fish bowl on her head!

My daughter is on a competitive dance team and danced in no less than seven numbers this season, including ballet, tap, jazz, and lyrical, both as small groups and as a production team of over forty girls all on stage at once. This past weekend, I crawled out of bed at the crack of dawn and spent all day Saturday in a crowded theater watching dress rehearsals and all day Sunday at the two recitals. I sat for so long my legs and butt fell asleep.

And I loved every second of it!

My daughter takes classes four days a week and teaches younger girls on a fifth day. She never tires of dancing. When I’m in the kitchen, I often hear her feet stomping in her bedroom over my head, tapping out a number. Her size nine-and-a-half feet sometimes stomp a bit too hard and break a light bulb in the kitchen below, but it’s a small price for us to pay. I’m thrilled she has found something she is so passionate about.

I recently saw the quote “Dance as if No One is Watching.” I can’t recall whether it was on a refrigerator magnet or a garden stone, but either way the words resonated with me. The words inspire us to indulge our passions without regard to what others might think.

Such wonderful advice.

An age-old piece of advice often given to writers is “Write as if everyone you know were dead.” In a sense, these words are saying something similar to the dance quote. Essentially, both are telling us to do what we would do if we didn’t have to answer to anyone else, if we didn’t have to fear criticism. It’s only by letting loose that we can truly discover all that we are capable of, right?

Yet . . .

Isn’t there some value in criticism, too? After all, if we dance as if someone is watching, might we not strive harder to refine our technique, to put on a crowd-pleasing show, to perfect our skills? If we write as if people we know will read our work, might we not strive to write something impressive, well-crafted, and marketable?

What are your thoughts on this subject? We’d love to hear them!

Diane Kelly's debut romantic mystery - Death, Taxes, and a French Manicure - will be released on November 1st and is available for pre-order now at online booksellers.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT by Diane Kelly

My daughter, who is a junior in high school, is at that wonderful phase of life when she’s deciding what she wants to do with her future. With creativity and intelligence, a near-perfect GPA, and an abundance of ambition, she can do virtually anything she wants to - except become a doctor or test pilot. She’s got too weak a stomach for either.

Should she attend an art school? Maybe, but there would be no fun football games to attend. A large public university? Such a place would enable an easy change of majors should her career aspirations shift, but one can sometimes feel lost at a big school. Should she remain in the state, where tuition will be cheaper and she can come home frequently for free laundry service? Or should she spread her wings (and stretch her parents’ finances) by looking into out-of-state schools?

As I was talking to her about her options, I realized that what’s actually occurring here is far more than a college and career choice. She’s figuring out who it is she wants to become, where she fits best into this crazy world we live in.

She’s engaging in character development.

Her personal process is very similar to the character development process a novelist goes through for the fictional people who star in their stories. Character development is one of the things I love about writing, and my stories are always character driven. I start with a character – such as Tara Holloway, the butt-kicking Treasury agent who stars in my “Death and Taxes” series (pictured above) – and then figure out more about who this character is, where she’s come from and where she’s going, and what can happen to her that will teach her things not only about the world around her, but also about herself. Though my books are light and entertaining, I’d like to think they bring some larger issues to the table, though in a subtle way.

Like characters in a story, all of us are constantly finding our place in this world, sometimes readjusting how we see ourselves or where we fit in. Our own personal character development never stops. None of us are the same person today that we were ten or twenty years ago, and we’ll be someone different ten or twenty years from now. We aren’t necessarily striving to achieve some type of “ideal” version of ourselves, because what we might consider ideal can and will change. Rather, we’re in a constant process of self-development and self-discovery. And isn’t it fun?

Here are some things I’ve learned about myself and the world in the last few years:

1) I’m no longer the diehard social butterfly I once was. Although I enjoy an occasional get together, I enjoy being alone sometimes, too. And that’s perfectly okay!

2) Although I exercise somewhat regularly for health reasons, I’m simply not willing to do what it takes to have a perfect beach body. There are other things that mean much more to me than abs of steel.

3) I admire people who have convictions and stick to them, yet I have a low tolerance for intolerant people. As a result, I will sometimes feel conflicted about others who seem narrow minded. But I’ve also learned it’s okay for me to hold conflicting opinions about others. These feelings don't necessarily have to be resolved.

What are some things you’ve discovered about yourself?