Inspirations by Felice Stevens
I rarely have inspirations from real life when I write a book. I get ideas that pop into my head and while I might take my feelings about a certain, real life person and portray them in a character, I've never had one person inspire a character for a book.
But then came Harlan in Cort—Unbreakable. You see, Harlan is based on a real-life character. I'll tell you a little about him.
As an attorney in my agency, I had different job functions in my over 30 year career. I was a tax litigator, I wrote position statements on real estate law. I litigated discrimination cases, was my agency's EEO officer and at one point was the Managing Administrative Law Judge (MALJ) of the Hearings by Mail Division of the Parking Violations Bureau.
While an MALJ of that division, there was another MALJ, a man who wielded a terrorizing hand over another group of ALJs. He was cruel, picked on people, used his position to berate and belittle people and overall was a rude and nasty person to almost everyone. He also ran a law practice on the side and had employees working for him, doing his private legal work, while they should have been working at their own job. When this was discovered, he was fired, as that was specifically against agency policy.
We often wondered what happened to this man, but figured he was so arrogant and had a law degree from a well-known university, he'd have no trouble finding another job and other people to terrorize. But we were wrong.
Approximately two years after he was fired, this man was spotted picking food out of a garbage can on the street not far from our old offices. When he was approached by a former colleague, he said after he was fired he began to drink and he lost his apartment. His partner left him and he ended up homeless and living on the streets.
That man was my inspiration for Harlan. I wanted to show that no matter how high up you can be in the world, it doesn't take much to kick you down and keep you there. It doesn't matter sometimes if you are highly educated or seemingly have everything in the world, you too can end up in terrible situations because of your own doings.
Cort—Unbreakable is now available at a release week price of $3.99 and is free to read in Kindle Unlimited.
Amazon link: https://amzn.to/2nqlh8o
But then came Harlan in Cort—Unbreakable. You see, Harlan is based on a real-life character. I'll tell you a little about him.
As an attorney in my agency, I had different job functions in my over 30 year career. I was a tax litigator, I wrote position statements on real estate law. I litigated discrimination cases, was my agency's EEO officer and at one point was the Managing Administrative Law Judge (MALJ) of the Hearings by Mail Division of the Parking Violations Bureau.
While an MALJ of that division, there was another MALJ, a man who wielded a terrorizing hand over another group of ALJs. He was cruel, picked on people, used his position to berate and belittle people and overall was a rude and nasty person to almost everyone. He also ran a law practice on the side and had employees working for him, doing his private legal work, while they should have been working at their own job. When this was discovered, he was fired, as that was specifically against agency policy.
We often wondered what happened to this man, but figured he was so arrogant and had a law degree from a well-known university, he'd have no trouble finding another job and other people to terrorize. But we were wrong.
Approximately two years after he was fired, this man was spotted picking food out of a garbage can on the street not far from our old offices. When he was approached by a former colleague, he said after he was fired he began to drink and he lost his apartment. His partner left him and he ended up homeless and living on the streets.
That man was my inspiration for Harlan. I wanted to show that no matter how high up you can be in the world, it doesn't take much to kick you down and keep you there. It doesn't matter sometimes if you are highly educated or seemingly have everything in the world, you too can end up in terrible situations because of your own doings.
Cort—Unbreakable is now available at a release week price of $3.99 and is free to read in Kindle Unlimited.
Amazon link: https://amzn.to/2nqlh8o
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