For the month of May, Jenn and I will be donating the proceeds from all sales of the Chaos Station series to the 8th Annual Mental Health Awareness Month Book Fundraiser, benefiting the Keith Milano Memorial Fund at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
I chose to participate in this fundraiser, in part, for Felix, the character I wrote in the series. I can’t remember if we actually ever stated, plainly, in the books, whether Felix suffered from PTSD. It should have been obvious. As a former POW who’d lost everything–his family, his lover, his home–Felix begins the series in much the same condition as his beloved ship, the Chaos. He’s held together with spit and duct tape. His crew is his new family, the ship his new home. His heart is a blank space. His head? He doesn’t go there and would prefer we didn’t either.
I did go there, over the course of five books. Tugging Felix through adventures that were both harmful and healing. At times, writing him brought me to tears. He was in so much pain and my outline only pointed toward more. In the third book, he broke, and it was kind of awful.
But even though Felix tried very hard to push them away, his friends remained close. They didn’t make it easy for him to come back from the edge. His lover made him ask for the help he needed. Writing those scenes also made me cry, because not everyone has friends like Felix’s–or they do, but their love isn’t enough. Sometimes nothing we have to offer is enough. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying.
I hope you’ll think about supporting this fundraiser. 🙂 Not only are there some fantastic books on offer at special prices, but your money is going to such a good cause.
Kelly Jensen 