Accessing the astral plain in What Hallie's Writing

HALLIE EPHRON: Welcome back to WHAT WE’RE WRITING week.

I’m still getting started on a novel with three generations of woman, the eldest of them a psychic. She’s into auras--seeing them and taking pictures of them. Interpreting dreams. She holds meetings in her apartment and channels spirits from the astral plain.

I’ve been trying to make her meetings less cliched (hold the seance-y Bell, Book, and Candle), thinking about original ways that she might channel spirits and access their memories… Which got me thinking about Dumbledore’s pensive (in the last year I’ve read and reread the Harry Potter books, the ultimate comfort reads) and the strands of memory he could pluck from its waters with his wand.

And in my imagination, that wand turned into a long metal tuning fork. Strike the fork and apply its vibrating tines to the side of your head and conjure the consciousness of a dearly departed soul.

Sounded reasonable. Original, even.

But before I started writing I thought I’d better check on just how original this is. Lo and behold, I immediately came across an ad on Amazon for a set of Psychic Tuning Forks, five for $120. (Buy one and get a 20% off coupon for a “Tibetan Singing Bowl” (offered by the OHM store…) you can’t make this stuff up.)

Not only that, turns out when I Google TUNING FORKS CHAKRA, I get more than a million hits. Tuning forks are apparently a big deal in the self-help world. They’re peddled for “balancing body’s energy,” “reducing tension,” and “promoting emotional harmony.”

My idea is not in the least bit original: it turns out people do use tuning forks to communicate with the dead. According to an AMAZON ad, tuning forks can be “set to the brain waves of someone proficient in psychic abilities.” To do this, the ad contains this useful advice: “Always balance the Chakras and the Organs before tuning the Psychic centers, and always close the session with the Kundalini Tuning fork (included) to seal in the frequencies.”

I have no idea what a Chakra or an Organ is, how many Psychic centers there are, or what frequencies they’re talking about. Nor am I interested in finding out. But on I read to the how-to.

Apparently you bong the tuning fork, and while it’s vibrating place it where the base of your skull meets your spine. Then wait as the vibration carries the frequency to the brain. There’s more about how to manipulate the ends to activate the brain waves in the frontal lobes.

How do you know when you’ve done it? The ad provides this sage advice: “You will know when you get there."

The forks in the set each have their own names:
- Third Eye Tuning Fork
- Total Knowing Tuning Fork
- P.S.I. Tuning Fork
- Change Matter Tuning Fork
- Kundalini Tuning Fork

By now I’ve realize I’m realize I’m way out of my depth and I have wasted far too much time researching psychic tuning forks. No matter how good they are for “awakening” one's “third eye,” they are far too complicated and easy to get wrong. I’d hoped I could just make stuff up.

Did you ever think you were making something up, only to discover the thing exists?

Are psychics for real? Nancy Cole Silverman's cozy paranormal with a twist of ghost

HALLIE EPHRON: I'm a disbeliever when it comes to psychics. I've read every biography I can get my hands on about Houdini, the great magician who was also a great debunker, despite his friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle who came to believe in Spiritualism. I'm a huge fan of James Randi, a modern magician who's spent his life debunking frauds and investigating paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. 

Having said that, I've had a few experiences that I have a hard time explaining. Nancy Cole Silverman had one, too... one that happened while she was writing THE HOUSE ON HALLOWED GROUND, her first mystery featuring psychic Misty Dawn.

NANCY COLE SILVERMAN: I’m one of those writers who believe that when it comes to fiction, the story picks the writer. At least that was the way it was with me when I began writing the Carol Childs Mysteries. Which didn’t come as much of a surprise, since I had spent many of my working years inside a newsroom at different talk radio stations in Los Angeles.But, when I sat down to write what I thought was going to be a sequel to the series, I was surprised when Misty Dawn showed up on the page. Misty had been a recurring character in the Carol Childs series, but never one I intended to spin off into a series of her own. 

After all, she was a psychic, and what did I really know about psychics?But here she was, a full-blown character, reminding me a lot of Kathy Bates, and with a story that matriculated on to pages fast as my fingers could type the scene.

Okay, I have to stop here to say that as much as I enjoyed what I thought was nothing more than a writing exercise— a flirtation with my keyboard on a day when I didn’t know what else to do—the experience caused me to pause.

Are psychics real?
I was skeptical, but like any good journalist, I took my note pad out and scribbled off a bunch of questions, along with a list of possible psychics in the area I might interview. (Let me add, that in California that’s not hard. There’s a psychic on nearly every street corner.) I treated this like I might any interview. I took it seriously, and crafted my questions like I might for anyone with an unusual occupation. This was strictly research. There were no right or wrong answers, just information. 

Upon meeting with several psychics, I stressed I wasn’t interested in a psychic reading for myself. What I wanted was to better understand not only what they did, but who it was that visited with them; how often and—from the psychic’s prospective—their experiences with their readings. For instance, if a caller had asked the psychic to make contact with a spirit, did the psychic have any residual visitations from said spirit, or was it all just an open and shut case? 

I can report that no two of my interviews were the same. Some psychics liked tarot cards, others crystal balls, and some claimed to read tea leaves or jewelry. I didn’t get the idea one might be better than other, but I did come away feeling that most of these items were props, a way to get the person they wanted to read to open up. 

It made me think a good psychic is really more of an intuitive, and only as good as the person being read allows them to be. Which was something else psychics shared with me; they could only read those people that wanted to be read.

I then doubled down on my efforts and started to look for stories about psychics working with the police and the FBI. Had they ever used psychics, and, if so, what was their experience? Would law enforcement voluntarily call a psychic in to investigate or was it more the other way around, where a psychic might call them with a lead?

The response was a resounding, “No!” No surprise there, despite the stories on the web claiming otherwise.

Facts aside, people are fascinated by the idea of someone being able to read the future. I pitched the idea to my publisher, Kendel Flaum with Henery Press, and she insisted I pursue it. So, two years later, here we are with a new series, based on a psychic who, I have to admit, has opened my eyes to seeing the world beyond what I see right in front of me. Kendel calls the Misty Dawn Mysteries, “a cozy paranormal with a twist of ghost.”

For the sheer fun of it, I’ll share that I did have some rather unnerving experiences while writing several scenes for The House on Hallowed Ground. The first happened one afternoon when I was editing a particularly sensitive scene where one of the characters was saying goodbye. As I went to delete an extraneous word of dialog, my delete key took control of my computer and erased the entire scene! This happened not once, not twice, but three times! I’ve since rationalized that I had accessed my word program inappropriately and somehow short-circuited the delete key, causing it to go berserk. I’m still not a hundred percent certain.

How about you? Have you had an experience psychic or an unusual experience when starting a new series that caused you to pause?

HALLIE: Me? Definitely not. But with my biases, I probably wouldn't admit it. Anyone else have an unusual experience that was inspirational?

ABOUT The House on Hallowed Ground by Nancy Cole Silverman
FROM DUST TO DAWN When Misty Dawn, a former Hollywood Psychic to the Stars, moves into an old craftsman house she encounters the former owner, the recently deceased Hollywood set designer, Wilson Thorne. Wilson is unaware of his circumstances and when Misty explains the particulars of his limbo state—how he might help himself if he helps her—he’s is not at all happy.

That is until Zoey Chamberlain, a young actress, comes to Misty’s door for help. Zoey has recently purchased The Pink Mansion, a historic Hollywood Hills home, and believes it’s haunted. But when Misty arrives to search the house, it’s not a ghost she finds, but a dead body. The police are quick to suspect Zoey of murdering her best friend. Zoey maintains her innocence and fears her friend’s death may have been a result of the ghost...and a long-time family curse. Together Misty and Wilson must work to untangle the secrets of The Pink Mansion or submit to the powers of the family curse.

Life Lessons in The Reluctant Fortune-Teller @KeziahFrost

LUCY BURDETTE: You met debut author Keziah Frost in the fall when she wrote a terrific post for JRW on editing. But now her new book, THE RELUCTANT FORTUNE-TELLER, is almost out and I asked her to return and tell us more about it. Welcome Keziah!

 KEZIAH FROST: We all have more than one career in us.

That’s what my protagonist Norbert, a retired accountant, learns in his seventy-third year as he launches into an occupation he never could have predicted for himself: that of town fortune-teller.

My debut novel, The Reluctant Fortune-Teller, is said to be witty. I hope it is! We need laughter now more than ever. It is also about many things – among them, how people reinvent themselves – to their own delight and peril.

Norbert is having trouble making ends meet. He is a practical man, and doesn’t believe in card reading or anything to do with the psychic world. But when three forceful women he knows from his art league show up on his door step and insist that he can solve his financial crisis through telling fortunes—and that they can teach him how to read cards…, well, you’ll have to read the book to find out all about his delight and his peril.

And just maybe, Norbert’s journey to create a new version of himself will inspire you, as well. I hope so!

In elementary school, a kind teacher told Norbert’s class that each child has a special gift to share with the world. We all have heard this claim. It seems that some people know just what their gift is, while others wonder if they’ll ever find theirs, or if they even have one at all. Norbert was in the second category, wondering in his later years if he had any gift at all. He doesn’t feel special or gifted in any way. He certainly isn’t a person that anyone notices or listens to…. That is, until he goes into business reading cards for the tourists and residents in his quaint lakeside town. 





As “Norbert Z, the Amazing Psychic,” Norbert suddenly becomes interesting. People make appointments to listen to him and they press money into his hands to show their faith in his abilities.

As Norbert’s new career takes shape, his confidence grows; he comes into a new sense of himself; he changes.

We live in a time of continuing education, mid-life career changes, and post-retirement careers. In my own life, I’ve been a college English instructor, a painter of pet portraits, a bilingual teacher, a birth doula, a bilingual counselor and now: a psychotherapist and a novelist. Each new career identity has benefitted from lessons learned in all the previous ones.

And what about you? Have you had more than one career, or more than one identity in your life? Do you believe you have at least one more gift in you that is asking to be developed? Do you dare to open that gift?

The Reluctant Fortune-Teller will be released by HarperCollins/Harlequin/Park Row on March 6, 2018. It is Keziah Frost’s first novel. In the back of the book is a fortune-telling guide, so you can get together—perhaps with your book club—and read fortunes using Norbert’s method. There are also questions for discussion. And if your book club would like to
Skype with Keziah Frost to discuss The Reluctant Fortune-Teller, you can just contact her through her website.

Keziah Frost is a psychotherapist who has felt she was “supposed to” write novels since she was in fifth grade. That was five decades ago, and she is thrilled to see her first novel ready to go to print. She had so much fun writing this one, she hopes to write many, many more. (Says Lucy: And check out her blog, which includes Norbert's readings of various book people, including Lucy herself...)

Can You See the Future?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It’s like—thick crust or thin? Pie or cake? Letterman or Leno?  (Kind of.) Almonds or plain?  Everyone has an absolute preference.  Plotter or pantser?  Every writer has had the conversation a blue million times—and we could all have it another blue million.  Because it’s all about how a writer’s brain works. And, as we know, that’s constantly surprising, endlessly changing, and never predictable.  

So hurray for the fabulous Judy Penz Sheluk—who pantsed her way to her debut novel!

Brainstorming like a Panster

      Judy Penz Sheluk

Do plotters brainstorm? I’m assuming that they do, and during the process, they probably take notes or draw up diagrams—a roadmap, if you will, that takes them from Chapter 1 to the last satisfying sentence.

Life isn’t quite as structured for us pantsers. Oh sure, we brainstorm ideas, but we tend to do it “on the go.” Think of it this way: Your destination is a town called The End. The plotter dutifully checks their roadmap, plugs in all the info into a GPS, just to be on the safe side, and in some cases, even prints off street-by-street instructions before setting off. It’s efficient and they’re bound to get to The End without getting lost.

The pantser, on the other hand, just hops in the car with only a vague idea of where The End is, and they’re not entirely sure how they’re going to get there. That, you see, is half the fun of the journey. True, they might go off course, but sometimes, those detours take them to places they never dreamed possible.

If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m a pantser. It’s not that I don’t admire plotters—I do, and even tried to become one. I went so far as to take an online course on plotting.

Came up with a dandy outline for my latest book, Skeletons in the Attic. There was just one problem. By chapter eight, I really wanted to take a detour. For a while, I ignored that inner voice and kept on plodding along, every paragraph written coated in concrete.

I’m not sure at exactly what point I tossed the outline and went back to pantsing, but I do remember the feeling of liberation that came when I did. I honestly wanted to run out into the street yelling, “I’m free!!!” but of course, I didn’t. My neighbors already view me with a modicum of suspicion. What sort of person writes murder mysteries?

I suspect my dislike of plotting stems from what I view as the confinement of it—although I’m sure even plotters deviate from their outline on occasion. But a lengthy career in the corporate world as a Credit & Collections Manager (among other things) left me craving a life where I didn’t have to work 9 to 5. And an outline, to me, is like being forced to work 9-5 again.

That doesn’t mean I don’t put in the hours, varied as they might be. When I’m working on a book, I aim for a chapter a day, and I always try to leave a hook at the end, so I’ll want to come back and write the next day. Some days, that chapter flows, and some days, every word is hard fought. But then I look around my home office, painted a beautiful Philipsburg Blue (thank you Benjamin Moore), and I know I’m going to get to that town called The End. In my way, on my terms. It doesn’t get any better than that.

HANK:  With ya, sister! I love THE END, and you know—I almost love almost being at the end. That excruciatingly great moment when you can feel it coming.

Judy’s book features a psychic—wouldn’t that be nice to know how your book ends? And hey Reds, have you ever been to a psychic?  Tell all!

************************* 

 Skeletons in the Attic

What goes on behind closed doors doesn’t always stay there…

Calamity (Callie) Barnstable isn’t surprised to learn she’s the sole beneficiary of her late father’s estate, though she is shocked to discover she has inherited a house in the town of Marketville—a house she didn’t know existed. However, there are conditions attached to Callie’s inheritance: she must move to Marketville, live in the house, and solve her mother’s murder.

Callie’s not keen on dredging up a thirty-year-old mystery, but if she doesn’t do it, there’s a scheming psychic named Misty Rivers who is more than happy to expose the Barnstable family secrets. Determined to thwart Misty and fulfill her father’s wishes, Callie accepts the challenge. But is she ready to face the skeletons hidden in the attic?

Pre-order Skeletons in the Attic: http://www.imajinbooks.com/skeletons-in-the-attic

Judy Penz Sheluk escaped the corporate world in 2003 and settled into her new life as a freelance writer and editor. Her debut mystery novel, The Hanged Man’s Noose, was published in July 2015. Skeletons in the Attic, the first book in her Marketville Mystery Series, will be published August 21, 2016.

Judy’s short crime fiction appears in World Enough and Crime, The Whole She-Bang 2, Flash and Bang and Live Free or Tri.

Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Canada, International Thriller Writers and the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

Find Judy on her website/blog at www.judypenzsheluk.com, where she interviews other authors and blogs about the writing life.