Maybe they do guide me....

I have just finished going through and improving 'Despite the Angels', and although I wrote some new stuff, and deleted other bits, nothing the 'angels' said had to be changed. When I wrote the book I always found that once I started quoting the angels (spirit guides really) it flowed really easily. You might fear that it could be like a sermon as result, but spirit guides are very light-hearted and can be funny. Have a look at Dr Michael Newton's books,(Journey of Souls. Destiny of Souls) and you will get many examples. The afterlife isn't a scary place to go at all, but full of fun and laughter - as you'd expect, when people call it heaven!!

A Spirit Guide takes to Social Media

One of my characters has a new Twitter account, and is beginning to feel his (well, spirit guides have no gender really, but 'he' is happy enough to be male for the moment) way. He has told me it is a real treat to communicate so clearly with in-body humans. Usually he is hugely frustrated because his people (See 'Lucy' in "Despite the Angels" when it comes out) never listen, or pick him up wrong.
If you would like to follow the musings of a guide, you can find him @TrynorTheGuide. He doesn't mind being called a guardian angel, either, although it is not strictly accurate. Angels are much higher beings, and rarely communicate with incarnated humans.

The first Re-write is done

Today I had a good morning at the Carousel Writers' Café up the Dublin hills. The brainchild of Carolann Copland, a fellow writer, it provides a quiet space with great view, and all the hot drinks and energy providing snacks you could want. So in the peace I got to the end of "Despite the Angels" with my first re-write.
Now I have to put it aside for a few days, and then read it to see if my characters, Lucy and David, like what I have done with their lives!
Even more important, do their spirit guides approve? 'Jotin' and 'Trynor' are very vocal, so they will let me know if the story is not right.
I don't think the book will be out before Christmas, but when it is, it will be even better for ageing slowly, like a fine wine....

A Romance!

My editor tells me I have written a romance! And there I was thinking it would have to go into one of the 'paranormal' genres, and maybe never be seen again. But she says that as the 'spirit guides' (the Angels of the title) don't actually appear to the humans in the story, only to the reader, it isn't paranormal at all, just a romance with an interesting twist.
So a bit of re-writing is needed now, to tune it up, and maybe make it even more romantic...
Will I get "Despite the Angels" out by Christmas?
Trying my best....

Past Life cures nail-biting!

In May 2012, when 'Bill' came to see me for a past-life regression, he didn't mention his life-long nail biting habit. He had various questions about how his life was going, but mainly was curious. So we did a regression session, and he saw three past lives. One as a hunter in the hunter-gatherer times, one as an unwilling sailor on a privateer (pirate ship) in about the16th Century, and the third as a German soldier on the Russian front in WW2. In all three he died violently, and felt he had little or no control over his destiny.
Today 'Bill' came back for a 'life between lives' regression, and before we started the session, he told me that  since his last session he had not felt any need  to bite his nails! He had no idea why this was no longer a compulsion.
During his 'LBL' session, I asked why the nail biting had stopped, and the answer came that in those past lives he had actually shown courage, even though at the time he had thought he was being passive.
So I can only assume that his sub-conscious mind received a huge ego-boost, and he no longer needs the comfort of the nail-biting.
His nails look well-groomed, and many other niggles have been smoothed out too.

Researching in the Médoc

Writing a book with historical pieces gives a good excuse for making trips to research for accuracy. This photo shows me in a graveyard in the Médoc region of Western France, reading the names on gravestones. I was looking at surnames, to find a common one to give my heroine, Lucy, in her life as Eloise during the French Revolution. There were quite a number of Seurins, so she became Eloise Seurin. David was called Daniel in that life, and I made up the name of deVrac for him, which is a joke - en vrac meaning wholesale, and a common way to see wine advertised: "Vins en vrac".

I found out much more about the Médoc and its history than I was able to put in the book, which is about Lucy and David, not France. But the overall 'feel' should be genuine.

The Words We Use May Tell the Truth

Several years ago now, I attended a course about becoming aware of your own inner energies. The teacher, Ruth, is a healer and very psychic, and can see auras. Actually, during the course she taught us how to see an aura, and I was one of the lucky 50% who achieved it. But I digress.
Ruth explained that it is possible that in the past more people were aware of their own energies, at least subconsciously, and that this affected our language. Have you ever said "I was beside myself with rage"? Ruth said that an angry person's aura, or energy field, will often move to one side, so that they are literally 'beside themselves'. "She is above herself" is another one - a very haughty person may project their energies upwards, presumably to look down on the rest of us. "He is very down" - same thing, his energies have sagged.
My mother often uses the phrase "In my next life I'll be rich/a man/ like your Aunt Ray" or whatever is bugging her this time. But as far as I know she does not actively believe in reincarnation. And Mum is not the only person I have heard using this phrase, probably thinking they are joking. I say it myself, as I did this evening when I bit a profiterole and cream shot everywhere - "In my next life I'll be elegant", and the stranger I was chatting with laughed easily and we chatted on. But is it possible that we are telling more truth than we realise, and that at an unconscious level we are aware that we will get another go? I have a bit of a laugh at this idea in my second novel,'Revisited Sins', which I will put on the conveyor belt to publication once 'Despite the Angels' is out there.