Regression for writers block is better than sex

As a radio (blog talk-radio) show host, I get to chat to authors, covering may different subjects and styles of writing, in fact I celebrated my 200th radio show in August. One of the subjects that I have been bringing up over the last several months was the “string theory” or parallel universe for writers.

At the time this was really tongue in cheek, now, with what has happened to me over the last few weeks, I just wonder how farfetched it really is?

My theory is that there is a parallel universe where the stories that us writers put down on paper exist, they are waiting there, for some author to come along and be the conduit that enables them to be shared in this world. Ninety nine percent of fiction authors will tell you, that no matter how detailed their plan is and how much they sketch out the plot, the characters; once you start to write, lead the author off on numerous tangents. Characters that originally were there just as background, suddenly take over the story, leading you a merry dance through the next few chapters if not the rest of the book.

I have spoken to numerous show guests about this very thing, some have even shared that such a character has taken over the book completely, nagging at their sub-conscience if they dare to stop, or spend time on another story.

This character pressure can take place during the creation period, or even, as some have shared, during moments of sleep. Several authors have explained that they keep a paper and pencil next to them during the night, to catch the moments of clarity when waking from a dream.

This creating from your sub-conscience, which is basically what it boils down to, took on a different aspect these last few weeks.

For some time I’ve been pondering statements made by fellow stall holders at a few book signing events. For some reason us authors tend to get put next to, or close to people doing “palm readings”, “tarot cards” and such. A few times, when business was slack (quite often), I and fellow authors have gone for “readings” from these stallholders. Each time I’ve had whatever type of reading, I’ve been told “you are a very old soul, and have been around a long time.”

What does that mean, “been around a long time”, does it mean I’m even older than I thought, or am I, as the old music hall song goes, “one of the ruins Cromwell knocked about a bit.”

Quite by chance I heard of a lady living not that far from me who does a readings, healings, and past life regression. Up until now I’ve never really thought much about such things; however with the previous statement about being the “old soul” I contacted her about a “regression session”.

Just a little skeptical, wondering if I could even relax enough to be a good subject, I went to the ladies house. It was a three hour session, the first hour just talking about things, how things worked, and what was I expecting etc. To be honest I did not know what to expect. I’ve heard of people going through two or three regressions at one session, and had no idea what was ahead of me.

When one thinks of events like “regression sessions” you perhaps think of being hypnotized like the TV shows, you know, “when I mention food, you will quack like a duck” sort of thing. This is actually far from what actually happened.

You relax, being stopped just above the point of going to sleep, you know where you are, you know what is going on, you can hear the person talking to, the air-conditioning unit, and people in the street. You are there but not there. Some people I’ve heard take you to a room with many doors, others to a road with many paths. Myself, I was taken to a library in a very old castle, and there found a shelf of books, each one being one of my past lives. Two books stood out, one blue and one red; the others were all dull grey. I took the blue book, place it on the floor and it grow until there was a door through which I stepped into a past life.

Okay some folk are saying, load of rubbish, and to be honest I had much the same skepticism. However as I moved through the past life, sometimes being able to touch things, sometimes hear things sometimes even smell things. I knew I was there, I was part of it. I remember at the time thinking, is this real or am I just a story teller narrating a story that is being created in my sub-conscience. Is this how stories come to writers? Be it in dreams or perhaps when they start creating their novel?

After what seemed to be about fifteen or twenty minutes I was brought back from my past life, with a greater understanding of some of the issues in my present life as well as many questions.

I was totally shocked to find upon completing the session, that instead of the fifteen minutes I thought I’d been in regression, in fact it was over an hour and a half. This was a huge shock to me; it was like I’d jumped into a different time line. Perhaps this is how alien visitors are able to travel so far and so fast? But I guess that’s a story for another time.

This event was on a Monday, and left me very confused, also though, seemingly more open mentally to the idea that such things were possible. Even that my theory for writers could actually be true, even if that “parallel world” might actually be your sub-conscience, or was your sub conscience the link to the parallel world?

Perhaps the relaxation part of a regression session, taking you to that point just above sleep, would be a way to get out of writers block?

I might have left it at that if it had not been for what happened over the next three days.

Let me explain first off, I book guests for my show “A Book and a Chat” three sometimes four months in advance, guests authors and even bloggers can come from any form of writing. I do not plan groups of shows unless they are a special like my November Male YA Author month. I sometimes have certain guests for longer Saturday shows, though normally it’s just a case of filling in dates with virtual tour authors or those just looking to share their work with the listening audience. Many times I do not even check what the author has written until a day or two before the show.

On the Tuesday after my regression session, I researched my guest for that night “Randolph J Rogers”. Imagine my surprise to find his book “The Key of Life” was all about regression and past lives. Coincidence? Is there such a thing as coincidence, or is it we all have our paths to walk down?

I would have just said yes, just one of those weird quirks, and then came Wednesdays show. My guest on Wednesday was Terry M. Drake chatting about his book “Live Happily ever After…Now”. Again will state I make no plan of shows have no idea when certain guests are on the show booking them three four months ahead of time. Yet the two days after my own regression session, and the day after my chat with Randy Rogers, here I was chatting to an author about how our lives are there before us, the choices we have in the paths we follow.

As you can guess by this time my own feelings, believes and understanding were starting to be shaken, this was not improved by my guest on the Thursday nights show.

Paul Rademacher and his book “A Spiritual Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe” once again lead me down paths that had been the theme of the whole week.

My views over the last week have changed and I am even more trying to understand how as writers we are guided by some force, be is from another world or our own sub-conscience to create the plot and characters that we do in our stories. As I jokingly said to one guest when she was saying that one of her characters might not be pleased with how she had displayed them, and that she kept getting the feeling of their displeasure when she wrote about that character.

Just imagine, if these stories were from another world, how one day they might visit this planet, and when you answered a knock on your door, there would be all your characters wanting to speak to you about how you had written about them.
Since that week, thoughts have been spinning around my head and in my dreams, telling me “I must put what happened down on paper”, so here it now is.

Anybody who knows me or has heard my show “A Book and a Chat” will tell you I am far from the séance driven, regression seeking, palm reading person that these events have made me look. I am fun loving and always looking for a laugh; however this last week or two has made this author think.

Anyway, as the title says, and as I found out when my clock seemed to go out of balance, a regression session lasts a lot longer than sex.

A week after I wrote this article, I was laying in bed thinking about what I had written and how strange things had become, when suddenly a voice came into my head saying…

“Your name was Seth”.

I was freaked out. One of the things from the regression session was I knew my wife’s name and my daughters, but could not remember what mine was. I was told this was not unusual during regression session. It is something that had been playing on my mind since that day. Now out of the blue I had this voice telling me that my name had been “Seth”. I must admit I was shaking for a good ten minutes after the event. However it made me think even more about these voices or dreams that authors get telling them the story etc.

Barry Eva (Storyheart)
Author of "Across the Pond"

My Blogs:

Book Information and Things UK - Across the Pond

Book and a Chat Radio Show Guests - A Book and a Chat

Funny, Weird Or Just Interesting News From Around the World - Laugh I Thought My Trousers Would Never dry

Help with Writing Terms

While on a radio show yesterday somebody asked what I publicist does?

My first image was of a person who went from Pub to Pub listing the various beers they sold.

This got me thinking about other literary terms and meanings that perhaps people use all the time, but do not know 100% what they mean, so here are my examples.

Elements of a Story
Now for the technical stuff! Generally speaking, teachers want to ensure that their students learn to write a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Additionally, it's important for students to include all the elements that complete the structure of a story. Chandler lists developed characters, a defined plot with climax and conflict, a descriptive setting, and a theme as the main elements. Here's a more in-depth look at what goes into creating a story:

Genre — A genre is a category of writing that has a particular kind of content or structure, such as narrative, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. When your child reaches this stage of conjuring his own story, visit Writing With Writers for ideas about how to write in specific genres.

Characters — In general, characters are human, but can also be animals, aliens, and even the landscape!

Point-of-view — The point-of-view refers to the narrator who relates the story to the reader. The narrator, often (but not necessarily) a character in the story, is the eyes, ears, and voice of the story. The three major points-of-view are:

* 1st person, or a story told by "I."
* 2nd person, or a story addressed to "you."
* 3rd person, or a story in which the story the characters are "he" and "she," and the narrator is not usually a character.


Plot — Specifically, the plot is the sequence in which the writer arranges the events for the story:

* Exposition: The beginning of the story, which introduces the characters and setting; also introduces the conflict, for which the action of the story will take place.
* Rising Action: The majority of the plot takes place here. Dialogue, scenes, character interaction, descriptions, building tension, and more occur here. Think of the last book you read — the rising action took up most of the pages of that book.
* Climax: The most exciting part of the story, usually where the conflict is resolved.
* Falling Action: The aftermath of the climax, where the remainder of the story falls into place and the reader's questions are answered.
* Resolution: The end; all the loose ends are tied up.

Setting — Here is where the story takes place. Whether it's grandma's farm, a boat in the Atlantic Ocean, outer space, or simply a backyard, the setting should have plenty of details. It helps a reader imagine what's happening.

Theme — A theme is a unifying motif or "message" of a story.

Key Terms
As your child gets older, you may begin to hear some of the following terms in conjunction with his assignments. Refer back to this glossary as needed!

Allegory — An extended metaphor that presents a subject (a moral, and idea, etc.) disguised as something else (characters, landscape, etc). A famous example is The Allegory of the Cave, in which Plato used a story about prisoners in a cave to interpret ordinary objects.

Abstract — Something that exists in theory rather than reality; can also refer to a quality or condition rather than to specific detail. An abstract description relies on impressions and lacks the specific, concrete detail that a reader can imagine.

Analogy — A figure of speech that compares, often in the form of a simile or metaphor. Often used in explanations, analogy expresses a correspondence, equivalence, or parallelism between two things due to an element that they share. Here's a funny analogy about kids' speaking habits: Her vocabulary was as bad as, you know, like, whatever.

Antagonist — Any character in a story that opposes the efforts of the hero or main character (see Protagonist).

Concrete — A material object or specific tangible detail, rather than an abstract state, quality, or generality. A concrete description is one that contains specific details that the reader can easily visualize or imagine.

Dialogue — A conversation in literature. Dialogue generally refers to anything spoken by a character, even if the character is not actually speaking to anyone or having a conversation. Sometimes the term is broadened to include direct thoughts from a character.

Diction — The use of words, including range of vocabulary, the choice of wording, word order, and style of use.

Epilogue — An appendix to a text or other work intended to wrap up any last loose ends of the plot.

Figure of speech — An expressive use of language, such as a metaphor or pun, used to suggest an image or comparison. In a figure of speech, words are not used literally.

Hyperbole — Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration for emphasis (such as referring to something as "the best ever"), not meant to be taken literally. If used too often, hyperbole loses effect.

Imagery — The sensory detail (not just visual) referring more specifically to figures of speech, which produce mental images for the reader.

Motif — A recurring image, object, idea, situation, feature, or phrase that helps unify a piece of writing. Motif can be also be used to refer to a situation common across many works, such as the "heroic quest" story or the "rags-to-riches" tale.

Oxymoron — A figure of speech combining contradictory words for descriptive purposes. An example: Jumbo shrimp.

Prologue — The preface or introduction to a story.

Protagonist — The main character in a literary work; the hero.

Writer's Block — An unfortunate condition! It refers to when a writer is unable to continue writing because his brain feels "blocked." If this happens when your child is working on a story, encourage him to go outside and play, exercise, or talk to friends until inspiration returns.

Poetry
Fiction isn't the only kind of creative writing! Rhyme your way over to our Poetry Pro glossary to get familiar with poetic terms, and check out these poetry collections for independent readers.


Barry Eva (Storyheart)
Author of "Across the Pond"

Book Site:http://across-t-pond.com
Follow my daily blog at: http://acrossthepond-storyheart.blogspot.com
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