Guest Post: How I Came To Write Paranormal Novels

Guest post by Roberta L. Smith, author of The Secret of Lucianne Dove.

Aside from writing, my passion is the paranormal and I don’t have a psychic bone in my body. But then again, maybe we all do to some degree.

With my interest so keen, I took classes to try to develop a sixth-sense skill set. I had limited success. I bent a spoon once. In an effort to elicit an out-of-body experience, I lay on my bed stone-still for three hours. When I started to leave my body I jerked in surprise and stopped it from happening. All that effort wiped out in an instant. Grrrr.

Now I like all this stuff, but if I could pick a paranormal experience to happen to me, I’d like to see—or better yet—meet a ghost. So seventeen years ago my husband and I started visiting haunted hotels. That quest, combined with inspirational treks to historic Old West mining towns like Virginia City, Nevada and Bodie, California, resulted in my first novel, The Secret of Lucianne Dove.

In Lucianne I tried to create a story where readers would feel the interaction with my ghost was possible—where they could believe the experience could happen to them. The story’s intent is to intrigue and haunt, not scare. The tale takes place in Virginia City and most of the sites in the book are real. The ghost is a composite of two nineteenth century, real-life soiled doves (term for prostitutes). My lead character is an average Joe, er Mickey, whose life takes a turn for the paranormal, and by the end of the story he’s glad it did.

Mickey is very dear to my heart and after I finished my first book, I needed to spend more time with him. This resulted in two follow-up novels. Chapel Playhouse finds Mickey in a much more frightening situation, unraveling a mystery, saving a life, and battling a malicious, misguided ghost. It is available now. The Accordo, to be released next year, puts Mickey through the wringer. In fact, he may not be up for any more paranormal adventures after this one. That’s why my fourth novel is a romance that has nothing to do with ghosts. Well, not real ones anyway.

About the author:
Roberta is a native of Southern California and a graduate of the University of Redlands. She lives with her husband and writes full time. She is the happy member of two clubs: The High Desert Branch of the California Writers Club and Victor Valley Vettes Corvette Club. Now if she can just figure out a ghost story that involves Corvettes.