Hey, There's A Weasel Eating My Editor: 2023

Tuesday, 12 December 2023

Yuletide Calling

My newest Short Story published to end the year and at the end is my new interview just done last month.

Enjoy

Frank

https://medium.com/we-paw-bloggers/yuletide-calling-byline-frank-talaber-edea8bf7725c

Monday, 21 August 2023

Past lives & intuition

From Lillian Brummet's Blog

August 18, 2023

Our online friend and fellow Canadian author, Frank Talaber joins us once again with this interesting article about his experiences in researching past lives. Frank is one of those writers who seems to have been born as a natural storyteller, whose compelling thoughts are freed from the depths of the heart and the subconscious before being poured onto the page.

To date he has over fifty articles/short stories, sixty blog posts and fifteen novels written or published. One, The Joining, top three finalist in the Canadian Book Club Awards in 2020, out of nearly two hundred entries. Another, The Lure, finished a quarter finalist in 2018 Screen Craft Cinematic Book Competition. His novel, Raven's Lament, made it to the Chapters Novel Contest semi-finals and one of his short stories, A Sun-catchers Tears, was voted #1 by readers.

Frank invites you to visit his Blog, drop by his Amazon Author Page, or bowse the content available on his Youtube channel

Just Old Souls Reborn

Do you know how often I’ve spooked people by stealing their thoughts? Where the very sentence forming in their minds comes out of my mouth? (My wife's, in particular). I have often visualized things I wanted and knew where to get them. Perfect example was the candle snuffer. Nobody seemed to stock them but suddenly I just knew to visit our local Value Village Thrift store for it. “It is there,” I remarked as the knowing hit me.

My wife was not convinced. “You could probably wait a thousand years” she said “for something so obscure to be at any Value Village, let alone the one down the road.” Well she had to pick her chin up off the floor when I walked straight up to where it hung on the wall. Yup, I do that a lot, sometimes wondering if I was a magician or a mystic in a former life. Some have called me a shaman.

Former lives? Many of us believe in past lives. I do. The eerie feeling of seeing a picture, smelling a particular aroma or hearing a certain sound and visions or feelings of being there, done that, sometimes surface. The old déjà vu principle.

While researching my next book, tentatively titled The Mystery Of Ms. Teak, I again trusted my intuition and walked into the local bookstore, knowing that the first book I touched would be invaluable. Past Life Regression by Ursula Markham, a registered hypnotherapist from London. Some of her experiences have helped many people overcome some severe phobias or attitudes that aren't effective in their lives.

"Write like your soul is on fire and the pencil is your voice screaming."

I'd like to share a couple of examples with you:

A fifteen-year-old boy who wouldn't answer any questions was getting picked on by his schoolmates calling him stupid and simple, but his school marks showed otherwise. Ursula regressed him to find out that in his last lifetime he claimed to be an American pilot, shot down and captured by the Nazis in the Second World War. He would only give his name, rank and serial number and was killed during interrogation. This explained why the boy wouldn't answer any direct questions. She wrote to the American authorities and found out that pilot was indeed real and listed as missing-in-action at thirty-two years of age during the war. I need to add here that this was in the late sixties, so him finding this information would be impossible with no internet. She helped the boy overcome this fear and make his life better.

Ursula regressed an anorexic woman. In her past lifetime, she'd been a male gangster, who abused women, killed and beat up a lot of people, sold drugs; was a completely evil man. He eventually became a very rich and overweight person, dying of obesity.

Another strange case of a man claiming to dream of being in the navy. When he was regressed, he had accurate knowledge of how English navy ships operated in the 1600's. Information so accurate she recorded them. This drew the interest of Lord Mountbatten and he played the recordings to naval experts, which reported back that not only was the information accurate, but that some of that knowledge had been lost.

"You don’t have to be mad to be a writer, but it sure helps."

How does one begin to rationalize this? They say we often come back to learn some lesson for our soul’s growth. I believe the soul is eternal and goes through much evolution before it ascends to another place, be that heaven, nirvana or the fourth dimension. Others claim that the cells retain memory of our past lives or of our human existence. Yup, woo-woo stuff. Now if I could just predict the next set of lottery numbers… Come on winning numbers.

~~~

Find the Brummet's Books @:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0845RLK1X

Find Them Online via:

https://taplink.cc/brummet
or:

https://linktr.ee/LillianBrummet

Sunday, 25 June 2023

Care For Some Ghosts With Those Scones?

Care For Some Ghosts With Those Scones?

Walking into the stunning lobby of the Fairmont Empress in Victoria, BC, Canada, with its amazing multi-faceted crystal chandelier, you'd never know that, among the thousands of tourists, walk several ghosts.

Its designer, Francis Rattenbury, who died a very lonely death in England after being bludgeoned to death by the very young lover of his second wife is reported to be one. As a bold young architect he moved to Canada and won his first blind entry into designing the BC parliament buildings by signing it, local Canadian architect. Then built the five star hotel that everyone views as they come into Victoria, The Fairmont Empress.

Another is Margaret from Calgary, an elegantly dressed older woman, taking afternoon tea, always searching for her would-be beau. On the outlook for the man that admired her large-brimmed hats. She passed away in her room, having lived there for months on end in the winter. The room later became the un-rentable room as lights would flicker and TV channels would change.

Working on the redesign of the hotel when the Fairmont chain bought it two construction workers quit when they spotted a man hanging from the rafters. In fact, a man did hang himself in that room decades earlier in the fifties.

There are reports of maids being spotted long after their deaths, still servicing the rooms. A woman who knocks on the suites' doors trying to find her room. Guests who try to help her are surprized when she leads them to the elevators and vanishes.

Bastion Square, in central Victoria. The site of the original cemetery, was covered over and built on. None of the nearly thirteen hundred bodies moved only the headstones, some of which were found in an old storehouse. "You left the bodies and you only moved the headstones". Okay, I pinched that from a very famous movie (PS. I’ve talked to some of the store owners and yes they have crazy stories of things that have happened). Wonder if things fly about in nearby buildings! Perhaps that, and the fact that ley lines are reported to cross the area, is the reason that Victoria is the most haunted city in North America.

The weirdest true story is courtesy of the doorman of the Empress. While waiting for the valet to return my vehicle, I struck up a conversation (as I usually do) and asked if he'd any ghost stories to help me with my novel. Apparently one couple, looking very ashen, told him that they returned to their locked room only to discover the wife's luggage had been taken out of her suitcase and "ghost clothing" put in. "Ghost clothing?" I asked. "Very old clothes," he said.

As a writer, the question I always ask myself is; what if? What if there's a ghost walking about on his tourist travels, dressed like us. I think after that sobering thought something stronger than the great tea they serve there is required.

I myself have never seen a ghost. But would love to hear from people that have, I went to a Writers Convention in Calgary, When Words Collide https://www.whenwordscollide.org/ and my talk was the last of the night, nearly at midnight, and after asked if anyone had ghost stories and several told me of theirs, this I’ll put in another blog, some for the first time sharing. Glad they felt free to open up.

So if anyone want to share their ghostly experiences with me I might add to the next blog or safe it for a novel idea as well.

PS. I did put the Fairmont Empress doorman’s ghost story into my novel, The Mystery of Ms. Teak and yes he was walking around in modern day clothing, you’ll have to buy the book to find out who, but all I’ll say is he signs his dinner bills with Local Canadian Ghost.

Bio

A natural storyteller, whose compelling thoughts are freed from the depths of the heart and the subconscious before being poured onto the page.

Literature written beyond the realms of genre he is known to grab readers; kicking, screaming, laughing or crying and drag them into his novels.

Or as he has often said: Write like your soul is on fire and the pencil is your voice screaming.

You don’t have to be mad to be a writer, but it sure helps.

To date he has over fifty articles/short stories, sixty blog posts and fifteen novels written or published. One, The Joining, top three finalist in the Canadian Book Club Awards in 2020, out of nearly two hundred entries. Another, The Lure, finished a quarter finalist in 2018 Screen Craft Cinematic Book Competition. Made top 35% of 106,000 Projects and top 24% of manuscripts entered. In 2000 my novel, Raven's Lament, formerly Haida Windsongs, it made it to the Chapters Novel Contest semi-finals with 48/50 points. It also went to the last round of acceptance and lost out to the non-fiction version of the true story entitled, The Golden Spruce by John Valliant, by Harper press in 2004. One of my short stories, A Sun-catchers Tears was voted #1 by the readers in an anthology of three hundred entries.

Sincerely

Frank Talaber
Canada's Foremost Off beat Author

Hope we will see you next month!!

If you want to be on my group email list for any updates send an email to below.

Email: twosoulmates@shaw.ca

My webpage (blogs available here as well).

https://franktalaberpublishedauthor.wordpress.com/

My novels and reviews on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Frank-Talaber/author/B00UC407R0

My Youtube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx5ki4gpdokN-9KAIZzu53w

My Goodreads Page.