As part of the launch for my latest thriller Prophecy, YA author Natalie Wright interviewed me about the book and my inspirations for ideas as well as my writing processes. The video is 15:37 mins long and there’s an audio below if you would rather listen.

You can also download the audio here => JoannaPennInterview.mp3

In the video, we discuss:

• Tell us about Prophecy, an action-adventure romp

• How did you come up with your protagonist, Morgan Sierra, who is a kick-ass, smart, sexy woman who can fight? I talk about how Morgan is my fantasy alter-ego. We also talk about who would play the roles of Morgan and Jake in the movie version of the novel.

• Where did the evil organization Thanatos come from?

• On art history, religious symbolism and historic places. How much time does it take me to research and why am I obsessed by these things? How I found the Devil’s Bible and synchronicity.

• On the God Helmet and some of the aspects that are real-life but have been twisted for the story

• Have I been to all the places I write about? How I use Flickr for research. The symbolism of place.

• My writing process is more set now I am working on the 3rd novel, Exodus. I explain how I work.

• Where is the ARKANE series going?

Prophecy is available on Amazon Kindle for $2.99

Thanks to Natalie Wright, author of Emily’s House, for the interview.

For the launch of Prophecy, I did an interview on GhostWriterDad, a great blog for writers. Here are 2 of the 8 questions. Click here to read the full interview.

This is the Empire of the Dead. Paris Catacombs

1. Your books use aspects of religion as the basis for their stories. How have readers reacted to that?

I am personally fascinated by religion and actually have a Masters degree in Theology so I have studied in depth. It’s been a continued interest of mine and I’ve read and travelled widely to learn more. I find that religious story and myth are already deeply rooted in our society and that resonates with people even if they don’t believe in a specific faith.

From a commercial perspective I think Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code was so popular because it connected with something people already knew about. So I wanted to tap a similar theme, taking religious ideas and using them as the basis for action-adventure thrillers.

Generally, people have taken the religious aspects as entertainment and also some education as I try to use real places and existing objects. Prophecy features the Devil’s Bible which is actually a real medieval book, and Pentecost involves a search for the bones of the Apostles, again based on truth.

I have the greatest respect for believers but at heart, I am writing fiction. Some people think the books aren’t Christian enough but I want to entertain and make you think. No preaching, more action!

3. Your books race through amazing global locations including famous churches and creepy ossuaries. Have you been to all these places and what’s your obsession with scene setting?

Travel is one of my obsessions and I have been to a lot of the places I write about over the last 20 years. Jerusalem in particular is a muse for me and I’ve been there 11 times. It’s woven into both thrillers and will return again. Certainly I’ll be needing another research trip there soon!

In writing my books, I actually start with the idea and then look at places that resonate with the theme. When I was gathering ideas for Prophecy, I went to the Paris catacombs and I knew that bones and ossuaries would be a great atmospheric thread. It turned out that the Devil’s Bible had been kept at the bone church of Sedlec in the middle ages and then I found the mummy crypt of Palermo in Sicily, both awesome locations.

As a reader, I love to learn about new places and descriptions of setting make a difference to the atmosphere of the book. In the writing process, I often plot the book by location rather than by plot on the first pass. One of the important elements for action-adventure is the movement and pacing so fantastic scene locations are critical, and amazingly fun to write!

In this short interview, I talk to Trevor Lund from RevTrev.com about my ideas for Prophecy, how some of the scenes came about as well as my own writing process as a plotter. Plus, some hints about the 3rd in the series, Exodus.

You can also get the audio here => ProphecyInterview.mp3

Religious belief and experience fascinate me. Much of how we experience God is based on where we live and how we are brought up, but there are many common threads across the world of spirituality. I am also deeply interested in psychology and neuroscience, and in particular, the intersection in the new field of neuro-theology.

We know so little about the brain and consciousness, let alone what exists beyond the physical. All of this leads to my interest in the God Helmet, whose technology I modified to become the headsets in Prophecy. The crude device from Persinger’s experiment is shown right but nevertheless, stimulation of the temporal lobe using a low magnetic field has resulted in some people experiencing religious visions.

As  the character of Dr Maria Van Garre explains in my novel Prophecy, both sides of the religious debate claim a victory from the results. Atheists claim God is just a neuro-chemical response, and believers claim God put that area of the brain there so we can experience Him. I leave your own interpretation up to you.

You can read an article on Wired: This is your brain on God

This slightly sensational video [6:58 mins] is quite crude but you can get the basic sense of the experiment. I used some of the experiences in Prophecy.

If you want to explore this further, you might like these books (affiliate links to Amazon):

Fingerprints of God: What science is learning about the brain and spiritual experience – Barbara Hegarty (2009)

The God Gene: How faith is hardwired into our genes – Dean Hamer (2005)

Setting is incredibly important for me in my writing.

Joanna Penn in the Paris catacombs

I often start with setting and then write a scene to fit the place, rather than the other way around. I’m primarily a visual person and the aspects of place in terms of resonance and spirituality are also important. For my novel Prophecy I wanted to have the theme of bones throughout the book so these places were great inspiration. For a villain who wants to kill a quarter of the world, the dead are important witnesses.

Paris Catacombs

In June 2011, my husband and I took a trip to Paris and visited the Catacombs which contain the remains of around 6 million people. By the 17th century, graveyards throughout Paris had become full up and the dead were poking from the ground. Decomposing remains were causing sanitary issues in the city at multiple locations. So it was decided to move all the bones to one location. After years of horse-drawn carriages moving the dead at night, the catacombs were full of bones. In 1810, it was decided to make the site more of a mausoleum and the bones were arranged into the designs that can be seen today.

You can see my photos of the catacombs on Flickr here and you can watch the catacombs in more detail in the video below:

Sedlec Ossuary, Kutna Hora, Czech Republic

I just had to use Sedlec as a key setting for my bad guy and his evil deeds. It’s a church but such a macabre place. I haven’t been in person but the images available are fuel for the imagination.

This video includes some great images including the chandelier that features in the climax of Prophecy.

Capuchin Crypt of Palermo, Sicily

As I investigated the ossuaries of the world, I found Palermo. Again, I haven’t been there myself but the amazing pictures and video online made it easy to write about. It’s definitely on my list to visit! You will see how I have used many of the images in this video in my chapter set in the crypt. Rosalia Lombardo is the little girl with the ribbon – yes, she is real. I personally found the more fleshy bodies of the mummies far more disturbing than the bones at Sedlec which I have reflected in the way Morgan feels when she is down there looking for the Devil’s Bible.

You can buy Prophecy on Kindle now at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

Exciting times! My next novel, Prophecy, will be coming out at the end of December (final edits still to come!) and I wanted to share the cover design and also the back blurb for the novel. I’d love to know what you think! It’s the next in the ARKANE series, kind of Dan Brown meets Lara Croft in a kick-ass thriller! Below I also share a giveaway for print copies of Pentecost which I am soon to ‘un-publish’ in the current print form. See below for all the details.

Prophecy, an ARKANE thriller by Joanna Penn

“I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” Revelation 6:8

The prophecy in Revelation declares that a quarter of the world must die and now a shadowy organization has the ability to fulfill these words. Can one woman stop the abomination before it’s too late?

When the medieval Devil’s Bible is rediscovered, the malevolent Thanatos organization finally holds the power to fulfill the prophecy through demonic curses that lie within. All they need is the vehicle to take the curse to the masses and the pale horse of the apocalypse will ride forth.

When mysterious suicides in Israel draw Oxford University psychologist Morgan Sierra into the fray, she joins ARKANE, a secret British agency investigating paranormal and religious experience, for their investigation. Partnered with Jake Timber, the two must stop the Devil’s Bible from reaching Thanatos before destruction is unleashed.

From the catacombs of Paris to the ossuaries of Sicily and the Czech Republic, Morgan and Jake must find the Devil’s Bible and stop the curse being released into the world before one in four are destroyed in the coming holocaust. Because in just seven days, the final curse will be spoken and the prophecy will be fulfilled.

What do you think?

I’d love to know what you think. Does this sound like your type of book? Please do leave a comment below.

Giveaway of print copies of the first novel, Pentecost

Pentecost sales are almost at 16,000 copies now and unsurprisingly, 98% of those have been ebook sales. It’s still ranking in the Bestseller lists for Religious Fiction in the US & UK and sporadically ranks for Action-Adventure. It currently has 57 reviews averaging 4 star in the US Amazon store & 16 reviews averaging 4 star in the UK Amazon store.

This means that a print book is basically a vanity project for me so I have something to give to my Mum & Dad I still want to do print books but because of the extra design & pro-typesetting I want to use, it takes more money than ebooks. I am also un-publishing the current print version of Pentecost soon in order to republish at a smaller size, 5×8 instead of 6×9 as for my shorter books, this just looks like “more value” to the customer. Weird, yes, but true! I also want to correct a few mistakes and also add a chapter of Prophecy at the end. So the current print version of Pentecost will soon disappear and I’m giving away 2 copies on Goodreads – click here for the giveaway (currently pending approval by Goodreads by shouldn’t be long!). Check out the video below as I talk about the reasons why I am un-publishing this version and come join the giveaway!

Please leave your comments and valuable feedback below!

In the last month I have been working at the London Library a couple of days a week and it has made all the difference to my new life as an author-entrepreneur. Founded in 1841, it has been the writing home of many great English creatives. Here’s why I love writing there these days.

(1) Books, research and serendipity in the stacks

I read 99% ebooks these days. I am a Kindle addict although I often buy the ebook after seeing it in print in a physical bookstore. Being in a print library has meant I am rediscovering the joys of book browsing and the labyrinthine stacks of the London Library are quite the adventure. I had a lovely moment of serendipity the other day when researching apocalyptic art for my next novel Prophecy and came across the book from an exhibition of the apocalypse I had attended in the year 2000 at the British Library. The images of that event have remained with me over the years and in finding the book, I was able to renew my knowledge and weave stories out of the result. I do actually have the book myself but it’s in storage in Brisbane, Australia so marvelous to find it here! Research is one of the joys of writing a book and the London Library is a rich resource for it.

(2) Location, St James’ Square

I exit the Tube at Green Park and walk through some of the most expensive real estate in London. It’s populated by royalty, the Ritz, art dealers and auctioneers like Sothebys, expensive boutique shops with armed guards, hidden member’s clubs and embassies. The library sits in one corner of the elegant St James’ Square which boasts a beautiful park to sit for coffee and lunch in the sun. It isn’t far from Bond Street, Regent Street and some lovely (window) shopping and my treat is to go to Waterstones bookshop for more browsing before I head home. The Library itself may look small but it’s a tardis inside, stretching across multiple buildings behind the slim facade.

(3) History and inspirational writers

London is steeped in tradition and history. You trip over famous (often dead) people everywhere you go. But it is still incredibly inspirational to think I am writing in a place where Agatha Christie was a member, where Virginia Woolf and EM Forster wrote, where Darwin and Dickens scribbled and where Tom Stoppard is currently president. This is a literary legacy of greatness. Is it too much to think that the walls have absorbed some of this creative spirit over the years and by being there, I too can imbibe?

(4) Positive atmosphere and peer pressure to write

iPad with keyboard and stand. My writing setup at the London Library

At my home office I have many distractions, blogging and twitter being two major ones. Yes, the London Library does have internet but I go there to write. I settle in and prepare myself for a day’s work. Soon I am surrounded by other industrious writers, on laptops, iPads or taking notes from books. There is a general atmosphere of hard creative work. Sometimes a member will nod off in one of the comfy reading chairs, a deserved break from the labour of intense study. This is how I worked at University when I spent my days in the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford. It feels like a correct place of work for a writer. There is a room where laptops are forbidden so not even the tapping of keys distracts you, just the rustle of pages and the innumerably interesting journals on arcane topics that draw the eye.

(5) The normality of a writer’s life

I have spent the last 13 years as an international business consultant with all the routine of an office worker. These daily rituals have become ingrained into me, the daily commute, coffee before starting, meeting for lunch in between spurts of intense working, perhaps a drink later in the day before coming home. Going from that life to working entirely from home as an author-entrepreneur hasn’t been easy but going into a place of work like the London Library makes the writing life a more normal one and gives me a semblance of routine to base my creative life around. Getting out of the house and into a different space is critical for the solo-entrepreneur. Being in central London also gives me the benefits of being able to network at break-times and after the Library closes.

I have only been a member for a few weeks and already the benefits of the London Library are immeasurable for me. I’m sure other advantages will be realized over time and I hope that I will also be able to give back.

The London Library is a private, paid membership library. If you are interested in joining, all the details are here.

Top image: Flickr Creative Commons Gruenemann, Other images my own (also on Flickr CC)

The London Library from Jeremy Riggall on Vimeo.

As part of my Masters in Theology at the University of Oxford (1994-1997), I specialized in the psychology of religion. I was always particularly drawn to Carl Jung, because of his extensive investigation in the subject but also because of his personal struggle with the big questions of life.

Painting from Carl Jung's Red Book

The main character in my ARKANE thrillers, Morgan Sierra, also specializes in psychology of religion, mainly so I can explore my own interest in the subject!

I was keen to bring Jung into the Pentecost story. It so happened that while I was researching the book, it was announced that the Red Book would finally be published and made available to the public after years of being kept secret by his family. To my astonishment, one of the paintings in the Red Book has what looks like a pillar of fire coming out of a stone which I wove into the story of the Pentecost stones.

Jung writes a great deal on synchronicity, the experience of coincidence or chance that occurs in a meaningful way. There were many experiences of synchronicity as I wrote the book but this one was stunning. I also use the painting to describe the room at the Wadi in Nefta where Jung actually visited when he was in North Africa.

Here’s part of a scene where the ARKANE team learn more about the Red Book. At the bottom is a video if you’d like to learn more about it.

Morgan listened to Ben talk, fascinated by the journey of the stone of Simon
the Zealot. They had Ben on speakerphone with Martin Klein also connected from
the ARKANE headquarters, hoping that between them they could locate the final
Pentecost stone. Ben continued his story from what the Grand Master had told him.
“Carl Jung travelled to the oasis of Nefta while he was in Tunisia, North Africa in
1920. He felt the land was soaked with the blood of Carthage, Rome and later the
Christians. It was a powerful experience for him. His memoirs say he felt an alien
sense of being a European in a Moorish, desert land. He recounted a powerful
dream of being within a mandala of a citadel in the desert, where he fought with
and then taught a royal Arab his secrets. Morgan, you’ve studied Jung’s writings in
depth. Did he ever mention this Pentecost stone?”
Morgan frowned and said, “I don’t remember Pentecost mentioned specifically, but
Jung was fascinated with stones as well as being obsessed with religious mythology.
At his Tower in Bollingen on Lake Zurich, he engraved stones with words and
images that meant a great deal to him. He created from his unconscious all the
time. He would have written about this if it meant something.”
Ben spoke again.
“I was told he was in North Africa in 1920. Isn’t that when he was still working on
the Red Book?”
“Of course, you’re right.” Morgan replied. “We should look there. It’s such an
outpouring of his mind at that time.”
Jake asked, “What’s this Red Book and why’s it so important?”
All three of the others started talking at once, and then quietened to let Morgan
continue.

Philemon. Jung's spirit guide

“The Red Book was Carl Jung’s personal inner journey written during a breakdown
he had. It’s an oversized red leather bound book with cream artist’s paper inside
that he filled with calligraphy of his thoughts and paintings of his inner life, visions
and dreams.”
“Why haven’t I heard of it before? It sounds amazing,” Jake said.
“It’s only recently been published for the first time. He wrote it between 1913 and
1929 and it’s truly a work of art. His family have protected it until now,” Morganreplied.
Jake asked, “So how could the book help us?”
“Jung painted what he saw in his unconscious mind and also what affected him,”
Morgan continued. “There should be signs in the Red Book if he had found
something spiritually significant. Jung was a mystic, struggling to reconnect ancient
myths with the modern world. He even dreamt about the coming rivers of blood in
Europe which turned out to be the Second World War. He felt broken in his mind,
and that left him open to divine inspiration, ideas and thoughts that the rest of us
discard in the night.”
Martin jumped in then, keen to add his opinion. His voice crackled over the line.
“Many of the paintings in the Red Book are representations of mandala, the circle in
the square which represents the inward journey of the soul. Jung’s spirit guide,
Philemon, is a central character in the Book shown as an old man with the wings of
a kingfisher. There are images of Egyptian myth and particularly of snakes, a
spiritual image of renewal and creation as well as the Christian idea of it
representing the devil. The snake is a powerful symbol in many…”
Jake jumped in, cutting off his flow. “Thanks Martin, that’s enough for now. Could
we get images of it please?”
“Of course, I’ll send them now. I’ve seen the real thing Morgan. It’s amazing! I was
assigned to be one of the few physically present when it came out of the Swiss vault
and photographed. The colors are so fresh because they have kept it pristine for
years, with hardly a soul looking at it. You’re going to be amazed when you see it.”
As they waited for the emailed images to arrive, Morgan thought about
Martin seeing the actual Red Book. She had an oversize full color reproduction, but
her professional jealousy was piqued by his unique experience. Working for
ARKANE certainly had its benefits. The images arrived and they opened the first file.
Morgan gasped and Jake leaned in closer.
“Is that what I think it is?”
They were looking at one of the images from Jung’s Red Book. It showed a square
room with turquoise patterned walls and a red and black checkered floor. In the
centre of the room, a man knelt in worship, his head on the ground with arms
reaching towards a small grey object in front of him. From that stone a pillar of fire
and flames rose up, filling the room with sparks and smoke, billowing above the
man as if about to consume him.

We all have special places that mean the world to us.

Mansfield College Library, Oxford

Oxford is my spiritual home and the place I return to again and again. I went to University there, studying Theology at Mansfield College 1994-1997. My father lives near there so I still visit it regularly and I have my heart set on living there again one day. Ever since I read Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, it has been my Jerusalem.

It also features in Pentecost as the home of my heroine, psychologist Morgan Sierra and one of the satellite bases for ARKANE, which is underneath the Museum of Natural History. In this video, I show you round some of my personal Oxford and also some places that feature in Pentecost.

The video features:

• The Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Camera, which contains the Theology reading room so I spent a lot of time there. The doors are featured.
• I take you down New College Lane by the replica Bridge of Sighs, down the passage to the Turf Tavern and round the back of Bath Place where Morgan’s office is – scene of the first fire-fight in the book.
• Mansfield College where I studied and lived for 2 years of my degree. The Chapel has a window with Sir William Penn, Quaker and one of my ancestors
• Oxford Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum, the latter containing some awesome shrunken heads
• My old house in the graveyard of St Thomas’, perhaps an influence on my writing but certainly a very cool place to live!

Here’s an excerpt from Pentecost where Morgan is led through the Pitt Rivers Museum at night.

The overall sense was of a museum crowded and alive in some way. The gods of such different cultures stuffed into tiny rooms, separated only by the glass of the cabinets. Morgan could almost imagine them stepping down from their cases in the dark of night, to wage war upon each other. The many handed Nataraja from India, skulls dripping from her neck and blue skin gleaming, wielded a sword at the head of a tribal god from Benin as Incan priest icons menaced the Native American totems.

A flash of torchlight illuminated a case of giant wooden birds of paradise, their spiraling feathers like huge tongues. They crouched next to crocodiles and the jet black head of a bull, horns sharply tipped and glistening. Here was the agonized face of a Christian martyr, neck twisted towards his God, desperate for release next to a case of ceremonial knives for stripping the flesh from sacrificial animals.  There a macabre toy cabinet, full of stuffed creatures with beady eyes that seemed to follow them past. The ghosts of dead children hung in their wake, puppets on tall sticks with limbs like dead trees, broken and dangling. As they walked through the main hallway a huge Native American totem pole loomed over them, a squatting amphibian over the eyes of a huddled figure.

Morgan felt the power of these objects in the semi-darkness. What was mere curiosity in the day had turned to mystic awe in the dark. She loved to come here to wonder at the collections, but this was experiencing the museum in a different visceral way. She followed close to the man in front as he led her to the back of the main exhibition hall and then down some stairs into the crypt. What did it all have to do with the stone her father had given her?

Do you like the scenes in Oxford? Should thrillers contain real places?

This is a little bit about my personal journey for the last few years.

Back in 2007, I was very unhappy in my day job.

In fact, I’ve never been happy in my day job but it paid the bills, enabled me to travel and I met a lot of great people. It was a mixed blessing. I fell into it to repay my student loan and just never escaped. I worked for big companies on computer systems and the work killed any creativity I had in me.

yes, that's really me! Great fun adventures...

In 2000, I resigned, left London for the Australian outback and swore never to do it again. My adventures were fantastic but eventually I ran out of money and went back. This cycle repeated itself a number of times… then in 2007, I was really, seriously over it. So I began investigating what else I could do with my life that would be helpful to other people and also enable me to escape the day job.

At the time, I read two books that made a huge impact on me. The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. They talked about following your dreams and also using affirmations to set your intentions. The problem with changing your life is often knowing what you want instead of the status quo. When I looked at what I had always wanted, it was only ever to be a writer.

So I came up with my affirmation “I am creative. I am an author”.

At the time, I was not creative and I was not an author. Sure, I wrote diaries and letters but I couldn’t ever associate the word creative with me. I couldn’t even say this phrase out loud at first. I wrote it down and then started whispering it on the commute home (when no one was around!) I also moved to four days a week at the day job to give myself head-space to write my first book.

In April 2008, I self-published How To Enjoy Your Job…Or Find A New One. I was so happy and proud of myself. I thought I was going to change the world and free millions of IT consultants from their miserable lives. I spent money on printing physical books and did some old-style PR with press releases, radio and even national TV.

But I only sold a few books. Literally, a few. Even with national TV. I was devastated, but wasn’t intending to give up (as the affirmations were really kicking in now!) I also discovered that the book you write will change your life. It really did change mine as I understood what writing a book was like and I had found my purpose.

But I realized that I didn’t actually have a clue about marketing online. I had focused on traditional PR but what about the internet? So I started researching and buying online programs to learn about blogging and podcasting and other things.

After a couple of other attempts at blogging, I started The Creative Penn in December 2008 in order to share what I had learned with the failure of my first book. For example, I had spent thousands of dollars on printing books and then discovered print on demand and selling on Amazon. I was determined that no one else would pay the price I did and I wanted to save people time, money and emotional energy on their own journey. I had also started feeling and becoming creative and the name ‘The Creative Penn’ came to me on the commute one day. I claimed the word for myself and have grown into it over time!

Since then I have personally grown as a writer. I have also continued to invest in my education as an online marketer and I absolutely love our online author community. In February this year, I published Pentecost, my first novel, which has now sold over 11,000 copies and remains an Amazon bestseller. The sequel, Prophecy is on its way.

So in August 2011, I decided that my affirmation has been fulfilled. I am creative and I am an author. I wanted to share this with you as encouragement as I know the fears that come with writing and the doubts that plague us. I’m an introvert too and have been crushed and hurt along the way. But I am also truly excited about the years to come as we are part of an incredible change in the industry.

So, all this background is to prepare you for my big news.

I have resigned my day job as an IT consultant in order to focus on my fiction writing and also on The Creative Penn community of writers and authors.

This is not a decision taken lightly (and yes, I have been saving for a while so there is a cushion). This has been coming since that day in 2007 when I just couldn’t take any more but it has taken this long to make a change that my risk-averse nature can bear. I can see the way forward as an indie author and also as someone who can contribute to the creative community. I’m ready to make the leap!

I’m looking forward to the next step (which is just slightly outside my comfort zone!).