Looking For A Little Inspiration
February 20, 2018 by Meriam Wilhelm in category A Bit of Magic by Meriam Wilhelm tagged as inspration, paranormal, research
If you’ve never read any of my books you might not know that I love to write about spirits, ghosts, witches and the like. Over the years I’ve developed a growing curiosity about the paranormal world. I’ve filled my personal library with books on everyday spells and rituals and located several websites where I’ve come in contact with some intriguing folks. Most recently I’ve become enamored with the use of crystals and natural healing remedies as a means of tapping into our earth’s truly magical gifts. I find it all quite fascinating.
So it makes sense that I’d use some of this new found knowledge to create a mystical world of my own by writing my first series The Witches Of New Moon Beach. At least it makes sense to me, although my father (if he were still alive) would surely call me a “kook”!
Thankfully, my husband has patiently supported my interests and helped me to seek out curious sites, stores and book shops to aid in my research. And my children have done their part by alerting me to unusual stories, websites and people they’ve come in contact with.
For Christmas, my daughter jumped right into my kookiness by giving me The Ghost Tour on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California where we went this past weekend.
We were both so nervous and excited and arrived on the ship at 10:45 p.m. ready to hunt for spirits. What we didn’t know was that the guide planned on extending this evening’s event until 3:00 in the morning… a little more time in the bowels of a supposedly haunted ship than either of us were prepared for.
After lengthy instructions from our supernaturally sensitive spirit hunter – aka our guide, we set our cell phones to record and wandered the engine room; stopping occasionally to pose a question or two to any waiting spirits. Sitting in cold metal steps in the dark we asked repeatedly for any sign of spiritual existence.
Sad to say, if there were ghosts aboard, they must have been traveling in a different part of the ship. Or maybe they just weren’t very talkative that night.
By 1:15 a.m. my daughter and I were both beat and opted out of the rest of the tour. Armed with recorders, movement sensors, a compass and other data collecting devices the rest of our troop happily continued on with their supernatural investigation while we jumped in our Uber and jaunted home. I understand that we missed the best part – the haunted pool area. Oh well.
You might wonder if I thought the trip was a bust because we didn’t run into any visitors from the other side?
No way. Absolutely not. I learned a lot about collecting paranormal data, the inner workings of the Queen Mary Ship and how much people really do want to engage with the spirit world. Would I do it again? Maybe.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you – when I got up the next morning I hid out in my bedroom where listened intently to my cell phone recording of the evening before. Was that a spirit I heard softly whispering and who was that giggling in the background? Was the tapping I heard a natural mechanical sound emanating from old pipes or was it a spirit attempting to communicate with me?
I guess I’ll never know for sure, but I can tell you that no spirits followed us home and I did get some great ideas to add to my next book.
Next research investigation? The castles of Scotland.
For thirty-five years, Meriam Wilhelm worked in education. From high school teacher to college dean to her favorite job of elementary school principal, she took an excitingly non-traditional pathway, always passionate about shaping young minds. When she retired, something magical happened. Wilhelm was bitten by the writing bug and her chosen genre was paranormal romance – specifically of the witchy persuasion. Now, six books into The Witches of New Moon Beach series, she is bringing her passion for learning to her new profession. A world traveler, Wilhelm has researched the history and culture of witchcraft and found inspiration as far away as Bergen, Norway and as close as her home town. A Redondo Beach resident, she decided there was no better location for her family of witches to reside than the beaches outside her own front door. “I think there is magic in everyone you meet,” Wilhelm says. “You just have to look for it.” In her case, you also have to write about that magic. Currently, Wilhelm is working on book seven, The Witch of Bergen. She is the recipient of the Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewers Choice Award. She is married and the mother of three grown children and a brand new grandma. When not writing or traveling, Meriam Wilhelm can be found at her sewing machine, at yoga class or, of course, reading.
It’s Nice to Be Important, But It’s More Important to Be Nice by @meriamwilhelm
December 20, 2017 by Meriam Wilhelm in category A Bit of Magic by Meriam Wilhelm tagged as Christmas, kindness, magicI enjoy including interesting quotes when writing my blogs and even sometimes in my books. So I’m always looking for new ones to add. Many times I find the quotes inspirational, sometimes funny and often motivating. While I love to include comments from famous world leaders, educators and even fellow authors—I’ve rarely included any quotes offered by actors. Not that I intentionally rule them out—it’s just been that way… until today.
“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
What famous human being uttered those profound words, you ask. It may surprise you to learn that the insightful thoughts were offered up by none other than Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock. He said them while celebrating his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week. When asked what the recognition meant to him, he shared that it was all about family…about working hard and surrounding himself with good hard-working people…about the happiness he found in always sharing his gratitude for his friends, family and for his professional success.
His words struck me and I decided to try to put them into action. I thought—I should be more like him. It’s not that hard—after all, I can be a nicer personcan’t I? But man, during this crazy holiday season, it turned out to be a lot harder to do than I had expected.
Whether I was interacting with a cranky postal worker, a harried sales clerk or a nasty fast food server – I challenged myself to try and remember The Rock’s words…”it’s important to be nice”. It was exhausting at first and at times I had to grit my teeth and force a smile on my face. It would have been so easy to give up and succumb to my feelings of frustration and fatigue.
But once I got started, I have to tell you that I found that the tides quickly turned when I took the time to offer a kind word of understanding or gratitude when confronted with an unpleasant individual. I’m not sure if my smile and nice words embarrassed others into change or made them just stop a moment to think about how they were acting—but more than once I heard surprise, relief, and far nicer words offered back to me in place of anything negative. And it felt pretty good and rather empowering to project niceness in place of nastiness.
Thanking the grumpy postal worker for her hard work during these busy days caught her totally off guard. She actually stopped, looked me in the eye, and touched my arm as she smiled and thanked me for noticing and wished me a Merry Christmas too! I admit that I had a little more of a struggle with the store clerk who rang my sale up wrong not once, but twice. Yes, I really did want to choke her until I noticed her eyes filling with tears as she looked at the long line of unhappy folks waiting behind me. I turned around and faced the formidable crowd, smiled and said, Ain’t Christmas great! I’m sure that a few of them wanted to kill me right there, but it seemed to give the kid behind the counter enough time to figure out her mistake and to actually ring up my order correctly. I left wishing her a Merry Christmas and she sighed a thank you and squared her shoulders ready to take on the next customer with a smile on her face.
It hasn’t been easy and I haven’t been always been successful. More than once I’ve had to choose to swallow a comment with a smile rather than announce what a craptacular job I thought someone was doing. I’m glad that I happened to hear The Rock the other day and I actually appreciate the challenge he unknowingly sent my way. It’s been tough to say the least, but I’m going to keep trying to be nice…because it’s important!
Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I Put a Spell on You by @MeriamWilhelm
November 20, 2017 by Meriam Wilhelm in category A Bit of Magic by Meriam Wilhelm tagged as Fan Letters, magic, Spells, Witches
I love writing books about modern-day witches.
My favorite part is the research; learning more about magic, spells, historical witches and current practices. Healing crystals and common rituals intrigue me and I love visiting stores, books and websites that focus on the use of crystals and gemstones to improve life for us mere mortals. I’ve met some of the most interesting people while scouring through New Age shops from Carlsbad to Solvang and often model my characters after those I’ve met. I fill my stories with light-hearted spells, mystical facts and quirky characters intended to make each book not only engaging and believable but also colored with unique, factual details.
But lately I’ve received some rather interesting e-mails, Facebook, Twitter and website contacts from readers—that have me wondering. I’ve paraphrased a couple and cleaned up one in particular.
I just finished your book – Have you cast a spell on me? I think I’m in love. (So, okay, that one was actually kind of cute.)
Can you cast a spell on me? My life sucks!
Can you cast a spell for me? I want to be rid of him…or her…or them…for good! (Heavy!)
Are you bewitched…are you sure? How can you be certain?
[tweetshare tweet=”Have you cast a spell on me? I think I’m in love. @MeriamWilhelm” username=”A_SliceofOrange”]
I’ve even been asked if I use frogs when creating my home-grown spells, prefer to wear the color black or know any single, available witches. (I cleaned up that last request!) My favorite comment dealt with the fact that the witches in all of my stories live at the beach—New Moon Beach. “I understand you live in Southern California and I have visited many of the beaches there. Unfortunately, I am very disappointed to tell you that I have not had even one witch sighting yet. Can you please direct me to the correct beach?” Hmm…
Sure, I write about the supernatural and I always try to include interesting magically accurate tidbits – not only in my books but also in my monthly newsletters. (If you’d like to receive my newsletter just sign up at my website www.meriamwilhelm.com – You can also find all of my books there!
However, although I’m tempted to say otherwise, and I hope I don’t disappoint you too badly – I am not a practicing witch. Yes, I love to dress in black – who doesn’t? I wear healing crystals all of the time and really do believe in their powers. I’ve met several attractive witches over the last couple of years – but I have no idea if any of them are single or available. And no frog has ever been injured during the conjuring of any of my literary spells.
I will continue to quench my curiosity by searching out new and entertaining bits of info about the supernatural world of magic. And I hope that you’ll consider jumping into one or more of my stories. Oh, if you have anything magically interesting that you’d like to share with me just send me an email at meriamwilhelm@hotmail.com It just might end up in one of my books!
If you share my passion for the mystical world and you’re looking for a few good books to learn more about witches, magic spells or crystals – here are a couple of my favorites.
WICCA A GUIDE FOR THE SOLITARY PRACTIONER by Scott Cunningham
Crystal Muse Everyday Rituals To Tune In To The Real You by Heather Askinosie & Timmi Jandro
Healing Crystals by Cassandra Eason
Everyday Witchcraft Making Time for Spirit in a Too-Busy World by Deborah Blake
OH, AND PLEASE CHECK OUT MY LATEST BOOK MURDER BY MAGIC
Meriam
The one thing I know, after all my years as an elementary school principal, is that there is magic everywhere and in everyone. While I miss those enchanting moments with kids, I have always wanted to let my imagination run wild as I seek out my own magic and write about it. When I retired, I started to write my first books, a series called The Witches of New Moon Beach and inspiration wasn’t hard to find.
I have lived in Redondo Beach all my life, and New Moon might have more than a passing resemblance to my hometown. Every day I walk on the path that runs along the beach, sometimes with my sisters, but most often with my thoughts as I plot my next book.
I am long married and mom to three great grown kids. When I’m not writing or walking on the beach, you’ll find me sewing, reading or traveling and taking pictures.
0 0 Read moreGet Real! by Meriam Wilhelm @meriamwilhelm
October 20, 2017 by Meriam Wilhelm in category Writing tagged as Cozy mystery, magic, mystery, paranormal, romance, WitchesGive Up
Give In
Get Real
I hit an unexpected writer’s block this past year. I sort of lost my way and it had me really wondering what to do next with myself. I have always been a goal driven person who needed to be reaching for that next carrot in order to feel good about myself. Yes, I agree that may not be the healthiest way to live, but I guess it’s just how I’m wired. The other part of me is that I expect that dedication and hard work will more times than not – result in success. But it’s the definition of that word – success – that suddenly had me paralyzed, and more than a little uncertain of my writing future.
It all started three and a half years ago. After thirty-five years in education, I retired. I had loved being an elementary school principal and there were still a thousand stories, strategies and recommendations racing through my head. I wanted to share all that I had learned and decided to try writing parenting books. I poured out my heart and soul with strategies on bullying, homework issues, parent/teacher relationships and more.
Six books later I realized that I was getting bored talking about the same old stuff I had for the last thirty-five years. I needed to do something different. I took a chance, deciding to throw my hat into the world of fiction writing. And I had a blast creating my first fictional series The Witches Of New Moon Beach. I created a welcoming – albeit quirky, action packed world filled with witches, magic and love, all at the beach.
Although I was happy with how the series did, I guess I had hoped for more. After all, I felt like I had worked really hard, spending endless hours in front of my computer. Suddenly I was wondering what the “more” was that I was looking for? More sales..more exposure more…
more what?
A couple of my friends gently suggested that I might consider giving up. Why spend so much time if it wasn’t truly productive. “I mean are you even making any money?” one asked. Others said that I should give in to the fact that the e-book market may have shrunk. Maybe I’d missed my chance and I’d never make it big. Maybe I just wasn’t good enough. It left me considering, who was I to think that I might actually make it in this gigantic world of publishing?
It was my husband who caught me feeling down one day and said something rather life changing – Get Real! What the heck did that mean, I asked – not really wanting to know the answer.
Then he asked me four powerful questions.
1) Did I still have a passion for writing?
2) Was I having fun?
3) Had I done all that I could to improve my writing skills and publishing opportunities?
4) Was I really ready to throw in the towel and walk away from writing?
After dropping these atomic questions on me, he calmly reassured me that whatever my answers were – he’d still have my back.
I spent a lot of time thinking about his queries. And in the end, it was the answers to those questions that helped me to redefine my idea of success and happiness.
I do have a passion for writing. I love creating fictional worlds over which I have total artistic freedom and control. My mind is constantly spinning with new characters, themes and plot lines.
I love creating new characters. It’s fun. In fact, I wake up at night to jot down new ideas that just popped into my head while I was supposed to be sleeping. I carry around my Book O’ Names with me so that when I hear an unusual name I quickly jot it down for later use.
Ouch! No, I hadn’t done everything that I could to improve my writing skills. I listened to writer podcasts, read articles by other writers and secured new support software. I knew that I needed to do a better job editing my books. I’d been zinged for it in the past and recognized that it was one of the areas I could strengthen. I secured the help of a fab editor – Jenny Jensen. She has been a godsend and has made all of the difference in the world in helping me to tighten up my story lines and confirm correct grammar usage. Most importantly, I feel better about my work with her support.
Hell No! I am not ready to throw in the towel. I love writing and even though I still hit bumps in the road; writing makes me happy.
So what did I do with all these newly found answers? I put my head down, recognized that this was what I’m meant to be doing right now – and wrote. I reawakened by imagination and had fun creating a new story – one that I am ready to share with you.
Murder By Magic is my first cozy mystery and I sincerely hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
And should you feel stuck along the way, you are more than welcome to borrow my husband’s four questions to get you headed in the right direction – right for you that is!
Oh, and thank you Paranormal Romance Writers Guild for giving me a 5 star review!
A Magical Trip
September 20, 2017 by Meriam Wilhelm in category A Bit of Magic by Meriam Wilhelm tagged as The Witch Stone, Travel, Trolls
I recently returned from an incredible trip to Europe with my husband. We took a Viking Ocean Cruise, visiting Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Denmark and Norway. The ship was awesome, crew amazing and tours incredible. Everyone that we met both on and off the ship were friendly and anxious to share their personal stories. If you get a chance to travel, as we did, on the Viking Star you are sure to make more than a few lasting memories. Throughout the two weeks I had to frequently recharge my phone as there were so many interesting people and places to photograph.
Prior to leaving for our trip I had finished my latest soon to be titled book. After sending it off to my editor for review, I decided that I needed a little break from writing. I was sure that I would be so busy during my travels that I wouldn’t have a chance to even consider any future storylines. But I was wrong, very wrong.
Any of you who have read my books know that I write about witches, magic and mystery. Little did I know that I would discover a magical world filled with witches, Trolls and more as we toured about.
I was especially intrigued at our last stop – Bergen, Norway. Snuggled between mountains, fjords and glaciers, Bergen is a fishing city steeped in history. Viking warriors, The Hanseatic League and the oil industry have all had a lasting effect on this port town. But I was truly surprised to find enchanting folklore and captivating mysteries tucked throughout this city and roaming freely in the hillsides of this quaint fairy-tale city by the sea.
Early inhabitants of Bergen were sure that something supernatural could be found hiding in the dark forests that surrounded their city. Thought to hide in the rocky slopes and pathways, Trolls have been a big part of the local folklore since the 13th century. Feared, revered – yet loved by many, these supernatural creatures have been included in the history of Norway for over 700 years. So much so that
local roads and byways reflect their presence from Trollstigen to Troll’s Tongue and Troll Peaks – Trolls are ever present. Magical trolls are said to roam the hillsides and I was able to capture a few with my camera as I climbed the hillsides. So many strange and alluring tales attributed to these strange looking inhabitants and I was eager to catalog as many of them as I could.
Not content with just chasing Trolls through the countryside, I came upon an ear catching conversation regarding the witches of Bergen and was soon directed to The Witch Stone (Hekse Steinen). Near the center of town, this memorial honors the 350 witches burned between 1550 and 1700. Anne Pedersdotter, perhaps one of the most famous Norwegian women accused of witchcraft, was killed for her beliefs in 1590. Her history is engaging to say the least and her presence apparently still felt in Bergen today. Locals all seem to have their own story to share of how they think witchcraft effected the history of their town. Some share remorse for the killings, others express superstition regarding witchcraft in general and a few thought it best not to speak of it at all. Interesting!
All in all I found this trip unexpectedly ripe with ideas to mine for my next book. Returning home, I couldn’t wait to get to my computer to begin. Witches, Trolls, magic and mystery – wow who knew! Little did I know just how many ideas I’d capture as I traveled throughout this exciting region. You too must take this fun filled, mind engaging journey!
Meriam
Meriam Wilhelm
The one thing I know, after all my years as an elementary school principal, is that there is magic everywhere and in everyone. While I miss those enchanting moments with kids, I have always wanted to let my imagination run wild as I seek out my own magic and write about it. When I retired, I started to write my first books, a series called The Witches of New Moon Beach and inspiration wasn’t hard to find.
I have lived in Redondo Beach all my life, and New Moon might have more than a passing resemblance to my hometown. Every day I walk on the path that runs along the beach, sometimes with my sisters, but most often with my thoughts as I plot my next book.
I am long married and mom to three great grown kids. When I’m not writing or walking on the beach, you’ll find me sewing, reading or traveling and taking pictures.
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