Orbs and the Paranormal

What do you know about orbs? 

You know, those little balls of light that show up in your photos? They have a scene in my WiP, a novella called Second Death. What would you think, if you were walking through the cemetery at night (it could happen!) and all of a sudden these little balls of light, called orbs, show up and start swirling around you? What if they were hypnotic? What if....I'll stop there. I don't want to give away the scene yet because it plays an import role in Second Death. But you can see that the paranormal fiction writer can go in so many directions with this, especially if you write about ghosts, as I do.

Here's what some are saying about orbs.

Some claim orbs are the souls of spirits or ghosts. After death, these souls stay on because they're bound to their previous lives for some reason, almost like an obsession-they can't let go or have unfinished business. The premise is that they travel as an orb to conserve energy in their natural forms. They're not as fully developed as ghosts. Ghost hunters actually go out looking for orbs to photograph them - they are quite photogenic.

Scientists say they are particles of dust or water on the lense of your camera. Or maybe light reflecting off gnats or bugs in the air. But what about those orbs seen over swamps, bogs or marshes with the naked eye? What about in the winter time when gnats and bugs aren't flying around?

What do I think?

I have no idea what to think. I believe in ghosts and the afterlife. Why not? Too many people have experienced something supernatural to discount it, including me.

Anyway, at Christmastime I took a photo of my dogs. And so I pulled the photo out to check for orbs. Check it out:

There are at least a couple of orbs...

What do you think?

Do you believe in the supernatural?

Do orbs show up on your photos?

Paranormal Mutations and Other Such Fancies

Hello ParanormYA peeps! Since I know you guys are the ParanormYA experts, I want to run my new novella series by you. I'm having doubts and think you can help. If you already saw my IWSG post, then this is pretty much the same.

My new novella series (An Indigo Eady Afterlife novella) is an off-shoot of my first series, the first book being Givin' Up The Ghost. My protag, Indigo, is a teenage ghost whispering psychic who can see and speak to ghosts, which is instrumental in solving the murder of her friend's dad.


My new novella series was actually inspired by the second book in the original series, A Guilty Ghost Surprised (not yet published). There is a scene where Indigo has a conversation with Franny, a Victorian ghost madam (you may remember Franny from our blog tour, where she appears on a talk show with Father Quanon from Angela Brown's Neverlove  HERE and also stages a fashion intervention HERE). Franny reveals to Indigo that there is a whole spirit community in Sabrina Shores (mostly Victorian) that basically is parallel to the living world. They have community meetings, court each other, and socialize as if they're still alive. Franny hints that some of the creatures in the afterlife may not have actually been...human. And of course trouble was brewing on the horizon.

So Second Death, the off-shoot, is...more fanciful, to say the least. It picks up from the conversation between Indigo and Franny in AGGS about the overactive spirit community in Sabrina Shores and takes it a bit over the top. Indigo is basically drafted onto the Missing Paranormals Committee by a ghostly high court judge during court proceedings of the highly active spirit world which takes place in an old dilapidated courthouse. She must serve on the committee alongside other spirits to investigate what happened to the missing spirits/ghosts/paranormal creatures.

The new Afterlife series will also introduce other such afterlife characters that have been mutated by what they had become in previous lives. Add spirits, ghosts, these other paranormal creatures and mix it with sometimes bizarre paranormal happenings, and you get....something more over the top than the original series. But I think it still encompasses the light paranormal characteristics of my first series, and is, in my opinion, just like I said - more fanciful.

The difference between the two series is that Indigo becomes much more active in the spirit world, rather on the periphery, in Second Death. AND there are some pretty off the wall creatures and happenings.

I worry that it may be too over the top and wonder whether it will reflect on my original series in any way because I'm using some of the same characters.

What do you think?

Any thoughts on what's too much?

Will it reflect on my original series?