A Beautiful Voice…In My Head

Calling “Frank!“

I’d originally written this post back in January 2018, then rediscovered it again in March of 2020. I still held off in posting it for reasons described below. Then, on Monday, August 29th, between 7 and 7:20 a.m., while waiting in a doctor’s waiting room the following occurred:

I was filling out paperwork to have some carpal tunnel symptoms looked at. I was the only patient sitting in the rather large waiting room. There were exactly three other people there, the receiving receptionist, and two secondary receptionists: one to the left and one to the right of the entrance.  The one to my left left her partially cubicled desk and came over to the main receptionist, who sat out in the open, and they chatted the entire time I was there, while the one on the right came and went and had presently sat at her partially cubicled station by the entry into where I was headed. When I first entered, one of the nurses in the area I was to go came out and called for the single patient waiting there before me. That now left only me in the entire waiting area. As I’m sitting there filling out my paperwork, listening to the two women pleasantly and loudly chatting (and, yes, also loosely following their conversation–I had no choice really, they were that loud and they were pleasant about it all), I hear clear as a bell and loud as a bell: “Frank!”

I look up.

No one is standing where I expected the nurse-from-the-back to be standing. I lean forward a little to see if I can see her around her cubicled wall. No one. I replay the chatting the two women are doing and recall no such words that even remotely sound like “Frank,” “skank,” “tank,” or anything otherwise similarly, because, yes, they were talking loudly, and yes, I was listening.

I look all around me and I’m still the only one in there.

I sit for a moment or two more then get up and approach the main receptionist and ask if my name had been called.

They both looked at me as if I’d just killed a puppy in front of them, as I interrupted their conversation.

I told them I’d just heard my name called, and they young lady paused and said nope, they hadn’t. I shrugged and returned to my seat. Sit some more, but after a few more moments later check the time and see I’ve been sitting there 20 minutes. I returned to the main receptionist and restated my case that I’ve been sitting there 20 minutes and really swore I heard my name called–and that could she please call into the back to see if someone had, indeed, come out and called for me. Maybe just hadn’t seen me (you know in this HUGE, empty room…)?

The receptionist said okay, and lifted the phone to make the call, when out from that back area comes my nurse. “Oh, there she is!” says the receptionist.

Here’s the thing.

I heard my name…CLEAR as a bell…heard the enunciation of the “F” and the “rank.”

It was clear. Projected. Loud.

It was unmistakable enough for me to twice query others in the world about it. Sounded exactly as if a nurse was calling out for the next patient.

This is not the first time something like this has happened to me. I’ve actually lost track of how many other times it has happened. But I have heard my name called out a handful of other times in different places. When I’d done some float sessions I’d heard lots of voices that went into phrases and even full sentences. I’ve been reticent in posting any of these because I was employed and didn’t want to have my sanity questioned, but now that I’m retired, I’ve decided its time to post about these odd little events. It’s been a long time since I’ve had “anything weird” overtly happen to me, so this was so cool that I finally had something weird again happen.

I did a quick Internet search just now and haven’t seen anything new on the phenomena that was positive. Just another psych article that it’s all made up. Or the result of a “trauma.” Well, I have had no such traumas. My thoughts on what I feel may cause this phenomena I’ve described below, in the “Beautiful Voice” section.

I have, however, written up some of these incidents and have included them below. It is very time consuming to look these up because of my extensive journals and I just don’t want to put the time into it right now, but you’ll get the point: this has happened to me a lot over the years, though I’ve only gone back to 2015. It’s a really cool thing to happen, you know, as long as they’re not hearing negative voices and all–and by the way, not once were my voices ever mean, negative, or anything else.

So, here are some I’ve been able to quickly unearth: I’ve included them as verbatim as possible to make them”fit” into this post, versus how I’d written them “for” other styles or purposes and also cleaned up typos:

The Sound of Children Playing (Oct 18, 2016)

“When I got home from work yesterday, I took a nap. As I lay there falling asleep, I loudly heard in my head, the sound of children laughing and playing! There were none around the house, and I knew it was in my head.”

Smell of Coffee and a Shout Out (Oct 17, 2016)

“Interesting: at about 2:30 a.m. I awoke to the strong smell of coffee! But no one was up—no coffee made!

“And yesterday, I got up around 4:30 a.m. I went downstairs, but laid back down on the couch…and heard my name called out loud and clear as I almost fell asleep! It woke me up! Sounded as if it came from a “hollow” enclosure. Sounded like Laura (my wife), but she was not up.”

MileHiCon47 (October 23, 2015)

“When I went up to MileHiCon47 two Fridays ago, I was standing in the first floor lobby in line to check in, and I again heard my name—loud and so fricking clear—and it was above all the clamor and hub-bub of the hotel. The loudest I’ve ever heard my name called before! It startled me! I look around…cause I swore someone there had spotted me and called out. But no one. Not even another “Frank” (I heard “Frank!”  shouted out). This happens to me all the time, but it’s usually in a quiet place, like at home, or when I’m alone, in bed. First time out in public. Very weird.”

Note the “first time out in public” mentioned!

From the Middle of the Bedroom (August 15, 2015)

“I again heard my name called out in the bedroom by a pleasant female voice not my wife’s. Laura was elsewhere, downstairs, and this voice came from the center of the room.”

And now for the main write-up that started all this back in January of 2018:

A Beautiful Voice in my Head

On January 7, 2018, in my bed, I’d awoken around midnight or 12:30 to the beautiful voice of a woman singing…in my head!

I’ve had this happen before, where I’ve had a woman’s voice humming or singing in my head, but I could never make out the words. This time, I could kind of make out words…or more to the point, I could just barely not make out the words to the song, but heard “word-like items.” And the music of her voice was positively incredible! After I awoke, the voice continued to sing for quite a (little) bit until it faded away. I just lay there listening to it.

My wife has a beautiful voice, too, but, no, this wasn’t her—in fact she was lying in bed beside me, fast asleep.

And it did not come from any external source, like a TV or a vampyre outside my window—it originated from inside my head.

As I’ve mentioned above, this has happened to me before. I thought I’d posted stuff like this before, but cannot, as yet, find anything I’ve posted. But when I hear a voice like this, it is usually brief and intense. Usually it’s just the my name begin called, but as you’ve seen above, I’ve experienced more than just my name voiced.

I did some research into this.

Here is a 2007 Psychology Today article.

Here is a 2014 article.

Now, the above two articles mainly focus on trauma. I’ve had no such trauma and when I hear a voice, it’s not nasty and not interactive. Usually I only hear my name mentioned. Once. A singular call. I’d originally written this post four years ago and held off publishing it. I only recently rediscovered it. I was a tiny bit concerned that others might think I’m going nuts or something, but then thought, I am not the only one having this kind of experience, people know me and my various “weirdnesses” and know who I am. Know that I’m not going off the rails. That I have, and continue to have, odd experiences that I’ve detailed and also included into some of my novels.

I also wanted to take this public so that others might have another data point to understand their own experiences.

This article takes a more positive approach, but was still not what I was looking for.

So what am I looking for?

I believe that sometimes such voices may originate from another dimension. Yes, I’m going there. When I heard these particular instances…the singing…my name…I knew it was not me…not the “me’s” we know from being inside our heads. Not “those” voices. So it has to originate from elsewhere. I feel that it must come from some other person in some other time and/or space.

Maybe it’s another version of me trying to reach out.

Maybe it’s someone in this or another time just thinking of me and suddenly all the psychic “stars align” and we psychically “line up.” Reach each other on the psychic “party line,” for any of those out there who know what that means.

It could also be bleed over from a dream or hypnagogic state. This actually does talk about people hearing their names called out.

And that’s about as far as I’ve gotten with that.

I don’t worry about it. It’s not frequent. Nor bothersome. I find it cool.

There is so much out there that we don’t know about, and I find things like this amazing and fascinating. I don’t dismiss something just because it “doesn’t make sense.” I identify it and try to analyze it. Document it. Try to understand it and allow more such experiences into my life, because they are always cool and amazing!

If I were really going off the rails, my family and friends would call me out on it. As it is…they usually say something like…”Oh, that’s just Frank….”

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Thank You!

A Walk-in?

Yeah, I Know…I’m Out There. (Photo © Jan C. J. Jones and F. P. Dorchak, 2016)

When I’d attended Air Force navigator training at the now long gone Mather AFB, in Sacramento, CA, as a twenty-two/three year old, I had had several weird experiences. In this post I’ll discuss perhaps one of the weirdest things to ever happen to me.

I’d been driving my blue Subaru hatchback on-base…backing out of the MAFB Post Office actually, when I’d been overcome by an extremely odd physical sensation: my arms and legs no longer felt right; no longer operated correctly.

As I drove the car, my entire body felt, well…”floppy“…like it wasn’t properly operating.

What it’d felt like was that my body wasn’t familiar to me.

From my actual February 2, 1984 diary entry:

“I just picked up my mail, and the strongest feeling came over me. I was pulling out of the parking lot—backing up out of the space (~1251 pm) when I didn’t feel like ME. I was wondering why the car felt so STRANGE. It didn’t feel right. It felt, to a part of me, like it was broke, the clutch went out, and wouldn’t start. But it felt more—it didn’t feel familiar! More so—neither did I!—I felt as if another person was coming over me! It was great! Ever since then (it’s 1:12) I’ve been feeling giddy—trembling w/a sort of anticipation of something. I had little other incidents where I felt different.

“Last night on Twilight Zone, I saw an episode where a person’s other personality took over—for the better (‘Man in a $4 a day room,’ or something).”

I actually remember thinking thoughts like “what am I doing?” As I’d mentioned, operating a car didn’t feel familiar anymore—I didn’t feel familiar to me anymore. I mean, I went through the motions, but my physical actions had been delayed and unfamiliar…clumsy…and I’d actually had to focus on what I’d been doing…driving the car…applying the gas…the brakes…shifting (which had become quite clumsy). I mean I could do what I was doing, but it was like I was outside myself and had to remind myself where I was and what I was doing.

But still…it all felt strangely unfamiliar to my hands and feet. My body.

As I’d thought about things then and now, I really feel that another version of me from another probability had reached out found 1984-Me and had decided to check things out. There was no malice involved…what I’d felt was an intense curiosity about driving and what was going on. Me. Nothing like this had ever happened before or since.

This has to rank as one of the weirdest experiences I’d ever had. While at Nav training as a Second Lieutenant, I’d had about a half-dozen or so weird experiences, which were fun rediscovering as I paged through my diary, and I’ll write them all up here. Along with this and my recent opened door experience (which discussed one I’d had at MAFB) I’d also found my “Vaudeville Act” experience that I thought I’d already written up but cannot find. And, apparently, I’d also met my Oversoul at MAFB—“in person.”

So…stay tuned…stay aware…and don’t be dismissive. There is Great Weirdness awaiting you out there, if you keep yourself open to the experiences!

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A Door…Opens….

What’s Behind Door #1…? (© F. P. Dorchak 2017)

A very odd occurrence had happened this past Sunday, as I sat watching a recorded movie/TV show early (the first episode of The No-End House?, recorded on the SyFy Channel?, which was pretty good, I must say!) in the morning, for a change. I’m usually writing, but decided to take a break, since I’d finally gotten my anthology, Do The Dead Dream?, “to bed.” As I was watching this show, a door, which is just to the right of the screen, opened—

Or so it appeared!

I was the only one up, and it actually caused a chill to run through me.

I did a double-take…and no, the door had not…”opened.”

Or had it?

I thought it might have been a reflection in my glasses, or something in the movie that reflected in my glasses, so I rewound the movie. Nope.

But I’d actually seen the door open! No sound, just creepily and silently opening.

And not all the way, either, maybe about six or eight inches kinda thing, but I’d seen it.

Oddly, the first thing that entered my mind was when I was in navigator training, at Mather AFB, CA, back in ’83 (November 26th; I found it in my diary), where I’d awoken one morning about 9:30 or 10 a.m. to find the door to my Officer’s Quarters open a-little-over-a-foot to the parking lot outside. Yup. I didn’t do it…or remember doing it…it was just…open. It was a little windy that morning and had been windy that night. And as I’d closed and locked it, it hadn’t seemed “real,” I’d written in my diary. In fact I’d written:

“As I think about it, even after I closed it, it didn’t seem ‘real.’ Now I’m not ‘sure’ it happened at all! it seemed so odd. It still bugs the hell out of me. The whole atmosphere of it was surrealistic at the time.”

Anyway, that odd little event foreshadowed a huge change in my life…for I had ended up leaving the flight career path in the Air Force for another direction.

So…I sat there and looked to the door.

Which was closed.

Huh.

Was some other “huge event” coming?

Whatever had happened, all I know is that whatever did happened was cool. I mean, it really was creepy cool how I saw that door…just…silently…open….

Conscious Living Interview With Wendy Garrett

Click this link for the interview!

Second time’s the charm?

Wendy and I tried to record this interview a week ago (the last interview that never happened…), but ran into…let’s just call it “doppelgänger issues”…and the interview was lost….

But yesterday, all things fell into place! The irony of it all was that this interview was originally scheduled for yesterday‘s date, but Wendy had moved it to the previous week (and there’s more about this in the podcast, above).

Insert doppelgänger issues.

Here we are now.

Sorry about the occasional feedback issues, but it is technology.

Wendy is so charming, gracious, and fun! Thank you, Wendy, for two fun interviews, thanks for having me, and I hope we do some more of these! Thank you, listeners, for listening! And thanks to Matt, for his excellent production efforts!

Enjoy!

Things are not always as they seem….

www.fpdorchak.com

 

Do The Dead Dream? An Anthology (and Interview!) of the Weird and the Peculiar!

Do The Dead Dream? (© 2017, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

Okay, after nigh 40 years, I have finally brought together the best of my short stories into a single collection! Forty-five of them! As I’ve teased…here is the cover to my new book, Do The Dead Dream?!

Isn’t this just creepy?!

I will talk more about this cover in another post, its creation, what I absolutely LOVE about it, but I am floored by Lon Kirschner’s work, and in total awe of this guy’s abilities! I am still working on the back cover, am having the entire manuscript formatted, but I am looking to release Do The Dead Dream? at the end of this month!

Damn, I can hardly believe it, but this cover kills!

Now, since this is my “reality check” blog, I’m also going to mention about an interview that got, um, derailed a bit. In a most weird and peculiar way….

It seems that there are things around this book that are funny and weird that are starting to happen, and one of them was a telephonic interview with Wendy Garrett this past Wednesday, August 30th. It was a recorded session to be released on the Empower Radio website, under Wendy Garrett’s Conscious Living segment. But we only got about 20 or so minutes into it before it crashed!

What had happened was that Wendy and I had been talking and joking about how a doppelgänger of hers had been sighted by a neighbor earlier in the week, and she’d run across this neighbor as she’d been walking her dogs. The neighbor had exclaimed that s/he’d just past her, walking at the same clip, but with no dogs. So we were joking around with that, and Wendy had made a comment about how sad it must be for her doppelgänger, because she had no dogs! As were laughing about it, Wendy cut out for a few moments. I waited for her to come back, which she did, she she still wasn’t a solid signal, and her producer came on, saying she’d cut ou—

Then I’d lost them both.

I hung out for a couple of minutes, then decided to try to contact her through both Twitter and Facebook. We did get back with each other. I then posted a funny post, meant for her doppelgänger.

Well, the long and the short of it was that Wendy told me that they’d experienced some weird (and peculiar!) technical difficulties that they could not figure out, and that she’d have to get hold of me later to complete this interview. Then this morning I see a comment from Wendy on Facebook that we should call our interview “An Interview of the Weird and the Peculiar“!

Heck, yeah, I’m good with that!

So, there you have it! As long as Wendy does not continue to diss her doppelgänger, stay tuned for our Interview of the Weird and the Peculiar!

As to the anthology, I’m expecting an end of September/beginning of October release, through IngramSpark (ISBN 978-0-692-94480-6). I’m also looking to give a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer presentation in the Denver, Colorado area in October, about “The Paranormal and You,” so I hope to see some of you there!

Perfume From Nowhere

More Haunted Northern New York, © 2003, Second Printing 2005, Cheri Revai

While in Riverton, Wyoming on our Labor Day Weekend trip, I would get up before my wife and Cousin-in-Law (CIL) and read. I’d started these two books on our upstate New York trip and had finished one of them (New England’s Ghostly Haunts, © 1983, by Robert Ellis Cahill), but was only about halfway through with the other one. That book is the More Haunted Northern New York, by Cheri Revai (apparently Cheri changed her name for one reason or the other, to “Farnsworth”).

I’d sit in the recliner out in the living room, with just the table-side light on and read. What had happened next, I don’t know if it’s really paranormal or not, but I have not found out the source of “the weirdness.”

On the first morning, as I sat and read, I noticed a sudden and definite scent of women’s perfume. It wasn’t an air cleaner/spritzer, it was definitely perfume. I didn’t think any of it, thinking it must be some scent released into the air. I let it go. The next morning, it happened again—twice. This time it happened just as I was finishing up the story about the Hand House (pages 68-70), on page 70. If you read five lines up from my thumb, you’ll read what I read as the two instances of perfume hit me:

“The Hand House,” from More Haunted Northern New York, © 2003, by Cheri L. Revai.

Okay, at this point I put the book down and inhaled some more.

Perfume. Women’s perfume.

Definite, strong.

My wife doesn’t wear it. Neither does my CIL. Neither do his pets.

I put the book down and got up and looked around the shelves behind me (pictures on the shelves and that was it). Nothing. Not one thing that could cause the smell of perfume. I look above and below…I look to the rest of the living room. Nothing. I go out into the hallway…nothing.

Huh.

I sit back down and read the rest of the ghost story and book.

Later that day I ask my wife if she smelled any kind of perfume as she’d sat in the other room the previous day, and she’d mentioned that she had. I looked around some more but couldn’t find anything. I later ask my CIL, when he got up, and he had no idea. But later he brought me over to a knickknack he had. “Is this it?” he asked, at which point he placed what looked like half a geode into my face with a butterfly in the hollow.

I inhaled.

There was a faint scent of perfume. Faint.

He said that you had to run a hairdryer over it to release the smell.

I don’t know if it was the same scent, but I have this to say about the entire affair:

• I had to ram my nose right up and into that geode/butterfly thing to smell it. What I’d smelled was all around me. It was powerful and strong.
• No one ran any hairdryer during my early morning hours.
• This tiny “butterfly thing” was in the next room, around a corner, then recessed back from the entryway into the living room I’d been sitting in by about 12 or 15 feet? There was no way that extremely faint scent could travel like that and amplify it’s scent like it had. What I smelled was like someone had literally sprayed perfume into the air around me. Or like a woman who was heavily perfumed…had stood right next to me.

So…am I making too much out of this?

All I know was that on that second day (and not since) as I read the words “There’s also a very faint scent of perfume“…I smelled perfume. Twice.

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The Riverton Orb

The Riverton Orb, Mountain View Cemetery, Riverton, Wyoming. (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, September 4, 2016)

This past Labor Day weekend, my wife and I made a trip to Riverton, Wyoming to visit a relative. While there, we visited the local cemetery, Mountain View Cemetery. We’ve been to this cemetery many times over the years, and never seen any owls…or orbs.

We were visiting my cousin-in-law (CIL). His parents (Jim and Signe) are buried in this cemetery, so we stop by every time we visit. This time, we walked and checked out the entire cemetery (I love to check out cemeteries and their art, and post blogs about them; I’ll do the same with Mountain View in the coming week or two). It was about 2:30 p.m. or so, on Sunday, September 4th, 2016. As we walked around the cemetery, around 3:15 – 3:30, I spotted a huge bird take flight across the cemetery and land in a nearby tree. Some deer we spotted might have spooked it. Anyway, my wife and I go to investigate and find this huge owl nestled in the branches, looking down at us! Right at us! It was the coolest thing! We watched it for a few minutes, when it again took flight—it was incredible! I had my iPad mini with me and snapped off a couple of shots, but it was right into the sun, so I couldn’t see what I was doing. As the owl took flight this second time, my wife had mentioned that her Aunt Signe loved owls.

As we go to follow the owl, I stop to take a look at what I’d shot, and find the photo at the top of this post. See that beautiful, multi-colored orb at the bottom right?

Orbs are frequently talked about and “photographed” and discussed in paranormal circles…and also in non-paranormal photographic circles. Paranormal folks say they’re some kind of energy manifestation “from beyond,” while the more mundane discussions insist they’re from light reflecting off particles of dust, etc. With all the photos I’ve taken over the 50+ years of my life, I’ve never seen an “orb” in any of my photos. I’ve also never seen any orbs first-hand in any locations that were supposed to be haunted. Never seen any in any cemetery I’ve ever visited…and I’ve visited a lot of cemeteries in many different lighting conditions. But there is a lot of insistence from both camps…and the optical folks have their “science” to rest upon—which I’m not discounting. Light refraction and reflection can create some really cool displays—look at rainbows! But, I also believe in the paranormal…and that “coincidences” are nothing to sneeze at nor dismiss.

I should state that my iPad mini photo did not use a flash. There is no flash that I know of on these things.

The fact that my wife mentioned Signe’s name and the photo I just took had an orb in it are too much to simply and lightly dismiss. I don’t believe in coincidences, as I’ve often said, and my wife’s mention of Signe tells me Signe must have been around, given the circumstances…and the orb—the first I’ve ever taken in my life, with all the pictures I’ve taken—I can’t just dismiss as “mere coincidence” and simply a reflection of light off a singular dust particle that is supposed to manifest from flash photography. That, to me, seems more farfetched than a paranormal visit from a family member from beyond the grave.

After my wife went in search of the owl, I walked all around those trees, and took some pictures around it. I looked off into the distance of the area around the trees, and the angle of the photo—there was nothing reflective anywhere. I even took a photo of some hanging reflective ornaments in another area of the cemetery, and they didn’t even show up. So…I’m sticking to my version that Signe decided to show up and “display” an owl for my wife and me. We’ve been to this cemetery many times and have never seen an owl. Ever.

Owl Art. (Artwork is © to Jim Aspinwall, 2006; photo is © F. P. Dorchak, 2016)

And there’s another thing: while at my CIL’s home the day before, I ‘d “noticed” an owl painting that Jim (Signe’s husband) had painted. It had just really stood out to me for some reason. I actually stood before it and just stared into it. Now I know why. Then as my wife and I had driven back to Colorado, I continued to see owl statues and images everywhere we went! But there’s more:

Later that same night when we’d first spotted the owl, we went back to the cemetery so my CIL could lay some ornaments on his folk’s gravestone, because it was his dad’s birthday that next day. It was around 7 p.m. We told my CIL about our cool encounter and showed the picture, so he wanted to drive around the cemetery and see if we could again find the owl. So we took our time driving around it. I asked the owl[/Signe] to please show itself again.

A few minutes later, as we drove around the cemetery talking, I found myself just stopping at an intersection. We all just sat there and apparently I was just staring out into the distance and growing darkness. I wasn’t really listening much to the conversation between my CIL and my wife…when something my CIL says catches my ear: “…Frank must be having one of his moments or something….” We all laughed and I snapped out of my reverie. Apparently I was just sitting there at this intersection…staring off into the distance…and I hadn’t really realized what I was doing.

Within a minute or two, there it was! I’d again spotted the owl!

Owl on Double-Hearted Gravestone. (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, Sept 4, 2016)

It had taken flight low across the cemetery and landed on a double heart gravestone! As I watched it fly, I thought, Gee, it’s like the damned thing just up and flew out of nowhere!

I know, dramatics…but it’s what went through my mind at the moment….

This time the owl just sat there on the double-hearted gravestone for quite some time, swiveling it head back and forth at us. We took more pictures with my mini iPad, but the shots are really grainy, because of the lighting and the distance. You can, however, still make out the owl on the headstone. No orbs. I hadn’t said anything to my CIL and wife at the time, but I felt the headstone was somehow significant, and it just wasn’t quite “clicking” until later:  Jim and Signe were quite devoted to each other, so I find that the owl resting upon the double-hearted headstone was also no “mere, dismissive coincidence.” It would have been much more “chilling” and neater had the owl been on their actual gravestone, but we had already been to their grave site and were on our way out…so, I was extremely excited to get the sighting we got, when-and-where we got it!

Owl on Double-Hearted Gravestone. (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, Sept 4, 2016)

The owl sat there and swiveled its head for several minutes, and we drove around at a different angle to try to catch some better shots.

It was so incredible to see that imposing, majestic creature!

So…was the orb a mere display of rare physics that I just managed to catch at the right time and place, or was it something more? And the whole “owl thing”…again, mere coincidence? And how about my asking the owl/Signe to again make an appearance, just for my CIL? My pausing at just that intersection? All just well-timed, coincidental coincidences?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Voice Is Released!

Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

Sex, love, and metaphysics. This intense sometimes explicit story is about what people do in the dark…especially when they’re hiding from themselves. A daring, sexy—even inspirational—read that explores relationships both familial and romantic and the tragedies that result from fractures in both. Voice is hard-hitting and unflinching…even uncomfortable…a novel for anyone who’s ever loved more than one.

After 16 years (18 if you count start to finish) and much angst, this novel is finally seeing the light of day! It’s also my longest published novel to date, at over 120,000 words.

Voice—my sexy, visionary fiction—is now available! Is it literary? Visionary? Erotica? Romance?

Truly, it is a little of each. But, whatever it is, it is my most mainstream effort ever. As I’ve said multiple times, I never wrote it, never intended it as erotic fiction. I still don’t even picture the story that way in my head. It is a story about people. It happens to have some explicit sex scenes in it, just like some novels have explicit violence in them. It turns out I actually wrote it as more of a love story: it’s a story about a guy who falls in love with a voice in his head.

That’s it.

I never had the plot nor story outlined…it just came to me as I wrote it. And I honestly did not know how it was going to end until I hit the “.” key after the last word in the manuscript. I do not exaggerate. I remember this vividly: I was banging along on the keyboard, excited how things had unfolded…wrote the last word. Hit the period key. Went to add a next page…and paused.

It was perfect. It surprised me. I ended it right there.

I’ve written a few “apologetic” pieces about the whole “erotica thing,” but…no more apologies.

It is what it is.

Writing Voice did more than expand my writing…it expanded my mind. My understanding of what I feel I’m capable of doing. Voice helped me go to emotional depths I’d never gone to before. At least in my own head. You, the readers, will tell me if I hit the mark or not. But, writing Voice took me down emotional rabbit holes. I found ways to write about the deep, sometimes hidden and painfully emotional details deep within stories. Which is really want I’ve wanted to do and hope I can do again. I’ve always wanted to write powerfully moving stories about the human condition. I didn’t want to just write about aliens or the supernatural. I wanted to write stories that were emotionally kick-ass as well as paranormal. I want to make people cry. Anger them. Excite them. Voice helped me learn how to “go there.” In Psychic I wrote a highly unpleasant rape scene. It was needed, so I did it. I didn’t flinch away from it. That scene’s power and mechanics came from having written Voice. In The Uninvited, I wrote graphic violence. I had to. They were important to the emotional context of the story. The ability to write out those scenes grew out of having worked on Voice.

And the utter irony?

When I finally made my way back to Voice and made that decision to actually follow through and put it out there…all the work I’d done on all my other novels all came back to help in making Voice the absolutely best, the most honest, emotional, and powerfully uncomfortable work I’ve ever created. And I’m proud of it—and I don’t use words like “pride.” If it wasn’t for Voice, none of the other novels would have been as good as they are…and if it wasn’t for the other novels, Voice wouldn’t be as good as it is. Or so I’ve heard from a couple readers (you just can’t trust me…).

And it is a powerful, emotional journey…but, really, that’s up to each of you to determine. I can’t please everyone, as a couple of my reviews show.

Sex, love, and metaphysics. This intense sometimes explicit story is about what people do in the dark…especially when they’re hiding from themselves.

I love this story, the setting. The whole gestalt. ERO and Voice rank as my favorite efforts. I hope you will also get lost in Voice and find the story. I did wonder if a couple of those who proofed and read it would ever talk to me again…and, well, so far they are. So, I have that going for me…which is nice….

Of those who’ve already read it, one reader told me half jokingly she wasn’t sure she could look me in the eyes “just now” when we first talked after her having read it.

That was so cool!

We laughed!

It meant I’d written something that had her look at me differently. And if she looked at me differently…how differently was she also looking at others? The world?

That meant I had expanded someone’s Weltanschauung.

That I had given another a different perspective.

Which is SO cool!

But I hadn’t done this alone!

There were others. Named and unnamed. I can never thank enough those who took a chance on this story—and me—to read it. Those who listened patiently to my conversational angst about should-I-or-shouldn’t-I? In one case, Mandy Pratt, who did the lion’s share of proofing and editing, having spent April to July picking things apart and pointing out misspelled words (dang it!) and messing with my head with shades of meaning—and, oh, let’s not even begin to talk about my own annoying employment of M-dashes and ellipses!

Yes, she kept me honest. Thanks, Mandy!

To Edie, Amy, Karen, Lon, and Joseph—thank you all for taking time out of your life to help out in the various ways you all did! Amy—you read this twice! Amy, an actual editor, read this back in 2002 or 2003…and when I asked if she was up for reading it again, she actually leapt at the chance (okay, maybe not actually launching herself up and into the air, but consider that “artistic license”…)! Karen, for helping me refine my “pitches” (Karen was there at the beginning, waaay back at a writers conference in the late nineties—thank you for sticking with me through all this, Karen!), back cover text, sounding board, et cetera. Joseph Reininger, no longer in the book retail business, was the first to read Voice and, again, waaay back in the 90s, and his reception of it literally stunned me. Never had I ever received such glowing praise (his is the blurb in the front of the novel) for anything I’d written up to that point! And he sold books! Reads tons of them. Wow. Joseph, yes, it’s finally going to see the light of day—thank you for all of your support!

And perhaps the oddest thanks goes to Joelle Yudin.

She was an Associate Editor at HarperCollins from 2000 – 2006. I’d sent a query to a publisher, and the long-and-the-short-of-it was that it had gotten routed to her. She’d read it, and on January 3, 2003, had sent me the following note:

“<Name withheld> passed along your proposal to me for my thoughts. I found the premise to be quite intriguing and so I shared it with my colleagues. Unfortunately, I will be passing, as I could not get them excited about it. I wish you the best of luck with this.”

I looked back in my writing ledger (yes, I have one; I keep track of things like this), and on January 23, 2003, at about 11:20 a.m. MT, I called her.

Yes, actually called her and I actually got her.

I wanted to know why the oligarchy’d passed on it. I do remember she’d been so kind and easy to talk to and didn’t slough me off in the slightest. What I wrote in my ledger was that Joelle said she thought my writing was good, my “voice” (heh-heh, pardon the pun) interesting, but her colleagues thought the manuscript “small,” in that they were unsure if it would “stand up in the market.” That it was “all about the $$$.” That the “size” of the piece wasn’t “large” enough and they recommended a small publisher. Then, at the end of all my notes I’d added: “Very (underlined) nice lady and open and forthcoming. Even said ‘sorry.'”

So, Joelle, I will always remember you and your kindness…your interest in Voice. Thank you for all of it! If I can ever get in contact with you, I’m sending you a gratis copy or two!

So…here it is.

Voice.

Now what??, Mandy had asked. Now what, indeed!

I gotta find something else to work on….

****

Voice is available at Amazon.com (e-book and trade paperback), CreateSpace, Barnesandnoble.com, and Smashwords.com. There will be additional outlets as the distribution “takes.”

If anyone would like a signed paperback, feel free to send this or any other of my work to the following address—WITH THE PROPER POSTAGE OR IT WILL NOT BE RETURNED. I will use any unreturned books as free giveaways. Send to:

F. P. Dorchak, P. O. Box 49393, Colorado Springs, CO 80949.

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A Guiding Hand

Pay Attention. To Everything. (By Master Sgt. Cheresa D. Clark (https://www.dvidshub.net/image/384328) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

I read this short in the June 2015 Reader’s Digest (RD). I love these kinds of stories! I paraphrase it here, but you can read in on page 25 of the Your True Stories, in 100 Words section in RD:

This woman, Grace Napier, out of Greeley, Colorado wrote how she’d been leaving for work one day, when, as she was making a right-hand turn out of her yard, she felt a firm hand restraining her right shoulder. She was forced left.

No one else was present.

Grace decided to continue in that direction and take the longer route to work. There was no traffic.

At the end of her work day, she returned home and learned there’d been an accident that had occurred on her normal route to work, the route she would have taken had she not been “nudged” out of the way. The accident had occurred shortly after 8 a.m., when two vehicles had crashed. The crash has also pinned a crossing guard between the two vehicles, killing him.

Grace said she would have been in that accident.

Cat on a Couch

Chloe and Cassie, December 2004

I have put off writing about this for a while…but it happened again, yesterday, so I simply can’t ignore it any longer. It’s not just a trick of light or shadow. It’s something else, entirely.

In August of 2007, while I’d been on a business trip, we lost one of our cats, Cassie, to kidney failure and another complication. She was a beautiful gray and white “flower child” mouser who would actually go outside and smell our flowers. Not kidding…she would go up to them and stick her nose into the petals and just, well…smell. She also had a habit of dropping dead voles and field mice at our patio doorstep (on occasion sneaking them into the house before I could see what it was she had in her mouth). But we called her our “flower child.” She was very sweet and loving and our first cat as a couple. She loved to sit up on the top edge of one of our couches, the one before our picture window, and just look out at the world.

A pensive cat.

A philosopher cat.

She would either hunker down on the left side or sit upright. In the picture above you see that “dent” on the left, where our other feline is sitting? She did that.

Well, ever since her passing, I’ve kept catching brief images of a cat (not Chloe) on the top of that couch. I’d stop and back up…looking to the couch…and would see nothing. I would bid Cassie a “Hello, Cassie!” and move on.

Well, it happened again yesterday morning as my wife was getting off to work (I took the day off). The curtains were open. I had walked through the kitchen, which has a view of the above-mentioned area, and again caught a flash of a cat sitting upright on the middle top edge of that couch (just a smidge to the left of where Cassie is in the picture).

I still have that image burned in my mind.

There was a cat there.

Then there wasn’t.

And Chloe was sleeping upstairs on “her” (our) spare bed; I’d just come from there.

I backed up and looked…no Cassie. Told my wife about it.

Now I’m writing this.

Hello, Cassie!

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