Authors in Discussion of Creative Input From the Other Side

This is an excerpt from an exclusive interview I did with author Richard S. Prather, creator of the Shell Scott Mystery Series.  The interview was in 2006, shortly before Prather died. 

Linda:  Richard, you and I have discussed the Amagical@ aspect of writing when we tap into something beyond ourselves that ends up on our written pages.  My husband, author Don Pendleton, often talked of that happening, and I have experienced it, also, as you have.  I personally find it exciting that we receive creative input from the other side.  I recall a television interview with author Taylor Caldwell, sometime in the late 1950s, and she spoke of Aautomatic writing@ as she sat at her typewriter, aware what she was writing was coming from beyond her, and in some cases, she knew nothing about the subject matter she was writing about.  Her books, wherever they came from, are best-selling, classic novels.  I found that idea fascinating then, and still do.  Doctorow mentioned that Saul Bellow spoke of being a medium whom the book came through.  I believe a lot of artists receive inspirationB(breathing in spirit).  So it may help to be open to the creative flow from beyond us as we create.  So who are our Muses?   Tell me what you=ve experienced in this regard.

Richard:  To borrow your words, Linda, this Acreative input from the other side@ is unquestionably real.  It happens, and it has happened to me many times.  Unfortunately, it took me yearsCdespite numerous hints and nudgings, from Asomewhere@Cto suspect that anything so spooky was possible, and years more to accept that it might actually be happening to me. 

This is a subject I=ve never before discussed publicly, and very rarely privately.  But I do remember well one night when Tina and I were with you and Don at your home in Sedona, and the conversation was about writing and AWhodunit?@  Don asked me if, when writing, I ever had the sense that the ideas, the words, were coming not so much from me as from someone or something else, maybe from somewhere outside of Ame@ (or words to that effect). 

Because the four of us were Apeople of like mind@ (one of Don=s remembered phrases), I overcame my reluctance to speak openly about such a fuzzily-metaphysical subject and said something like:

ADon, sometimes when the work is going really well, I feel like just a secretary taking dictation and I simply keep typing-without-thinking as fast as I can, trying to get it all down on paper while whatever-it-is is still flowing.@

I remember Don, head slightly tilted to one side, smiling, nodding, and saying, AYesYYesY@ 

All four of us knew precisely what I was talking about, even if I didn=t express it precisely.  Because we=d all been-there done-that in our own ways.  We knew it was a gift of some kind, from somewhere else, and we were grateful for it.   

For me, the most prolonged and convincing experience of Aguidance from the other side@ occurred in 1974 or 1975, when Tina and I were living on Mummy Mountain in Paradise Valley, Arizona.  I had finished plotting a new book and was writing the manuscript of one of my last published titles (The Sure Thing).  That morning I went to the typewriter and the words started flowing and I typed them down as fast as I could because the words kept on flowingCall day long.  That day and that night I worked for 24 hours straight, and wrote 24,000 words (a personal one-day record for me), whichCwith virtually no later revision or Aimprovement@Cbecame 96 pages of the final retyped manuscript.  All of it was just-right the first time, when it came out of meYor wherever it came from.

This happened late in my active writing career.  Curiously, something of similar nature (though unrecognized by me as such at the time) occurred a quarter-century earlier, at the very beginning of my writing years.  In 1950 or 1951, I several times awoke remembering the same (or same kind of) long and vivid dream.  In those dreams I was reading a typed manuscript, page after page of it.  On awakening, details swiftly faded.  I could never remember what the ideas or words were.  All I knew for sure was that what I=d been reading was my own manuscript.  Same yellow second sheets, same pica type, same xxing-out and pen-and-ink corrections.  But I also knew these were pages not yet written. 

How in hell could I be reading pages typed by me for a manuscript I hadn=t written yet?  I knew not; didn=t have a clue. 

After those first two getting-started years (=50 & =51, at Holly Cliffs in Laguna, near the sea) this never happened again.  But that it happened at allCand it didCis remarkable enough.

Way back then, I just considered the Aimpossible@ occurrence a fascinating curiosity and didn=t think much about it.  Certainly I didn=t think enough about it.  Because ICweCshouldn=t be surprised when this sort of thing happens, but when it doesn=t.

The world is much different today from what it was Away back then.@  We=re told that Earth=s frequency is increasing, that our own vibes are changing, that all of Earth (including us) is moving into a higher or more Aspiritual@ vibration.  Whether we believe this or not (I believe it), all we have to do is look around us to become aware of the enormous amount of information, words andCsometimesCwisdom from Athe other side@ being channeled right now from somewhere to here.

 _________________

My complete exclusive interview is available at Kindle. As it turned out, this was Richard S. Prather’s last interview.

~Linda Pendleton