There’s a magic moment for me, and probably other writers, when the story suddenly emerges from the writing. For me, that happened yesterday when it seemed that all the stars aligned and synchronicity blazed and I was writing in the flow, and the story came to life. [Text below the short video]

Let me explain a little more.

Mosaic of the Ark of the Covenant at the Grand Lodge of England

Exodus is my third novel and is based around a hunt for the Ark of the Covenant as the Middle East counts down to a religious war. I’ve been researching the Ark and possible locations for six months, reading the official papers and also the conspiracy theorists.

I have my series characters in place and my secret government agency, ARKANE which investigates religious mysteries. I had a broad outline and had started writing, but the story hadn’t really caught fire for me.

Then yesterday, that magic moment happened.

I visited the United Grand Lodge of England, the Freemasons Grand Temple in London, and what I saw there crystallized a whole load of ideas. It’s an awesome place, full of symbolism and hints at the secrets that lie within.

Then I went to a spin class and while I was cycling away, the ideas mashed together and the rest of the story fell into place. It fits the research theories and it fits some of the conspiracy theories. My story could actually be plausible, which for me, is essential for a thriller. I won’t give too much of the plot away, but I wanted to share this magic moment and part of how I write a novel.

So I am 40,000 words into Exodus now, but I know where the story goes from here. I just need to get the words down for the first draft and then move into the editing phase. But this is a precious moment, when you know there’s a story to be told, one that will intrigue and entertain people.

You’ll have to read the book to find out where the Ark of the Covenant might be!

I find that basing my writing on aspects of reality makes the fiction appear more real. Therefore I am always on the lookout for fascinating snippets of history, religion, art or culture that can bring a richness to the story.

The Devil’s Bible, also called the Codas Gigas, was one of those serendipitous findings as I was searching for an appropriate ‘MacGuffin‘ for Prophecy.

Legend tells of its creation at the hands of monk who sinned grievously. In order to prevent the punishment of being walled up alive, he promised to write down all human knowledge in one night. Finding himself overwhelmed and unable to complete the task, he bargained with the Devil – his soul for the finished book.

The Devil’s Bible contains the books of the Latin Bible but also spells, incantations, exorcism prayers and images of the Devil and the Kingdom of Heaven. There are pages missing which was brilliant as the search for the pages became a key part of the story that merged art history with religion, both passions of mine.

You can watch a brilliant National Geographic program on the Devil’s Bible – here’s the National Geographic article that refers to it. Below is a great snippet of the program [4.34 mins]

For more information, you can view the following:

The Codas Gigas official page at the National Library of Sweden

The entire Codas Gigas scanned so you can see it for yourself

Thanks to Werner Meyer for directing me to this article in National Geographic on the Apostles, which goes into the research I used for Pentecost, the first in the ARKANE series.

It covers Thomas in Kerala, India; Mark in Coptic Egypt and then Venice and goes into the study of relics, which is also a theme in Prophecy.The article also talks about Mary Magdalene, who I didn’t include in my list of “official” apostles, despite the popularity of The Da Vinci Code!

“To study the lives of the Apostles is a bit like what we’ve been doing with the Hubble telescope—getting as close as we can to seeing these earliest galaxies. This was the big bang moment for Christianity, with the Apostles blasting out of Jerusalem and scattering across the known world.”

Click here to read the National Geographic article.

As part of my Master’s degree in Theology at the University of Oxford (1994-1997), I wrote a thesis on the psychology of obedience in religious fundamentalism.

Escher Circle Limit IV Can you see the angels or the demons?

I used Abraham’s Biblical agreement to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22), the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (1995) and the experiments of Stanley Milgram as part of my argument. Clearly these thoughts have stayed with me as they became the foundations of my novel Prophecy.

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments

This video gives you a good overview of the basic experiment which was replicated by Milgram all over America with all different strata of society. You may find it disturbing but remember the physical pain isn’t real. What is real is how the ‘teacher’ reacts. Even when they protest, they still continue once urged by an authority figure. Even when the subject is screaming ‘Let me out’, they continue. I first heard about this experiment when I was 18 and it has stuck with me. The vast majority of people would behave in the same way. That is a sobering thought when you consider the atrocities done because an authority orders it.

Milgram’s experiment Part 2 (video)

Milgram’s experiment Part 3 (video)

Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Isaac

If you want to investigate this area further, I highly recommend ‘The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil‘ by Philip Zimbardo (Amazon affiliate link). This goes into the detail of the Stanford Prison Experiment as well as Milgram’s work and discusses the ways in which normal people de-humanize to commit evil. Wearing masks is a critical part of mob violence which I also used in the Sedlec child murder scene. There is more information at LuciferEffect.com.

On Abraham and Isaac’s sacrifice, you might find Soren Kierkegaard ‘On Fear and Trembling‘ interesting. (Amazon affiliate link)

I’m currently researching my third ARKANE novel, which will either be called Exodus or Pharaoh, I’m still oscillating! Essentially it is about the search for the Ark of the Covenant, but of course I have to bring in a thread of psychology as it is my abiding fascination.

Sigmund Freud's desk, complete with ancient deities

In this book, one of the influences is Sigmund Freud’s final work ‘Moses and Monotheism’, written in London in the final year of his life after being exiled from Vienna in the wake of the Nazi invasion. As a self-proclaimed ‘godless Jew’ he spent his life avoiding his own faith in many ways but returned to it in the final years, trying to explain anti-Semitism in his own way, as well as investigating the origins of Judaism.

The book claims Moses was an Egyptian, which is not such a far-fetched idea, but also that Moses was murdered in the desert by the Hebrews and that the guilt of the murder of the father figure has stayed with Judaism ever since. It’s a complicated book but a fascinating one and in fact, many of the objects in Freud’s study link him with ancient Egypt, which I will be exploring further in the book.

Yesterday I visited the house, now museum, he lived in with his family and where Anna Freud continued to practice after his death. It is on a suburban street in Hampstead, a normal brick house of reasonable size but certainly not as grand as you might expect from the man who cast such a long shadow with his writing and influence.

His study is that of an archaeologist, not a medical doctor. It is crammed with artifacts from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome as well as tools from other cultures. His desk (shown above) has two rows of ancient Gods with barely any room left for writing. Of particular note is the white marble statue of the Egyptian god Thoth in his baboon incarnation. Thoth was the god of writing, of

Me at the Freud Museum, February 2012

wisdom, science and was also a key part of the judgment of the dead. Also on the desk is a modern metal porcupine which is from America, from the trip to Clark University which those of you who have read Pentecost will know all about! I was quite thrilled to see it there – sometimes fiction moves into fact and vice versa!

Also in the study are two prints which will most likely feature in my novel – one a copy of Rembrandt’s Moses holding the tablets of the Law, a black and white cross-hatched image that demonstrates Freud’s interest in Moses at this point in his life. The other is a night scene of Abu Simbel, a massive rock tomb and temple in Southern Egypt which I have visited and remains a deeply resonant place for me. The print is fascinating as there is a light coming from inside the long abandoned tomb – what’s going on in there?

You can find out about the Freud Museum here, or watch the video below for a little look inside. If you’re in London and you fancy a slightly different kind of tourist experience, get off the beaten track and head to Hampstead.

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