What Is Paranormal?

What do you consider paranormal? One free online dictionary defines paranormal as: Something very strange and not able to be explained by what scientists know about nature and the world. Another definition is: Not scientifically explainable or supernatural.

When we think about it, things we deem paranormal are pretty much anything that isn’t what the majority of humans would consider “normal”. If that’s the case, why do so many of us "normal people" love to read stories and watch T.V. or movies about something so strange?

Is it because our minds are constantly in some weird state of flux? Are we constantly and\or subconsciously working on the problems that are unique to the characters who interest us?

Maybe it has something to do with the characters’ sometimes over-the-top supernatural powers or do we just enjoy reading about people who can do all the things we would secretly like to be able to do ourselves? 

I tend to think that perhaps, it’s just that we enjoy reading stories about people who are just a little more screwed up than we are.

Over the years I’ve seen vampires and werewolves, zombies and aliens, to name a few. Each of these paranormal entities have cycled through our books and T.V. shows not to mention the big screen. After their few hours of fame, we fickle readers and viewers move along to another sub genre, almost tirelessly searching for something new, better or possibly even stranger than the last.

The best way I have ever seen the word paranormal described was in a dictionary I read long ago. It defined paranormal as: Anything other than normal. If that’s the case, my dear readers, welcome to the dark side because normal is overrated.

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About Tianna Xander

Sometime in the fall of 2000, after hearing that I loved reading historical romances a co-worker thrust a paper grocery bag full of books on me. For the most part, the books were what I loved to read, historical, mainly regency romances. However, hidden deep within this newfound treasure of books, I found a book of a type that I had never read.

The avid historical romance reader in me shuddered to find a vampire novel hidden deep in the bottom of that bag. Still, my husband was a sailor and out to sea. After reading the historical, I was bored. To me, an avid reader of almost everything, reading a vampire novel for the first time was infinitely better than reading an historical novel a second time.

Gingerly, I picked up the vampire novel and with very low expectations—boy I was a snob, wasn’t I?—I began to read. I stopped after the first chapter. It wasn’t because I didn’t like it. It was because the book was so good, so well written and quite in the middle of a series. Anyone who knows me and my reading habits, knows that I never start reading a series in the middle. I put down book four of the series and immediately went out to find books one through three and any others she may have written after book four.

After a year or so of reading every paranormal book I could get my hands on, I complained to my husband that my favorite authors didn’t write fast enough.

He said, “You’ve been wanting to write a book of your own for some time. Why don’t you give it a try while you wait?”

“Why not?” I replied and I immediately got to work. It should be easy, I thought. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t taken college English and vocabulary. This would be a piece of cake, right?

Wrong!

After countless writes and rewrites and close to a hundred rejections from agents and publishers alike, I almost gave up. Again my husband stepped up. “Darlin’,” he said, wrapping his arm around me and kissing my forehead. “You write all of the time. You write during your breaks at work, you write at breakfast, you write in bed… What will you do if you stop writing? You can’t stop writing. You love it too much.”

That made me think. I do love to write. I adore spinning tales that others read and touching people in some small way with whatever emotions are packed in my books. As much as I hate to admit it, he was right.

Not too long after that, a woman who I have come to realize is as beautiful inside as she is outside, offered me a contract for Virgin’s Blood.

The rest is, as they say, history. Now, after over eighty published stories later, I’m still writing and still hoping that I touch at least some of my readers the way my favorite authors have touched me. It’s my goal to make my readers laugh, cry and maybe hate a character or two before they see the character’s redeeming qualities. If I’ve made even one reader feel strongly about any one of my characters, I think I’ve done my job as a storyteller.

Pulling my readers into my stories is what I strive to do every time I write a new book. If I succeed in pulling readers into my fantasy worlds in some small way, then I’m happy in a job well done.

To see blurbs and excerpts please visit www.tiannaxander.com