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Cobalt Blue: A Novel

A novel for courageous readers and seekers, COBALT BLUE is a turbulent, gorgeous ride into sacred sex..

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Bloghopping on Good Friday about a Tantric Jungian Novel

I didn't choose Good Friday as the day for a novel about kundalini to come out.  But as a pagan Methodist and believer in the "perennial philosophy" that all religions have been built on the same universal truth, I think it's fitting.

The post is supposed to be about "My Next Big Thing." Since my novel Cobalt Blue is officially released today, my next big thing is going to festivals and stores  and book clubs talking about it…and chatting on about it online of course, as I do here in answering these questions, sent to me by novelist David Halperin, author of Journal of a UFO Investigator.  David has answered this same set of questions about his Next Big Thing, the sequel-in-progress, The Color of Electrum.

 

1. What is the working title of your book or project? introducing Cobalt Blue to the world

 

2. Where did the idea come from for the book or project?  It's an idea that has been with me for decades, and is also expressed (radically differently) in a Christian setting in my first novel Revelation.

 

3. What genre does it fall under, if any? mainstream fiction, with elements of what some might consider erotica, thriller, visionary, metaphysical mystery

 

4. If applicable, who would you choose to play your characters in a movie?  Gwyneth Paltrow, Tommy Lee Jones, Joaquin Phoenix, Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton.

 

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your manuscript or project?  The story is about a woman overwhelmed by an uninvited religious experience. 

 

6. Will your book or story be self-published or represented by an agency?  The book had not one, but two, agents, and now has one publisher, Roundfire Books, an imprint of John Hunt Publishing in England.  It's coming out simultaneously in UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia– in paperback and e-book.

 

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?  The first draft was so long ago that I don't even remember.

 

8. What other book or stories would you compare this story to within the genre?  It has the blend of exotic and erotic that is strong in Memoirs of a Geisha.  Fans of Robertson Davies would like it, I think. And in the combining of edgy sex and religion, it's a bit like the TV series Six Feet Under.

 

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book or story?  I think the idea of the overwhelming religious experience, and the blend of the spiritual and carnal, are in my DNA.

 

10. What else about the book or story might pique the reader’s interest?  The 2 pre-pub reviewers both said that Cobalt Blue is "sexier than 50 Shades…."  It's set in Pinehurst and pre-Katrina New Orleans.  It includes a serious handling of voodoo.  The central event — the kundalini rising — is an upward rush of life force from the base of the spine through the body toward God.

 

And why is this even remotely appropriate for Good Friday?  A woman undergoes a dark and chaotic ordeal followed by glorious religious transformation.

And now I leave the subject of books for a few sacred days and contemplate (off-line!) the forces that drive the work that so preoccupies me.

Next to blog on these questions:

Marjorie Hudson               Accidental Birds of the Carolinas

Eleni Papanou                    Unison (The Spheral)

Carolyn Mathews              Transforming Pandora

Dawn Deanna Wilson       The Shangri-La Chamber of Commerce Welcomes You

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Categories: 2013

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Comments

  • March 29, 2013 at 2:53 pm Reply

    Ooh, a blending of sex and religion. I'm intrigued. So few people talk about kundalini and how it oftentimes happens when we don't want it or expect it. You can very well be bringing awareness to this very real experience.
    Happy Easter!

    • March 31, 2013 at 7:23 pm Reply

      Happy Easter to you, Eleni. Sounds as if you’ve had some kundalini experience?!

  • […] Peggy Payne, Cobalt Blue […]

  • BoBraxton
    March 30, 2013 at 5:04 am Reply

    have (night of Good Friday) finished reading the whole book (and writing – my own brand of). The climactic New Orleans day (i have been there – two separate times – post-Katrina – for disaster recovery re-build – Presbyterian) is very intense – ultimately cathartic – reminding me of Ira Progoff: Process Meditation – very appropriate for Good Friday and the 24 hours plus in the tomb. By the way, on the third day is not the same as three days – the book (read) took me much longer since my hours were not consecutive in the reading. The power of the writing is (last night) permeating my night dreams which involved a frightening snake hunt – not the female rising kind but the puny "male" psyche (mine) — in the night dream I was advising to be certain to put on high-top shoes (not to expose ankles vulnerable to a venomous snake). In the book's writing I AM the snake.

    • March 31, 2013 at 7:22 pm Reply

      I did go to a Progoff weekend some decades ago. Sounds as if you did too. The snake hunt dream is intriguing. I hope it wound up useful to you.

  • […] questions have been sent to me by Peggy Payne, author of Cobalt Blue which has just been […]

  • […] Friday, March 29: Peggy Payne, author of Revelation and Sister India, posts on her about-to-be-published novel Cobalt Blue, “a turbulent gorgeous ride into sacred sex, compulsion, obsession, unmentionable attractions, and ultimate empowering redemption. ‘Cobalt Blue is entrancing and unsettling,’ says Angela Davis-Gardner, ‘a novel that gets at the marrow of sexual and spiritual experience.  Peggy Payne is one of our most gifted writers.’”  https://www.peggypayne.com/blog/?p=2384 […]

  • April 1, 2013 at 12:49 pm Reply

    […]  Peggy Payne  https://www.peggypayne.com/blog/?p=2384 […]

  • […] can check out other posts in this blog hop here and […]

  • April 6, 2013 at 5:01 am Reply

    What a gorgeous title and intriguing story line! I can't wait to read and review this book. Sex and voodoo and religion! sounds about right. 

    • April 7, 2013 at 4:33 pm Reply

      Many thanks, Marjorie. And I too like the aforementioned combo.

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