Hi Sam, lovely to be here! Looking forward to reading your new book! I’ve always been drawn to crystals, but it wasn’t until I started to attend a yoga studio twice a week that my interest in them was really piqued. My yoga teacher is crystal mad and also sells them. I was buying so many from her that she encouraged me to set up as a seller myself. She always has beautiful crystals laid out in the yoga studio and we use them during our periods of meditation. Like your character in your book, I always carry a crystal in my pocket. I also wear a crystal bracelet of some sort each day, depending on my mood.

Are you interested in the science behind them or, for you, is it enough to believe they work? ( For those interested, crystals are believed to act as conduits, allowing positive healing energies to flow into the body, and negative ones to leave. Also, their different colours are due to the speed of the light vibrations of each stone and therefore different coloured crystals have different effects on the body.)

I think I am a bit of a closet hippy to be honest and so crystals have always held some sort of magical quality to them. I’m a firm believer that the Universe provides us with what we need, and crystals are natural healers. However, the science behind them cannot be ignored either.  While it’s nice to have science starting to back up the power of crystals I think they stand their own ground from what we ourselves believe. I know that I am drawn to a particular crystal depending on my mood or need on any given day.  I don’t think there’s any science behind that but almost like some form of intuition.

Which are your favourites? Mine are Citrine – a lovely yellow stone that helps you take a new direction in life. Amethyst for the emotions and a needle of Selenite I have for its energy.

I absolutely adore Rose Quartz for opening the heart up to unconditional love and positive energy. And, lets face it, we could all do with more of those things in our lives.  I’m also drawn to Amethyst for its calming effects. It helps me feel more peaceful. I have crystal chip bracelets made of both of these crystals and tend to wear them together.

Do you think, in this modern, technical age, people are reverting to older or alternative methods of healing?

Yes, I think they are. While the modern, technical age has brought about lots of changes to improve our lives and make them more productive, these changes haven’t necessarily provided all the answers to difficulties we have in our lives, either emotional or physical. I think crystals help us to tap into our belief systems once again no matter what they may be. Technology hasn’t necessarily made us happier and lots of people are looking for something more than being able to sit down a press a button to make everything better. The power of belief in something is very powerful.

Is there a crystal that you wear or carry around every day, or does it change? When I was really ill it varied for me, but now I mostly just stick to my Citrine bracelet when I go out. I had to make some changes in my life to get better last year, and I believe Citrine helps me stick with them.

It does change for me. At the moment I am wearing bracelets with Green Aventurine for luck and prosperity and also Carnelian for motivation, endurance and leadership. I wear these to work every day because I have applied for a promotion and having these crystals with me during the working day makes me feel more confident in my abilities to prove myself as a strong leader.

What do you say to people who pooh-pooh the idea of crystals healing? My answer is, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks – if you believe they do, and they work for you, that’s the only important thing.

I have one friend in particular who is very strong on her views about crystals and why she thinks its all a load of nonsense. My answer is usually that we all believe in something. Some people believe in a greater being in the sky, others believe in something or someone else. My belief in them doesn’t hurt anyone or make someone else unhappy and I feel a little bit more confident with crystal in my pocket. Sometimes we have to think outside the box and open our minds to new ideas and lifestyles. And, at the end of the day crystals are so beautiful that whether you believe they work or not you cannot take away from the fact that they are aesthetically pleasing and surely that alone makes a person happy. Who doesn’t like pretty things?!

JB JOHNSTON BIO

JB Johnston (real name Debbie) is a book blogger and book tour co-ordinator over at Brook Cottage Books where she helps authors promote their work by organising virtual book tours. In the real world JB is a social worker, carer and writer. She has written her first novel but so far is too frightened to send it to a publisher! She is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers Scheme.  When JB isn’t buried under a pile of books she can often be found in some obscure yoga pose at her local yoga studio. Always up for a challenge, JB has also taken classes in ballet, modern dance and pole dancing but has as much grace as an octopus falling out of a tree so gave them up and is now trying to learn something useful and is currently studying British sign language instead! Recently JB has become a crystal seller and has a facebook page called The Crystal Cavern UK where you can find out more about crystals and even buy some!

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Find out more about Mary’s story, right here!

Here I am, from left to right, with Holly, author Kitty French (I was thrilled to meet her for the first time) and Rachel Gilbey. Rachel was one of the bloggers who attended the coffee and cake event with me at HarperCollins HQ last week and is now firmly part of my writerly squad!

Below I was just about to leave lovely ladies Elaina James and Carla Burgess. We had some hilarious conversations and I think most of my eyeliner ran away. Carla – on the right – is a fellow HQDigital author, so it was fascinating hearing about her experience with the same publisher. And Elaina is an aspiring author, whom I very much admire, writing alongside a full-time job. It reminded me of how tough it can be, along the journey to publication. But as I said several times, yesterday, no writer friend of mine has ever failed to get published, as long as they have remained determined and not given up.

It was great to meet Bookaholic Holly again (the glamorous one, on the right, below!) Holly, we are going to need photos of your new puppy!

Of course, there is always one that gets away – someone you have a great conversation with but don’t get their name. I had such an interesting chat with one author. Her life has been amazing and would make the perfect crime/thriller novel, from a really unique angle that, as far as I know, hasn’t been written yet. I encouraged her to put her experiences into a fictional setting and pen that bestseller! I hope she does.

With a dry mouth but happy heart I ended back in the fabulous New Street station/shopping station and – of course – had a coffee. Appropriately, as this week sees the release of my latest novel The New Beginnings Coffee Club. Thanks to everyone at the get-together who wanted to know about this story. I hope you enjoy it!

Finally, here is one of the new friends I made – a lovely lady, Abbie Osborne.  (I look a bit wild-eyed in this photo – and that was before the Americano!) Check out her thriller The Puppet Master!

However it is not without some trepidation – excitement aside – that I board my train. Will I recognise everyone from their profile picture? Will their personality be as I expect, from the tweets and Facebook exchanges we have enjoyed? At its basest – will we get on? It is just like a blind date without the romance!

Here I am with lovely Phillipa Ashley on the left, author of Christmas at the Cornish Cafe. We had known each other for years, but never met. I am glad to say she was just as friendly, sincere and funny as I expected and a walking oracle when it comes to Poldark. On the right is Tishylou, a fabulous book blogger. I had met her before and – again – her true, bubbly personality shone through in person, just like it does on the screen.

This, however, is not always the case. I have met writers I considered lighthearted, who turned out to be quite serious. And vice versa. No bad thing, it just comes as a surprise. Whilst you may feel you ‘know’ someone well online, it takes a face-to-face encounter to seal the deal. And it makes me wonder what other writerly folks think of me. Hmm. Perhaps I shouldn’t mull that over too closely…!

There have been humorous moments – humorous in retrospect that is. Some profile thumbnails, particularly on Facebook, are not very clear and I am ashamed to say that more than once I have spent a while talking to one author and eventually realised I have confused them with someone else. Try backing out of that one. And it’s an instant guilt-trip when someone greets me as an old friend and it takes me a few moments – panicking! – to fathom out their face. Perhaps it’s just as well that most of the parties provide nametags. That would have prevented me from muddling up an agent and editor like I did last year at an awards event. In my defence they were both young and blonde and… Okay. No excuses really. Especially as one was heavily pregnant. However the editor was lovely when I realised my mistake, and said I could call her anything I wanted

So yes. Blind dates with writerly mates. No romance but plenty of laughs and discussion. And it is interesting to talk about more than our love of books. As a full-time novelist, I forget sometimes that other writerly peeps also hold-down jobs unrelated directly to the profession. I met one author who is an accountant and a blogger who works in a library and as a teaching assistant.

Plus the networking is great. Members of the writing community are very generous and I feel, after real-life meets, are even more likely to retweet and support each other. Also I’ve yet to meet up with someone who has appeared nothing at all like I expected and after a meeting I’d say the online relationship does take on a different  – a deeper – dimension. Nothing beats giving someone a real-life hug instead of relying on typing emoticons.