Visiting with the Creators: Interview with Author Bernadette G
As aspiring authors, artists and creators, we love to see the behind-the-scenes of others who have stepped up and out with their creations. Today I had a chance to visit with a good friend and mentor about the writing and publishing journey of her newly released book. Bernadette Gold sat down virtually with me to talk about her wins, her frustrations and the publishing route she chose for her book, “The Crooked Path to a Charmed Life”.
The book is available on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble, and through most bookstores.
Visit with the Creator: Bernadette Gold Transcript
[00:00:02.960] – Carol
Good Morning.
[00:00:03.870] – Bernadette
Good Morning.
[00:00:04.680] – Carol
How’s everyone doing? How are you doing today? I want to welcome everyone to Visits with the Creator, a series of my blog today we’re going to be discussing fighting demons, embracing Angels, battling depression and so much more from a woman’s path on her spiritual awakening. I’d like to welcome my friend and mentor, author Bernadette Gold. Bernadette is a clairvoyant medium. She is a no-nonsense spiritual teacher. She’s a master healer, a consciousness leader, and she facilitates rapid breakthroughs in consciousness, creating quantum leaps in health, happiness, and income for all of her clients.
[00:00:49.070] – Carol
She just recently released her memoir, “The Crooked Passed to a Charmed Life, the Clairvoyant Mediums Journey to Embracing her Spiritual Gifts” Welcome, Bernadette. I’m excited to have you here.
[00:01:02.460] – Bernadette
Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
[00:01:05.060] – Carol
I know this book was several years in the writing and many years in the making. Can you tell us a little bit what it’s about?
[00:01:13.060] – Bernadette
So it’s my true life story of being a clairvoyant, but the struggles I had to go through, the abuse I had to overcome from being raised in a Catholic Christian household and then childhood abuse. And then my daughter was molested at three and I had to grow up and I had to heal myself. And in that process, I stepped onto my path spiritually. So it’s all about that and the different things I had to learn about like protection of my own energies, murder investigations and mediumship work and finally just embracing my gifts and my power and then putting it out in the world and then helping others.
[00:02:05.010] – Bernadette
Yeah.
[00:02:05.820] – Carol
Okay. Sounds like it’s very interesting. I’ve read it once already and started it again and very interested in it.
[00:02:14.650] – Bernadette
Thank you.
[00:02:16.670] – Carol
How are you hoping it will change people’s lives? Is there anything in particular you think it should do?
[00:02:24.190] – Bernadette
Well, because I’ve had such varied experiences. Not easy. And there’s a lot of issues in there. I’m an American, Asian Pacific Islander, and those issues are just now finally in the public eye, and I’ve experienced racism and I’ve experienced, I mean, to the point where it ruined my marriage, you know is one of the breaking points of my first marriage and love of my life. There’s my attempts at suicide and rape and abortion. All the major women issues are covered in this book on top of the spiritual aspect.
[00:03:05.890] – Bernadette
So my hope is that whoever picks it up and whoever reads it can resonate with the story, at least some part of it. And it’s really interesting because very few times do we get to peek into a clairvoyant’s life and how that affects it’s. Very honest to tell a story that I didn’t want out there for sure. But it is what it is. And my hope is that people will be encouraged. But like if she can get through her life, I can get through mind powerfully, right?
[00:03:42.140] – Carol
How hard was it to write those stories?
[00:03:45.380] – Bernadette
Well, you know, it took years. It took years, years and years of not wanting to do it and spirit poking me and saying it’s got to go out there. It’s got to get out there. It will help people. And I’m like fine. I’d write a little bit, and it just took a long time. It was very hard. But the harder part was interesting, recording the audio book without getting emotional and telling my story in a way where it didn’t retraumatize anything. Thankfully, I’ve done enough work on myself that it was okay.
[00:04:22.830] – Bernadette
But I didn’t expect it to be so emotional. And I was narrating. And I did start to get really stressed out because you see images when you’re reading, you go back to that thing when you’re reading your own work.
[00:04:36.840] – Carol
And how did you deal with that?
[00:04:39.780] – Bernadette
I took a break right after any time, it was a really hard story. I took a break. It was surprising to me that the cancer story was even harder for me to tell just in my Journal entry. Yeah, because I was reading it, and I went back to remembering how lonely I felt.
[00:05:00.000] – Bernadette
When I was battling the cancer and how I was laying on my bed one day and I was writing in my Journal and I included verbatim what I journaled that day and I was heartbroken because my daughter wasn’t visiting me. She was afraid to see me in that condition. None of us were really sure I was going to make it. And I was lonely. I was lonely and it came across in the writing and I was like, oh, my God, I remember so much of this and so I had to take a break.
[00:05:32.390] – Bernadette
again.
[00:05:33.050] – Bernadette
Lots of breaks when you’re recording.
[00:05:35.450] – Carol
Yeah. Okay. Can you share something that wasn’t in the book that you want people to know? Or it’s pretty much everything in there that you didn’t.
[00:05:49.570] – Bernadette
So what’s not in the book is a lot of the details of the abuse I endured. You know, I didn’t really, because people can get easily triggered into their own traumas. I really kind of glossed over. I guess you could say the details of the physical abuse I endured from my mother, some of the emotional and mental abuse that I went through from relationship and my daughter’s abuse. I did not get into the details of what happened because I just don’t think it’s necessary to tell a story and get that graphic right.
[00:06:29.360] – Bernadette
I didn’t want to trigger anyone, because the point of the book is to show people like, you can get through this stuff. I’ve been through so many more things than most people ever endure. I just didn’t think it was necessary. Do people really need to know the finer details? Like the fact that my mother was really into beating us with hangers?
[00:06:50.240] – Bernadette
No
[00:06:53.730] – Carol
they can fill in the blanks there.
[00:06:55.540] – Bernadette
Yeah. And the point is for them to be able to resonate to the story, see themselves in that and see that they too, can heal.
[00:07:03.760] – Carol
Right. Okay. What was a highlight of writing the story?
[00:07:10.900] – Bernadette
One of the really fun things I found, because it’s taken me seven years to complete this project. Oh, my God. When I went, I know it took forever, but one of the highlights for me was when I was in the recording studio and I was reading it. And even when I was doing multiple edits on this thing been so many times and every time I edit, something else gets lost. So I just gave up. And there’s a couple of errors in the book that I’m well aware of.
[00:07:42.820] – Bernadette
Just a few, but still, like, every time I go through and edit, it seems like something else screws up. So I just went, alright, nothing is perfect. Just let it go. The highlight for me, I was in editing and reading out loud my story. I literally got to spend time with my inner child and I got to spend time with my kids. When I was telling Brindi, she takes up a good part of the first half of the book because she was so responsible for my growth.
[00:08:16.300] – Bernadette
I was telling her I was like, I’ve been hanging out with five year old Brindi. It’s been really fun. Yeah, for weeks, I got to spend time with Brindi in that story.
[00:08:27.520] – Bernadette
It’s weird.
[00:08:28.920] – Bernadette
That’s not something that I would have thought that would have happened, but it did. And it was really cool. And then I’d have to call her at the end of every recording and be like, hey, are you okay? Like, it was happening again.
[00:08:43.340] – Carol
That’s good. That’s good. Sorry. I lost my train of thought. How did you deal with the emotional impact on you and others from the book?
[00:09:02.440] – Bernadette
There’s not a huge amount of impact for me now, but I will tell you when I was recording, it was exhausting. I didn’t expect it for 2 hours a day. I was like, oh, that’s nothing. I talk all day long, right? This should be nothing. And then you go into the studio and you’re in this box. The soundproof box where all you hear is your body sounds and your own voice and you’re in the story, and you’re having to really narrate it in an animated way. And it’s like, you leave and you’re like, I feel like that just happened again, and you go home.
[00:09:40.820] – Bernadette
And, like, every day that I was at the studio, I thought, okay, I’m going to go home and work and get stuff done. I had to sleep because I was so emotionally drained from the retelling of my own story, and I only recorded 2 hours a day. Like, what? Yeah. But now I’m fine
[00:10:01.660] – Carol
that’s good. Yeah. Okay.
[00:10:07.380] – Carol
Let’s talk a little bit about these Angels and demons that are in the book. Can you give us a little hint about what we’re going to read about?
[00:10:16.730] – Bernadette
Yeah. And actually, I just put up a video on Facebook and on YouTube of an audio sample when I was clearing someone who had their own demons. But in my life, I’ve been surrounded by Angels. I’ve been able to see them and hear them and talk to them. It wasn’t always a gift. In fact, the first part of my life, I felt very much like a curse because I got in trouble for that stuff. But the demonic party, I mean, I did murder investigation, and there was some bad stuff that showed up and had them attack me a few times.
[00:10:54.090] – Bernadette
And my daughter, you know, like my oldest daughter, Brindi, she had to endure a lot.
[00:11:04.360] – Bernadette
How to deal with you spiritual warfare. And we were talking about this yesterday, like she was picked up when she was a year old. We were living in a very haunted house, and we were living in a very evil town, and there was a lot of dark magic stuff going on. And she was picked up by this thing, this massive demon that was living in our root seller, that’s in the book. And she was thrown across the room onto the wood burning stove, and her hands hit and they turned bright red.
[00:11:35.460] – Bernadette
Well, it was the first time I realized I could heal, and I only had to do it because it was necessary. Her hands were blistering. And I had endured so many of this demonic sort of activity. And it was it was horrible. But Brindi was saying like, that’s why I’m afraid of fire, mom, like that’s why I’m afraid of heaters and wood burning stoves and anything. She loves, like roasting marshmallows in front of a fire. But she’s afraid of fire.
[00:12:03.840] – Carol
Yeah.
[00:12:05.420] – Bernadette
Because she had to endure that stuff as I was learning how to do spiritual warfare and how to bind those entities. But on top of it, the Angels were always there to aid. And they taught me how to heal. And we healed her hands immediately. So that was good.
[00:12:21.310] – Carol
That was good. Yeah. You’ve had some experiences.
[00:12:26.950] – Bernadette
yeah
[00:12:30.610] – Bernadette
So many of them ended up on the cutting room floor in drafts because it just doesn’t all fit into one book,
[00:12:38.250] – Bernadette
right
[00:12:38.740] – Carol
That’s what I was going to ask. If there was something that you did that you might want to put back in or you think no, it’s better out.
[00:12:48.130] – Bernadette
I don’t want to put stuff like the stuff that got cut. I think probably needed to be cut from the standpoint of when people go through a spiritual initiation or spiritual awakening, they go through it in their own way. And what you don’t want to do is make them think that this is part of it. I like all the stuff I went through, not everybody goes through. I I teach an advanced psychic mentoring class now, and they’ve all asked me like, oh, my God. If I go down this path and I continue to grow my gifts, am I going to end up having to deal with what you have? No.
[00:13:24.180] – Bernadette
Not everybody has to do what I’ve done. There is a reason behind it. But yeah. So I cut a lot of that and it’s not going in the book. I mean, who knows, if it becomes a movie, they’ll probably want more stories if it like a Netflix series or something, which I see happening because I had a psychic to me before I even finished the first draft years ago that it was going to become some sort of movie.
[00:13:50.870] – Carol
Yeah.
[00:13:51.880] – Bernadette
I was like, okay. And now I see all these books turning novel or movie.
[00:14:01.230] – Carol
On that note, who do you see playing to you?
[00:14:03.560] – Bernadette
I don’t know. It has to be someone Asian mix. It has to be. I want it to be because I really think that it’s time that Asians are featured more films. You know, we are such a small population in Hollywood that I really would like to support the Asian American actresses and actors.
[00:14:32.070] – Carol
Let’s talk a little bit about the publishing and the marketing. What was your favorite part, or was it all a nightmare?
[00:14:41.800] – Bernadette
It’s not necessarily a nightmare, but you have to weed through a lot of BS, a lot of BS online. Everybody has their own opinion of how to publish. So the route that I went, I felt published. Why there’s that buzzing. It might be my computer. And I went three different route, Amazon KDP for the ebook for the next 90 days. Right. So in January, it will no longer be with KDP exclusive. But I did put it on KDP exclusive to get the numbers going, because if you’re not exclusive with KDP, they don’t really do much to market it or put it in front of their people.
[00:15:28.090] – Bernadette
And even if you advertise, they’re still going to push their exclusive books first. It’s just the way it works. So that’s how I did the e book, the paper back. I published directly to Amazon, but I didn’t go exclusive. I went wide and published in on Ingram Spark so that it can be purchased by bookstores, libraries, metaphysical shops and pretty much anywhere. Right.
[00:15:51.630] – Carol
Right.
[00:15:52.170] – Bernadette
And Ingram Spark is the best place to do that for a self published author. And then the audiobook I put through Findaway Voices because they actually go wide distribution onto Audible, Apple, Google, Cobo, like, everywhere. Right. And then you can also, and it cost me everything costs money with self publishing. You can also get an author direct web page so you can sell the audio through their app directly. So I did that last night. You have to wait a week before it becomes available. But I’ve been reading nightmare stories about ACX Audible is taking their sweet time publishing the audio books that are not exclusive with them.
[00:16:44.770] – Bernadette
Like, whatever. I’m not relying on them. I’ll just as easily share links to Google or to Apple Play or to Barnes and Noble or wherever. But it’s been through all of it. Now. I’m getting the Copyright went through. Now I’m getting these little publishing houses asking if I want, like, Durant just contacted me today and they’re like, Would you like us to up list your book? I’m like, no, it’s already out in the wild. And what can you do for me that I haven’t already done?
[00:17:23.810] – Bernadette
I hit number one best seller in several categories and then number one new release in several other categories. So yeah. What can you do for me?
[00:17:34.360] – Carol
Yeah. Why did you choose self publishing over? I’m going through a publishing house.
[00:17:43.920] – Bernadette
Mainly because even publishing houses expects you to do a big part of the marketing.
[00:17:51.300] – Carol
Right.
[00:17:51.880] – Bernadette
So if I have to do the marketing anyways, I’m not giving you money and any more like indie publishers because we have technology. Now, there’s so many resources for indie publishers that weren’t there just a few years ago. And because of Amazon and Barnes and Noble is going more and more sort of mainstream with … It’s so much easier to get your work out. But I don’t need a publish behind me. I am looking for a literary agent, but that’s so that I can get it to be a movie.
[00:18:27.420] – Carol
Right.
[00:18:28.170] – Bernadette
And that’s going to take time. \
[00:18:31.880] – Carol
I think you’ll get there
[00:18:34.210] – Bernadette
Fingers crossed. It’s all about who, you know.
[00:18:38.030] – Carol
You know, a lot of people.
[00:18:39.300] – Bernadette
Well, in the thing I’m waiting for right now because the book is free on Amazon until Sunday. As soon as I get enough reviews. And Amazon is taking their sweet time in approving reviews. We’ve got seven reviews up right now or something like that. But I know of at least five to ten other people who have put up reviews and Amazon’s not publishing them.
[00:19:06.500] – Carol
Which yeah, they’re pretty slow
[00:19:12.140] – Bernadette
Yeah, as soon as I get enough reviews on, then I’m going to go apply on an Internet. I’m going to go apply for book clubs like Oprah, all these other. book clubs. Book clubs are a good way to promote your book if you can get them in there. But you have to be creative and you can’t rush the process.
[00:19:42.810] – Bernadette
And
[00:19:43.940] – Carol
Lots of patience. Writing is a patience game.
[00:19:52.480] – Bernadette
Yeah. It is a patience game. And yeah, it’s insane. Like how much work there is to being a published author. It’s a lot of work. But, I mean, there are rewards of doing it yourself. I can Pat myself on the back. You made it to number one without a book launch person like you did that.
[00:20:14.220] – Carol
Yeah. Okay. Do you view writing as a spiritual practice, or is it just something that anybody could do?
[00:20:27.820] – Bernadette
Anybody can write.
[00:20:30.560] – Carol
But does it help you Spiritually connect or is it
[00:20:35.570] – Bernadette
Always.
[00:20:36.500] – Carol
Yeah.
[00:20:37.100] – Bernadette
And the best part, I guess the easiest part of writing the book is that I keep really good journals. And although I’ve burned hundreds of journals throughout the years, I’ve kept the important ones because I knew I was going to write the book. So the ones where I knew the stories had to go into the book. I kept those journals so I could make it as accurate as possible. I mean, I’ll be 55, so my memory is not what it used to be, and it’s easier to just write a Journal entry and then collect those into a book.
[00:21:09.160] – Bernadette
Same with blogs. Like if you’ve written blogs, I’m not great at blogging. I’m better at Vlogging, like video, but you know, even that I actually did take some of my videos and transcribe them on to script and then edit them and put that information into the back of the book, like into the teaching chapter because it just made it easier than just writing from scratch.
[00:21:31.220] – Carol
Yeah. It always helps to have backup memories.
[00:21:36.390] – Bernadette
Yeah. Absolutely.
[00:21:39.500] – Carol
Okay. Is there going to be another book in the future?
[00:21:46.790] – Bernadette
There is going to be a couple. I’m actually writing my own tarot book that’s unlike any any others out there. I bet you everyone says that. But truly, I haven’t seen one out there. That’s like the one that we’re going to write. And then I’m going to do a non fiction empath psychic field guide that probably will include some more stories, but also that are you we do with that people want always teach, like psychic self defense. How do I know if it’s ego or spirit? But if I’m talking to a client and they get all wonky, what do I do?
[00:22:27.350] – Bernadette
it’s stuff like that. Okay.
[00:22:29.870] – Carol
That sounds interesting.
[00:22:31.470] – Bernadette
Yeah. That’s gonna be. I don’t know why that just seems harder to write to me.
[00:22:37.340] – Carol
It’s going to be not dependent on your own story. It’s going to have to be more of teaching?
[00:22:45.350] – Bernadette
Well, it is still on my story, though, but it’s not only teach what I know, right?
[00:22:49.860] – Carol
But it’s not from your journals specifically.
[00:22:52.560] – Bernadette
Right
[00:22:55.680] – Carol
Okay. I’m just going to ask you a couple of things here for fun. Would you rather live in a haunted house or a un- haunted farmhouse? You want to live in a mansion or haunted mansion or a un-haunted farmhouse?
[00:23:14.370] – Bernadette
I’d rather live in the farmhouse. Not haunted. I mean, but if it was haunted, I would just get rid of it. I’d just kick them out. No, I just kick them out. But I don’t want to live in a mansion because then who’s going to clean it?
[00:23:28.840] – Bernadette
Well, you can hire somebody to clean it.
[00:23:31.070] – Bernadette
I did, like, too big of a space to me is just wasted space. I like, I like animals.
[00:23:42.580] – Carol
Yeah. Okay. Paperback or ebook when you’re reading for yourself.
[00:23:50.940] – Bernadette
When I’m reading myself. I like the book. I do. I mean, I have ebooks when I’m impatient. It’s funny though, if I’m ordering a paperback, typically I’ll order the e book too so I can start reading it. But I always have to have the physical book because I like to highlight stuff and write notes. Even with not like fiction books. I like the smell of books. I like the feel books. Like the like them. Yeah.
[00:24:25.480] – Carol
Yeah. There’s nothing like feeling the book and opening the pages. Yeah.
[00:24:33.830] – Carol
Okay.
[00:24:34.840] – Bernadette
Weirdly because ebooks, if you think about it, an ebook goes onto your Kindle or into your library. You forget you have it, but you don’t with a paper back because it’s on your shelf.
[00:24:48.300] – Carol
Okay. Would you rather spend time alone or surrounded by a lot of people? Or does it depend on the time or your emotions?
[00:24:59.250] – Bernadette
Say that again?
[00:25:00.890] – Carol
Would you rather spend time alone or surrounded by people? Or does it depend on your emotions or how you’re feeling at the time?
[00:25:08.480] – Bernadette
Always how I’m feeling. Always how I feel. Sometimes I like because I like a lot of the alone time. But there are times when I get like people hungry. When I got to be around people. I love to people watch. So you know.
[00:25:25.170] – Carol
Okay. One more. Furry pets or reptiles.
[00:25:32.720] – Bernadette
What was the first choice
[00:25:34.810] – Carol
furry pets or reptiles?
[00:25:39.400] – Bernadette
No. No
[00:25:41.700] – Bernadette
I can’t stand reptiles at all. And there’s actually a story that didn’t make it into the book about reptilians. I thought that. Yeah, it was a little over the top, probably for some people. I thought it made it into the book, but it didn’t.
[00:25:57.170] – Bernadette
I’m not sure what happened.
[00:25:58.540] – Carol
I don’t think I want to hear about that one. I’m not much of a reptile person.
[00:26:02.580] – Bernadette
No, and we’re talking reptilian aliens, real life stuff. So I’m not a snake fan. I’m not a reptile fan, although I do have these geckos now that I live in Texas they hang out on my patio, I’m okay with them. Yeah, but snakes of any kind. No.
[00:26:23.340] – Carol
Okay. Alright. You said we could purchase the book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and most bookstores.
[00:26:32.940] – Bernadette
Yeah. You request it at your library because they can actually get it from Ingram, which is where most libraries purchase their books anyways. So you can go to your local independent bookstore if you want to support your local indie bookstore, which I love and tell them the title is The Crooked Path to a Charmed Life. They can look it up and make an order it for you. A Lot of people don’t want to support Amazon, which a lot of people don’t and I get that?
[00:27:00.850] – Carol
Yeah. It’s nice to support the local small business.
[00:27:05.810] – Carol
I think so. Yeah.
[00:27:11.160] – Carol
Okay. Where can we find you? Are you on social media?
[00:27:16.550] – Bernadette
All over the place, God bless. Yeah, on social media. I’m at Enchanted wealth. Com or at Enchanted Wealth whatever on Instagram and Facebook and then YouTube. Bernadette Gold. And then my website is Bernadette gold dot com.
[00:27:31.690] – Bernadette
I’m on LinkedIn. I’m a TikTok. I’m like everywhere social media is, but my main things or YouTube and Facebook.
[00:27:41.090] – Carol
Okay
[00:27:42.010] – Carol
Well, it’s been fun talking to you today. Is there anything else you want to talk about that we haven’t covered.
[00:27:50.560] – Bernadette
If you’re an author and you’re writing a book, you’re just not going to know until you just do it to do it. Like put the pen to the paper or put your fingers on the keyboard and just write because you’re going to add it in a million times. That’s just what happens. But until you just start writing and telling the story, you’re just not going to get it done. But everyone’s got a story to tell.
[00:28:19.730] – Bernadette
Tell yours.
[00:28:20.890] – Carol
Yeah, I’m working on it.
[00:28:23.990] – Bernadette
Well, I mean, humans learn and always have learned from stories. That’s how we learn. And so I think it’s important that there are . Yeah.
[00:28:39.820] – Carol
Okay. It was nice to see you. Thanks for coming in.
[00:28:48.720] – Bernadette
Thank you.
[00:28:49.450] – Carol
Alright. And that’s it.
Again the book is available on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble, and most bookstores.
