Announcing a new look

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I’m very excited and I feel the need to pinch myself!

maggicalExpressions will be releasing a new site on

Tuesday, November 3.

It’s going to be hip! It’s going to be trendy! It’s going to be oh, so sexy!

It will have a whole new look and feel!

You’re going to love it.

I’ll be integrating a bunch of new features. I can’t wait for the week to go by. It’s a lot of work but I hope you will trust me when I say …

It’s going to be worth it.

Set your calendar!

Tuesday, November 3.

Look for it!

Personal Responsibility

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Inhale
  1. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. … I am hopeless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.
  2. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend to not see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place. But, it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.
  3. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there and I still fall in. … it’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
  4. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
  5. I walk down a different street.

Unknown Author


I recently came across this autobiography in 5 short chapters. I was taken with it’s poignancy. There is a lesson here and I know what I think. But what about you? Care to share what you think?  I’d like to know. Please leave a comment.

Categories: growth opportunity

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Chaos

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“Chaos in the world brings uneasiness, but it also allows the  opportunity for creativity and growth.” Tom Barrett

I came across this quote while I was researching a concept for my next book and I found it quite intriguing. I want to share it with you.

For me, chaos is an everyday thing. I live in chaos each every day. My life is chaotic all by itself but the world around me forces it to be even more chaotic. I navigate the chaos with trepidation and uncertainty but lean on my experience and intelligence to figure a way though it and be happy with my solution. I’m not always successful but I continue to work at it.

I expect that everyone reading this feels the same way.

One thing that I have always known is that opportunity is an avenue for growth. What’s new is that I never put it together with chaos.

The thought that chaos brings about uncertainty and therefore uneasiness is intriguing enough. Now, I can connect chaos as an opportunity for creativity and growth.

Just saying.

Writing is awesome

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Something happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was well into writing the third book in the Mona Bendarova Adventures, ‘Lucky Bitch’ when a question arose in my mind. I had a vision of where the books were going to go but then I asked myself a fundamental question.

‘What was the end goal of the antagonist?’

  • Yes, what was their end goal?
  • What was their motivation?
  • What did they hope to accomplish?
  • What was driving them to do what they were doing?

Since they were only recently discovered, no one seems to know, including me. I thought I did. But did I? Are they striving for power? Glory? Control? Something else?

Are their goals the same as Mona’s with the exception of how they are trying to get there? Does it really matter to the community how they accomplish those goals as long as they get there? Or is it something subtler.

I really wanted something more subtle. Hunger for power and glory? It seems everyone does that. I want something different. Both sides appear to want change. Mona certainly is trying to find a way to change their food source production for something better. Is that what the antagonists are doing?

Without giving too much of the plot away, I got momentarily stuck trying to answer this question.

So I did what I do best. I put the book off for a while to ask questions, gather data and do research. The research is well on it’s way and I think I have answered the key question. I have to rewrite some of the chapters I have already written but so what. It might even be better then it was before.

As the ‘Riddler’ said. “Questions, Questions. I have so many Questions.”

So, while my subconscious continues pondering the question, I turned my attention to a diversion. I decided that I would write a story that was bouncing around in the back of my mind. I really thought that it would be a simple story about a single night.

Then a funny thing happened was as I was writing it. What started as a short story, turned into a novella and then into a regular novel. Then, as I was completing it, I had an inspiration of what would happen to the main character the following day. Voilà, I ended up writing a total of three novels as a trilogy. None are as long as one of my full fledged Mona Bendarova novels. But they turned out to be novels in their own right and I think a good read.

Right now, they are going through editing and I hope to publish them very soon. ‘Her Client’ is first book in the series is be called ‘Clients’. Be sure to look for them. I have a web page on these books right here on this site. Check out the links to my library.

Now, these books are a big departure from all of my other works, published and unpublished. They aren’t for everyone, in fact, they will attract a much smaller audience. However, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head so, ergo, I wrote it down.

But enough of this digression.

What I found amazing was how clearly the direction of the characters appeared in my feeble brain and how easily the words flew from my fingers. It was almost as if I couldn’t write fast enough. In about two weeks, I wrote something on the order of 60,000 words. There was no struggle, no issues with plot lines or dialog. The action is hot and heavy, and rife with disturbing concepts that will sure get people talking.

What was so f***ing  amazing was, I had the best time while writing these stories. It was fabulous, exciting and I could think of nothing better to do in my day. Writing these stores gave me a high better then just about any high I’ve ever had. It was wonderful. I’m only sorry that their done.

If only I could write like this every day. Instead, I have to balance it with my real job that pays the bills. Damn.

Well, it’s back to the grindstone. More to write, more to publish and more to market. And then there’s my job. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job and I enjoy my work. But it has been my career for decades and while I love it, I just don’t have the passion as I do for my other ventures. The writing and my painting, well that is my passion and I welcome any opportunity to enjoy either.

Writing is awesome and I couldn’t be happier.

Thank you for reading my books and as always, I appreciate the precious time you spent reading my posts.

Regards, Rich

maggicalExpressions

Marketing on Social Media

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So, I’ve been on social media for a while now, and the more I learn about it, the more I realize that it is an important part of marketing my books and artwork. The folks who I now following have lots of great ideas and thoughts that make a whole lot of sense to me. I hope that my posts do the same for you.

What bothers me is that it seems that I have to pay attention to the feeds throughout the day, everyday. Don’t get me wrong, it can be fun but it can be tedious as well.

I struggle with the idea that I have to post multiple times a day. I don’t believe that I would do justice to my followers. The ones I’ve been in direct contact with, tell me that my thoughts and insights are interesting. They want to read them. Makes me smile. Thanks to all who get this far in my essay.

So, back to struggling with this whole new venture involving social media. I find that I seem to be spending more time marketing than writing or painting. I also have a real full-time job. I don’t want that to be jeopardized by what I do here.

So, how do I balance everything? I presume that in the years to come, I’ll figure it out and it won’t be so intrusive on my time. Yet, I have a driving need to promote my creative works. It’s not so much selling my books or my fine art. It’s more that I love the idea of people appreciating my work enough that they want their very own copy of it, or the original for that matter when it comes to my art.

I’m not saying that I am a world class author or artist. Time will tell in that front. But, I believe I’m good and I’ll only get better by doing what I love to do.

Writing and painting. Right now, writing has the nod. But how do I do that while promoting, marketing and supporting myself on a shoestring budget.

Your thoughts and ideas are most welcome. Please send me your thoughts. I really want to hear from you.

Thanks for reading and have a cup of coffee or tea; a glass of wine or the taste of a good woman or man. Till next time, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, which isn’t much.

*Update* Thoughts on my twitter feed

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*Update*

An update to my post of the other day regarding my twitter feed. If you’re unsure of what I’m talking about, please feel free to read it. Here is the link.

Ok, after getting the same tweet on my timeline approximately once every five minutes from the same person promoting the same set of products (3) yesterday, I f**king unfollowed them.

It freed up hundreds of tweets in my timeline and allowed me to regain control of my twitter life. I don’t think the loss of unfollowing this individual will matter much to them. Before I unfollowed this person, I determined they had tens of thousands of followers.

Sorry to all you followers.

At this point, by tracking the number of tweets this person posted in a single day, I can only assume that a either this person was manically obsessed with posting tweets and promoting their product or they enabled a bot that was running out of control.

Personally, I hope it’s the later. You need to fix the bot. If it was the former, then I’m sorry. You need help. I hope you get it.

Thank you

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http://www.amazon.com/dp/B015BNI1D8 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B015BNI1D8

Broken-Steele

Thanks to everyone to purchased ‘Broken Steele’. The following is growing and I am ecstatic. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Available from Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle reader and in Paperback, I believe you will find the story an exciting and fun read.

 

Thoughts on my twitter feed

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So, I’m relatively new to Twitter and Facebook, resisting for years getting the accounts. After reviewing my thoughts on my twitter feed, I realized I needed to protect my brand before some other asshole registered my brands and began pretending to be me.

Alright, so what? I dipped my toes into the arena and registered them. I then went about creating some cool stuff to make it interesting and began following like-mind folks.

Thoughts on my twitter feedSo far, so good. My thoughts on my twitter feed seemed to improve. Not so fast….

But now, my feeds and timelines are filled with the same individuals posting the same stuff every day, multiple times a day, promoting their products, over and over again. I can’t keep up with it. As a result, if I don’t constantly refer to the feeds just about hourly, I will lose miss what I think are the gems between the slag.

What’s a guy to do? Unfollow these people? I don’t want to. Every so often, they post something really interesting and I read deeper. If this were simple email, I’d mark the messages as junk and let my mail client filter them for me.

But this is not email. So, what’s a guy to do? I’d be interested in reading your comments on the subject. In the meantime, have a great day.

And thanks to all my supporters who have bought my books and artwork. You’re the best. Check out my site, https://richardverry.com

Book Covers Help

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So, I need help. I’m hoping you can help.

As a relatively new indie book author/publisher, I struggle every time trying to find the best photos to use as the basis for a cover. As I am also an artist, I like to do my own digital design .

In the past, I’ve licensed photos from iStock and 123RF. As I get deeper into book authoring and publishing, I am astounded by the covers I’ve seen from other indie authors.

I’d love to hear from all you indie authors as to where and how you develop your covers. Are there better sites for selecting and licensing photos for covers? Googling helps but I consistently get sucked in to sites that sell these services. I’d rather license the photo and do the rest of the work myself.

Oh, I need to keep the licensing costs down. One photo I found, the owner wanted hundreds of dollars to give me a minimal license. Suffice to say, I didn’t buy it.

I look forward to your thoughts and comments. Thanks for sharing.

A big thank you

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Broken-Steele

‘Broken Steele’, released last Thursday, is selling well. Thank you all who purchased my latest book. More in the works.

And huge thank you to ‘Miss TC’ who gave me my first five star review on only it’s second day of release.

Available from Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle reader and in Paperback, I believe you will find the story an exciting and fun read.

Check it out. I welcome hearing from you.

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