On Re-Reading Favorites

April 29, 2016

I’m curious. Do you re-read your favorite books? Would you ever even think of re-reading a book? Has the idea of re-reading a book ever crossed your mind?

I do. Over the years, I’ve re-read my favorites many times over. Books from my younger years are favorite re-reads. Many I’ve kept in my personal library, moving them from home to home over the decades. Others, I check out of the public library or lately, buy the eBook version even though I have the paperback or hard copy of the book.

They are my friends, my companions, and never once have they ever disappointed me. I’ve never regretted reading them. I’ve never regretted re-reading them. When I re-read a book, I realize a new innuendo to the story that I hadn’t realized before. It’s amazing. I still learn something from these books years after I last read them.

What are your favorite books or stories? Here are a few of mine.

As I wrote awhile back, I am a sci-fi, erotic, mystery & suspense, and paranormal aficionado. My all time favorite author in the genre is Robert Heinlein. Kim Harrison, the author of the ‘The Hollows’ series, is another favorite. Charlaine Harris, the author of the ‘Sookie Stackhouse’ books and later ported to HBO’s ‘True Blood’ is among my all-time favorites. An obscure favorite later made into a movie, is ‘The Harrad Experiment’ by Robert H. Rimmer. To this day, I wish I had been one of the students in that story.

Another favorite is ‘Logan’s Run’, a cheesy movie but the book was so much better. In fact, I remember writing a similar short story years before this book came out. Of course, I was still in primary school at the time. I’m sure it’s just a freak coincidence.

Tess Gerritsen is an author I enjoy reading again and again. So are John Grisham, ‘Along Came a Spider’, and the early works by Tom Clancy such as ‘Patriot Games’. There are many, many others.

However, I do have a problem. There are so many new books and authors that I enjoy following, that it’s getting harder to enjoy these older books again and again. Do you have the same problem? Or, do you just wing it and read the next thing that captures your fancy?

Then there is the problem of the books and stories that I write. I love them dearly. A bit of my soul is in each of them and again, I like to re-read them as well. What am I to do?

What’s your opinion?

Essay on self marketing.

April 17, 2016

Instead of writing, I have been studying. My research includes a plethora of books, websites I’ve found, webinars, and social media threads. What am I studying?

By now, you know that I am an author, independently publishing my books on Amazon and all of various eBook outlets and distributors. I also have some of my books available as paperbacks. I created a website to promote my creative works. Yes, I am also an artist. I paint and draw for fun. I don’t actively sell my art.

I focus my attentions on my writings. I write creative fiction. My stories revolve around mystery and suspense stories of an erotic nature. Some tell me that one series of my books are akin to science fiction. Frankly, I was surprised by that comment. I never thought of them that way. They are set thousands of years in our future but does that make them sci-fi?My other series of books tend to focus on criminal acts of assault, torment, and murder. These books are not science fiction.

What I am not, is a marketer. In all of my education, I have never studied marketing. I don’t know how to market myself, my products nor even my career. I have a master’s degree in Information Technology. I never took even a single course on how to market myself. How is that even possible?

Today, I am studying marketing. More specifically, I am studying how to market myself and my books. Frankly, it’s a daunting task. I’ve encountered setbacks, mistakes, and minor successes. I’ve spent thousands of dollars hiring marketing people, test adverts, rebuilding my websites, and learning.

I’ll be the first to admit. I don’t know what I’m doing. I make mistakes, lots of mistakes. I am slowly learning. It’s frustrating. I listen to experts. I work hard to implement the lessons I’ve learned. I am intelligent. I know my mission. I found good people. I found people who don’t get me or my vision.

Taste of Honey book cover 3D — The Taste of Honey

I found people who tried to tell me to sell to a target audience that I instinctively knew was wrong. In one such lesson, I was advised to target the LGBT community because they were simply a smaller target group but big enough to make progress in new sales. Was this wrong?

No, I don’t think so. The problem? Since my stories include women kissing and having sex together, made the stories perfect in targeting the LGBT community.

The trouble was, these characters are heterosexual. In the universe I created, they simply don’t have any stigmas against same-sex intercourse. They don’t share today’s morality related to sex and relationships. This person didn’t get it. Fine. Move on. Lesson learned.

Today, I am studying. I am researching. I am learning. In short, I’m trying. I am determined. I’m opening a new chapter in my training. Come what may, it will work or not. I’ll keep on trying, working, and figuring it out. Wish me luck.

Peanuts

April 9, 2016

What is your favorite Peanuts character?

I don’t know why, but I’ve been pondering this question for a couple of days. I compared each one to what I think is important in my life and decided that Snoopy was the best fit.

A dog you might ask. Look at it this way and take the species aspect out of it.

Snoopy has a very active imagination. He’s a fighter pilot flying in an open cockpit bi-wing fighter plane. He plays baseball. He knows enough to get enough sleep. He decorates his house for the holidays. He is a writer, a good friend, and a party animal. He tells it like it is and makes no bones about it. He questions idiocy and doesn’t take shit from anybody. Most importantly, he unconditionally loves his friends and family.

He is an independent soul and won’t be forced to conform. He believes what he believes and lives his life accordingly. You either take him as he is or you don’t. It’s not so much that he doesn’t care. Rather, it’s more akin to not being aware that some people may not appreciate him.

Snoopy and I are very much alike. That is why he is my favorite ‘Peanuts’ character. Who is yours and why? We could get into a very interesting dialog.

Creativity and Life

January 29, 2016

The Return of the Archons — Star Trek (c) Paramount Studios

"Without Freedom of Choice, there is no Creativity. Without Creativity, there is No Life." 
Captain James T. Kirk in 'The Return of the Archons'.

I recently saw this quote and it got me thinking. Yes, thinking can hurt and it’s a favorite tease in my house. As I reflect on the quote, I can’t help wonder about the accuracy of the words.

I’ve known my entire self-aware life that humans only grow and thrive because of the challenges we face and overcome. What I had never considered before was just how we figure out what we need to do to overcome and grow.

Just how did we advance our species from a caveman to the technological society we enjoy today? Assuming we don’t destroy ourselves, I presume our species will grow exponentially. Who knows where we’ll be a thousand years from now. Just look how far we’ve come in the last thousand years.

As I considered the question, it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the answer to the question was our capacity to be creative. Not just in the arts but also in the sciences. As a whole, our species have a tremendous talent to think outside the box. We can consider a question and instead of looking for the immediate answer, we also look at both relevant and unrelated concepts to determine whether there is something there that can advance the answer.

If this quote is true and I have no reason to believe otherwise, it’s our creativity that allows us to grow and thrive. It’s our creativity that advances us one after the other.

Consider if you will what would we, as a species, be like if we did not have any sort of creativity. Take any example in the history of the human race. Keeping it simple, let’s postulate this scenario. You live on an island and you eat the fruit of the tree to live on. There’s plenty of fruit and you eat readily. It’s all you’ve ever eaten, It’s all you have ever needed to eat. Year after year, you eat the fruit and nothing else. After all, there’s plenty to go around and you’ve never wanted for anything else.

Then one day, a storm comes through and wipes out every single fruit tree and the crop you’ve come to depend on is suddenly gone. A few days later, you’re hungry. You’ve never been so hungry in you entire life. You’re starving and on the verge of dying. Yet, living right along with you are chickens, ducks, and other small animals.

If you had never eaten a chicken before, without creativity to solve the problem, would you? Would you eat a chicken? Would you even think to try it? Without the concept of creative thinking, to think beyond your experiences and teachings, I contend that you would not. You would starve to death. If you represent the entire human species, then our species would be extinct.

I contend and believe that our capacity for creative thought is what allows us to grow, thrive, and advance.

What do you think? Could we do so? Can the human race grow and continue to advance without our capacity for creative thinking?

I look forward to reading your comments. Please, feel free to add to the discussion in the field below.

This is Richard Verry, pondering yet another aspect of life on this planet we all share. Until next time, have a great day!

Football and the ‘Her Client Trilogy’

January 11, 2016

Football and ‘Her Client Trilogy’

It is playoff weekend as the teams begin their hunt to the Super Bowl. Most of the teams are sitting on the sidelines watching and waiting for the big finale. This ritual got me thinking how this relates to Richard Verry’s, ‘Her Client Trilogy’.

The words that come to mind are: dominance, hunt, aggressor, tied, victim, surprise, tension, fumble, pass, fan, tackle, mind game, injured, winner, loser, touchdown, coach, snap, chilling, receive, tight end, shotgun, touchdown, first down, chill in the air, cold, hard, chains, knee, time-out, panic, suck, ball, screen pass, run, interception, squeeze play, clock winding down, fourth down, fourth and long, two-minute warning, goal, first and goal, broken play, sack, interference, holding, illegal contact, roughing, offense, defense, pocket, opportunity, fantasy, handed off, time out, bowls, bowl game, hall of fame, rout, blown opportunity, huddle, dropped, down and out, route, champ, mascot, and shit!

I am sure you can add more yet the point is all this is acceptable in the game of football. Culturally, it has become the norm to read, watch and/or participate in this activity.

How is this different from what the author is conveying in his books and novellas? To me, the answer is simple. The majority of our culture has not accepted this as the norm. Will it ever? I don’t know. I hope not.

Overall, we have grown as a society yet there are still issues that we can’t accept or are willing to accept. Still, we hunt, torture and inflict brutal violence against one another. It is a game for some and a lifestyle for others. Yet for Jolene and I, we will fight to the bitter end. We will not lay down and give up.

We may have fourth and long to go, time is running out and we are out of time outs and yet we will keep our wits and fight to the bitter end. We will not be the victim to be hunted and tackled to the ground. We may be injured and on the verge of being routed. Yet, while there are still seconds on the clock, we will not take a knee. We’ll run the screen pass and make a play for the end zone and a win.

See if you agree with my thoughts. Write me a comment and let me know, one way or the other.

Will men love in the Mona Bendarova Adventures? (part 1)

January 9, 2016

What aspect will men love in the Mona Bendarova Adventures? (part 1)

What’s not to love about the role men have in these books. They have all the sex they could ever want, any time of day or night. They have a bevy of women who by their very nature are submissive. They serve, attend and even die for their head of households. Once accepted into a house, they yearn to please the Master of the house. They have sex, often with several women at the same time. They enjoy playtime in the dungeons where women willingly submit to their Masters in kinky pleasures. They take care of all of the household chores. What’s not to like?

And yet, men in the community are few in number. The odds of being born and surviving to maturity are extremely low. Only one in fifteen thousand births results in a male making it to adulthood. In the early stages of life, assuming they survive their traumatic birth, they are sickly and prone to severe illness. Of those that survive their birth, most will die before their first birthday. Assuming they survive to adulthood, they are by nature, the strongest and the most viral. They are the epitome of Darwin’s law of survival of the fittest.

Just imagine. You’re born and somehow, against all odds, manage to reach adulthood. You are given a house of your own, filled with women willing to lie and have sex with you . They are eager to please your every fantasy. Additionally, you don’t have to find a job, fret each and every day whether you can make a career and earn a living.

Today, most of us men struggle to figure out our place in life. A rare few, figure it out early. Most, figure it out just when we wish we could start again, with what we learned along the way. Many never figure it out at all.

I’m one of those that took decades to figure out just who I am and what my talents are. I love the idea of being given my own house, a stable of women to fuck and a household to love. I would enjoy being the uncontested Master of my house. To never have to worry where my next meal was coming from, whether I would have a roof over my head or a community I can be a part of, all appeals to me.

Yet, I’ve not spoken about the other side of the coin. Stay tuned to tomorrow’s followup to this entry. Part two talks about the responsibilities they must deal with and how it affects their house and community should he not live up to their responsibilities.

To learn more about this universe I’ve created, check out my site, RichardVerry.com where you’ll find all sorts of more information, a free preview of each of my books you can read so you can see for yourself and where you can buy the full books.

Fantasies Realized!

January 8, 2016

Did you write these books as a way to experience fantasies that you could never experience for real?

<Laughing>

When I heard this question, I started laughing. I suppose that all creative people, writers, artists, musicians etc. all express their fantasies in their art.

No, I don’t want to experience most of the scenes I write about. The sex, sure. The kinky stuff, I admit, some. I enjoy many forms of adult play. No, I have no desire to experience some of what my characters go through, either as a perpetrator or victim. I abhor violence. I always have. Some even have accused me as someone who avoids conflict. I suppose there is some truth in that. The thought that I could inflict that kind of suffering on another living creäture, human or not, offends me.

But that doesn’t stop the scenes from playing out in my head nor stop trying to capture them in either the visual or written form. For whatever reason, I find the fantasies I dream up fascinating. Without them, I couldn’t write my books or paint my scenes. Good or bad, tame or horrendous, they’re just fantasies. I recognize they’re not real. What concerns me more is what would happen if I didn’t get them out. Now, that’s some scary shit.

This is Richard Verry, reporting from Rochester, NY. Be sure to check out my website at RichardVerry.com.

Imagery

January 6, 2016

Why do you think you have these images and scenes bombarding your mind every day?

Every day of my life, for as long as I can remember, I’ve had constant imagery flooding my thoughts, night and day. As a child, the images reflected my interests or extended the experiences of the day. I can remember watching new episodes of ‘Star Trek’, ‘Sea Hunt’, ‘Fireball XL5’, or even ‘Diver Dan’. Do you remember ‘Diver Dan’, a series targeting the very young about life under the sea. Maybe that’s when my fascination with mermaids began … or maybe not? The imagery extended from the books I was reading of the day. They include ‘The Adventures of Tom Swift’, ‘The Hardy Boys’ and even ‘Nancy Drew’. I read them all and lots more.

In thinking about this question, I can’t help but wonder whether the stories of my youth helped create the constant pattern of images floating through my mind. I remember dreaming up and sketching fantastic ships flying through the air, traveling between the stars and diving into the depths of the earth.

Then later, as I went through puberty, the imagery changed. Girls caught my eye and the female form took over. I’ve been fascinated with ‘her’, both mentally and physically. You can see my fascination in my drawings, paintings and stories.

Today having many more experiences under my belt, I’ve learned a thing or two. I still have a lot to learn yet one thing I do know is that I will never get to capture, experience or write about all of images that invade my everyday thoughts.

I don’t know why I have these images flooding my mind. Until recently, I thought that everyone had them. Even though I have been around for many decades, it’s only been in the last five years or so that I realized that most people don’t experience this. I am asking myself, why is that? Am I unique? Am I so very different? No, I don’t think so yet I realize that I am not like many people.

Then who or what am I? Do I rule my images or am I ruled by them? Most days I believe it’s the later rather than the former. What I do know is that I am me and I embrace my images. They give me insights into myself and provide inspiration for my creative output.

So, should I find a way to escape my imagery? I feel these images are a part of me so I’m not sure I want to even try.I would probably be lost without them.

I would be pleased to read about others who share similar experiences. Or, am I truly a rare bird? Leave a comment on my website, RichardVerry.com and let me know. I sure would like to know what others think.

Holidays in Mona’s Realm

December 29, 2015

HOLIDAYS AS THEY RELATE TO MY CHARACTERS

Are there holidays in Mona’s Realm?

Holidays are completely different in Mona Bendarova’s world. Introduced in ‘The Taste of Honey’, Mona’s community comes together for monthly and quarterly celebrations. There are no holidays per se commemorating people, specific events or beliefs.

Monthly celebrations are more of a community gathering where people come together and enjoy each other’s company. It’s a time for revelry, entertainment, eating, drinking, and enjoying sex. Seed is spilled and deposited into willing recipients frequently at these celebrations. Most fertile women wake up the following morning happy and pregnant after a night of pleasure. For the rest, they are simply happy and most certainly satiated.

Quarterly celebrations on the other hand are bigger and more involved events. Generally, they follow the seasons, roughly scheduled around the Summer and Winter Solstices plus the Fall and Spring Equinoxes.

The Spring Equinox hails the coming growing season where the community plans to produce the bulk of their non-protein based food. The Summer Solstice salutes the height of the warm sun, long pleasant days and short warm nights. The Fall Equinox celebrates the harvest gathering, giving thanks for what the land has given them despite the atrocities it suffered in the past.

The biggest celebration of the year is the Winter Solstice. This festivity focuses upon hope and joyful reunions for the coming year. It is denoted by enjoying the rich milky way of stars lighting the night skies, providing a backdrop for a magical time of year. The longest night of the year is celebrated by staying warm, enjoying each other’s bodies and conceiving the greatest diversity within the gene pool. Even conceptions in the breeding farms don’t distribute the gene pool as much as what happens at this celebration.

Therefore, celebrations are a holiday in a sense. They provide an opportunity to ensure the survival of the human species. It is a way to enjoy life yet most importantly, to preserve it.

Now, as I reflect upon these celebrations, I can’t help wish that our own holidays follow a similar scenario. Fun and revelry among friends and strangers where sharing joy, pleasure and seed is expected, world-wide? What’s not to like? Not that I expect to see it come to pass in my lifetime but I wonder what our lives might be like sharing similar celebrations. I firmly believe that we would be better off if we divorce ourselves from out petty differences, slice away the personal agendas and welcome our differences as opportunities to grow.

As I write this, I am reminded of the concept ‘IDIC’ introduced by Gene Roddenberry in his original TV series, ‘Star Trek’. ‘IDIC’ stands for Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. I embrace this view of the world. I firmly believe we are better with our differences than without. Rather than homogenizing our species, it’s our differences that allow us to grow stronger.

What do you think? Can we all embrace our differences, enjoy our humanities and love our fellow-man? I do.

Please, share your thoughts with me. I welcome constructive view points, whether I agree with them or not. Perhaps one day, world-wide, we can celebrate a holiday of love, joy and pleasure.

Why does Honey want to be live roasted?

December 10, 2015

Why does Honey want to be live roasted?

I can only document some of her reasons. Honey explains it best in her first biography ‘The Taste of Honey’. I can tell you from what the author Richard Verry wrote that she firmly believes she will live on in the lives and bodies of those that consume her meat. But to do so requires much more than a simple conversion and consumption. For the author, who wrote her words, it has to be done in the proper way.

To Honey, this means that in order for her spirit to be transferred properly, it has to be sealed inside her meat and then consumed as quickly as possible after roasting. In order for that to happen, she has to be roasted alive.

Spinning and roasting on a rotisserie spit from Honey’s perspective happens all the time. This is a hard concept for a reader to grasp, yet the author conveys Honey’s thoughts and feelings so eloquently that the reader ends up rooting for her.

Honey’s deep rooted spiritualism takes it a step further. She not only wants to live on forever in her family, she believes she needs to. She believes it so deeply that she has spent years convincing her Master and even Mona that this is something she wants to do.

So, in order to achieve her goals, she arranges to be spitted and live roasted at a celebration celebrating her contribution to her house and community. It’s a special occasion and many of those in attendance do not understand the significance of what Honey wants to do. In fact, many just think it’s just another one of the monthly barbecue roasts where several sows are roasted and served to the gathered.

To Honey though, the affair and her roasting is everything. Determined to succeed, it is her love for Master Lee, her family and close friends that drives her to her final destiny.

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What aspect will men love in the Mona Bendarova Adventures? (part 1)

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Did you write these books as a way to experience fantasies that you could never experience for real?

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Why do you think you have these images and scenes bombarding your mind every day?

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HOLIDAYS AS THEY RELATE TO MY CHARACTERS

Are there holidays in Mona’s Realm?

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Why does Honey want to be live roasted?

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