Weekly Update

Progress Update

I’ve decided to begin posting progress updates on my writings. I’ll try to do this weekly but you’ll forgive me if I miss a week.

Her Client Trilogy book cover 3D

‘Her Client Trilogy’

Sales of my new series, the ‘Her Client Trilogy’ are going very well. For a relatively new author, I am ecstatic. 45 copies in 7 days, mostly from U.S. and Europe but in other areas of the world as well.

Thank you all for support. I’m working on a marketing plan to boost those numbers. Wish me luck.

 

Fishnet girl with belt in hand‘Lucky Bitch’

55,000 words written to date. Great progress, a bunch to go. I can’t wait to find out how it all turns out. I hope to write at least 5,000 words a week, more if I can. A modest goal to be sure but I expect that the holiday season will definitely impact my ability to write. Marketing efforts are slowing the progress with the novel but as long as I am writing, I don’t care. It’ll be out within the next couple of months. I hope you’ll look for it.

 

The Breakup Upright Book‘The Breakup’

A new novel currently in editing. In the same genre as ‘Her Client’, I have high expectations with this novel. Due to the success of ‘Her Client’ I have written storylines for at least three more books. I can’t wait to get started on writing those.

 

Marketing Efforts

CreativWriter

I need visibility to my site and my works. To do that, I need to raise awareness. Since I know little of marketing, I’ve realized that I need professional help. Just as one hires a moving company to pack up one’s stuff and move it to a new home, I need to do the same thing. Therefore, I’ve decided to boost my marketing efforts but hiring a publicist.

It’s a risk. I know. I don’t want to throw hard-earned money after a bad marketing plan. The past few months, I’ve been investigating whom to hire. There are a lot of unknowns out there. To help figure it out, I’ve been testing the waters.

Now, I’ve decided what to do. I’m hiring Leah Hart of CreativWriter.

Update 10/2016: Leah Hart appears to be out of business. None of her websites are active and her social accounts, at least the ones I know of, are all inactive.

I originally started small with her. I hired her to boost my Twitter followers. I instantly went from a handful of followers to over six thousand in just six weeks. I then hired her to redesign my web site and build an e-commerce presence. Done and done. It’s time to take it the next step.

So, here’s to the new year, full of confidence as I take the next step into the future. I’m excited. Why? Because it’s all going to work out. Cheers!

What aspect of the book will women love in the Mona Bendarova Adventures?

Broken Steele Spine Cover 6x9What aspect of the book will women love in the Mona Bendarova Adventures?

I think that women, reflecting on what they just read, will love the idea that they have all the power within the society I’ve created. They outnumber men, sixty six men for every million women. It may seem lopsided yet with numbers like that, how could the gender not be a power house to contend with. It is they that have the control over their own destinies. They may not know it and the reader may not get that sense while reading the initial book, ‘The Taste of Honey’ yet as they continue to read the subsequent books, ‘Broken Steele’ and ‘Lucky Bitch’, it becomes obvious that the women have the power and are in control of their destinies.

small of back with jeansThere’s no sickness, racism, sexism nor prejudice, immorality or desire to take what is not there’s. There may be the occasional aberration but that just supplies the necessary conflict to make a story worth reading.

Everyone enjoys each others bodies. To them, enjoying sex is a natural and healthy activity. Both genders like to play together. They find suitable activities that give each what the other needs. They are not selfish, self-centered nor unfeeling towards others. Therefore, fighting among themselves is non-existent. Men are mostly nurturing to those under their houses and take their responsibilities seriously. All women, in all societies, crave those characteristics.

Everyone knows what is expected of them. No one shirks their duties. No one runs from their responsibilities.

The practices that some of the female readers may consider foreign or even gruesome need to consider that in the universe I created in these books, the female gender do it out of caring for their house and their community.

Everyone is healthy and life goes on.

Lucky Bitch

woman holding flogger behind neckLucky Bitch

With all of the posts of late regarding ‘The Taste of Honey’ and my new series, I would be remiss in mentioning that the third book in the Mona Bendarova Adventures, ‘Lucky Bitch’ will be coming out early next year.

Mona’s story continues right after the end of ‘Broken Steele’ when she takes possession of the Mastery of her own House. She struggles and has to do deal with various issues, including a prevalent distrust by her own household members as well as the community at large.

The distrust stems from the simple fact that she is a woman. She is a woman who has risen to a position of power in a world where the female gender serves in a subservient role. It can be compared to a woman here, in the United States, achieving the highest public office. It’s just not widely acceptable. Therefore, it makes sense that the women of her own house are uncertain whether they like the idea of her new role.

25758923_s-coffee cups and natural beans and nutsIn the early months of her ascension to Mastery of her House, she has to deal with revamping the services her house offers the community. There is distrust by her community, family, sabotage and even terrorism when several of her household are brutally murdered for simply talking to her one pleasant afternoon.

Mona becomes stronger as a result but still has to deal with uncertainties in her own mind as to whether she made the right decision.

Be sure to read this follow-up book that drives right to the heart of some of our problems that we are experiencing today. I’m looking forward to finish writing it. I want to find out, like you the reader, how she fares in a new world where she is the one everyone looks to and everyone distrusts simply for being a woman in power.

Why does Honey want to be live roasted?

The Taste of HoneyWhy 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.

What was YOUR favorite part of ‘The Taste of Honey’?

The Taste of HoneyWhat was YOUR favorite part of the book?

There are many favorite parts. They include among many, Mona’s dungeon play with Master Charles, the execution scene of Honey’s perpetrator, Mona’s investigation into Honey’s disappearance, Mona’s budding relationship with Renée and Honey’s final scene as she is preparing for her live roasting.

As I look back at each scene and how I felt when I wrote them, I realized that it was Honey’s roasting scene that was my favorite part. While the sex and her spitting is graphic, it was the love story that developed out of it that really captured my interest.

I wrote it from the first person perspective so that the reader would connect with Honey and accept her decision for a live roasting.

What I really liked about the scene is that you’re inside her head, experiencing what she experiences. You feel her final hours as she has her final sex with her Master, loving him as he discovers that he, in fact, loves her also. You, as the reader, experience the spit pushing into her sex, traveling through her body and exiting out her mouth. Ewe! You are right there with Honey as they gut her insides. You see what she sees as she is carried over to the fire pit and begins to roast. Through her eyes, you see her family and friends looking on, before she succumbs to the heat of the fire.

010-ReflectionsBWWhat I really liked about this scene is how I felt as I wrote it. When I started the writing the scene, my mind seemed to divorce itself from my body. My fingers flew over the keyboard. As the scene developed, I got wrapped up in her character. I felt for her. For awhile, I became her.

Ultimately, the scene defines the love relationship between Honey, her Master, her family and her closest friends, including Mona. Her spirituality is so strong that no one can divert her from this course. Even her own Master has told her over and over again that she did not need to do this. In this moment, he realizes that he loves and needs her. He needs her in his life and doesn’t want her to roast.

Honey, however, believes that she has a higher calling. Honey believes that her actions will help save them. She believes that her decision will allow her to live forever in him and her loved ones. As a result, they will live healthier and happier lives.

So, for those and for many other reasons, that is my favorite part of the book. What’s yours?

How did you come up with the Mona character?

The Taste of HoneyHow did you come up with the Mona character?

When I finally figured out the title of the story ‘The Taste of Honey’, I knew how I wanted the story to end. Honey was a main character who wanted to live forever in her family and close friends. In her mind, for whatever reason, she firmly believed that her spirit could only continue on through a live roasting on a barbecue spit. Gruesome, I know, but in Honey’s universe, it’s a common practice among the community.

Knowing how the story was to end, I needed to create characters with whom Honey would share her meat. As I thought about how Honey would meet her end, I needed an avenue to get there. So, I hit upon the idea that she goes missing and someone hired to go find her.

BeautyIntroduce the investigator, Mona. Since my universe incorporated pervasive bdsm play, I decided that this character would be a masochist who enjoyed extreme play. So, her first name became Mona. Mona would be a play on the sound ‘moan’, which she would do a lot during her play.

To come up with her surname, I wanted her name to reflect her sexuality. Eventually, I came to the concept of ‘bend her over’.With a hidden message decided, I contracted it to Bendarova. To date, only one person I know has made this relate and called me on it. She smiled as she told me.

That’s how Mona Bendarova came into existence. She’s a smart, masochistic investigator who loves sex. Who’s your favorite character?

How did you come up with the title ‘The Taste of Honey’?

The Taste of HoneyHow did you come up with the title? Did the title come first or did the story?

For months, I had a concept of what I wanted to write. I had developed the idea of a future history of the human race dependent upon consuming themselves to survive. Originally, I had thought at it would be the result of a devastating war that put the species on the brink of extinction. It wasn’t until later, that I came up with the GMO angle running wild, systematically wiping out all protein based biologically life on the planet.

Yet that didn’t help me decide on a specific story line. I wanted a story in which I would highlight a main character who would by the end, decide to be live roasted and her meat consumed by her family and close friends. I wanted the live roasting to be the character’s choice and not forced upon the character. Further, I wanted the other main characters to feel comfortable with consuming the meat of one who had been one of their own. I struggled over months to find a way to carry out that goal.

In that time, I wrote draft after draft but none of them spoke to me. Then one day, while sitting on my deck, enjoying roasting under the summer afternoon sun, the phrase ‘The Taste of Honey’ hit me. It was a eureka moment. As I reflected upon the phrase, I decided immediately that it would be the title of the story.

Blonde with open back tshirt facing wallNow, at that time, I wasn’t even thinking about publishing the story. I just wanted to write it. Now that I had a title, the rest of the story came together in a flash. Within minutes, I was furiously writing notes, capturing thoughts and ideas before they flashed out of existence. For me, it was a race to document the ideas, never mind whether I would use them all.


A couple of hours later, I had a clear concept of what I wanted to write and I began writing anew. Honey was not only to be the subject of the title but she would be a main character in the story.

It was a journey of self discovery, of retrospection and of desire. Desire in the sense of curiosity of seeing the story come to its conclusion. I knew what I wanted to write but I wanted to see it written on paper. The story took on a life of its own and before I knew it, it was no longer a short story but a full length novel.

Who is Renée?

Renée is through and through a submissive. She has little drive to direct the course of her own life and would rather live the path others have set for her. However, when assigned a task, she is relentless in doing her best work. She allows nothing to stand in her way with achieving her goal. I know many people, men and women alike, who are very much like her. You may know someone too.

As a submissive, she looks to her Master and his delegates for direction in all things. She firmly believes in that authority that includes all aspects of her life, even if it includes her conversion. Ready, willing and able to serve, she does so with enthusiasm and wonderment. She tends to see the good in life though she knows that not everything is perfect. She just chooses not to deal with the bad things.

She is young but has managed to rise in the ranks to 5th year standing within her house. She is smart and knows how to manage assets and categorize data. She is a whiz with a data terminal and can usually look up the answer to virtually any question that is stored somewhere in one of the voluminous databases available to her.

She is a 46.7kg (103 lb) with a small petite frame. She has short black hair and medium-sized breasts with well-rounded ‘C’ cups and perky dark nipples. Due to her small frame, she appears to have a narrower waist and larger hips than one would expect.

She likes to wear high heel stiletto shoes. She can never have too many. Having worn them since a younglings, her feet have evolved to take the shape of wearing heels, even when she is barefoot. She tends to walk on the balls of her feet and her heels automatically elevate off the floor.

Since meeting Mona, she has discovered an ability to research data and draw conclusions from her research. She is also an excellent administrator, capable of overseeing the running of a house. Her duties as a House Hostess give her access to knowing at all times what might be going on within her house. This enables her to deal with issues or problems as they arise. These talents will prove useful to her in the future.

If you are curious and want to learn more about Renee, I invite you to read the book, ‘The Taste of Honey’. I look forward to reading your comments.

How I came to write ‘The Taste of Honey’ (part 2)

With a title, I had a really rough idea of how I wanted the story to go. At the time, I wasn’t thinking I would publish it but I want to write a fresh and new story. As I researched the story idea, I found little that someone else hadn’t already written about my idea. Great! Time to get writing in earnest.

So, with a title and a rough, and I mean really rough, concept, I began writing. No outline, no framework that existed except in my head. As the stories developed, I wrote draft after draft refining it as I went along. I wrote a future history and an encyclopedia of the rules and concepts of the universe I was creating. Over the years, the drafts and the supporting material got more and more refined.

This process went on for two years. During that time, I didn’t tell anyone that I was writing a full length novel. As the months went by, I would pick it up and work on it. At other times, weeks would go by without even thinking about it. Six months before I finished it, I resolved myself to work harder at it. Diligently, I would write a chapter a day or so. Then, a funny thing happened.

I started waking up at four in the morning with awesome dialog running through my head of this scene or that one. Like the imagery that invades my thoughts, the dialog my half asleep mind developed was perfect. Instead of trying to fall back asleep, I would get up and write for a couple of hours. On weekends, I would write well into mid-morning.

My lady-love would wake up and begin talking to me and I’d ask her to hang on until I finished my thought. At times she’d be okay and at other times, not. Oops! Not good. But the unwritten dialog was just too good to interrupt. I had to capture it and I beg forgiveness and kept on writing.

Then, while on a trip to Florida, I did a final push and finished the book. That’s when I involved my girlfriend and other friends, editing it again and again. They all told me, “Rich, you need to publish this. It’s too good not to.”

So, I published it and immediately began writing in earnest, driving myself to continue Mona and Honey’s story. Four months later, I released the sequel ‘Broken Steele’. I’ll tell you about how that came to be written in a future blog.

How I came to write ‘The Taste of Honey’ (part 1)

I wrote ‘The Taste of Honey’ at a time in my life when I was bored with painting and was taking a break. That’s about the time I stepped up my reading, voraciously consuming book after book.

At the same time, my brain kept intruding my thoughts with imagery and scenarios that I captured with my drawings and paintings. I couldn’t capture them fast enough and so many slipped away.

Taking a break from drawing and painting, I started browsing the net for anything that might interest me.  I was reviewing the things I used to do as a young man and realized that I used to write stories. Keeping that in mind as I browsed the net, I stumbled upon a series of adult graphic stories that I absolutely loved. As I devoured them, I thought, I can write this, too. I began by keeping a running dialog in my mind of possible topics.

Whenever I thought of a fresh story idea, I would research the subject and usually found that many people had already written and published a story that was too similar to my idea. So … I went back and kept looking.

Somewhere along the way, the title ‘The Taste of Honey’ jumped into my head. I had the title, now I just needed the story! As I thought more about the title, the story started to materialize. I don’t know how other authors do this, but this is how I did it. I would enjoy reading about various methods used so feel free to share.

More to come tomorrow. Please join me then.

Please check out ‘The Taste of Honey’. The first chapter is available for free on this site as well as on Amazon and other e-book retailers. ‘The Taste of Honey’ is available right now on this website as well as Amazon and other book online retailers.