Category: Writing

My follow-up to Leah Hart’s thoughts on reading ‘The Taste of Honey’

November 23, 2015

Having read Leah’s comments on her experiences in growing up reading trashy romance novels, I was struck with how similar our backgrounds are. Even though we are from different parts of the country. I can remember the same drive to read anything and everything, even under the covers with a flashlight.

What a wonderful memory Leah. Thanks for reminding me of those days. As a young boy, I tended to read YA books that involved solving mysteries, investigating the universe or simply the human body. Yes, like Leah, I was a rebel. Searching for my identity, I can remember the day when I noticed girls and became infatuated with the female form.

I distinctly remember when in seventh grade, I realized that the girl across from me, I won’t reveal her name here, sat there in a skirt with her knees wildly parted. I remember thinking “What was it that I found so interesting?” as I concentrated on looking up her skirt. To this day, I have no idea if she was doing it on purpose or not.

From that day forward, I read more adult fare, including steamy romance novels. While I didn’t care for those at first, I read them anyway in order to find the sexy steamy scenes that permeate the genre. I read almost every Harold Robbins novels by the time I was seventeen. Others followed as well.

What really hit me though was discovering the ‘The Harrod Experiment’ by Robert H Rimmer. Now that was something right up my alley. I still have that original copy in my collection and I pull it out and read it every so often. I can recall how I yearned to become a part of that experiment. Imaging, a college course that encouraged young adults to sleep around and learn about the human body in a controlled, safe way.

Writing ‘The Taste of Honey’ stems from those days. My roots in writing, in fact in all aspects of my life, branches out from there. My tree of my life is based in the seeds planted those days. Writing my stories reflects upon actual, real life experiences or fantasies made up in my mind in a fervent desire to experience as much as I can before I leave this earth forever.

If you can put yourselves in my shoes or have been where I’ve been, I know you will enjoy ‘The Taste of Honey’ and it’s sequel ‘Broken Steele’. The third book in the series, ‘Lucky Bitch’ will be out early 2016.

Writing is awesome

October 18, 2015

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

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