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Hello Fans

Creative Stream Working

Hello Fans

I know lately, all you have heard from me are my ‘Word of the Day’ posts. I didn’t mean for this to go on so long, my not sharing with you what is going on.

Concussion bannerThese last many months have been very strange for me. As you may recall, or not and that’s okay too, I suffered a severe concussion at work. That was in mid-July, and I’ve been out of work since then, as I’m still dealing with the after-effects. Now, mostly it’s the headaches and occasional short-term memory issue.

Then, in mid-August, my website began running into problems, which are still going today. It’s mid-November, and the vendor involved still hasn’t fixed it.

Every Way We've Tried To Fix Email (And Why It's Not Working)
Source: lifehacker.com.au

Apparently, I’m not alone with this problem, but I still had to involve my web hosting company and spend hundreds of hours on triaging the problem. Eventually, the company relented and reported that their email administrators had discovered a ‘race’ condition between their mail servers which affected me. I think that the servers are either overloaded or undersized. My tests seem to support that my posts that go out late in the day have a better chance of being delivered to my email subscribers than those that go out earlier in the day. That’s right. Not everyone is getting their mail sent to them. I received this note from them early this morning.

“I’ve let our developers know about this so they can investigate further.”

It’s the same problem that surfaced back in August, and they’re still dicking around with investigating the problem?

Another consequence of my concussion was that for a long time, I was unable to use my computers. Looking at the screen gave me severe headaches. While the headaches remain, I can now look at computer screens without making them worse.

I also suffered from cognitive thinking and short-term memory issues. What really disturbed me was that my continuous stream of creative thinking that was a part of my entire life … disappeared. For months, the imagery that was so much a part of me was gone. I felt like I lost a lover, a friend, a companion, and … well … me.

Broken SteeleI tried to encourage its return by editing my first draft of ‘Lucky Bitch’, the third book in my Mona Bendarova Series. That went okay for a while until I discovered that I had to rewrite the ending. I noticed that I had written much of the material included in the last couple of chapters in the first third of the book. What the fuck? I reached out to my beta readers asking for some help, which they graciously gave. However, without a creative stream of thoughts, I couldn’t rewrite the ending, so I put it aside for the time being. Shit. It’s going to be a full year since I published the second book in the series, ‘Broken Steele’. Shit, but I know that there is nothing I can do about it.

So, I kept working on restarting my creative stream. I’m happy to say, about three weeks ago, the creative stream suddenly flared back with a passion. In an instant, a fully formed idea for a new novel, from start to finish, flashed into my mind, demanding release.

The power of creative streamingSince then, I have been writing up a storm. I’m consumed with trying to get the novel out of my soul and down in print. Every day since late October, I write. Sometimes, only a few thousands of words get written down but often, I get ten thousand or more out. I’ve haven’t checked recently, but I think I’m over 100k words right now and still going.

It’s wonderful to have the stream back. My live-in girlfriend is at times upset with me as I bury myself in my office and write. In the afternoons and evenings, I’ll sit with her. She controls the TV remote while I pick up my laptop and write. She understands but still feels ignored. It’s a delicate balance but the consuming need to express myself outweighs the need to help her feel comfortable. Later that evening, I will put the laptop down and fully dedicate my time to her.

Creative Stream WorkingSo, I hope to have this new novel out by the end of the year, but we’ll see. It will need severe editing, as I don’t trust my mind right now to keep all of the characters and timings straight. Automatic spell and grammar checking are fantastic, but there are many things they cannot catch.

One thing I have noticed as I write, sometimes I’ll think of a word I intend to write only to look up at the screen and see an entirely different word. Huh? How did I think ‘dog’ and write ‘dolphin’ or ‘plane?’ Yes, it happens, and I can’t seem to correct it. Perhaps my physical therapy which starts next week will help with that. Frankly, I think just writing will ultimately solve that. I just hope that I don’t pass on an incongruous thought to you in my writing. And if I do, I trust that you’ll forgive me.

I had fun looking for images related to my issues. I hope you like the ones I chose, as well as the sexy bonus pic you will get if you share this post via Twitter.

Right now, I need to get back to my novel. Parts of it are still up there in that noggin of mine, demanding a release from its captivity inside my skull. You’ll forgive me if I stop now and return to my novel.

This is Richard Verry, writing to you from my home office. Thanks for caring. I appreciate all of the kind words people have sent to me over these past several months.

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Imagination leads to creativity

Vivid Imagination

I read this quote on imagination the other day on social media. Though I’m sure I don’t have it exact, word for word, I know that this is the sentiment.

“I don’t subscribe to the stuff I write about. I just have a vivid imagination.”

This statement rings clearly in my psyche. The sentiment allows me to explain to people about the stories I capture in my writings and in my artwork. In short, it describes me in a very succinct way. I believe it fits me to a tee.

When you read the books I write, you feel the anguish my characters feel. Sit inside the minds of the perpetrators as they deliver their punishments to their unwilling victims. Follow along inside the minds of the victims and feel their pain. Identify with the characters and cringe as they do as they suffer their unwanted brutal attacks. Cheer for the sufferer even time they achieve a victory against their attacker.

Imagination 38931463 - open door to another reality, abstract ethereal backgroundsWhile I wrote these stories, that is true, picturing myself as the perpetrator is disturbing to me. Violence against any living being, human or otherwise, I find as abhorrent. I cannot imagine me actually doing the violence I write about. Frankly, it turns my stomach. I can’t imagine myself forcibly raping another person, man or woman. It is unimaginable to view myself as a boxer, fighter, soldier or whatever. I just can’t see it. I don’t consider myself a pacifist, I simply abhor the notion of violence against another.

Why is it then that I enjoy movies that portray acts of violence? Why are my favorite video games fraught with hunting down, attacking and killing other characters? I saw a movie the other day, entitled ‘Vice’ starring Bruce Willis. I had never heard of it before. I never saw trailers or other promotions for it. I simply saw it on my online guide and watched it.

While I enjoyed it, I cursed it at the same time. The premise of the movie was one I have been developing on my own to wrap many of my storylines into a single volume. Shit! So now, I can’t use that one anymore. It would have been perfect. But, I digress.

Garters Thigh High Stockings vectorOther people have trouble seeing the conflict in my mind. Most say, “If I can write it, I must be able to do it.” It’s also been suggested that “If I can write it, I must be a misogynist.” While I understand how people make that leap, I don’t agree with it. I simply have an active imagination which I choose to document.

Besides, not all of my imaginative visions are violent. Many are loving, touching scenes of people who are deeply into each other. Others are sexy, usually graphic scenes of the greatest gift Mother Nature could have given the human race. That, of course, is SEX. In case you haven’t noticed. I love sex. I love the beauty I see in mature adult women’s bodies. It doesn’t matter how old they are, how big or small, or whether they are tall or short. The mature, naked female body, in my opinion, is the best gift God or Mother Nature gave us.

Unfortunately, these other scenes running through my imagination are already being written by thousands of other authors. From what I can tell, they sell well enough. If I want my writings to support my lifestyle, perhaps I should write my own.

Sorry but I don’t want to regurgitate the same thing that others are already doing. I want to write unique stories that no one else is writing. Just as I love seeing women who are different from most, who wear asymmetrical clothing, custom jewelry, interesting piercings, gorgeous tattoos and other adornments that are uncommon and individual, I like the idea of writing fresh stories that are unique and different. 

What I find most fascinating is the more violent the story, the more graphic and brutal it is, the better it sells. WTF? I recognize that either you like the stories or you don’t. There is no middle ground. I’m okay with that. I’m just thankful for the thousands out there that do like and buy the stories.

Whether you believe me or not, I don’t subscribe, support and live this behavior. It is the product of my vivid imagination. Those closest to me, my friends, family, and lover know the truth. In reality, I’m a pussy. Just don’t try to stop me. That’s when my fangs come out.

In the meantime, as long as people buy it, I’ll continue to write it.

[twitter_follow screen_name=”richverry”]

Care to comment? Please do. I always love reading what others have to say.

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Creativity and Life

creative in printed dictionary
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.

creative in printed dictionaryAs 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.

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

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!

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Chaos

“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.