Hopes and Dreams

The hopes and dreams of the last thirty years came to pass earlier this year. In my late teens, as a writer and illustrator, I started working on a series of children’s stories. Sadly, these never went into print. But I never gave up the ambition to write and illustrate children’s stories. Last year I did a story for Reader’s Eden. I illustrated a story called “Zap”, a lovely little story about a young boy and his cat. I very much enjoyed working on that but it was only ever going to be an e-book. I showed my friend and editor, Laurie Sanders, the book, she loved the pictures and felt as I did that it was a pity it was not going into print. We batted some ideas around until late last year when Laurie and myself started working on “A Very Special Place to Poop”. The humour of the book, title and subject matter hit us from the start. I found myself laughing out loud while drawing the pictures, if I could draw your attention to the page where bears go for a poop, there is a squirrel in the tree and a rather startled looking snail below. It is one of my personal highlights. The humour went all the way through the book, like a stick of Blackpool rock, from the expressions on the animal character’s faces to our E-mails. “Our poopbook”, “More poop ideas”, “Here is another poop picture” were commonplace titles and were the source of many laughs during the book process.

We love the book and we hope adults reading it will find it as funny as the kids. You can find the book “A Very Special Place to Poop” here at Amazon. I very much hope this is the first of many children’s books Laurie and I will do together.

This book broke a lot of new ground for me, not only my first children’s book in print but also the first where I was designer of the book from start to finish. It was a daunting prospect being responsible for each element of the book but, as a bit of a control freak, I do like the control element. Subsequently, I have produced a second book and my current design project is a book on the subject of beauty. I have mentioned it in a previous blog and I hope this book will be out early next year.

Spanked!

I am thrilled to say that Spanked! which includes my story, In the Driving Seat, is now available in Kindle format from Amazon.  It will be available in print in the next few days too.  🙂

Spanked! is a collection of four romantic spanking stories. The stories are for those readers who like a domestic discipline/spanking stories with a touch of romance.

In The Driving Seat – Richard Savage
Barbara loves to shop…especially for shoes. But she never would have thought that buying a pair of shoes would land her in so much trouble.

Alan is tired of fighting with Barbara about money. He decides after one pair of $1500 shoes too many that what Barbara really needs is a spanking.

Intimate Submission – Cara Bristol
Reese wants Jamie’s submission. But Jamie is convinced she needs to hold something back. But holding back is escalating the tension in her marriage.

Jamie’s insistence on denying Reese one final act of submission pushes him to issue the ultimate ultimatum.

Jamie must choose between surrendering the final piece of herself to Reese’s mastery or rebelling against the unfairness of the ultimatum.

Trusting Her – Starla Kaye
Rancher Sam Caldwell is in a funk. He’s been growling at his ranch hands, his friends and even his wife Katie.

When Katie gets in a funk, Sam spanks her. So, when his bad mood stretches on with no end in sight, he decides to ask Katie to spank him.

Secret Desires – Cara Bristol
Morgan is perpetually late, but when she keeps him waiting one time too many he promises to spank her the next time she’s late.

When she shows up late to her own birthday party Jack decides it’s time to follow through on his promise.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Tabby, pastel life drawing by Richard Savage

I have been working on my book, Beauty in Every Form, for over a year now. It started as a stroll in the park, a ramble through a few of my thoughts on the subject of beauty which is a subject I do feel passionately about. My thoughts were accompanied by a few of my life drawings and some thoughts from a few friends on the subject. In a nutshell, my thoughts are: I think it is a shame that the world is so judgmental and a pity that people are made to feel bad that they don’t conform to some imaginary air brushed standard. In essence, there is nothing wrong with just being as we are.

Marian Savill, contributor, photo by Rob Morris

Well, my quiet stroll has turned into something of a marathon. I am happier with it for all of that, it is now a much deeper work exploring the topic in great depth with 50 – 60 contributors. The book as it now stands is a much better piece and I feel sure it will have a much broader appeal than my original concept.

Lin, pastel life drawing by Richard Savage

It has been a kind of bittersweet journey for me; the contributions have been brilliant and I feel so honoured that people have been so willing to share their life experiences in such an open way. I suppose the only down side is the time. The contributions seem to have taken an age to get in; to be fair most have sent things in swiftly, some seem to have taken longer though which is a little frustrating. The book is now in the editing stage and I hope it will soon be out for release. I can’t wait for you to read it.

Spanked!

My latest story, In the Driving Seat, is about to be published in a paperback anthology of domestic discipline stories, Spanked!, published by Black Velvet Seductions.  Here’s a sneak preview of the cover…

Really excited to see the story in print and can’t wait to get some copies of the book.  🙂  If you prefer an e-book you can purchase a digital download of In the Driving Seat here.