In this episode of Spirits and Stories with Donald Dunn, we deliver a powerful storytelling podcast experience built on real life stories, inspiring interviews, and the depth of the human experience. We sit down with Richard Spiegel, a twenty-one-year Army veteran turned dark fantasy and paranormal author, whose personal journey reveals how storytelling can become a path to healing after service.

Richard’s transformation began during a deployment to Egypt in two thousand twenty-two, when writing became a lifeline. What started as therapy evolved into a new mission—crafting worlds filled with vampires, angels, and moral conflict, grounded in the brutal realism of military life. His work explores trauma, loyalty, and the shadowed corners of the soul, offering powerful resilience stories shaped by lived experience.

Through deep conversations, Richard shares what it means to overcome adversity by creating instead of collapsing. He opens up about writing from the antagonist’s perspective, the emotional weight of portraying darkness honestly, and why authentic dialogue matters more than comfort. His journey offers profound life lessons about identity, purpose, and how creativity can rebuild what war reshapes.

This episode blends veteran stories, transformation, and art into a moving narrative about finding meaning after service. Whether you’re drawn to storytelling, healing, or the raw truth behind creative expression, this conversation reveals how even the darkest paths can lead to light.

Takeaways:

1. A twenty-one-year Army career can become the foundation for a new creative mission.
2. Military experience fuels authentic storytelling rooted in trauma, loyalty, and moral conflict.
3. Writing offers a powerful path for healing and self-reclamation.
4. Authentic characters require honest, unsanitized voices.
5. Real stories resonate when they reflect genuine human struggle.
6. Creativity can transform adversity into purpose.

Links Referenced in This Episode:

richardspiegel.com

richardspiegelbooks

Tonight we're joined by a man who has lived two very different lives.

Both intense, both powerful, and both shaped by discipline, imagination, and the drive to serve something greater than himself.

Richard Spiegel spent 21 years in the United States army, stepping into serious responsibility at an early age, including becoming a command driver at just 19.

After two decades of service, he transitioned transitioned into a new battlefield, the world of storytelling and has quickly made a name for himself.

As the author of multiple dark fantasy and paranormal series, including the Eternal Nights and Wolves and Ravens sagas, Richard brings a unique voice to the genre.

Part warrior, part world builder and all heart, his stories blend action, the supernatural and deep human struggle, drawing from the kind of life experience you can't fake.

Tonight we're diving into his journey, the service, the creativity, the lessons, and the powerful imagination behind his books.

Please welcome to Spirits and Stories, Richard Spiegel.

How's it going Richard, man?

Oh, pretty good.

And let me say that was a beautiful intro.

Hey, I appreciate it, man.

You know, it's really cool because I like doing it because I like to tell stories too and I think visual stuff like those intros catches people's attention and, and makes it a little bit more user friendly of what they're going to expect from the guest.

So let's, let's discuss a little bit about your military service, man.

What, what brought you to the military?

Well, I grew up in a military family, so there was really no question that that was going to happen.

So I went right after high school.

I always wanted to be an officer like my dad, but I wanted to be enlisted first, so.

Okay.

That's why I went into the 82nd pretty much two weeks after I graduated high school.

Okay, what, what mos did you interest 11 Bravo?

Well, 11 Bravo Juan Papa since it was paratroopers.

Okay, Yep.

So did you end up going officer or did you decide to stay enlisted?

I know a lot of people make that decision.

You know, I was with that same thought process when I was considering warrant officer school versus staying with the soldiers.

I personally decided to stay with the soldiers.

What was your choice?

I did.

I took care of college and then I ended up going back as an officer, but I went back into the National Guard because I had a family at the time.

Okay, that seemed like a good compromise.

Yeah, absolutely, man.

You know, and a lot of people don't understand, but since 9 11, you know, I don't think there's really been any such thing as a part time soldier.

You know, there really hasn't.

Everybody has, has been Utilized.

And now I think to be honest, your, your National Guards and, and reserve units are being utilized even more than what the, the active army is in, in today's world with everything that's happening in, in the United States.

So I got a lot of respect for those guys because people don't understand that, you know, those guys have civilian careers and a lot of times those civilian careers outweigh financially than what the, the reserve components do.

But when those guys get deployed or activated, they're now on whatever rank pay structure they are, and a lot of times it's a lot less.

They're taking a huge pay cut to serve America.

So I got my, my soft spots for you guys, man.

Yeah, especially in the very beginning, they were the, the Guardsmen and the Reserves, especially the Guardsmen.

They were getting deployed more than we were.

We were on Bragg helping to train those units so they could get deployed.

And it was, I felt bad for him because I mean, I was a full time soldier and like you said, these guys aren't and they're doing rapid fire deployments just like an active duty unit was.

Yeah, I still remember that, that meme that, that somebody took a picture of a National Guard unit or a reserve unit, I'm not sure which they were, but they were holding up a sign that said one week in a month, two weeks a year, my ass.

You know, but it is so true.

It really is.

You know, there was no such thing as a part time soldier during those time frames.

So you ended up staying a total of 21 years, right?

Yeah.

The army counts time in a strange fashion when you have a break in service.

But that's what they have told me.

I've served.

Okay.

Yeah, just retired in February.

Okay.

And then you still got your active points and, and so forth.

And that dictates when you get your retirement check and everything through the, the National Guard and Reserves, am I right?

Yeah, it's a little more, it's.

I was gonna say complicated.

It's actually a little more simplistic for me because I was medically retired.

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, it goes through VA disability, basically.

Yeah.

Which is.

A lot of people don't know this either, but a lot of times that's a lot better than what the retirement check turns out to be, you know, so.

Because on the disability side, it's tax free.

Yeah, it's tax free.

When they get to that age where they have to make a choice, a lot of them turn down the retirement pay in favor of keeping the disability.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely, man.

So you, you get out of the military, man.

Where did this passion for, for writing come from?

You've been doing this for a while now.

Well, I, I've always been writing here and there, but, you know, putting food on the table is more important, so it always kind of got like a back seat.

So I was like, you know what, this is a good time to start writing again.

And once I let the genie out of the bottle, I couldn't put it back in.

So it's basically just been rapid fire writing and publications for the last couple of years.

Yeah, you know, I wrote a couple books too and man, it is, it is super hard, you know, so any, anybody that, that completes a book and, and publishes, you know, my hat's off.

Because people don't understand that these types of industries, your, your entertainment industries, whether it be writing, music, tv, it doesn't matter.

They are super competitive and, and it is very, very hard to be the next Stephen King or the next Joe Rogan or, or anything in today's world.

And a lot of these people don't really care about that side of the house.

They, they, they come.

It comes from a passion, you know, something that they're very passionate about.

You know, I make $0 from podcasting and I've made probably $10 more than that from writing books.

So, you know, but every time I, I did it, I didn't care about that.

I don't care about how many viewers I get on this show.

I have no desires to monetize it.

It's because having guests like you and, and earlier in my startup of doing this, it was about therapy for myself, telling stories.

They're, they're very healing and it is awesome when you meet another storyteller like yourself.

When you, you said you, you've been writing off and on for quite a while.

Have you always been in the same genre?

I bounce around.

I've always, I've always liked science fiction, so I knew I was going to move in that direction.

None of that's been published yet, but it will start to get published next year.

But my genres, it's always hard to pick because they ask you, like, what genre do you write?

She's like, I don't know, like five.

Like my eternal night Series I was told, I was told was paranormal because it has vampires in it.

I was like, I don't think it's paranormal, but okay, I'll say I'll call it paranormal.

But I've got paranormal, occult, dark fantasy, action, science fiction.

And like you said, I do it because I like it and I have no choice because I have all this stuff stuck in my head.

I don't have any real skill set for.

I have no connections.

I don't know much about marketing or distribution.

So I just kept writing books and as of a couple of months ago, my publisher was like, you need to start doing something other than just writing.

We need to start like getting a social media presence, for example.

I was just like, yeah, I don't know how to do that.

I'm just going to write another book because it's different from like somebody might write this book that they're really proud of and then spend the rest of their life marketing it.

I've got like another 30 books to write, so I moving on to the next book and I forget about the fact that nobody knows they exist.

I just keep writing more of them.

Yeah, you know, that's not uncommon.

It really isn't.

Podcasters, musicians, you know, I, I've got a non profit that helps veterans transition from the military into a career in the music industry.

We teach about using music as therapy, we talk about songwriting.

We help them get into like Zach Brown's camp Southern Ground for Hero Week for the songwriter convention.

We got a couple radio stations that plays just their music and we have filled that, that void that they don't like doing that, that promoting and networking.

And I'm the same way with this podcast.

Probably one of the main reasons why I, it's never been monetized because I don't go out there and go after it.

The show has organically grown over, over the years and, and for anybody in your situation, that is not the way to, to do it organically is extremely slow.

This show's been around for four years and most shows have moved a lot further, but that's just not my priority.

Book writing is even tougher.

You got Amazon and you've got all these book places and your Bisex and all of that stuff now becomes the difference between anybody ever finding you or not finding you.

And so having a publisher behind the scenes that can help with those types of decisions is crucial for somebody that, that is trying to make this a career.

What did you find challenging when you first started writing?

What was the hardest part about actually Getting your ideas from your head and onto paper.

Honestly, I've never had any difficulty writing.

It just, it just spills out because it just grows.

You, you come up with a universe you think people are going to enjoy.

You come up with a couple of good characters.

And as long as you make your characters real, the story grows organically and you're almost just taking notes about what you see happening if there's any difficulty in it.

I would say sometimes writing from the antagonist point of view.

My books are very adult and they go to the extremes, both in the good direction and in the bad direction.

So there's a lot of like, horrific, brutal things that are going on.

And, well, the antagonist has a perspective as well.

So I have to write.

I have to write things up to and including, like rape, crucifixion, suicide.

I have to write these things in brutal detail in a way that makes sense for the characters that are doing it.

So it's believable.

Not just writing off as, oh, the bad guy's crazy, no, like the real person.

And that's, that's hard to write sometimes because of how dark.

Yeah, absolutely.

It truly is.

And, and that is the, the main difference.

Right.

I've only wrote one fictional book, and the intent really behind it wasn't to be a fictional book as much as just a way for somebody to learn about depression and, and ptsd, that, that doesn't understand what's going on.

Most of my books are non fiction.

And so for me, the tough part was when I didn't realize that once I wrote my first book, which was about all the things, the good and the bad, that happened to me in the military, how hard it was going to be to have to reread it over and over and over again and relive those events.

I think by the time the editing process and everything was done and I probably reread my book six, seven times, and I discovered that was probably one of the hardest parts for myself.

Do you have any issues with the editing process of having to go back and keep redoing things or, or adding and, and pushing things in?

Not really.

I'll notice, like, because I'll reread my manuscripts I don't know how many times.

And every time I read them, I'm like, emotionally attached.

I'm immersed in it.

I wrote the things, I know what's happening, but it doesn't matter.

Like, it still gets that emotional reaction out of me and every time I read it.

So then when I'm, when I'm doing Edits and stuff like that, but once it goes into.

Once it's been printed, I never read it again.

Okay.

Yeah.

Because I. I'm never.

I'm always going to find something to change, and at some point, you just have to stop and just let it be.

Live.

And then I will.

I will double check for things like continuity, since it is fiction.

One of the biggest problems you see with fiction writers is, is that there's no continuity.

So there's mistakes through, especially in the series.

So I will reread to make sure I don't make mistakes like that.

That.

That's it, though.

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

I did the same thing.

You know, it was easy with the nonfiction books.

I knew the people that I was talking about, and.

And that is a world of difference from fiction.

And what I had to do with the fiction was every time I brought in a new character, I had to stop with the writing process and then write about that character on a separate piece of paper.

You know, what kind of person he was, his likes, his dislikes, what he looked like, how he talked.

And that way later in the chapters, I could go back and make sure that my content matched the Persona that I was providing especially.

Yeah, that's, like, the perfect way to do it.

Yeah, I think you absolutely have to, you know.

You know, and.

And I kind of got a soft spot for military writers.

A lot of people don't understand how our life history and our life experiences from the military just naturally pull into our writing.

Then you got the guys that are dealing with TBI that have memory problems, like myself.

You've got people that are dealing with PTSD and.

And you know, that the highs and lows and everything else, you know, which I don't think is as common in the civilian world for authors that have to fight over that.

I know with my book, I struggled with that.

You know, there's.

It takes me quite a while to put out a book just because I have to put it down for a while, because you have to be in that vibe to write.

How do you get to that point, to where you're in that vibe and in that mood?

I know you're passionate about it, but, you know, life also happens.

Like you said, you have a family, and to just sit down and write, to write, because it's time, and I have to get this book done, really hinders the quality of the content.

Yeah, well, for me, it's kind of the opposite.

I'm always in that mood.

I'm always ready to write, and I have to avoid it, because as you said, life happens, there's things to do.

And once I start writing, I read somewhere that the average time for a professional author from idea to finished manuscript, somewhere between 12 and 14 months.

It takes me five weeks.

But there's nothing else happening in those five weeks except me manically writing.

So I have to avoid doing it so I can, you know, get life done.

The only exception was the most recent book, the one that's coming out soon, Broken Angel.

That was an incredibly difficult book to write.

That actually took me a year.

Okay.

Writing, but it helps like, like you said, being in the military, being able to draw on like realistic tactics and things like that, but also things like behavioral and mental health.

A lot of writers have to guess.

They don't do their research.

They guess and their books come off as fake because they don't know what they're writing about, whereas I know what I'm writing about.

So when that stuff is brutally detailed, it's something that like pulls the person in because it's real.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, and, and that's, that brings us to our next part.

You know, authenticity is, is important.

You know, if, like you said, if you write a book and, and then your next book is completely separate genres and separate, you know, Personas, that hurts writers because people that are passionate about reading like to learn a little bit about the writer and who they are and where their ideas come from.

And when you just start flip flopping like that, it makes it very tough.

With you been writing for so long, have, have you made, have you always kind of kept a little bit of your personality into your books?

Do you, do you kind of put a little bit of yourself there for, for the readers to understand who you are as an author?

There's definitely bits of me all over the books, but there isn't like a single character which I intentionally made sure I did not do.

Right.

Like, my characters are not my mouthpieces.

Right.

They're narcissistic and opinionated, but their opinions are necessarily my opinions.

It's because it's fiction.

Right.

But there is, I mean, any author, there is bits of me all over it.

Right.

And, and I think, you know, the older days that was very true.

The, you know, now with AI you see so many books that, that people are just writing 90% AI and maybe throwing a little bit of pieces there.

Once you do that, you take away that authenticity from the author because now you're not putting yourself.

Like you just said, you know, we may not perceive ourselves as a character but our writing styles, our word choices and our flow all come from authentic places.

It is extremely important in my opinion for passionate readers, which is going to be your following and your main audience to get them to come back and want that next book is they have to feel that attraction.

And again, that's important in any entertainment industry.

You know, musicians that can't resonate to their audience is going to have a tough time.

AI can help a bad writer be passable, but it's only going to hurt a good writer.

I agree.

Ever use AI because it's just going to be fake.

And, and it sounds fake.

Yep.

I, I agree 100%.

And, and, and there is a place for AI in this industry.

The editing process, the grammar choices.

Where you have to be careful is when you start replacing content with a different vocabulary.

Because now you're taking your piece from yourself away and introducing a machine learning process that chooses words based off of flow and understandability.

Not necessary personality.

A living person.

So it cannot write a real character.

Correct?

100 I agree.

100.

Let me, let me ask you this.

As, as you have started writing right earlier in your career to, to now, what, what developments have you seen?

How have you grown personally as, as a writer?

I, I think when I was, when I was writing originally, there was a lot of.

There was an element of like rainbows and marshmallows, I guess is a way to say it.

Like I shied away from certain things because I never read anybody else writing them.

And I thought like, maybe I shouldn't write it like this.

But then as the years went on, I realized like, you know what?

That's the way to do it.

Don't, don't sugarcoat it.

Make it real.

Origins, the second book in Eternal Nights.

When I got that book, when I went to get that book published, I didn't know a lot about the rules of like how this industry works.

I actually thought that I wouldn't be allowed to publish it because of how dark it was.

I thought the publisher was going to say, yeah, we can't put this in print.

Then it turned.

Then I find out that you can basically write whatever you want since there's no pictures.

Yeah, long as there's no pictures.

It doesn't have a. I don't know.

I don't know why I was thinking that books were rated like movies and tv, but.

And they loved it.

So I just kept writing that way.

Just honest.

And it gets as dark as it gets.

Yeah, no, I think, I think that's perfect.

And you know, that's another part of this industry that a lot of people don't understand.

You know, your publishers are kind of like genre experts.

You know, each publishing company kind of has their niche or their area that they like to focus in.

Not that they won't publish something from another genre, but, but they, they have their area of expertise.

You know, you don't see too many publishers that focus on documentary type, non fiction stuff and then all of a sudden go to something like yourself.

It's just not their expertise.

They don't know the audience.

There's a lot of stuff that goes behind the marketing side of this that, that you have to understand.

And so once you find somebody that, that is an expert on your genre and your writing style, man, it's like a, it's almost like a relationship forming.

Yeah.

And, and I think, you know, a lot of writers would even say they probably have more conversations with their, their editors and their, their publishers than they do most other people.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, it really is.

You know, it becomes a team.

And I think that's another side that works really good with military authors is, is we're used to having that, that team, that battle buddy, that support structure.

Let me ask you this.

When, when you first started, right.

Did you ever see yourself doing this professionally or.

You know, because most authors start out as a way to do self expression, Right.

Their, their creative side, they let that run, not necessarily knowing what it's going to bring.

You know, we all have our hobbies that we say, man, I'd love that for this to be a job, but did you ever think while you were in the military that, that you would go to this as a, as a full time author or, or somebody that's making a career from it?

Well, it was always kind of a pipe dream.

Yeah, one of those.

You know, it would be nice, but given like.

Prof. Like, I don't care too much about risks, but professional risks I stopped taking once I got married and had kids because I just, I just didn't want to take the risks.

Yeah.

And like I said a couple of years ago when I started again, I haven't been able to make myself stop.

So it's like go big or go home time.

Yeah.

You know, I'm a, I'm a big believer in energy and you know, we all have a path that we're put on, you know, and for me, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I didn't really care what it was supposed to be.

Right.

I didn't care about the business.

I Just wanted to own my own, my own business.

And when I retired, that transition period, it happened out of necessity.

I couldn't find.

I picked a great place to retire, to raise a family.

Just a horrible place to find a job.

It was in the middle of nowhere.

And so when I got out, I started a trucking company and I got to be myself as an entrepreneur.

And now I'm, I'm living my dream.

This is what I want to do.

But man, I was so unhappy.

You know, even all the money I was making just brought more stress and more headache and I wasn't passionate about what I was doing at all.

And then due to some other circumstances, I end up closing my company and taking care of my mom.

And that put me into podcasting, which brought therapy, which then brought, you know, people like yourself coming on and telling your story and non profit and, and now I'm retired and, and doing those things full time and I make next to nothing.

I mean, I live off my, my pension and my retirement check and my disability check, but I'm, I'm a hundred times happier and, and I think anybody like yourself can, can contest.

You know, it's not about the money.

It really isn't.

It's, it's the recognition as being a, a great author.

The, the recognition of hearing somebody say, man, I really resonated to that book.

Have you ever had the opportunity to do book signings and stuff like that and interact with some of your fan base?

I've done a couple of low level, local type book signings.

I've interacted with some fans just via people emailing me and stuff like that.

And I've had some like really heartfelt messages that I've gotten from people that, that like really resonated with me.

I got somebody who read Origins.

They sent me a six page email about how they identified with the female vampire character.

And, and as things were getting really bad and that character was having a psychotic break, you know, mental breakdowns and stuff, she actually related so much to that character that she had to stop reading because she got scared.

And the reason she picked up the book again was because the main character is always supposed to win.

So she picked up the book again because she knew if she kept reading, this character would overcome.

Yeah.

And, but she didn't.

It ended up, I don't want to like, spoiler, whatever, but it got to the point to where that character was written into a corner, to where she was done for and only recovered because her husband was there and the rest of her family was there.

And this person told me that years when she had her journey, she was helped by family members and doctors, but she always felt weak because she thought that she should have been strong enough to help herself.

And reading something like that, a character that immensely powerful, basically being done for without the help of others.

She said that, like, it really resonated with her.

It was a powerful email.

Like, I got that a couple years ago.

And that was back when nobody knew any of it.

I didn't even know how she got my book in the first place.

But I love talking to people that have read the books and want more information and stuff like that.

Yeah, I think, you know, you mentioned a couple things there that that is, is more powerful than, than any reward in money, right?

When somebody takes their, their most valuable asset that they have, whether they realize it or not, and that is their time and their energy to sit down and write you a six page email, man, that is, that is more powerful than any, you know, $100,000 contract.

You know, you will remember that better than the day you received that $100,000 check.

And I think that is important as a writer because that will always be in the first thought of your mind when you're sitting down writing.

You know, I want to resonate with my reader and, and to, to be able to do that over and over and over again.

That says a lot about your character and about your ability to write.

If you could, could go on, right?

And you, you continue to write and you say, hey, I am, I am, I'm making it somewhere.

Where is that somewhere?

Where is it that you want to see yourself in 10 years from now?

Honestly, I would be perfectly content if the writing was enough that I didn't have to do anything else that I could just keep writing.

I'm gonna keep writing regardless.

But it would be nice to not have to compete with other things because that I'm crazy enough as it is.

It, it makes things more difficult.

Let's just say again now we're talking about your, your most valuable asset.

You know, your time, your time and energy are the, are the one things that once you, once you give it away, you don't get it back.

You know, it's not a loan, there's no repayment.

You don't get that time back.

And, and the military was really good about, about taking that time away from us and, and wasting it.

And, and you know, you, you've heard that expression, you know, well, there's, there's an hour I'll never get back from My life again.

Hurry up and wait.

Yep.

Hurry up and wait, man.

And when you're, when you're doing those things, it's incredibly important that you're making those decisions correctly.

Right.

So everything that you do involving your time, your energy needs to be, again, going towards your goal of doing it full time and resonating with readers and so forth and working with your publisher.

That's, that's valuable time.

Let me ask you this.

When you, as an author, you know, a lot of us started out as readers and, and enjoyed the, the storytelling feature, who was one of the authors that, that you looked up to?

Did you kind of have a mentor?

I, I used to read a lot.

Anne Rice comes to mind.

I, when I, when I was a little kid, I wrote everything or wrote, I read everything that she ever wrote.

That's how I got interested in like vampires and stuff like that.

And the thing is, a lot of her stuff, I don't like the direction she went in, but I was still able to appreciate her skill as a writer.

Like, it's not how I would have gone, but it's how she went and she made it amazing.

Yeah.

And from Anne Rice till now, I can't think of a single person who has, let's just say, contributed to the vampire genre.

It's been decades of just, I'm sorry, garbage for 12 year olds.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah.

And then David Weber is one of my favorite science fiction authors.

So be being exposed to like how detail and how.

And how he wrote and everything like that, like creating a whole different universe and stuff like that.

So that's why I combined the two.

Science fiction with vampires.

Yeah.

No abs.

Absolutely.

My wife is, is a vampire person.

You know, growing up, she has always been into the vampire scenarios.

Right.

And I think there's a lot that, that captures those readers.

You know, vampires can be, you know, sexual and seductive.

They can be horrifying, they can be dominating.

There's so many Personas that a vampire can carry on and, and it does, it captures a lot of readers.

And when your vampires are the protagonists, they, they're able to do all of those things.

Yeah, absolutely, man.

Yeah.

100.

I, I agree.

They're.

They're very powerful characters.

They really are.

And, and their history is also what, you know, what captures a lot of people.

You know, these are things that, that people believed were real hundreds of years ago, you know, witches and vampires.

And, you know, these were, these weren't characters.

These were people.

You were people on the streets worried about these people and thinking, you Know, my neighbor's a witch or my neighbor's a vampire.

And I think that's another part that resonates with a lot of people.

Let me ask you this.

When.

When you, you said your, Your last book, your.

Your.

Your new book that's getting ready to come out was one of the hardest that you wrote.

What was.

What was some of the things that, that caused that, without giving away any spoilers or anything like that, some of it was complication.

The Wolves and Ravens series is dark fantasy.

So since it's fantasy, I'm able to throw angels and demons in there and stuff like that.

In, in Broken angel, there is a lot of.

There are a lot of things that happen in, let's say, the celestial realm.

So there are a lot of scenes and full chapters where angels are.

Yell other.

They're yelling at their father and, well, there's a lot of religions out there.

So I'm trying to write these scenes and chapters without offending anybody.

I'm trying not to agree with or contradict a single religion while I'm writing these things.

Yeah, it's complicated.

The other part of it was just how dark it got.

How dark things got for some of the characters.

Like, it got to the point.

It got to the point to where I would be writing and I would just have to stop.

I would have to stop.

I'd have to turn everything off and I'd have to take like a break for a couple days or a couple of weeks because it was just too hard to write.

Yeah, that.

I mean, that makes perfect sense, man.

You know, when you add realism to fictional books in today's world, man, it's kind of unfortunate.

But you are right.

You have to think about your readers and, and your reputation.

You know, the world that we're living in today isn't like it used to be.

There was a set guide rails.

We knew where our left and right sectors of fire were, and we just had to stay in between that.

Now, you know, there's.

There's so many different ways to offend somebody and, and upset people that it could take you down a road that you didn't even know was a road.

You know, I see it happen all the time.

I see it happen to podcasters all the time.

You know, a guest will come on, they have a great conversation, and next thing you know, you're getting a list of hate mail because you said something that you didn't even know was an offensive road or, or the topic didn't align with somebody's views and, and Religion and politics are, are big characters of that.

I mean, we just, me and you just fought a 20 year war based off of religion.

You know, I, I mean not on our side, but, but on our, our enemy side.

It was all about religion to them.

And so it is a big deal.

And my hat's off to you for taking that time to think about that as, as you're, you're putting this book together.

Well, I think that, that the, the way, like how you were saying about how easy it is to offend people and stuff like that.

Well, that's what the entertainment industry takes in consideration.

That's also why the entertainment industry has been failing for over 15 years.

Yeah, the characters pandered to the audience, which makes them fake characters or the characters or mouthpieces of the writers, which makes them fake characters.

Yeah, it sounds contradictory, but when I start writing, I'm not paying attention to the audience because the characters don't know you're there.

If you.

I've been, I've had a couple people criticize my dialogue for being insensitive.

And it's like that's a private conversation that you're able to eavesdrop on because you're the reader.

You think somebody cares about your opinion of their private conversation.

And the funny thing is these same people tell me how much they love the book.

So they, they are so jaded by how entertainment has been, they don't realize that that piece that they didn't like adds to the realism which pulled them in.

Yeah, I, I didn't think about it that way.

You, you are right.

I mean, the main characters are a husband and wife that have been married for 900 years.

They don't give a crap what they say to each other.

And that's private conversation.

And they're not very nice.

Well, are, they're not really very nice people.

And then in the science fiction series, they're over 2, 000 years old.

They're, they're the protagonists and they're pretty terrible people.

Yeah, they just don't present it that way to the public.

Right.

And I think, you know, the other thing that, that I wasn't thinking about was when you've got characters that are that old, you know, the vocabulary and the way we talk have changed so much over that period.

You know, there's, there's things that we say now on everyday conversation that would offend the hell out of somebody 60 years ago, 70 years ago, you know, and, and for us today, those are just normal conversations, you know, you know, calling Somebody, an.

Or a head or whatever, out of fun is not going to resonate with somebody 60, 70 years ago.

It's going to sound offensive and, and argumentative.

But I didn't think about that.

When you add the age of the characters and, and so forth, and then I didn't think about it from the perspective you just said that.

That's a very interesting way to think about it.

They're eavesdropping on a private conversation in a world that they don't even know you exist.

Yeah, and the same thing when you're watching a movie, those characters should not know you're there.

So when they talk the way you want them to talk, you might appreciate that.

Maybe, but it also makes them fake, and it's why it's not drawing you in.

Yeah, I, I don't, I don't want to underestimate my audience.

I think people are intelligent people, and when they read a book, they want to actually think, because if they didn't want to, they wouldn't be reading the book.

Right.

And, and I think it, it also comes to play, too.

Most people read.

They don't want to read about their everyday life.

They want to go someplace that they're not currently at and, and get away from.

From reality for a while.

And so again, when that happens, you have to be open to expect the good and the bad that comes with that.

So, yeah, it makes perfect sense.

Man, that's so easy to draw people in.

Writing 101 is to make real characters.

Yeah, everybody seems to do it wrong.

You know, they need to.

They need to talk like real people, think like real people, act like real people and make decisions like real people.

Too many things in entertainment, your main characters might be intelligent, and then for five minutes, they get real stupid.

They have to be stupid for the plot to happen because a smart person wouldn't have fallen for it.

Right.

Your characters organically should drive the plot, not the other way around.

And that's how you draw people in, because the characters are.

They can relate because they're real people.

I mean, they're not.

They're fiction.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely.

You know, and, and again, that's something that I had to learn as, as a podcaster.

You know, when I first started, man, I, I'm.

I'm empathetic.

Right.

I understand, and I feel how somebody else feels, and it does affect me.

When I'm talking around people that are very sad or going through pain, I feel that pain as, as well.

And I had a Hard time, man.

When.

When I was podcast, you know, my first podcast was called Two Drunk Dudes in a Gun Room.

And, and it was just meant for my soldiers that I served with and.

And my co host served with.

We didn't know what a podcast was, but not understanding how things spread, you know, next thing I know, I'm getting comments and everything else that were pretty harsh, and it's taken me years to understand those aren't me problems.

Those are you problems.

I, you know, what I'm doing here was between me and my content and my imagination and my target audience.

If you don't like it, then guess what?

You weren't the target audience.

You know, I think different.

Your job's a little harder because your job's a little bit more public and people have the way they think they're supposed to feel.

When you're reading a book, you're all by yourself, and you're allowed to admit to yourself that you actually do like this.

Yeah.

Even though you would never admit it to somebody else because.

Oh, no, how would that make me look?

But you secretly enjoy what you're reading.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I want to get into some fun questions as we're.

We're getting up here before, before we start doing the plugs and, and letting everybody know where they can find things.

I always like to kind of end on a, On a.

On a fun note.

Right.

If, if you could sit down with any author and have dinner and, and have a good conversation over, over your.

Your expertise, who would that author be?

Who would that person be?

It doesn't have to be an author, but who would that person be?

Would it.

Yeah.

Anne Rice.

I. I was curious for her to read the direction I'm going with and to get her opinion versus how she went with it.

Okay, and, and what would you have for dinner?

Steak.

Steak.

Okay.

Yeah, I've had a couple people say steak.

You know, I've had a few people say Gandhi and.

And some stuff that kind of took me off surprise.

You know, but that's the cool thing about those questions, man, is, is it can be your choice and, and, and your abilities.

I'm gonna bring you forward, man, and let you tell everybody where they can follow you, where they can find your books and.

And how they can contact you if they even want to write you an email and ask questions.

Well, the.

My website's pretty simple.

Richardspiegel.com it's filled with a lot of content.

You've got video trailers for each book, which was a nice thing that the publisher did a lot of behind the scenes videos and there's of course links that take you to Amazon and things like that.

On Instagram, I'm at Richard Spiegel Books and anybody who wants to contact me can send me.

That's probably the easiest way to message me.

And really, really, that's it.

Just the website and Instagram.

All right, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we'll make sure, you know, when, when this gets edited, there will be pictures of your books and, and I will make sure, sure that your, your websites in the video as well as in the links and, and links to your, your books and everything that way it's very easy for the people I.

Like to put, like they say, don't judge a book by the COVID but we all judge books by the COVID Yeah.

And I always try to take what, to the extent that I'm allowed, I take one of the worst images I can find inside the book and I thought right on the COVID Okay.

Just for shock value.

Sometimes they won't let me do it because it's an image they don't want public, but usually I, usually I'm allowed.

Okay, absolutely, man.

And, and again, I think that's something that, you know, people are going to resonate to, you know, you know, somebody's picking up the book in the first place is, is looking for something like that.

Well, if you see the brutal crucifixion on the COVID you know, it's not a kid's book.

Yeah.

At least you hope so.

Well, kids nowadays, who knows?

But yeah, absolutely.

Bad parents nowadays who, hell, you know.

Well, I hope everybody got something out of this man.

And, and I had a great time.

I hope everybody out there takes the time to follow on Instagram and, and read Richard's books and there's several out there.

I think what you're up to like eight or nine books now that that's been published.

Oh God, there, there's four in print, the fifth one in a couple weeks and the sixth one in spring.

I've got all written, but they're mostly on my computer waiting their turn.

Okay, absolutely, man.

I've been told that it's bad business to publish as quickly as I've been publishing.

Whatever.

Well, I, I think everybody out there, there's, there's plenty of you to choose from and each book's gonna give a little bit about Richard and, and I think you're gonna get drawn in, especially if you like the action thriller type genres that, that, that Richard is, is writing about.

Paranormal and, and action and everything are very, very, very popular topics nowadays.

So I hope all of you guys have a great day.

Don't forget, don't let the day kick your ass.

Kick the day's ass.