The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Collective Vengeance: A 27-Year-Old Coerced Abortion Jeopardizes a Supreme Court Nomination by Joseph Stanley

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

Collective Vengeance: A 27-Year-Old Coerced Abortion Jeopardizes a Supreme Court Nomination by Joseph Stanley Amazon.com Stanleywrites.com Discover Dark Secrets and High Stakes in This Gripping Thriller that Dares You to Look Away! In the heart of New York, Samantha Mieras, a seasoned private equity specialist, collaborates with Jack Gallagher, a pardoned felon, on a dangerous quest for vengeance. The catalyst? A haunting demand made twenty-seven years ago, shrouded in secrets, deception, and the dark corridors of judicial power. Step into the pulse-pounding world of Collective Vengeance, where Joseph Stanley weaves a tapestry of suspense, mystery, and high-stakes drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat from the first page to the last. Follow Samantha and Jack as they confront their own demons to find a delicate balance between their working and personal relationship. All while exposing the clandestine motives of a privilege-minded organization, Aegis, and its Supreme Court nominee, David Jaymes, who raped and impregnated Samantha when she was a sixteen-year-old minor. The cast of characters, including an investigative reporter, Jaymes's executive assistant, a Senator and his young promiscuous wife, and a seasoned wartime photojournalist, adds layers of complexity to the narrative. As treacherous adversaries lurk in the shadows, manipulating events to their advantage, Samantha's team struggles to navigate a maze of concealed relationships, menacing threats, and illicit encounters. Will vengeance be their reward, or will it come at a price too high to bear? Collective Vengeance is more than a thriller; it's a mirror reflecting the contemporary debates on individual rights, political interference, and the judiciary. Dive into a world where every revelation raises the stakes, and justice hangs in the balance. Are you ready for the truth?About the author Joseph Stanley, a baby boomer Capricorn spent high school and two years of college in a true-to-form sixties garage band of West Michigan fame. He spent five years in the U.S. Army, including two years in Vietnam, from which he’s thankful that he returned alive and of sound mind. After service, he worked in medical sales and sales management before launching an entrepreneurial enterprise, where he spent 35 years traveling the country, conducting seminars, and writing policy manuals, newsletters, and training programs. In retirement, he battled depression, which led to his venturing into writing fiction. He continues writing and living in the Northern Michigan village of Onekama

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with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm host of us here from the ChrisVossShow.com. Beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, and our latest things that makes official welcome to over 16 years, 24 and episodes of the Chris Foss Show, the owner's manual to life.

That's what this podcast is about. We have all these amazing people come on, tell their stories, their journeys, their lessons of life, their stories, stories, of course, the fabric of life as always we say as well. And yeah, you can probably learn everything you need at all in the Chris Foss Show at this point. And if it's not there, we're packing in more authors to do that. So for the show, your family, friends, and relatives, go to Goodreads.com, Forge has

Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Forge has Chris Foss, Chris Foss won the Tik Tokity, and Chris Foss has a Facebook.com, Forge has Chris Foss. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or The Chris Foss. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, we have an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about his novel.

It's kind of interesting that's out and some of his work and what he does and what he writes. And of course, maybe what he's going to be writing in the future. Joseph Stanley joins us on the show. He's the author of the book that came out June 15th, 2024. It is called Collective Vengeance. A 27 year old coerced abortion jeopardizes a Supreme Court nomination. And we're going to get into the deets on that book and what's inside and all that good stuff.

Joseph, his writing was inspired by journaling assignments during counseling as he prepared for retirement after a 35 year career in management consulting. He paired his skills for explaining complex subjects and relating to audiences with learning the nuances of fictional writing. Joe is an American author and storyteller. He now studies the art of writing and is in the business of engaging readers through poems, short stories, novels, as well as sharing content about his journey as a person.

Welcome to show Joseph. How are you doing? Great. Chris, how are you? I am excellent. It's wonderful to have you on the show. Give us a dot coms. Where do you want people to get to know you better?

Check out my website, stanley, S-T-A-N-L-E-Y, writes, and that's W-R-I-T-E-S dot com. Information's there on me and my book, and we keep adding things to the website. Also, I'm on Facebook. So you've got at least a couple of books I can see on your website out. How many books do you have? Two. One is collection of free verse poems with my interpretations to them, which is how I started writing and then the first political romantic thriller, collective vengeance. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your new book, Collective Vengeance?

John Collective Vengeance is about a private equity specialist in New York who collaborates with a pardoned felon and he helps her exact revenge or vengeance for a 27 year old problem. When she was 16, she was raped at a fraternity party. Oh, now she's in New York finding out the gentleman who did that is up for the Supreme court chief justice nomination. And it takes off from there. Oh, wow. So that's kind of some interesting topics and challenges there.

What was it that made you decide, you know, the plot of this book and the characters? The plot of the book started in a different direction about two people who met in New York, discovered hidden secrets about each other, and it evolved when I was going through counseling for depression, because I was going to retire at the time. And I wrote a free verse poem called storms and it evolved into, I thought I could write a novel and it kept tumbling on. There was actually going back about eight years ago, a Supreme Court nomination, not for Chief Justice, but one that had similar overtones to it. And I adapted that and kept writing and ended up

with what a lot of people think is more reality, but it's fictional. Ah, definitely. It's on some topics that are, you know, top of news these days. Abortions, assault, the Supreme Court activity, of course, is always on a daily basis, it seems to, it seems to be the thing. Tell us about some of the characters in the book. Who are the protagonists and all that good stuff? The key two protagonists are Samantha Miras, the woman who had the problem, and the gentleman she hires is kind of a professional equalizer, if you reflect back on what happens in that

movie and TV series. And Jack Gallagher is a pardoned felon. They partner up. He's helping her, they assemble. Gosh, the book has 15 characters in it, ranging from a Vietnam War photojournalist turned private investigator, the antagonist, it's kind of multiples there. There's a secret political organization called Aegis, which is headed by people backing the Supreme Court nomination, and they're fighting, not fighting, but they're against what Samantha and Jack are trying to do as they try to stop them. And it has a lot of

twists and turns and surprises as it goes on. Ah, what got you into writing? Sounds like you had quite the career and then you decided to start writing. Tell us about your journey. When did you kind of start writing? When did you find that you had a knack for it and finally make a decision to, I'm going to put this stuff in a book. My writing began actually, I was a healthcare management consultant for 40 years and I wrote

a lot of white papers, instruction manuals for clients. And when I went through counseling for depression, my counselor got me to do daily journaling. And as I wrote those, they created poems, but then evolved into, I got locked into this storm sequence and people trying to overcome difficulties and how could I weave it into a story? I have to give a lot of credit to my collaborator, my wife, because she read what I wrote, she'd say, what if this happened and what if that happened? And sent me a new directions and after about five years of writing and research, it came to be.

Pete Slauson 5 years! And lots of research and stuff. What were some of the things that you were, you were trying to research and trying to understand. Quite a bit about the Supreme Court and political organizations, but the story is set in New York City. So I made numerous trips there to ride the subways, locate restaurants, hotels, landmarks that I would use in the book. And it proved beneficial, made it easy to write the context or be able to give people a picture of where it was happening. Yeah. That in the ground stuff is really important. In fact, some of my, you know, some of the authors on the show do, they tell

me is they, they'll pick places to go that are, they want to go on vacation. So like, yeah, I'm going to, they tell the book, they tell the book publisher, yeah, I need to go to France and write this book about France. I need to go to France and, you know, do some on the ground, wink, wink research there. So just a tip for your future books. That's the angle I guess everyone likes to use. I thought it was kind of funny, but so when you, you, you went through some depression retiring where you were just, you went through some depression retiring where you were just, we're just worried about retiring.

Was you, did you, you didn't want to retire or you wanted to give it up? What was some of the things you're running into with depression? I was, I had my own company, my wife and I had it for 40 years. A lot of things happened at once. My counselor called it a perfect storm. Oh, 72 years old then, so eight years ago. I was getting ready to retire. We're going to sell our home of 25 years, downsize to a condo, sell our company to the

employees so they could run it. It was a lot of collisions. And the work I did for our company, I was the, my wife always called it the rock star. I ran around the country as the face of the company, got a lot of adulation and stepping out of that spotlight just added to the turmoil. And I told her I didn't need to see a counselor. And the first thing the counselor told me was you really need to see me. And it turned out to be a good thing. The, now in the book is, do you see a future books coming out of this?

So you're going to be, is maybe a series or, or, you know, reusing the protagonist in the story or, or do you see what's the future for you right now? It's a series of three books called the Vengeance series. I'm working on the sequel, which is Counter Vengeance. There's a third one out there and the second book rolls everybody back into the new book with new challenges. So it's been interesting to write it as a continuation and then also at the same time plan for the third book. Pete Slauson Oh, and so what do you, can you tease out anything about the second, third book? Is there any sort of, I know you can't give stuff away,

but anything you can tease out to us? Dr. Michael O'Brien Just all relationships continue. The major antagonist from the first story really lights it up in the second one. And there's a good guy in the first book that was my favorite character. And he takes over a major role in the second book. So it's a continued struggle, but it shifts from a political scene to more a one-on-one personal sort of vengeance. And the bad guy coming back to get vengeance for how they tried to squelch him in the first book. Ah, revenge and vengeance.

David Lene Yes. Pete Slauson It's always something along those lines that people are up to. What do you think people find the most enduring about the book or what's the feedback you've gotten so far where they're, you know, the, where, you know, people are giving you feedback and going, yeah, I like this part of it, their aspect of the book. David Lene People like the collection of characters. Um, they really, I write what I call potato chip chapters. All my chapters are short, maybe somewhere between 500 and 1200 words.

And they always have a cliffhanger at the end that picks up in the next chapter. And I call them potato chip chapters because it's hard to read one chapter and put the book down. And what a lot of people tell me is that's exactly true. It was hard to put it down. It's fast paced and easy read and very intriguing with the characters and what happens to them. Pete Slauson Oh, it should be interesting. Do you have any advice for wannabe authors,

people that are thinking about writing books and getting their stories published they have in their heads? Any advice from the journey you've been on to do this? Yeah. I think the best advice is just sit down and write things. Uh, tell, tell a story writing books. I call myself an American author storyteller. And if you can tell a story, if you can tell a good joke all the way through the punchline, you can write a book. If you can tell a good joke all the way through the punch line, you can write a book. You know, that's what it, what it's about is just putting your story on paper or

dictate it, it's just a matter of sitting down. It's not as hard as it seems. Ah, that's it. That's a really good point. If you can tell a joke, you can write a book. You know, I see, I guess really, I mean, technically, when I wrote my book, I was in an accountability group with three other friends and we were all trying to write the book. And of course we all have busy lives, but it was during COVID. So that kind of helped. But I was the only one over time that stuck with it. I think a lot of people were

excited by it. And then they got in and there's work here. And they just found that, oh, geez, this is gonna take some effort, time. And everyone's got busy lives. They did what they needed to do for their lives. And I took and just kept on grinding it. And it was my sole focus too, that kind of helped.

And, but yeah, it really was just, you know, I think the hardest part for people is just to sit in there and stick with it. You know, writing, you know, writing our earner and our accountability group was you, we wanted to write an hour a day. And that was really important and just sticking with it, you know, sometimes, you know, sometimes I, I wouldn't have any ideas and I would just be like, I don't know, just write something and I would just babble about the page and just practice writing concepts. A lot of it went through just so many iterations and editing and all sorts of adjustments. So it was just putting in the time, but a lot of people don't.

That's kind of why I think people revere authors is because there's so much hard work that goes into it and dedication and it's, it's not easy. But I like the concept that you give to people that if you can tell a story, if you can tell a joke, you have potential. You're not completely lost as a human being. Cause I think most of us can tell stories, do you think? Oh yeah, absolutely. Or joke. And in writing, I did what I call storm writing on days like you said, where you didn't have a clear path. It's just sit down and write. Don't read it, just write.

You can always go back and read it and polish it up and clean it up. See if it even fits into your story. Yeah. So storm writing usually occurred after my wife said, what if this happened? You keep going in different directions. I'm a what they call a planning writer. I have a plan, but it's got to be flexible. One other piece of advice was I found I wrote my chapters in my head, they were like weekly, not sitcom, but weekly dramatic episodes on a TV. Pete Okay. Ed Lerner And I could move them around as I assembled the book. I think what was my original first chapter ended up being about the 35th chapter. But it's just being flexible and piecing it together. And like you said, you do have to

keep going. It gets to be a little bit of a slog at times. Pete Yeah, you just have to push through it. Like I would, I think one of the keys for me, and I, I recommend this to my friends, but you know, everyone's got a different way of approaching things. But one of the, excuse me, one of the, one of the things that I would do is I would just, I would just word vomit onto the page. I would just sit and just, what was coming through my head, I would just, I would just put it on the page, transpose it, yada, yada, yada.

And that was a real key for me because, you know, I knew there was going to be editing, right? So I'm like, I know this is going to go through five or six iterations of, of editing. I know that, you know, this is going to constantly be an issue in all that stuff. And so I'm like, I'm going to add it later. So I'm just going to blast it out. And yeah, I'm just going to do that and off we'll go. And so that's what I did. I just blasted it all on the page. I just spewed it out. You know, sometimes I just write for a couple of days. I wouldn't even really look at it or edit it. And then a lot of my friends that I saw, they were like writing a sentence, editing that sentence, trying to write another sentence, then editing that sentence, and they would spend so much time going back and forth.

It was almost like they lost the flow and I can't speak for them because I wasn't doing it. But, you know, it was interesting to me that the pattern that I can't speak for them because I wasn't doing it. But, you know, it was interesting to me that the pattern that I had to just word vomit on the page and then worry about editing later and not really try and self not censor, but self edit myself as I was writing made all the difference in the world. And I think it's one of the things that got me through it where, I think it's one of the things that got me through it where, where I was able to, to, to rock and roll. And, you know, I don't know, man, everyone's different.

But to me that worked because I just accepted the fact that, Hey, you know what? This is gonna, this is going to be edited. You know, don't worry about it right now. Just, just get it, just get it on the page, blast it on the page, and worry about the editing later. It's a good advice. I have a friend that has a saying, perfection is the enemy of progress. And if you sit down and you focus on one or two sentences, you're re-editing, re-editing. Oh yeah. You'll only write one or two sentences.

But like you said, if you blast it out, I called it storm writing, you can always, you're going to go back and edit it. You're going to be with a professional editor eventually. Striving for perfection really slows you down. Yeah, I love that. And that's a really important lesson for those who might be trying to ride out there. If you can, join an accountability group too. Like, it sounds like the storm riding you were doing, you're making a way where you can isolate yourself and all that

stuff. But for the most part, you know, having a schedule where you write for an hour a day, for me, I also had a, with my accountability group, we were supposed to write for an hour a day. For me, I also had a, with my accounting melody group, we were, we were supposed to write for an hour a day and then we would put into a Google sheet that we'd done however many hours. So one, two, three point five, whatever. And so there was peer pressure and that peer pressure is a real motivation. Like you, I'd see my, you know, if I missed a day or if I was busy or just wasn't in the mood, I would, I would look at my friends and they were like, Oh shit, they wrote an hour and, or two hours.

And you're like, Oh man, I gotta, you know, you got FOMO or, you know, you got, I got to keep up with the Joneses. Can't have my friends getting ahead of me. You know, you got to, I got to keep up with the Joneses. I can't have my friends getting ahead of me. And so you would, you would be really motivated to try and make that work. So right in with the team, I think is more difficult writing alone has its own difficulties. You know, I didn't have a team tracking me, but I had my wife saying, Oh, did you write anything today? You know, you bring up a good point. Maybe a wife, a spouse is a good accountability partner.

They, they whip that, they whip that thing. They whip the chain or the whip there and say, get to work. But yeah, I mean, having somebody like that, I mean, that technically, I guess would be an accountability partner. And that can be a great way to stay on point. But yeah, just having that thing. I know I've heard some writers, they have a, they have a, what should we call it? They have a, a thing for like, they just, every morning they'll sit for an hour

and do their, do their deal and try and get it done, try and get it all nailed down. And then they'll be like, okay, I got it. Any final advice, thoughts, tease out you want to take and do before we go? David Lirve Now, if you tackle writing, enjoy it, write for your own enjoyment. If nobody else ever sees it, make sure you craft a story that you enjoy reading. Get some personal satisfaction out sees it. Make sure you craft a story that you enjoy reading. Get some personal satisfaction out of it. Yeah.

Enjoy the process and don't worry about trying to write a book overnight. It takes time. Long time. Yeah. It takes a long time. And I mean, you, you took what five years, I think it was you said on this one. Yeah. Yeah.

But you know, go at your own pace, get the story right, you know, get the story down. But like you said, don't, it doesn't have to be perfect. Yes. I mean, my friends would make me mental that I was writing with. They're great people and wonderful, but they would try and they would try and they would try and edit every word and they would try and be like, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen, there's kind of a joke bit or a comedy scene in the movies or TV where they're like, where they're like, you know, what's that opening line from? It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. I forget what the book is, but it has a great opening line and some books have great opening lines to them. And I think some people try and write that way. They're like, I want to write something that's going to be magical.

Honey, you're going to write 50,000 to a hundred thousand words. They're not all being magical. Just get it. I mean, I used to just word vomit. I mean, I would sit and slam like, I think one time over July 4th weekend for three days. I just did 12 hours a day writing the book. It was in the final stages. And I did start to burn out a little bit. I was getting the all work

and no play makes Jack a dull boy experience. So once I started axing my way through bathroom doors, I said, this might be time to take a break. So I, but you know, give us your dot coms. So we go out, give people a pitch out to order up the book and get in touch with you, etc., etc. David Erickson Yeah, the book is on Amazon. The website is stanleywrites.com and there's a place you can send me a note. I always try to respond to people and there's information on my website about what's happening next. Give us, let's see, order of the book, wherever fine books are sold folks, it's called Collective

Vengeance, a 27 year old, coerced abortion jeopardizes a Supreme Court nomination out June 15th, 2024. Thanks for tuning in. Or for the show, your family, friends, or relatives, go to Goodreads.com, Forchess Crisphos, LinkedIn.com, Forchess Crisphos, Facebook.com, Forchess Crisphos, and Crisphos won the Tick go to goodres.com for just Chris Foss, linkedin.com for chest, Chris Foss, facebook.com for says Chris Foss and Chris Foss won the tick tockety. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. And that.