Rami Ungar The Writer

So, a while back, I started mentioning dragon bats on this blog and my other social media. Nothing serious, just casual mentions of releasing dragon bats when something good happens. But it apparently was more than that, because the nasty beasties stirred the imagination of friend, colleague and Follower of Fear Iseult Murphy (check out her blog here), who ended up creating fan art of the dragon bats (click here to see that art).

And for those wondering what a dragon bat is, it’s exactly as the name implies: a bat big enough to earn the descriptor “dragon.” They’re also carnivorous, aggressive, and their bite is either venomous or has lots of dangeorus pathogens in the saliva, we’re not sure. They’re like Komodo dragons, in that way.

Anyway, Iseult’s fan art inspired me in turn and I decided to create a story featuring the dragon bats. It took a bit of brainstorming, but I was eventually able to come up with a story with the nasty beasts. And this past week or two, I wrote the story, finishing it up this morning at around 4 AM.

Yeah. It’s been a while since I was up that late finishing a story. I think the last time was finishing up my novel River of Wrath around Halloween 2018.

Back to the story. The story, which I ended up naming “Disillusionment and Trauma Sometimes Go Hand in Hand” (I couldn’t think of something short and snappy, so I took a page from Stephen King and gave the story a long, ridiculous title), follows a girl who becomes an unwilling participant in a plot to get revenge for the death of her best friend. A plot that, you guessed it, involves dragon bats.

And whoo-boy, did this story end up being a crazy one! Not only is it a decent-sized novelette at 12,645 words, but it’s also got a lot going on in it. Blood, murder, revenge, a bit of torture, some creature feature and the occult. All in all, though, I think it’s a good story. Hopefully Iseult and any other beta readers I ask agree and I can find a home for it.

So, what’s next? Well, I’ve been marketing a collection of original short stories for a while now. I think I’ll take a second look at some of them and give them another round of edits before trying to find a publisher again. After that…well, we’ll see. With The Pure World Comes accepted for publication, it’ll soon be time to start editing it and that’ll take up some time. I don’t want to commit to anything knowing it might be sidelined after starting.

At least I was able to get one more story done. And like I said, it’s one hell of a story. If kind of…batty.

Oh come on, I had to make that joke! Sue me.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Until next time, pleasant nightmares and RELEASE THE DRAGON BATS!!!

Oh, and one more thing: you have ten more days to submit a question to my Ask Me Anything, or AMA. If you submit a question to ramiungar@ramiungarthewriter.com by 11:59 PM on July 28th, 2021, you’ll be eligible for a prize. This is all to celebrate ten years of blogging on this platform, so I hope you all send questions my way. Looking forward to reading them!