Archive for the ‘Living and Life’ Category

An Evening of Horror Stories with Rami Ungar at Brothers Drake Meadery

Posted: August 6, 2019 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff, Writing
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I’m very excited to announce that I will be doing my very first professional solo author reading on August 18th at Brothers Drake Meadery! And of course, one of the stories I’ll be reading from is Rose.

Now I think I’ve mentioned them on this blog before, but if you’re unfamiliar with Brothers Drake, they’re a local maker and purveyor of mead, or honeywine. I’ve loved their mead since college, and celebrated both finishing up the third draft and the publication of Rose with their product and posting pictures and videos of said celebration on my Instagram.

This has led to the owners of Brothers Drake and I building a relationship, and earlier this week, they agreed to host a reading for me at their bar in the Short North area of Columbus.*

Anyway, I’m so grateful to Brothers Drake for having me. I can’t wait to be there on the 18th and I hope it’s a wonderful experience for all.

And if you happen to be in the Columbus area on the 18th, head on down to the trendy Short North area and arrive at Brothers Drake a little before 5 PM (parking in the Short North area is a cutthroat competition). You can buy some wine unlike anything you’ve likely ever had before, and then sit back as I read from not just Rose, but other stories that are either coming out soon or I hope will come out someday. Afterwards there will likely be a Q&A and then I’ll be selling and signing copies of Rose. And after that…who knows? I’m no fortune teller, despite my many other supernatural talents.

Anyway, if you’d like to RSVP, you can hit up the event page on Facebook by clicking this link. I hope I’ll see you there. It’ll be a spine-chilling good time.

And speaking of Q&A, there’s still time to participate in this blog’s Q&A (or would AMA be more accurate?). In honor of my blog’s eighth anniversary, between now and August 16th, you can send me any questions regarding writing, horror, my stories or myself and, unless I have a good reason not to, I will answer them. Just send your questions to ramiungar@ramiungarthewriter.com and if I get enough questions, you might see yours.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Until next time, pleasant nightmares!

*This is why you support local businesses, because you can end up building incredible relationships sometimes, and it can lead to extraordinary things happening.

Rami Ungar the Writer’s Eighth Anniversary!!!

Posted: August 2, 2019 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Reflections
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Happy Birthday to the blog.
Happy Birthday to the blog.
Happy Birthday to Rami Ungar the Writer.
Happy Birthday to the blog.

So as you can probably tell by now, today’s a special day. About eight years ago, in a library near my mother’s house, an eighteen-year-old me eager to build an audience before his first book came out created a WordPress blog on a public computer. Since then, a lot has happened. Hell, in the past year alone, a lot has happened. I got my first car; Rose went through several more drafts; I wrote a bunch of new stories, some of which may see the light of day; Rose got a release date; I went on my first vacation where I drove everywhere and had more independence and freedom to explore than ever before; I did an overnight ghost hunt at the Ohio State Reformatory; Rose got published, and started getting reviews; and so much more. It’s been an interesting time.

Oh, and stuff happened at the office that were cool, but at times also stressful. I won’t go into that stuff.

I’m grateful for this blog. So many people have followed this blog. Many have become regular readers of my work, including my published work, and have even become good friends. I’ve learned from other writers and bloggers, and their stories have inspired me as well. Plus, it’s nice to get my thoughts out to such a great audience sometimes. A lot of you have told me over the years that my reviews have been helpful or spot-on and you trust my opinion. And on the occasion where I need to write an essay on storytelling or the rare rant about problems in the world, you all listen respectfully, and even help add to the conversation.

And when I’ve suffered from anxiety, or when I expressed my fears regarding the rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the US and abroad, you’ve all been there to comfort me. I can’t thank you enough for that. It’s a great kindness, what you’ve done for me.

So what’s up for me and for this blog in the next year? I honestly don’t know. I think the blog will continue to grow and find people who want to have conversations with me about horror and writing. I can promise that since I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year, I’ll be posting about that pretty regularly once we get to November. And I’ll of course let you know what I think about the latest horror releases or if I have any thoughts or good news worth sharing.

As for me, I would like to continue writing and finishing stories. I might even figure out how to finish them in a timely manner without getting distracted or bored. And of course I would like to publish more stories. Hopefully, with Rose out and a couple of short stories coming out soon, that will happen. I want to have more amazing ideas for stories, and I want to see and read amazing stories by other creators. And I’d like to have some amazing experiences in the future, like traveling to a place I’ve never been, or meeting/impressing someone whom I’ve admired for a long time, or doing more ghost hunts.

I don’t know how much of that will happen, but I’ll try to make it happen.

In the meantime, in honor of the eighth anniversary of Rami Ungar the Writer, I thought it would be nice to have a Q&A. From today, August 2nd to Friday, August 16th, you can send any questions you have for me to ramiungar@ramiungarthewriter.com. Depending on how many questions I get, I’ll post them and the answers. Of course, any questions I deem out of bounds won’t be answered, so no asking me what my address is or for dirty stuff. But other stuff–daily life, writing, Rose, horror, etc–are free for the picking.

Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I look forward to receiving your questions in the near future, and hopefully having enough to post an answer. I’ll write again soon.

Until next time, pleasant nightmares!

Rose: The Author Copies Came In!!!

Posted: July 26, 2019 in Living and Life, Novel
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I have been unusually quiet on the blog lately (at least by my standards). I bet you thought I was busy writing that whole time. I’m sorry to disappoint, but I actually had a writing-sparse week. Work got crazy on some days, and on other days my attention was taken up by other things, which left no time for writing. I hope I can rectify that this weekend, but we’ll just have to see how things shake out.

In the meantime, let’s talk about why you clicked on this post: today, the author copies of Rose I ordered arrived. Yeah, about forty copies of the book, all in one giant box that my rental managers warned me might be too heavy to carry and that I might need a shopping cart to get it to my building. Turns out, it was just heavy enough to give my arms a workout while carrying it, so I wasn’t in too much pain.

I also kind of got a little caught up in the moment, and filmed/posted an unboxing video. For those unaware, an unboxing video is when someone opens up a box and marvels at the content, all while capturing it on video. As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s actually a pretty big thing on YouTube, and advertisers love it. And I was so excited, I just filmed myself opening up the box and uploaded the footage to my own YouTube channel. You can watch it below, if you’re interested.

Yeah, not the best unboxing video on the Internet, but did you expect any different from me? Especially since I wasn’t ghost-hunting while I filmed it or anything like that.

Anyway, I’m very happy these finally came in for me. I have a couple of author events that I’m either already set to attend or working on setting up so I can attend, and I’m hoping by bringing these books along, I can find them some new readers to go home with. This is something I’ve dreamed of doing as a writer, so I’m very excited. Meeting readers in a public setting, signing books, and thanking them for reading my books. It’s the reason we write them in the first place, isn’t it?

Well, that’s all for now. It’s getting late, and I want to sleep like the dead (corpse flies and all). So I’ll just sign off by saying that I hope you get a chance to read Rose in the near future. It’s the story of a young woman who starts turning into a plant creature (and that’s just the start of her problems). It’s a fantasy-horror novel I’ve been working on for almost five years, and now that’s it out, I’m glad to see people are enjoying it.

I’ll include links below for anyone who wants to check it out. And if you do end up getting a copy, I hope you’ll leave me a review letting me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love feedback, and it helps me out in the long run.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear, pleasant nightmares!

Rose: Amazon US, Amazon Canada, Amazon UK

101 Facts About Stephen King: A YouTube Video I Was Lucky Enough To Sponsor

Posted: July 20, 2019 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
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It has been difficult beyond belief to keep this under wraps for so long. Hell, I even dreamed about this last night, I was so excited! But today, I can proudly announce that I had the opportunity to sponsor the latest video from YouTube channel 101 Facts, in honor of the release of Rose. 101 Facts puts out a new video each week listing off–you guessed it–101 facts on different subjects, ranging from the latest in movies and TV shows, celebrities, historical events, countries, topics in science and literature, and so much more. And they do it in such a way that’s engaging and hilarious, might I add. At the time I’m writing this, they have over four hundred forty-two thousand subscribers on YouTube, which goes to show how well they’ve been doing with this series.

And I was lucky enough to be able to sponsor their latest video, centered on His Royal Scariness, Stephen King!

Honestly, I’ve been hoping for them to do a video on King since I first became a subscriber to the channel. And when Rose was accepted for publication by Castrum Press and they asked me to start looking into ways to advertise the novel, I knew I should see about sponsoring a YouTube channel, as other brands have done that very successfully. And 101 Facts was at the top of the list of YouTube channels to inquire working with, especially if I could do it on a subject I love.

It took A LOT of emails, but Stephen King was available as a subject, and after a few more questions and emails, we struck a deal. The results were uploaded today, “101 Facts About Stephen King,” which at the time I’m writing this has garnered twenty-three hundred views within a few hours (for context, the video on my YouTube channel with the most views has forty-one hundred views, and that took over a year to achieve). And if you’re interested in watching the video, you can watch it on YouTube (perfect for liking and commenting on the video itself) or by watching the embedded video down below.

I would like to thank the crew over at 101 Facts for agreeing to work with me and make this happen. The final result is freaking amazing, and I love it so much. I’m looking forward to bragging about it on Monday at work. And I hope someday, depending on what I publish in the future and what you guys release in the future, we can do it again. After all, neither of us will ever run out of subjects to write stories or make videos about, will we?

And to the people reading this post, I highly recommend you watch the video if you haven’t already, and maybe consider supporting 101 Facts with a subscription. As this video evidences, they put out great content, and it’s always nice to support creative types by supporting their work.

Speaking of which, if you’d be interested in checking out my novel Rose, I’ll include the links below. Rose is a fantasy-horror novel follows a young woman who starts turning into a plant creature (and that’s just the start of her problems). In the past month since it’s release, it’s gotten a lot of positive feedback, and I’m eager to introduce it to more and more people. And if you do end up reading it, I hope you’ll be kind enough to leave me a review letting me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love feedback, and it helps me out in the long run.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll probably have one or two more posts out very soon, so keep an eye out for those. In the meantime, I’m off to take care of some things that need doing before the end of the weekend, including something that terrifies even me: cleaning my apartment!

Until next time, pleasant nightmares!

Rose: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Canada

What’s Write For Me with Dellani Oakes will be Starting Soon

Posted: June 26, 2019 in Living and Life, Novel, Writing
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As promised, I’m posting the link for What’s Write For Me with Dellani Oakes, a podcast where authors talk about their new books and writing in general, as well as read excerpts over the air. The show starts at 4 PM, so at the time this comes out, there will be a half hour till the show begins. Plenty of time to get some popcorn and something to drink while you listen. Hope to see you there!

And if you miss the show, don’t worry. As soon as the recorded version is available, I’ll post the link here so that anyone who wants to listen can.

Enjoy the show!

What’s Write For Me Link

The Arm Cast Podcast is Live! Plus, the Link for What’s Write For Me

Posted: June 25, 2019 in Living and Life, Novel, Writing
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As I said in my last post, I’m participating in a couple of podcasts to talk about and promote Rose. The first podcast, Arm Cast Podcast with author Armand Rosamalia, has just gone live. And I absolutely loved listening to it. Well, I loved talking to Armand and recording the podcast. He was a friendly guy and I think we hit it off.

Sadly, my voice still sounds kinda awkward and is full of pauses and hesitations and the repetition of “um” when recorded. That’s just how it is. It never sounds like that to my ears when I’m speaking, but maybe that’s just because I’m hearing it and you’re not me.

Anyway, I’ve hopefully embedded the podcast below. If it’s not embedded there, I’ll include a link so you can go to the website and listen there. But if it is there, please press the “Play” button and listen away.

Once again, that was me talking with author Armand Rosamalia on the Arm Cast Podcast, brought to you by the Project Entertainment Network. If the embedded link didn’t work, here’s the link to the website. And thanks again to Armand and the Project Entertainment Network for having me. It was a lot of fun and I’d like to do it again someday, if possible.

Arm Cast Podcast Link

Did that work? Good.

Also, tomorrow at 4 PM I’ll be on the What’s Write For Me podcast with my good friend and colleague, Dellani Oakes. We’ll be joined by Maya Tyler, a paranormal romance author, and Julia Byrd, a Gorthic romance writer. Here’s the link for that show below. Obviously, I will post the link again tomorrow about a half hour before the show gets underway, and I’ll post a link afterwards, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t post several reminders about it (I’m obsessive that way).

What’s Write For Me Link

I hope you enjoy listening to both podcasts and they interest you in Rose and anything else we’ve written. Goodness knows I have fun on these things.

And speaking of Rose, if you haven’t checked it out yet, please head over to the Amazon page and consider getting a copy. Yeah, we’re still trying to figure out why Amazon hasn’t loaded the paperback version yet, but the ebook’s there, so definitely check it out if you’re able to. And if you feel like doing so afterwards, please let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love reviews and feedback, and I’d love to hear yours.

Rose Link

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Until tomorrow, pleasant nightmares!

Podcasts!

Posted: June 22, 2019 in Living and Life, Novel, Writing
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I’ve been meaning to post this since Wednesday, but as you know, this week’s been kind of busy.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be on a couple of podcasts in the coming week to talk about and even do a little reading from Rose. One of them will be live, so I wanted to let you know about it before it happened. Once more, I’ll be on What’s Write For Me with Dellani Oakes, presented by Red River Radio. I’ll be joined by paranormal romance author Maya Tyler and Gothic romance author Julia Byrd to talk about our latest works and read excerpts from them, as well as our host, and my friend and colleague Dellani Oakes. I hope you’ll join us (click the link above to go to the podcast’s page), and if you can’t, I’ll make sure to post a link for the recorded session as soon as I have it.

In addition, I will be on the Arm Cast Podcast, hosted by author Armand Rosamalia (no, he is not a character in a Gothic horror novel. His name makes you think that, but believe me, I checked) this Tuesday. As the podcast was recorded earlier this week, I’ll post the link for that when I get it. I hope you’ll check it out.

And tonight, I’ll be recording with Daniel Spitzer for the Black Clock Audio podcast. We’ll be talking all about Rose and anything else that comes up. I’ll post the link for that as soon as I have it as well. I hope you check it out. And if you do, I hope you’ll decide to leave a review.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know. Remember, Rose is available from Amazon now, so if you’d like to read it prior to all these podcasts come out or go live, go right ahead. As of yet, the paperback hasn’t gone live yet, but as soon as it does, I’ll let you all know.

That’s all for now. Until next time, my Followers of Fear, pleasant nightmares!

Rose: Available Now for Purchase!!!

Posted: June 21, 2019 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Pop the champagne! Or in my case, open up the apple-pie flavored honey mead. As of today, Rose is available for purchase!

So for those of you who don’t know, Rose is a story I started working on in 2014 as a college thesis project. Over the past five years and several rewrites and drafts, I’ve worked on and off trying to make Rose worthy of publication. Fifteen months ago in March 2018, Castrum Press accepted what was then Rose’s third draft for publication. Four rewrites/drafts later, and today the book was made available on Amazon.

Well, the e-book is, anyway. We’re still working on getting the paperback on there (Amazon is quirky like that, unfortunately). Don’t worry, I’ll post when the paperback is on the site.

And for those of you who are wondering what Rose is about, the short version is that it’s about a young woman who’s turned into a plant creature (and that’s just the start of her problems). The final draft of the long version can be found on the back of the book and on Amazon and goes like this:

Rose Taggert awakens in a greenhouse with no clear memory of the past two years and, to her horror, finds her body transformed into an unrecognizable form.

Paris Kuyper has convinced Rose that they are lovers and as Paris could not bear for her to die, he has used an ancient and dark magic to save her from certain death.

But the dark magic Paris has used comes at a price. A price which a terrible demon is determined to extract from Rose.

As Rose struggles to understand what is happening to her, she must navigate Paris’s lies and secrets; secrets that Paris will do anything to protect.

How does that sound?

And as I said, if you’re interested in checking out Rose, you can find it on Amazon in Kindle format, with the paperback version to come later. Just click this link. If you’d like to read a bit first before starting, here’s an excerpt for your perusal.

And if you do decide to read the book (which I highly encourage you to do), I’ll hope you’ll consider leaving a review. Positive or negative, I love feedback, and reviews help authors out in the long run in all sorts of ways.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who’s been supporting this process. I’ve been dreaming for years of publishing a novel with a publishing company, and I couldn’t have done it without the love and encouragement of so many great people out there. Thank you so very much for keeping me going and making sure my vision doesn’t disappear.

Now if you need me, I’ve got about fifty different things to make sure the novel does well. And I have to make dinner on top of that! Wish me luck.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear, happy reading and pleasant nightmares!

Listening to a Friend’s Audio Book

Posted: June 18, 2019 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Writing
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My friend Matt Williams, who introduced me to Castrum Press nearly eighteen months ago as a prospective client, has published two books with Castrum. One of them, The Cronian Incident, has recently been released as an audio book. I’d previously read the book when it was released, so I was curious as to what it would be like as an audio book. Would my opinion of the book change because I read it with my ears instead of my eyes? Would the narrator totally ruin the story?

I started listening on the ride home from Mansfield on June 2nd, and finished it up today. And I have to say, I have some thoughts. Not on The Cronian Incident, though if you like hard science fiction and you enjoy a little mystery as well, I recommend it. No, on the experience of listening to a friend’s book on audio.

I’ve long held the opinion that authors have two or three different voices. There’s the one we use in our day-to-day conversations; the ones we use in our social media and blog posts; and our writing voices, the ones we use for storytelling. Our blogging voices may share similarities with our speaking voices, but our writing voices are another animal entirely. That voice is separating itself from us, the writers, to note details, describe point-of-views, and philosophize through the eyes of various characters. It’s storytelling, in other words, and that may have nothing to do to whichever writer that voice belongs to.

So here I am. I’m used to Matt’s blogging and social media voice. We often talk on Messenger and occasionally on each other’s blog posts. And his writing voice sounds nothing like that voice. It sounds instead like a lot of the sci-fi novels I read in high school and college, building this world for me involving space travel and cybernetic implants and robotic doctors and so much else. There’s a diverse vocabulary, incorporating more words than used in daily conversation. The characters see things differently than Matt might in a similar situation. It’s a bit of a change. One I’ve done more than a few times (comes with having so many writer friends) but still a change.

And then there’s the audio book. You recognize the scenes and the words, but it’s a voice different than what you read the book with. It’s someone independent of the author, your friend, telling you the story anew, giving their own takes on how the characters sound, deciding whether a specific passage should sound tense or humorous, etc. It’s kind of like if, in a creative writing class, your best friend shares their work with the class, and then instead of your friend’s voice, Neil Gaiman’s voice slipped out! It’s a bit of a shocker.

The good thing is, it’s a shocker you can get used to. Most of the shock comes from knowing the author, so once you get used to having someone other than your friend (unless your friend narrated their own audio book, that is), it’s an enjoyable experience. You can dive in and become immersed in the story. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what every writer wants to happen when people read their books.

But tell me, have you ever listened to an audio book based on a friend’s novel? What was it like? Let’s discuss.

Oh, and if you’re wondering if Rose will ever make it into audio book format, let’s just say my publisher and I have talked a bit about it, but it’s waaay too early to even get excited about it. Let’s just focus on making sure the paperback/ebook release goes well before we start planning anything else.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. If this post got you curious about The Cronian Incident, you can find it on Amazon and Audible. And remember, Rose comes out this Friday, June 21st. I’ll hopefully be posting preorder link tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that post. And until next time, pleasant nightmares!

Rose: Cover Art, Update on Advanced Copies and More!!!

Posted: June 17, 2019 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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It’s finally here! With four days until Rose releases, we have a cover, made courtesy of The Gilded Quill. Take a look.

Now how about that? It’s very much influenced by fantasy, which is a big element of the novel. Though if you see this book in a bookstore and think it’s a typical fantasy, you’d be very much mistaken. In fact, here’s the blurb we’ve been using:

 

When Rose Taggert wakes up in a greenhouse, the past two years missing from her memory, she has no idea what is in store for her. Her body changes, transfigured into a new, plant-like form by Paris Kuyper, a student and her self-proclaimed lover who used an ancient family grimoire to save Rose’s life. While Rose is at first willing to trust Paris and work with him to recover her memories and the supposed love they shared, it soon becomes clear her lover is not all he seems. In a short time, she decides to put love and memories aside in favor of survival.

But a rose may be defenseless when a storm surrounds it. And Rose may only be able to stand for so long against the forces swirling around her.

So as you can tell, this is a lot darker than your average fantasy story. In fact, it’s fantasy-horror. And from what I’ve shared with people, they’ve responded well.

Speaking of which: advanced copies will end up being sent out Wednesday. Yeah, sucks. We were hoping to have them out today, but perfection can’t be rushed, and we wanted to make sure the book comes out as pristine as possible.

On the bright side, the book will still be released Friday, and preorder links and everything will be up as the advanced copies are sent out. It’s all happening rather fast, but I think it’s going to be magnificent once it does come out.

Well, I hope, anyway. Let’s see what the reviews say when those start popping up.

Anyway, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got to get started on dinner and get a lot more marketing work done before Rose is released. However, I might have another post, this one not Rose-related, out tomorrow, so keep an eye out for it.

Until next time, pleasant nightmares.

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