Archive for the ‘Living and Life’ Category

The Quiet Game: Six Month Anniversary

Posted: January 29, 2014 in Living and Life, Review, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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tqg cover

I kind of let this pass by without really realizing it, but now that it’s on my mind, I’d like to commemorate that six months (and twelve days) ago my first book, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, was first released for paperback and e-reader.

Since that July day, a lot has happened, but especially with this book. A small collection of original short stories I’d written over Winter Break 2012 and Spring Semester 2013, the book has sold about a little over fifty copies (which for the first book of a self-published author is not that bad). It’s also received eight reviews from readers, which has brought the book’s average to a 4.4 out of 5 (which for the first book of a self-published author is pretty mind-blowing for me). Here are what some of the reviewers have been saying:

“5 wonderfully crafted tales! I purchased this as an eBook originally and put off reading it for quite a while, I really wish I hadn’t waited. Sometimes when one purchases a collection of short stories you expect some of them to be less entertaining or of lower quality than the others, but none of these disappoint. Well worth the money, especially considering after you read each story the author gives you creative insight into what inspired him to write each tale, which is really wonderful.”

Jeff D.

“I happened across The author Rami Unger about a year ago when he was researching the paranormal online.

He nailed the Dybbuk story. Write more… soon!”

Jason Haxton, author of The Dybbuk Box

“I liked that each story was unusual. I think that the book was appropriately named. I prefer chilled bones rather than scared out of my whits since I am a bit of a chicken”

Enji

I’d just like to say that it’s been wonderful hearing from people what they think of The Quiet Game and finding out that they enjoyed the book and want to read more. It’s the readers themselves that have made all of this possible for me, so I really owe everyone reading my work a great debt that can never be repaid. So thank you very much and I hope we’ll be able to have great times together in the future.

If you are interested in reading The Quiet Game, you can find it on Amazon and on Smashwords. The print version is available for a little over five dollars, while the e-book version is available for about a dollar-thirty. And if you do decide to read The Quiet Game, please let me know what you think of it. Good or bad, I’m always happy for reviews and feedback.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to have more good news at the one-year anniversary. And speaking of anniversaries, Saturday will make three months since Reborn City came out. I’ll have to do a post about that as well. Look forward to it!

Secrets of Ohio State University

Posted: January 22, 2014 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
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I love my university, and I find out things about it every semester that are new and interesting. And some of those things I find out are actually kind of cool. Kind of inspiring. Kind of weird. Kind of creepy. And for all those reasons, I want to share them with you. From secrets tunnels to ghost stories, OSU has got it all. I hope you enjoy an expose on some of Ohio State’s greatest secrets.

There are tunnels under some of the buildings. A couple of the buildings on campus are connected on campus aboveground by connecting hallways. Lazenby and the Psychology Building are connected by their first and second floors, Cockins Hall and the Mathematics Building are connected on most of the floors. But there are some buildings that connected underground. Every building in the Fischer School of Business is supposedly connected by tunnels, and one of those tunnels also supposedly goes to the Blackwell Residence Inn, though you might need a key card for that one. And strangely enough, University Hall and Dulles Hall are connected by a tunnel that goes underneath 17th Ave. I’m not sure why that last one exists, but it’s still pretty interesting. I wish there were more tunnels like that: it’s too cold outside to be walking to classes that way!

Some of the buildings have abandoned and empty pools. Pomerene Hall is one of the oldest buildings on campus, and it’s like a giant castle. However only a fraction of the building is used, and the basement is tiny, which is weird considering the size it technically should be. Turns out the back area used to house a pool that’s been nothing but a dry pit for several years. Explains the size. Pomerene’s not the only building with a pool no longer used: I used to live in Jones Tower, which was a graduate housing facility when it first opened. Back then it had a pool for the grads to use, but due to maintenance costs and injuries at poolside it was closed down. If you walk by the pool’s door today, you can still see the places where people would hang up towels and still hear the sounds of the pipes that would carry water to the pool (at least I think that’s what that noise is).

Ohio State has some hauntings. I save the best for last. Apparently in its 144 year history Ohio State has gathered a few ghost stories and possible hauntings (Ghost Adventures, call the university!). Learning that makes me even prouder of this school I go to. Here are the spooky legends on campus, brought out nine months earlier than usual:

–Pomerene Hall, situated right next to the infamous Mirror Lake, has a very special ghost story of love and tragedy. In the 1900s, Professor Clark committed suicide after a failed mining investment, his body found where Pomerene Hall now stands. His wife swore never to leave him, and when she died in the 1920s, her ghost started appearing around Mirror Lake (on it during the winters). Professor Clark himself is said to haunt Pomerene Hall, slamming lockers and doors and doing other ghostly things.

–Hopkins Hall, the art building on the Oval, has a much more gruesome story. At some point a young woman got stuck into an elevator overnight, suffering a nervous breakdown from the stress and lack of response to her cries for help. During her breakdown, she apparently wrote plenty of weird stuff on the walls of the elevator. She eventually got out, recovered, and then graduated, but not too long afterwards she died in a car crash. To this day, students report seeing writing or scratches in the elevator that say “I’m still mad at OSU for what they did to me.” Scary.

–Orton Hall is one of the oldest buildings on campus and is home to the Geology Department’s famous fossil museum. It also has two ghosts. One is Edward Orton, one of OSU’s earliest professors and the building’s namesake, as well as the man who gifted the Geology Department the core of its collection. When he was alive, he used to read by lamplight in the top of the bell tower (the scorch marks are still there). At night you can sometimes see mysterious lights through the slats of the bell tower, apparently Professor Orton reading in his favorite spot. During the day he supposedly chills the air and makes weird noises in order to get students to behave.

If you look at the cover of The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, you’ll see that Orton Hall’s bell tower is on the cover.

There is also tales of a hairy, caveman-like figure who makes noises and bangs on doors. Some believe it might be somehow connected to the Geology Museum’s vast collection. Others believe it could be a dead football player, though that may be a more humor-filled supposition.

This post is getting rather long, so I’m going to cut it off now. It’ll be continued in another post. Trust me, I’ve got a few other secrets about Ohio State worth sharing, including some other famous ghost stories and OSU’s connection to a famous serial killer. Until next time, Followers of Fear.

Ohm: Finished

Posted: January 20, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Progress Report, short story, Writing
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In Judaism, that hand is called a Hamsa. It’s designed to keep the evil eye away. I have no idea what it’s doing on this poster though.

Last week or so I posted about an interesting discussion I had in my meditation class about hypnosis vs. meditation (see post here). At one point during that conversation, I said that although hypnosis could be abused, meditation could just as easily be abused by someone of unscrupulous character. I then gave an example to my group, which was immediately followed by this realization: “Hey, that could make a great short story.” I told that to my meditation group, which caused them to laugh while also looking at each other in fear. It was a “What have we done?” moment right there.

Well, I started the short story Saturday evening before SNL started, and I’ve worked on it every evening since. And this evening I finished it. Then I went back and added a few more details to earlier parts of the story in order to make it flow more smoothly. Then I clicked Save and decided to write this blog post.

As you can see from the title of this post, the short story is called “Ohm.” I wanted a title that would go very well with a story of someone using meditation for bad purposes, and I went with “Ohm”, because it was simple, the word itself was relevant to the story, and it gave people an immediate sense of what this story might be about. It’s on the short end of short stories, a little under 2100 words, and it’s more literary than horror, if you look at it closely. Still, I think it’s an interesting story, even if there are no demons or serial killers, and I even managed to use a new technique in order to tell it:

Last semester, I read a short story for my science-fiction literature class called “Gene hackers”. The story was about a man who was quite famous in the near-distant future for his role in the industry of genetic engineering and manipulation, and chronicled various events throughout his life in short little vignettes, starting from when he was young and all the way up until he was a very old man. I was really impressed by the style used to tell the story, and I wanted to try that for myself with “Ohm”. I think it turned out pretty well, personally.

I’m going to ask my meditation group if any of them want to read the rough draft. After they get back to me, I’m going to try to submit this story to a creative writing contest here on campus, see if I can impress any judges. Hopefully my meditation group and the people running the contest will like “Ohm”. At any rate, I think they might find it at least a bit interesting.

Well, that’s all for now, Followers of Fear. I’ve got classes tomorrow, so I’ll sign off and see you in the morning. Goodnight and pleasant nightmares. I’ll let you know if anything comes of “Ohm”.

Oh, and before I forget, I bought my plane tickets for my study abroad trip today. They cost me an arm and a leg, but it was well worth it. I’m so looking forward to this trip. It’s going to be so much fun!

Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors: My First Post of the New Year

Posted: January 17, 2014 in Journalism, Living and Life, Writing
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This morning I published my first article of 2014 on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, a website I write for that aims to help self-published authors make the most of their options and succeed in self-publishing. It’s also my tenth article for the website, which I’m very happy about.

The article is called Some Tips For WattPad Users, and it’s about–you guessed it–using WattPad. I promise, I’ll leave the topic of the website alone for a while after this post. Well, I did say that if any of our readers on that blog had any tips about using WattPad, I’d publish those in a follow-up article, but…well, after that article. I think I’ve been going on a Wattpad obsession lately, and it’s been showing through on this blog. I hope it hasn’t annoyed anyone. At least not too much.

Anyway, the article is about some general tips for utilizing WattPad, so if you have an account or are thinking of getting an account, please check out the article. And if you’re a self-published author or you’re considering self-publishing, I highly recommend Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. It’s a wonderful website with many articles on just about every subject you can think of devoted to self-publishing and it’s run by a variety of authors, myself included, who are devoted to their craft and love helping others out.

All for now. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.

My First Short Story of 2014

Posted: January 13, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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A model of the limo I used in the story, except it had cow horns mounted on the front and flames painted on the side.

I just finished my first short story of the new year. And for plenty of reasons, it reminds me of a Stephen King story. I’m hoping that an editor will think the same thing if they read it.

The short story is called The Loneliest Roads and it’s about a hitchhiking young woman who gets picked up by a stretch limo (hence the photo). Once she gets inside, she finds herself in for a whole new world of terror. And it’s a different short story than anything I’ve ever written before. Firstly, it’s after I finished the first draft of Video Rage, which I’ve mentioned in previous posts as being a time where I really grew as a writer. I also utilized new techniques I picked up during the past semester. One was to try to ramp up the terror gradually rather than have my protagonist be immediately confronted with pure evil. I started by trying to make things seem only a little unreal at the beginning, and then making that feeling of unreality grow slightly as the story went on, until it was time to make the terror more than just subtle.

I also tried to delve into the psychological factor of my protagonist, whose name is Miracle Jones (yes, I seriously named my character Miracle Jones). I wanted to make her more than just a flat character, and I did that by delving into her past, focusing on her psychology. I thought the way I revealed her character was actually kind of creepy. Then again, I tend to think everything I write is creepy. Whether it is or not depends on your opinion.

Anyway, I’ve a pretty good idea of what I’m going to do with this short story. I’d like to get around to editing it in a few weeks or so, and maybe sending it off to a friend for a critique. I have a second ending for the story that takes a less positive turn than the one I wrote out tonight, so if I or my friend feels that the ending could be different, I’ll go with my second ending. And after all the editing has been done, I hope to submit The Loneliest Roads to a few magazines, see if any pick it up. I would be very happy if they did. And if they don’t…who knows? It could go into a future collection of short stories or on Wattpad, or both. Future’s open.

For now though, I think I’ll try to catch some sleep. Tomorrow if I can I’ll start on an article for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, and after that I’ll start on another short story. It’s going to be very exciting this semester for me. Goodnight, Followers of Fear.

Hypnosis vs. Meditation

Posted: January 12, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections
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Some of you know I go to a weekly meditation class on Sundays. Today at the class we had an interesting discussion about the differences between meditation and hypnosis. The discussion started while going over some of the aspects of a particular chakra. One suggestion for clearing this chakra of impurities or of other problems is to abstain from activities such as hypnosis. Because I use hypnosis a lot in my life as well as meditation and because I know how to perform hypnosis, I had to ask why one should avoid it, especially since hypnosis and meditation are very similar and have similar aims when performed (unless you’re a stage hypnotist, in which case your goal may just be to do some interesting trick).

Ultimately, the problem comes down to relying on yourself vs. relying on others. The form of meditation I do, called Sahaja Yoga, has a great emphasis on practitioners being able to do Sahaja Yoga on their own and become their own guru in order to find the answers they are looking for or to resolve the problems they are experiencing. Hypnosis, on the other hand, relies heavily on the hypnotist to help a subject, and because hypnosis is largely dependent on the hypnotist’s suggestions, there is an opportunity for abuse on the part of the hypnotist to hurt the subject or cause them to do harm onto others. For this reason, some Sahaja Yogis are very against hypnosis.

As someone who has positive associations for both practices, I saw it as almost like the science vs. religion debate: while they may seem at odds, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t work together. For example, many people are able to believe in both the Genesis story and the theory of evolution, and that’s just one example of how people have learned to reconcile religion to scientific beliefs or theories that seem to contradict each other. Also, both disciplines can be abused by those who are trained in them: a preacher could abuse his followers’ trust in him to scam them or hurt them, while some scientists used to use pseudo-science to justify racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, or homophobic beliefs (a few still do, sadly).

Hypnosis and meditation can also be like this. While some may see the two as distinctly different and that they can’t work together, others see them as very similar and that they can work together. Many researchers have found that the hypnotic state is very similar to the state of consciousness achieved during meditation, and that they can both have positive effects on the physical, mental, and emotional self. For a personal example, last semester there were a couple of weeks where I was under intense stress and was constantly worried about finishing projects and homework, my finances, and other problems. It took a very powerful combination of meditation and hypnosis to be able to get back to my normal self and handle my schoolwork without having a breakdown of any sort.

Not only that, but both hypnosis and meditation can potentially be abused by those who practice it. A hypnotist may use a client’s suggestibility to cause harm to the client or to themselves, but someone who knows some meditation can easily create their own brand of meditation and charge through the roof for lessons or even start a cult based around them and their meditation brand (when I pointed this out to my class, my first thought was, “Hey, that could make a great short story”. Believe me, I will make it into one).

Whatever you feel about hypnosis and/or meditation, it’s important to keep in mind that both aim to help people, that they are very similar in several ways, and that there are people who will swear by one, the other, or both that they are helpful disciplines. I feel that my life is enhanced by both, and I’m glad to be able to know how to do both.

If you are interested in trying either in order to better understand the issue, I’ve embedded two videos below. The first features Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the founder of Sahaja Yoga, giving an introductory session in Sahaja Yoga to an audience in Sydney, Australia. The second video is a basic hypnotic relaxation video that gives you an idea of what a hypnotic state is like and what one can accomplish in it. All you have to do for either video is follow the instructions given (preferably while wearing headphones for best quality), and you’ll get a sense of what each is like.


What do you think of hypnosis and/or meditation? Do you think they’re incompatible or compatible? Or do you just think the whole discussion is silly?

A Confession and Some Updates On My 666th Post

Posted: January 8, 2014 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
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Yes, this is my 666th post. The fact that I’ve been counting up to this post must tell you a lot about me. I just wish I had something scarier to mark the occasion. I guess the picture to the left of this paragraph will have to do.

I want to make a confession to you on this post, and that confession starts with a little story. Today I met with one of my counselors at Ohio State and she told me she’d read Reborn City over winter break, and that she’d enjoyed it very much. In fact, she told me at times she had trouble putting it down because she wanted to keep reading and see what happened, which explained why she read it so quickly. I’d heard this from someone else who’d recently read RC, so it made me feel pretty good. But at the same time, I also felt pretty incredulous. After all, I wrote this book in high school. It took me about four years to get it ready for publication, and I needed a lot of help along the way from friends and family.

The truth is (and this is the confession part from the title of this post), I’m still trying to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. I may act sometimes like I’m all experienced in the matters of fiction writing and all that’s terrifying, especially when I’m writing a post for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, but I don’t know it all. I have no idea how to get more people to read my blog, or how to get more people to purchase or download copies of my books. I tried with the Weekly Exercises to get people interested in buying my fiction writing and just interested in my writing in general, but it didn’t work out so much (this is part of the reason why I haven’t been writing any Exercises recently, in case any of you were wondering. That, and I didn’t have the time or the inexhaustible well of ideas for so many flash fiction pieces). And I’m certainly not the authority on terrifying people. I’m pretty far from it. I’m still trying to learn how to do a better job of scaring than jumping out to yell BOO! or use a big, scary monster with claws or a serial killer with a knife. There are subtleties to scaring people and doing it well. I’m still learning how to do it.

So I ask that you still support me and help me. I’m working hard to fulfill my dreams and to become a better writer. If you want to read my writing, then I’m happy about that and I thank you for it. And if you never want to read my books because it’s just not what you’re into, then that’s fine. Everyone’s tastes are different.

And now for those updates:

–I’ve written a blurb for Video Rage. For those of you who’ve read Reborn City and enjoyed it, I wrote a short blurb for RC‘s sequel that gives a few hints as to what we can expect for the next book. Unfortunately VR is only listed as Coming Soon, as it’s still in the first draft at this point. Still, if you’re interested in the second book, you can read the blurb here.

–I’ve published a few stories on WattPad. Well, one story, to be exact. Revenge for a Succubus’s Beloved was published about a year ago, and it’s still one of my favorites, so I published it again on the site for others to read if they so desired. The other two publications are previews of The Quiet Game and Reborn City. I hope to publish some original fiction in the coming months on the site, and when I do I’ll let everybody know. If you would like to read The Quiet Game‘s preview, click here. If you want to read RC‘s preview, click here. And if you want to read Revenge for a Succubus’s Beloved (and it’s one of my favorites, so I hope you do), click here.

–My Facebook page has reached 100 likes! Growing and maintaining a Facebook page is not easy, ask any author who has one. Ask any person who has one. And I finally managed to get 100 likes on my own page. Took several months, but I did it. I’d like to thank everyone who’s liked my page and stayed with me through the months. Just like everything else, it couldn’t happen without you. And if you’re interested in checking out my Facebook, follow the link here.

Well, that’s all for now. Have a good night, Followers of Fear. Thanks for reading my 666th post, confession and all. I hope nothing demonic results from you reading it.

Snake: Three-Fourths Through The Final Draft

Posted: January 8, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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I’ve been meaning to write this post since last night, but I’ve been so busy these past 24 hours it hasn’t been possible. I guess that’s to be expected at Ohio State, especially when low temperatures close school for two days in a row. Well, no time like the present, so let’s get started.

Yesterday my friend and fellow author Angela Misri sent me her thoughts and suggestions for Chapters 73-76 of Snake. And after doing some extensive editing work (those chapters needed a lot of work, as I realized from reading Angela’s comments), I realized that we had gotten three-fourths of the way through the entire book. And of course that means we have less than twenty-five chapters left of the book before I can get it ready for publication.

Working withy Angela has been a delight. Her suggestions always hit the mark or point out potential areas of misunderstandings for readers that I, as the author, have missed. Sometimes her suggestions have frustrated me because they involve a lot of rewriting, but always I’m thankful for them because in the end she’s right and all the work is worth it. And now with only a quarter of the novel left, I’m looking forward to hearing her thoughts on it over the next couple of weeks and getting her final review once she’s finished the entire book. And as a thank you for all her hard work, I’ll be interviewing Angela about her own upcoming book, Jewel of the Thames, to be released sometime this spring. I can’t wait to read it Angela.

And as for Snake…well, I’m looking forward to releasing it to the world. It’s one of my favorite stories that I’ve written so far and the characters are rather dear to me. I even have plans for one or two sequels, and I hope that everyone who picks up a copy not only enjoys the book, but lets others with similar interests know that they enjoyed the novel.

For now though, I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll sign off for now. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to do a post later tonight, so keep checking your readers and inboxes. And if I don’t get to write another post, I’ll write it tomorrow. See you later, Followers of Fear.

100 Ideas!!!

Posted: January 6, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, short story, Writing
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I’ve mentioned this before on my blog, but I keep a list of ideas for novels/comic books/films/TV shows/etc. on my flash drive. And over the past semester, that list grew pretty damn lengthy. In fact, I had more ideas than I did in any other semester. And tonight, I got my one-hundredth idea for the list! And having just typed that, I wonder how I will ever find the time to write all of those stories. I probably won’t, but it’ll be fun to try.

Anyway, the idea for number one-hundred came to me quite by accident (apparently that’s how all the best ideas come). I’ve previously announced that before I get back to working on Laura Horn, I wanted to do some short stories. And before I decided to do those short stories, I decided to take one last look at one short story, maybe see if I could spruce it up a little and possibly publish it on WattPad (I’ve published one or two things on there since I got an account on that website. More on that to follow in a future post). The story in question, Resurrection, is about a man who is brought back to life through advances in science, but something goes terribly wrong and his resurrection isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. That story has gone through several different drafts and incarnations, and I thought I’d give the latest incarnation a look over to see if I could make it better. When I looked over it though, something occurred to me midway through the short story. There’s this one scene when my main character encounters a religious leader who is more than a little upset about this resurrection. I was going to have my protagonist call him an old fart, but with the years he’s been dead, the protagonist is over ninety years old. He should be calling the preacher a stupid kid.

And that’s when it hit me. A short story was too short to tell this story. It had to be expanded, to go into a novella or even a full novel! Resurrection had to be resurrected in a new form.

God, that was a bad play on words.

But that’s beside the point. Here is the point: the last time I trotted out Resurrection and sent it to a friend, he told me that it was an interesting concept and that it could be expanded into a novel or into a film. Oh, that sounded nice. The thing is, I couldn’t figure out how to expand it into a novel, and I didn’t have the time to write a screenplay. And even if I did have the time, I wouldn’t know how to go about getting a screenplay sold (though I might try in the future, when I have the time). But at that single thought on how the main character should think about the preacher, I had an idea on how to expand the story into a novel. I stopped looking through the short story, went to my Ideas list, and recorded Idea #100.

My idea is alive! ALIVE!

I don’t know when I’ll be able to write the novel version of Resurrection, mostly because I have a few other projects that take priorities that take place before it. However, I’m sure it won’t be too long before I get around to it. I like the idea, and I don’t want to be working on this story on and off for several years. I don’t want to do that at all. I really want to write this story eventually and do it sooner rather than later. For now though working on it just won’t be possible, so instead I’ll just leave a few hints as to what we can expect from this future novel:

–some of the themes will include aging, adjusting to a changed and changing world, and death and dying.

–the technology aspect will make Reborn City jealous (then again, the point of RC was never the technology, but whatever).

–the resurrection, though scientific in nature, won’t be plagued by problems of the scientific realm.

–and finally, I may release each finished chapter of this novel, once the book has been heavily edited, on WattPad or on my blog. One of them.

I also hope someday to get to many of the ideas I’ve written on that list. A lot of them I feel are really great ideas, and I would love to write and share them with the world. So the hope is that I can get a good number of them written over the coming years, and that as each novel (or in the future, if God is willing, each film or manga or TV series) is released, there will be someone willing to check it out and read it, maybe even a lot of someones. I think that’s why I keep writing, even if I haven’t exactly been super-successful yet. It’s because I know that each story could potentially make someone happy, and I’m still writing fot hose people. Hopefully we’ll find each other someday and they’ll enjoy what I’ve written for them.

That’s all for now. I’m going to take a break and then get started on an original short story. I’ve got close to seventy ideas for short stories as well, so I need to get some of them out of the way. Good night, Followers of Fear.

Video Rage: The First Draft Is Finished

Posted: January 5, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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I’m proud to say that the first draft of Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City, is finally finished! And it took exactly six months to write. I’m not kidding, I started it on July 5th, 2013 and finished it today on January 5th, 2014. Crazy coincidence, huh?

Writing the last three chapters of VR were at times difficult but all the time extremely fun. I just felt the story flowing out, even when I made changes to how the scene played out in my head to how it played out on paper at the very second I was writing the story. And a whole lot happened in those last three chapters: the final conflict of the novel was resolved and I was able to set up for the third and final book of the trilogy (more to come on that later in the post). I’m actually very satisfied with how this novel turned out. I started it with the goal of making a kick-ass story where the characters didn’t lose their depth and weren’t reduced to one-dimensional cut-outs like Katniss Everdeen in Catching Fire. Although I may be biased against my own novel, I believe I did a very good job. Most of the characters grew in their own ways, and some had pretty exciting and at times tragic twists happen to them. I think anyone who reads this novel will be satisfied with it (God-willing).

And now for the page and word counts (and by page, I mean 8.5″ by 11″ MS Word paper pages). In my last post about my progress with Video Rage, the page count was 197 pages and the word count was 54,703 words as of Chapter 24. With the addition of Chapters 25-37 (the last chapter being called “Epilogue” actually, but whatever), the page count is 299 pages and the word count is 83,935 words! That’s a pretty decent-sized novel, around the size of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone actually. Of course the editing phase may either trim it down or expand it a little, depending on how I go about editing each and every chapter and what I do in those chapters.

So now that I’ve finished this monumental task, what are my plans? For now I’ll make sure to back up VR and other important documents so that I don’t lose them. Then I’ll only write for homework and for scholarship for a little while. After that period though I’ll work on several short stories and after I’ve done enough of those, I’ll get back to work on Laura Horn and finish that up as well. And as the final draft of Snake comes together, I’ll work on that too and get it ready for whenever it’ll be published. And when it’s time, I’ll start going over VR and editing it as well. Perhaps within a year or two it’ll be available as well.

And as for the third and final book of the series, I won’t write that any time soon. I need some time to work on other books and other projects so that I can return to the world of the West Reborn Hydras with fresh eyes and ready to finish their story. I also need time to figure out how the story will end. I know what my final scenes are probably going to look like, and I know who the main antagonist will be and how he’s going to be a pain in the ass for the Hydras, but I haven’t settled on anything yet. When the time comes though, I’ll let you know. And hopefully by then the Hydras will have a bigger fan base than just my sister, my stepmother, and a few good friends of mine. That would definitely be nice.

For now though, I’ve got files to back up and a dinner to cook before the new semester starts tomorrow. Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear.

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