Archive for the ‘Living and Life’ Category

I’ve had spooky experiences with ghosts before. One time I got a visit from my deceased cat on Halloween. Another time I woke up to a presence in my room and a horrible pain from my teeth that only went away when I said a Jewish prayer (exorcisms work when you say them in Hebrew, apparently). But last night I had my spookiest experience of all, and I’d like to tell you about it.

I was just falling asleep last night when it happened. This was about 12:30 in the morning, I’d been having a little trouble falling asleep but now it looked like I could get to sleep. However as I was drifting off, I suddenly felt unable to breathe and woke up, sucking in lungfuls of air. At the foot of my bed was a translucent form that said “Vietnam.” It moved to my dresser and then towards me, and as it did I saw a little old man wearing a dark sweater saying “Vietnam” to me. I could see right through him, but I could make out all of his details, and I still remember the sound of his voice in my head.

Now naturally I was freaked out. I love ghosts, but I prefer seeking them out rather than them finding me.  Imagine waking up and finding one right in your room saying something about Vietnam (maybe he fought in the war?). It’s a little disconcerting, to say the least. So I said, “Go away!” in a clear voice.  The ghost just looked at me like it was surprised. Then I said, “In the name of God, go away!” In times of fear or crisis I like to fall back on my faith in God, which shows how big my faith is a part of my life. And it seemed to do the trick, because the old man just faded away before my eyes and disappeared. A moment later I had the strangest sensation of something moving over and across my bed and then I was alone. I lay there for about five minutes letting the adrenaline and fear work its way out of my system before I attempted to go back to sleep.

And while I waited for my body to calm down, the significiance of what I’d just experienced came over me. What I’d experienced was a full-bodied apparition, as ghost enthusiasts call any spirit able to fully materialize itself. It’s the rarest of all ghost phenomena, largely due to the amount of energy a spirit would need to fully materialize like that, and it’s the hardest to capture on film as evidence of the paranormal. This wasn’t lost on me, especially since I watch ghost-hunting shows on TV. I realized though that people would have to go on my word of what I saw, because I don’t have a roommate in my dorm room to verify the story and I certainly wasn’t recording what was happening while I slept. Still, the fact that I witnessed that was pretty amazing, though still pretty scary at thte time.

I’m not sure why all this happened, why the ghost appeared to me, or why I suddenly had trouble breathing, and don’t ask me what Vietnam had to do with anything, because I’m not sure. However I still think this is probably one of the more significant paranormal events to happen to me, and there are a few. You are free to doubt me and what I saw and I’m okay with that. But this is still an amazing thing, and even though I was scared at the time, I’m happy I got to experience it.

Have you ever experienced anything rational explanations couldn’t explain? What happened?

I woke up yesterday morning and was filled with memories of some of my old attempts at writing, the first fiction stories I ever wrote, and how they shaped and defined me over the years, and how I got to this point in my writing.. I wanted to write a post about them, but with all that was going on yesterday, I didn’t have the time. Well, better now than never, right?

The first time I tried to write anything, I must’ve been five or six, eight at the most. I had just seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the first time and then read the book, which was infinitely better. My mind was blown, and I could only think to myself, “I want to write something like that”. So I did, creating a similar story to HP1 except with the genders of the characters switched (even then, I had a thing for strong female leads, I guess). I called this obvious copyright violation Amanda Robinson, I gave her a cat instead of an owl, and I planned that the cat was a prince in cat form who would be my main character’s love interest at the end of the book, but beyond that same basic plot as HP1. I didn’t finish this work, either because I had the good sense to stop before I got sued or because at that point in my life I couldn’t keep my focus on any one project for very long. But it did spark my interest in writing, which only grew as time went by.

My next major project was a pirate adventure story called Bane Nycroft and the Maelstrom Pirates (I’m not sure if this one was inspired in any way by Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s a possibility). That story featured a lycanthropic teenage pirate with a stolen Navy ship, leading a band of fellow orphans on the high seas and stealing from rich government banks and fighting monsters and demons. Along the way the pirate picks up a rebellious princess and they discover an island where all sorts of strange and magical creatures reside, and eventually they take on a prince who’s actually a demon in disguise. This one went through several rewrites, each rewrite growing more supernatural as time went by. Eventually I lost interest, but more than Amanda Robinson, Bane Nycroft gave me a taste of what professional fiction writing was like.

After that came the Davis trilogy, a couple of vampire novels that were inspired by the movie Van Helsing. In those novels, which fused a lot of the Buffy mythology to Van Helsing and my own twisted imagination, a teenager commits suicide after seeing his crush with her boyfriend. The teenager makes a deal with the Devil to become a vampire and take over the world and make the girl his vampiric bride. The girl, on her way to becoming a vampire, must band with her boyfriend, her older brother, and her best friend, who happens to be a witch, to stop this horrible vampire from turning the world into permanent darkness. I actually got to the third book with this one, but at that time the slow realization that nobody would want to publish such a confusing story that ripped off so many works came over me. Plus as I got further along the story got more and more sexualized, which sort of corresponded with where I was at that point in my teenage years.

I wasn’t entirely finished with the vampire mythology though, and almost immediately afterward I began work on Mahiro, which in my opinion had the first inklings of the style of writing I have today. In it a teenage boy travels to an alternate universe inhabited by vampires. While there, he is found by Mahiro, the queen of vampires, who takes a liking to him and turns him into a vampire. But before she can finish the ritual and take his soul, he escapes and finds the human resistance, where he assembles a team of crack fighters to help him take on Mahiro and perhaps find a cure for vampirism. At the same time, he must deal with a romantic triangle, being drawn both to his girlfriend, whom he left on the other side of a dimensional portal, and an equipment tech with some terrific sharp-shooting skills. It was promising, but at that point Twilight was hugely popular and was gaining more fans everyday. As a consequence the number of vampire books out there was astronomical, and I didn’t want to compete with that. With that in mind, I shelved Mahiro until a time I could bring out the characters again and rewrite the story. Until then, no vampires for me.

There was also a poorly-researched caveman story and a Frankenstein-esque horror story I wrote in between Bane Nycroft and the Davis trilogy, plus some attempts at zombie literature. Other than that, those were the main works that preceded the creation of Reborn City, which I’ve stuck with up until now and I’m happy to say will be published as soon as the beta reading period is over, I can create a cover, format the whole darn thing, and get a copyright.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot. My writing style’s changed drastically since I started writing fiction, and I’ve incorporated new elements to my work with every author I’ve read and every experience I’ve gone through. I wonder what the kid who sat in front of the old Windows 97 computer hen-pecking out a Harry Potter rip-off would say if he saw me now and what my writing’s like (probably “Why aren’t you living in a mansion yet?”). I hope to continue to grow in my writing and to create awesome and scary works. And perhaps, unlike my previous work, the characters will be college students or even full adults instead of teenagers. That’d be a break from the past!

Two posts I read recently got me thinking about something that many people talk about or wish they had: luck. Some people say there is no luck or if there is you make your own. Some say luck is something where a strange series of random events play out in your favor. And others say there’s a strange system or algorithm to luck that sometimes you can tap into, especially when you have a rabbit’s foot or some talisman like that. But how does luck work in the writing business, especially in these turbulent times when the author has to do so much themselves just to get their work into the hands readers, even the interested ones?

Well, that depends on who you ask: my friend and fellow author Pat Bertram (you might remember her as the person who did that wonderful interview a while back) mused in her article on the nature of luck and quoted a professor who believed that luck was the result of a consistently positive outlook on life (for the article look here: http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/can-you-change-your-luck/). And today, I read another author by the name of Richard Levesque, who concluded that no matter how much work you do on your own to advertise your book, luck still plays a big part in your success (for his post read here: http://richardlevesqueauthor.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/how-much-does-random-chance-account-for-a-writers-success/).

What’s my take? Well…it’s a little bit of both, with some of my own spiritual beliefs mixed in. First, I think having a positive outlook helps everyone on the road of life. You can be in a wrestling match and feel discouraged that the guy you’re facing is bigger and weights much more than you and let him beat you…or you can let yourself stay positive, notice that his weight is great but his stance is sloppy, and tackle him that way. You’l think “Lucky I noticed that”, but truth is, you were able to do that because you didn’t let yourself admit defeat and kept fighting, not just physically but mentally and psychologically, which allowed you to see that winning move.

At the same time, sometimes luck comes in random coincidences and events. Some of you remember nearly a year ago that I wrote a review for Anne Rice’s The Wolf Gift, then I sent her a letter telling her I enjoyed the book and including a link to the review, should she ever get bored. Well, either Ms. Rice reads a lot of her mail and all reviews she can find or she was bored, because the next Friday she linked my review to her Facebook page, causing my stats to explode. Never expected that to happen, and to think that Ms. Rice read my letter, let alone my review, still amazes me.

Still, I think that those random events and coincidences might be sometimes manipulated by The Big Guy Upstairs. Why do so many people thank God after they’ve won or achieved something so important in their lives? Maybe becuase on some level they realize that a certain Some Being helped them achieve that goal. At least, that’s what it seems to me, and it’s the reason why I thank Him for so many good things that happen in my life.

However luck works, it’s undeniable that it does act in a writer’s life. JK Rowling was lucky that her books were such successes, and Psy was lucky that his video, out of so many, became such a viral hit. In essence, luck is something that gives artists of all types boosts so that they become great. I don’t know if this great luck will ever come to me, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping that it will. But until that luck comes to me, I’ll keep fighting and working so that my success can come that much more easily.

To many, rape is just this: a hand reaching out of inescapable waters, but with no one to grasp it.

Over the past two days, I’ve read about four or five stories online about the Steubensville rape trial (for those of you unfamiliar, two teens from a small town in my state sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl while she was intoxicated and unconscious, urinated on her, and then posted the damning proof of it on Facebook). The two teens who committed the act were found guilty yesterday and sentenced to juvenile detention centers till they were 21. What upset me though, and what has upset many people as well, was not only that the poor girl was sexually assaulted, but the defense attorneys for the case tried to twist the concept of consent out of order by saying that since the girl was intoxicated, she never really said “no”; that there may have been a cover-up by the local high school, whose football team these boys belonged to and which is a source of pride among the local community; that those who witnessed the crime and were responsible for the photos on Facebook were not charged (though that might change pretty quickly, according to the Ohio AG); and that some of the coverage of the trial, which has gained nationwide attention through the Facebook posts, were actually in favor of the two boys charged.

The two rapists in question. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Yes, in favor. ABC News first reported the case not too long ago by saying the boys “took liberty” with the girl, which is definitely a new one if ever I’ve heard one. And yesterday, CNN seemed only able to lament the fact that these boys had promising futures stolen from them, that they could’ve made names for themselves at Ohio State and then in the NFL, that now they have to register as sex offenders, possibly for the rest of their lives. Underneath the spoken words, the silent implication: that the “good boys” weren’t to blame, but the victim for getting drunk and presenting an all-too-appealing oppurtunity for these boys to have a little bit of fun.

The same day, a story broke out about another gang-rape in India, where a camping couple from Switzerland were attacked, beaten, the wife raped, and then robbed. Arrests were made hours afterward (a record for India), but some public officials have blamed the couple for camping in that area. More victim blaming? I guess after the initial outrage of the bus gang-rape, some people still don’t know when to shut their yaps.

As an ardent supporter of women’s rights and of human rights, I’m abhorred, appalled, and disgusted. This victim blaming turns every woman out there who is the object of unwanted sexual advances into sex toys and shames them into being quiet, tells them they should accept what they get or they will be the ones at fault, that they will be scrutinized for their clothes and behavior and will be called sluts forevermore. Meanwhile, men can wear whatever and drink whatever and screw around as much as they want, and they’ll rarely be called a “man-whore”. This double standard mystifies me as much as it makes me ashamed to be a man. Yes, ashamed! I’m ashamed that my sex gets away with so much while the other half of the species is put down and turned into objects so much.

It also makes me think of a novel I plan to write in the future. I first came up with it by thinking to myself, “What’s the worst event that could happen to a singular person and then use whatever happens to them in the story to help them at least begin to heal?” Being so influenced by Law & Order: SVU (for better or for worse), my mind went right to rape. Only the victim can feel that terror and trauma that comes from rape, they often suffer in silence, and when they do come out, they are often at the recieving end of brutal victim-blaming and stigmas and questions about what they experienced that are never about clarifying the events as they happened. It fit what I was looking for to a tee.

At first though, I considered changing what that tragedy would be for this character. I mean, even I have my limits for what I’ll write, and that’s a lot for a horror writer. But I decided to stick with rape, though at the time I wasn’t sure why. But when I see articles in the news about victims of rape being blamed for what happened to them, even just subliminally, I’m reminded of why I kept rape as that character’s tragedy. Just like Reborn City has themes of the evils and lies of Islamaphobia, this novel of mine and this character can be a way to encourage women to come out about their attacks, to show men that rape, under any circumstances, is rape and their own fault, and perhaps a wake-up call for many readers that rape is a problem and our attitude towards it needs a major change.

I’m not sure if I’ll write an actual rape scene when I do end up writing this novel, but I do know that when I do write this novel, I’ll be channeling my rage, my disdain and my disgust for rape and rapists into it. Perhaps some will feel this underlying rage and learn something from it, like rape is never the victim’s fault. Or that the rapist is the only one to blame. Or there are no circumstances where rape is okay.

Savannah Dietrich was raped last year, but spoke out on Twitter and named her rapists when she felt the plea deal they got wasn’t enough. Sadly, she was nearly charged with contempt of court for naming her rapists.

And perhaps then, the world will change for the better. Because you know what? I shouldn’t have to be writing about this! I shouldn’t have to be telling people on my blog that I find rape and the double standards surrounding it disgusting, or that I plan to channel my rage over this insanity into a novel! I shouldn’t have to check my email and then see that another girl was raped, or that someone in an important position insinuated that the victim had no one to blame but herself. I shouldn’t have to, and neither should anyone!

But we live in the sort of world where all this happens on an all-too regular basis. And you know what? I’m not going to stop raging about it until it does stop, until change does happen, until that novel’s heroine is able to break free of her chains and start the move towards healing. Because I know the world should not be in this state, and I see a moral and an ethical duty to try and make it better. If what I write here does end up helping someone, then that’s great. In the meantime though, I have a lot of work to do, and I’m getting started right now.

For the victims who are blamed. For those who live in fear. And for those I can help before it’s too late, and this dark culture gets them into the wrong mindset.

What about you?

A Dark Milestone: 666 Comments

Posted: March 17, 2013 in Living and Life
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I am a horror author. I write on anything that’ll scare people: serial killers, ghosts, science gone awry, the darker sections of our minds, racism, hate, darkness, demons. You name it, I’ve probably written about it, and if I haven’t I probably will.

I also don’t believe in Satan as an adversary of God, seeing as traditional Judaism does not have Satan in that sort of capacity. Still, I admire Satan the character and I’m fascinated by him, which is why for me getting six-hundred and sixty-six comments is a big thing for me. It’s something, as a writer of all things evil and scary, I have to commemorate.

I’m sorry if this post offends any readers who are Christian and believe in Satan as the Devil and 666 as his number. I mean no offense, I’m just stating that I reached something that for me is cause for celebration. I respect your religious beliefs and I hope we can see past this in the future.

Thanks to my Uncle Joel, who’s comment on a previous post made it possible to get this far (so if you have anyone to blame, he has a good chunk of it). You may not have the most comments on my blog Uncle Joel, but you certainly make some meaningful ones.

Have a demon-free evening everybody.

I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of new followers over the past month or so, and especially during these past two weeks. So with that in mind, I’d thought I’d extend a welcome to my new followers and thank them for deciding to follow me and read my blog. And to my returning followers, welcome back and thanks for continuing to read my blog.

Also, I wanted to clarify some things for the newest readers. Occasionally on this blog, you’ll see words and phrases such as The Quiet Game, Reborn City, or Snake. These are my works-in-progress that I’ll be self-publishing hopefully within the next year or so. Each is very different from the other, and are at different stages of getting ready for publishing. I’d like to take this oppurtunity to tell you all about each of them and to let those who are already familiar with the works in question how progress is coming along.

So without further ado, here’s a look at my WIPs:

The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones

TQG cover

This is a collection of short stories I’ll be putting out soon. I wrote these short stories over winter break and the beginning of spring semester, and it’s almost ready for publication. I’m just waiting for the US Copyright Office to get me my copyright and then I’ll be ready to upload this onto the Internet. Since the Copyright Office takes about two and a half months though, we’ve still got a bit of a wait to go before it comes out. So please be patient, and in the meantime you can read the description for the book on the page “Books by Rami Ungar” or watch the trailer below:

Reborn City

This is a science fiction novel about street gangs in a post-apocalyptic future I wrote in high school and that’s being reviewed by a beta reader before I prepare it for publication. The beta reader, Matt Williams, also happens to be a published writer and blogger, so you should seriously check out his blog here: http://storiesbywilliams.com/. Currently Matt’s halfway through the novel or thereabouts, and since he finished his latest novel Pappa Zulu, he’s been able to get the chapters back to me that much faster. I can’t wait to see what results from our collaboration.

Snake

This is a thriller novel I wrote over six months from June to December 2012 and follows a serial killer in New York who is hunting members of a powerful mafia family, his reasons for doing so clouded in mystery and in murder (how’s that for a description). I recently finished the second draft and have sent off the first four chapters to a beta reader I trust. Hopefully she’ll be able to let me know what she thinks very quickly. In the meantime, there are a few excerpts of Snake on this blog, so if you get bored you can probably go looking for them and find them.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. I hope this piqued your interest in some of my work. Once again, thanks for reading and agreeing to follow my blog. It really means a lot to me. Have a nice day, and I’ll post again soon.

Rami

I met with my dad the other day for dinner at a restaurant near campus. It was the middle of spring break, so the place wasn’t very crowded and my dad and I got our meals very quickly after we ordered. At some point during the meal, my dad asked me about my job prospects after I graduated, which is still about two years away, and if I’m not already at least making a living off my writing. I’d already told him in previous conversations that there’s always a chance that I might be possibly be hired by the financial aid office, where I work, after I graduate, and if that didn’t happen, there’s a program that helps graduates finds jobs in Columbus through the school’s Jewish organization, OSU Hillel. I even added that English majors, which is one of my majors, are getting hired in record numbers lately.

Of course, my dad was still worried about my job prospects. This is understandable for several reasons: first, my dad’s a parent. Worrying about me is his job, and he probably won’t be cooling off on the worrying anytime until I’m safely secured into a position that pays enough to at least cover my basic expenses (rent, food, bills, etc). Also, my dad associates my English major and my History major with either teaching or scholarly work or writing (at least for English), and since the first two are not my aim and the third doesn’t always garauntee a successful career, he fears I’m going to live in his basement for the rest of my life. There are a few other reasons, but I’m not going to go into those here.

Besides, I’m writing this post because I want to assuage my dad’s worries at least a little bit, not point out why he worries about me (I’ll save that for a comedy act one of these days). So, I’ll write some reasons why, even if God doesn’t see fit to make me a writing success before graduation, I actually have some good job prospects, even if I don’t take classes that look good on a resume, whatever that means. I’ll skip over the one about my current workplace hiring me as a full-time employee after graduation though; that’s still two years off and there’s no garauntee that they’ll hire me, though they love me and my humor and the head of the office keeps saying she’ll have to get my autograph before I’m famous.

So without further ado, here are some reasons why my job prospects are actually pretty good right now:

1. Graduation is still two years off. That’s still plenty of time to write, take classes, earn money, make friends and contacts, and possibly write something that gets a lot of sales on Amazon and Smashwords. Besides, the job market can change rapidly over time, so what can be considered a job-winning major may not be the case a few years down the road and vice-versa (I will return to this point later on).

2. OSU Hillel is helping graduates. The program at OSU Hillel, Growing Jewish Columbus, apparently has had a great success rate in getting grads of all majors hired after college. I’ve already contacted the woman in charge of the program and a friend of mine, and she said I should contact her again in the fall, when I’m in that two-year stretch to graduation. Still, with her track record, there’s some reason to have faith, isn’t there.

3. My majors are assets, not liabilities. Back when my parents were in college, unless you planned to teach or you were so incredible a writer that publishers were banging down your doors, majors like English were the kiss of death. However, with the advent of the Digital Revolution, the market has shifted in ways that most people at the time could not imagine. In fact, English majors are getting hired at rates not seen in years, and for jobs not necessarily associated for English. In fact, a report I read in May last year said that Nationwide Insurance has hired English majors to work on PR and Communications. Apparently English majors are very good for writing online pieces about the companies that employ them.

Also, my History major has a hidden benefit: research skills! Historians are not just fat old men sitting in libraries looking over tomes, we’re actually more like investigators, trying to piece history together with the facts and the evidence before us. Plenty of my history professors have gone abroad or have spent extensive hours in libraries tracking down one piece of information, the elusive diary, the one date. Plenty of jobs need research and investigative skills,  so what’s better than a history major?

4. Some jobs don’t care what your major was! In fact, plenty of jobs at my university, they hire you irregardless of what you majored in during your undergrad years. At the financial aid office, I was told when I was hired that no one wakes up hoping to be a financial aid administrator. And several people in the office had majors unrelated to finance. There’s a guy who graduated not too long ago and is working while attending grad school part time. His major was Sports Education!

This not only applies to the financial aid office, but it applies to all sorts of different jobs. Administration, clerical work, heck library work, they don’t necessary need to have corresponding majors. With that in mind, a lot of possibilities do open up. Plus I have backgrounds in working in administrative and clerical positions and I’ve done some work in libraries, so I might actually be better off than some of my peers.

Of course, there’s always a chance that I may be wrong and I just might not be listening because my parents are the ones imparting advice.

So what are your thoughts? I’d love to hear them. I think the reasons listed above might actually help me, but I’d appreciate your opinions if that’s not too much to ask for. What’s your take? And would any of you be interested in hiring me?

10,000 Views!!!!

Posted: March 15, 2013 in Living and Life
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At some point this morning, I surpassed the ten-thousand view mark on Rami Ungar the Writer, which is actually a little sad because I’d been watching for this milestone all week only to sleep through it when it actually happens!

But to tell you the truth, I’m actually very happy. I can still clearly remember the days when for days or even weeks at a stretch nobody would read my blog, only for one or two views on an odd day to appear. Let me tell you, the fact that I can count on at least a couple of views each day, and upwards of ten every time I post, is a huge improvement for me. I’ve also made some very good friends through the blogosphere, whom I can always count on for support and interesting discussions. Heck, one of my friends I’ve met through blogging is helping me edit my science fiction novel Reborn City. If that’s not trust and friendship, I need to go back to kindergarten for a few lessons.

I’d like to thank everyone who’s been following my blog/liking posts/commenting with their thoughts up to this point. When I thought my blog was a stupid idea because nobody was reading it, the lone view or odd like was enough to keep me going and to keep me posting. I’ve gained followers and a few friends, and now I’m able to reach this wondrous milestone. I hope some of you may even download and read my books when they come out.

So thanks everyone, for being such a support network for me. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me.

I found this video thanks to Facebook, and I had to share it with you. Basically, His Scary Highness Stephen King met up with Stephen Colbert back in 2009 and they sat down for a rather funny–and at certain points creepy–conversation. Throughout the video there are homages and references to King’s novels and the movies based on his novels (good or bad).

Unfortunately, I can’t embed the video for some reason, but if you follow the link, you should be fine. Make sure to watch King’s expression in the hallway when he’s wearing matching sweaters with Colbert. If you didn’t know who he was, you’d think he’s just a grumpy, silver-haired man. But when you know his reputation…then the true terror sets in. Rawr!

TQG cover

I’m very happy to announce that in only two hours, I managed to complete the trailer for The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. I would like to thank the staff of Ohio State’s Digital Union for answering all my questions on iMovie and for helping me gather the photos and clips I needed.

The video was created using iMovie, and featured clips from YouTube videos, Google Images, and my own book cover. It features music I scrounged up on the Internet, and the sound effects were from iMovie’s sound effects database. I’m very proud of this video, particularly because a year ago I could not imagine myself making this sort of video. Thankfully I learned how to use all sorts of programs last semester, so now I feel a little less helpless using such programs.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce the official book trailer to The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. Feel free to share it on Facebook or on your own blog or wherever you would like to share it.

The Quiet Game will be coming out soon and will be available for $1.29 when it does. Please wait until then for it. Thanks for watching.