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Now I’m On Twitter

Posted: January 11, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
Tags: blogging, college life, publishing, scary stuff, short story, social media, The Quiet Game, writing

If the me of a year ago knew what I was doing these days, he may have a heart attack. Or possibly slap his future self. Or some combination of that.

Yes I, Rami Ungar, resistant to new technology and social media crazes, have gotten a Twitter. Why? For the same reason I got a Facebook: to spread my writing to those who may not be on this blog but may be on other social media websites. This twitter account of mine, @RamiUngartheWriter, will focus exclusively on my writing. Already I’ve published a couple of tweets advertising my upcoming collection The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. I’m very excited and I hope I gain a followship soon. You’re welcome to follow me if you like. Just know this: I’ve got a scary picture as my profile pic and it may cause some nightmares.

And no, it’s not of my face. Much scarier than that.

Also, I don’t know if any of my blog followers got a notification (do they send notifications for pages?), but I set up a new page that lists my upcoming books. Which means of course at this point only The Quiet Game is on that list, without even a picture, but I plan to rectify that soon. Check it out if you like, and have a great weekend.

The Sunshine Blogger Award

Posted: January 9, 2013 in Living and Life
Tags: blogging

I’m happy.

Wouldn’t you know it? I got nominated for another one of these meme blog things, and this time it’s the Sunshine Blogger Award, the award for those who use their blog to positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere. Thanks to my friend Matt Williams (http://storiesbywilliams.com/2013/01/08/sunshine-blogger-award/) for the nomination; it means so much to me.

So as part of getting nominated for this award, I have to answer some questions. Here they are:

1. What is your passion: Oh, that’s an easy one. Writing stuff that scares people. If I get people scared from something I created, I consider it an accomplishment. In fact, this past Thanksgiving my grandmother told me she’d become very scared reading a science fiction short story I’d written. I was high on that for about three hours afterwards.

2. Favorite time of year: Summer. I’ll take sunscreen and sweat any day over freezing winds and snow. Besides, some of my best memories are associated with the summer.

3. Favorite book: That’s a tough one. I read so much I hardly have time to settle on one. I guess Alice in Wonderland, an influential storybook that hides underneath its whimsical nature a dark world of hallucinations, violence, and possible sexual deviancy on the part of Lewis Carrol. Besides, so many books and mangas I like are based on Alice, it’s hard not to like it.

4. Favorite movie: Another tough one. I’m going to have to say Schindler’s List, not only because it’s such an amazing film, but it inspired the book series I plan to write someday that’ll be my personal magnum opus.

5. Favorite animal: I love all animals, but I’m especially a cat person. I’ve grown up with cats and I feel most comfortable with them. My favorite type of cat is a tiger; I know they want to eat my face off, but I can’t help but want to hug them.

6. Favorite time of day: Late afternoon, early evening. Things are winding down, you can enjoy a good meal with friends and family, and afterwards you can watch the latest episode of your favorite crime or drama series.

7. Favorite flower: Roses. They’re romantic and filled with secret meanings.

8. Favorite nonalcoholic beverage: Diet Dr. Pepper, and I can’t drink yet.

9. Favorite physical activity: A nice relaxing walk on a warm day. Makes winter especially difficult.

10. Favorite vacation: When was the last time I went on vacation? I can’t remember, it was so long ago! But if I could go anywhere for my vacation, I’d probably visit either Germany, Japan, or Israel. Germany because I’m interested in the European theater of WWII, Japan because I’m a huge fan of the culture and of manga/anime, and Israel because I’m an Israel-loving, Zionistic Jew who feels connected to my roots.

Well, I’ve answered all these questions. Time for the nominations:

You! Yes, I’m nominating you, dear reader. Every time someone reads, comments, and/or likes something on my blog, it brings a bit of happiness to my day. So you are the nominee. Congratulations, and have a most wonderful day!

Taking Risks According to Anne Rice

Posted: January 6, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
Tags: proper decisions, publishing, writing

Ever since I decided to skip the traditional publishing route and go into self-publishing, I’ve had people in my head and people I’ve known for years telling me that it’s a big risk, especially since depending on how I do it I could end up spending a lot of money and not get a lot out of it. Sometimes these voices do worry me.

But I stay optimistic, I stay strong, and I plug ahead without hesitation or fear. And I think things will work out for me. Sometimes you just got to take risks and say “F**k it, I’m going to do it.” Which is definitely my intention.

And if you don’t believe me, believe Anne Rice. She’s taken her own shares of risks in her lifetime, and she’s willing to talk about them.

Getting Ready For A New Workshop

Posted: January 6, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report, short story, Writing
Tags: college life, editing, Ohio State University, publishing, short story, writing

I signed up for another creative writing course this semester, though this one you have to apply and submit a portfolio to get in. The teacher was worried that I’d be unable to do well in the class because the focus of the class is literary fiction and genre fiction, which I prefer. But hey, some of my ideas straddle the border between literary and genre, so I might just survive.

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the first class. I volunteered to write a short story and submit it to the class to be workshopped on the first day. The short story I’m submitting is “Addict”, one of the short stories I wrote during winter vacation. “Addict”, for those of you who don’t know, is based on some of the experiences of a friend of mine who was addicted to sex and pornography, and I plan on adding it to a collection of short stories I hope to put out by the end of the semester.

“Addict” is literary enough that I can submit it to the class and have them take a look over it. Just earlier today, I decided to take one more look at it before I submit it. I’m hoping they like this story; I wrote it out in a day, and it’s rare for me to be able to write any short story that quickly with that sort of flow. Whether they like it or not, I think it has potential, but I’m glad I’m having somebody look at it beforehand, because then I get an unbiased opinion.

I’ll let you know what the class thinks when I’m done with the workshop. Hopefully I won’t have to do too much editing, though that’s usually easier than the writing. At least I’ll get the workshop out of the way rather quickly, and on the plus side, I’ll be able to set the tone of the class for a bit with this short story.

All for now. Blog on you later.

2012 in Review

Posted: December 31, 2012 in Living and Life
Tags: blogging, college life, publishing, writing

Awfully big, isn’t it?

Like a lot of people, I got my report from WordPress on how I did this past year. Let’s just say I got a lot of views, and a lot of comments. My highest grossing article was–you guessed it–my review of The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice, which got 580 views on July 6th, 2012. My highest commenter was my friend Matt Williams with 57 comments, followed by my Uncle Joel with 28 comments. Of the 99 countries that had people visiting my blog, most of my views came from the United States, with Canada and England close behind. And my biggest referrer was Facebook, specifically Anne Rice’s Facebook (I’ll be forever grateful to her for that little bit of recognition).

But besides blogging, I did a bunch of other stuff; I finished my first year of college and finished my first semester of college (OSU just switched to semesters, in case you didn’t know); decided to self-publish; had two short stories published, with a third in June; wrote a ton; finished a novel in six months; and a whole bunch of other things.

I’m hoping for some good stuff next year as well. I hope to publish a collection or novel soon; possibly be Freshly Pressed; more comments and followers; and some other stuff I’m not going to list here.

Thanks for a great year, and I hope to update you with a whole bunch of other great stuff soon.

Happy New Year,

Rami Ungar the Writer

500 Comments!

Posted: December 27, 2012 in Living and Life
Tags: blogging

Two milestones in one day! Talk about a milestone!

Anyway, I’ve reached 500 comments, which I’m so happy about. More than likes, comments are a great way to interact with readers and bloggers, and they’re also a form of love on the Internet, at least for me they are. I’m so happy that I’ve also reached this milestone today, and I would like to thank science fiction writer, fellow blogger and good friend Matt Williams (http://storiesbywilliams.com/) for getting me to this milestone with the three comments he made today on my blog. Thanks Matt!

And once again, I’d like to thank everyone who’s ever commented, liked, deigned to follow, or just simply read Rami Ungar the Writer. You’re all there for me, supporting me as I try to make it in the world of fiction writing, and your support means so much to me. Thank you.

1000 Likes

Posted: December 27, 2012 in Living and Life
Tags: blogging

Today was not only my best day for likes on Rami Ungar the Writer, I also surpassed the 1000 Likes mark. Holy crap! I did not think I would ever get this far back when I first started, and just getting a view on my blog was something to be proud of.

Thanks to everyone who’s liked, commented, or read something they enjoyed on this blog. I hope you’ll continue to stay with me and cheer me on as I try and become a professional novelist of horror/science fiction/fantasy stories.

Is Someone Actually Searching For the Snake?

Posted: December 27, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Writing
Tags: blogging, novel, Snake, writing

Remember when I said in my last post that it was possible someone was searching for articles about the Snake? Well, something interesting just happened: I went to my Stats page, and I find someone was referred to my blog after putting in the search terms “Camerlengo Mafia”. I was shocked, because Camerlengo–meaning “chamerlain” in Italian–is the name of the mafia family whose members the Snake stalks and attacks. Now, beyond this blog, I haven’t really discussed the Snake in great detail to anyone beyond that he’s a serial killer who hunts the mafia. I haven’t shown anyone the first draft, and I only told the psychologist the name of the mafia family when I gave him the Snake’s history in order to form a diagnosis (which, by the way, turned out that the Snake doesn’t fit a single diagnosis).

I wondered if this was some sort of strange coincidence, so I went to Google and typed in “camerlengo mafia” myself. To my surprise, the only other articles beside mine were Wikipedia articles about various mafioso and cardinals, and a few Italian dictionaries that involved words like “mafia” and “camerlengo” appearing in the same section. So someone’s been searching for the Camerlengo Family, possibly to see if there’s an actual family by that name (and if there is, they don’t have a website), and lately I’ve been getting a lot of hits from Russia that coincide on days when either Snake articles are being read and the search terms either involve the word “snake” or the Cyrillic word for snake. I’m no detective, but I’m starting to wonder if this is somehow all connected.

If it is, I find it a little flattering that someone’s looking for the Snake so much. Hopefully I ‘ll get the novel out soon, but I don’t plan to start editing for a little while yet. Be patient though; I’ll have something out soon, God willing, and perhaps it’ll feature a serial killer who speaks Russian and uses Russian torture techniques.

Oh, and if there is someone who is searching for the Snake, and that person stumbles across this blog post, thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment. Just make sure it’s in English when you comment, because I’m not sure if a comment in Cyrillic will be translated or sorted as spam.

The Things Most Often Looked At On My Blog

Posted: December 27, 2012 in Living and Life
Tags: blogging, scary stuff, Snake, writing

I’ve been writing this blog for about a year and a half, give or take a few weeks, and I’ve had plenty of people on my blog, especially after Anne Rice linked my review of The Wolf Gift to her Facebook. However since this summer I’ve noticed some trends on my Stats page that I have to share with you guys, just because they are searched often and because I think it’s interesting that so many people (or perhaps the same people) keep returning to these particular blog posts.

The first is that a lot of people are searching for “old dolls”, “evil dolls”, “creepy dolls”, “dolls with souls”, and other variations of those search terms. Now, this past summer I did write a short story that involved a living doll. Granted, it was a piece of crap compared to some of my other work, and I don’t think I’ll be taking another look at it any time soon. However I wrote a couple of blog posts about it, each with a photo of some spooky or scary-looking doll on it. I can’t tell for certain how many times people have done these searches, but I do think that it’s at least once a week. So are people trying to get their hands on these cursed dolls? Are people just researching them? Or is there a doll out there that’s very good at hunt-and-peck and is trying to find out more about itself? If it’s that last one, I’m sorry if you were offended by those scary pictures. I did not mean to characterize you as a monster, I was just giving my readers what they want.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that someone or someones from Russia are looking at some of the old articles for my serial killer novel Snake a lot. Every time I see that an old Snake article has been looked at, I’d say there’s a possibly fifty-fifty chance that Russia is a bright orange on my Stats page. In addition, I often see search terms like “snake basilisk outline” or “how to snake outline”, and even more interesting, I’ve been seeing search terms in Cyrillic lately, always the same four letters. I ran them through an online Russian dictionary, and I got the definitions “snake, serprent”. This morning in fact, three people from Russia have been viewing my blog, two search terms in Cyrillic were used that contained the word for snake, and there was even a search term that said “snake part iii done”, one of the posts that had been viewed this morning. I think this may have something to do with the fact that the Snake speaks Russian and uses old torture techniques associated with the Russian mob. Perhaps someone in Russia is trying to find out more about the Snake and is getting interested in the novel. Or perhaps someone in the Russian mob is mad I’m using some of their old history for my own use.

God, I hope it’s the first one. I’d rather not end up in the Ohio River or somewhere with a bullet in my head and concrete on my feet.

What’s the most searched for things on your blogs? And what do you think it signifies?

Rami Ungar The Writer

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