Archive for the ‘Progress Report’ Category

The Quiet Game: The Last Short Story Has Been Returned

Posted: February 26, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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TQG cover

Today my beta reader for one of the short stories gave me his feedback on “Samson Weiss’s Curse”, the dybbuk story that’ll be featured in The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. At this time, that means I can draw the illustrations that’ll be going into the story and assemble it into it’s final format, which I’ll submit to the US Copyright Office before uploading onto the Internet.

I would like to thank all my beta readers–my creative writing class, Jason Alan, Marc Neiwirth, Enjie Hall, and my mother Wendy Warren Ungar, for taking time out of their busy schedules to read my work and give me feedback and criticisms. Your contributions are immeasurable and I hope to someday repay the favor.

Although that doesn’t mean I’ll be supporting you in old age, Mom. You’ve already got a wonderful person at your side for that!

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

Posted: February 21, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I was tagged by Lorna Dounaeva (http://lornadounaeva.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/the-next-big-thing-blog-hop/) for this post, which is similar to the award memes that make the rounds of the Internet. The Next Big Thing Blog Hop is a chance for us to talk about our works-in-progress, or WIP, and we have to follow certain steps to fulfill it. First, I have to tag the person who tagged me (thanks, Lorna!). Then I have to introduce and explain The Next Big Thing Blog Hop to those reading the post (check!). Then I have to answer ten questions about my WIP, and include pictures if possible. After the questions are done, I must tag five other writers with WIPs, and then let them know through emails or comments.

I’ll get to that, but first the questions, which will be focusing on The Quiet Game:

1. What is the title of the book you are working on? The title is The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones.

TQG cover

2. Where did the idea come from for the book? I think it started when I realized that editing my sci-fi novel RC was taking longer than I thought and that I’d probably finish my thriller novel Snake around the beginning of winter break. I’d played with the idea of working on a collection of short stories after Snake was done, but by the time winter break arrived, I thought it’d be a good thing to do, especially with my plans to self-publish. So as soon as I’d finished Snake, I got to work on it.

3. What genre does your book fall under? Horror, definitely horror. To be more specific, four of the short stories feature supernatural horror, while the fifth features psychological horror.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Well, it’s a collection of short stories, so that’d be five movies if I were extremely lucky. The only actor I can think of though, would be Taissa Farmiga from American Horror Story, who would play Traci from the titular short story, The Quiet Game. Although she doesn’t look very much like my conception of the character, she’d definitely define and bring the role to life, and that’s what I’m looking for.

Taissa Farmiga, everybody.

5. What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book? Be prepared to enter the darkest corners of your mind in…The Quiet Game.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I’m doing the self-publishing thing. It’s the way of the future, and I’ve tried the traditional route to publishing novels and collections. Although it’s still prestigious,the traditional route is still very difficult to do and from the way some of the bigger companies in New York have been merging and acting, they know it won’t last forever. Besides, I want to get my work to my readers sooner rather than later.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manusript? Probably a month or so, though one of the short stories did need to be rewritten at some point, so that’s another couple of days there. Each story took different lengths of time to work on, so it was an uneven work schedule. Still, it was very much worth it.

8. What other books would you compare this story to in your genre? I don’t know; it’s so hard to compare one collection of short stories to another. In fact, I’d say it’s almost impossible, though my Mom did compare one of my short stories to Stephen King’s It, which I thought was a huge compliment.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book? I got inspiration from anywhere. The Quiet Game came from a comment-conversation on a friend’s blog; Addict came from the experiences of a friend of mine. If I tried to go back and figure out the origin of each story, I’d have interesting stories to tell right there!

10. What else about yoru book might pique reader’s interest? I think that it’s by a new author and that each story is different, scary, and unique might draw some in. That’s the hope, anyway.

And now, onto the tagged people:

1. Matt Williams (http://storiesbywilliams.com/)

2. Angela (http://aportiaadamsadventure.wordpress.com/?ref=spelling)

3. Cristian Mihai (http://cristianmihai.net/)

4. Pat Bertram (http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/)

5. Jason Alan (http://jasonalanwriter.wordpress.com/)

Congratulations to the tagged winners, and I can’t wait to read what you’re in the process of creating.

“The Quiet Game”: The Cover

Posted: February 20, 2013 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I took some time out of my day today to create the cover for my upcoming collection of short stories, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. I used a photo I’d taken over the weekend and used PhotoShop to add the title and the writing in the sky that’s in the titular short story. The result is what you see below:

TQG cover

The photo is of Orton Hall, one of the oldest buildings on campus, with a snowy night background. With the lettering in the back, I feel it makes for a very scary cover that gives me the effect I’m looking for.

The best part though, is that I did it all by myself, with only a little bit of help from the people who run the computer lab at the Science and Engineering Lab at school, and I did it in barely half an hour, if even that much! I feel so proud of myself for being able to use a program that before I had so much trouble using. Now I can add this to the Facebook page and put it on the “Books by Rami Ungar” page to show the world.

Thanks for supporting me so far. I hope to have the book out by mid-April, when the semester ends. I hope you’re looking forward to reading it, almost as much as I am looking forward to publishing it.

Snake: Adding in the Russian

Posted: February 16, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything about my serial killer novel Snake, but I’m happy to announce I finally got around to doing something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now: add in the Russian.

For those of you who weren’t around during the six months from June-December 2012, Snake follows the Snake, a serial killer that goes after members of a Mafia family for reasons mentioned only in the novel (and not on this blog; that’d give away the whole darn plot). The Snake also speaks Russian, a language I have no heads or tails for, comrades. So I asked a friend of mine I know through OSU’s organization for Jewish students, OSU Hillel, to help me because he’s a native Russian speaker.

Yesterday, my friend sent me some translations and transliterations of the English phrases I sent him, showing me what the phrases I’d written in English looked like in Russian with English characters. I inserted them into the story, and now I don’t have to do anything till I actually start the second draft of Snake next month. I’ll probably add some more Russian in then, but until then, I don’t think I’ll bother my friend.

In hte meantime, I have to go out for a few minutes and take a photo that I’ll use and modify to create the cover for my upcoming collection of short stories, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. Sure it’s cold and it’s late, but this photo needs to be taken at night, I only just got done with everything else, and I have an hour until SNL, so I’m good. Time to take some photos.

Do svidanya until I write next. Have a good night.

Enigma: Retitled & Almost Ready

Posted: February 13, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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I got feedback for one of my short stories, “Enigma”, the one about the autistic boy. My bera-reader, a woman who’s worked with people with disabilities for years, told me she really enjoyed the story, especially since certain parts scared her and she couldn’t figure out what would happen next or whether the wolf spirit in the story was a hallucination or an actual spirit. I don’t give any hints on that subject, though I usually tend towards supernatural.

My beta-reader also didn’t care for the name change I gave “Engima”, but I feel that the new title works more for the rewrite I gave this story. That being said, the new title is “In The Lady Ogre’s Den”, based on something the main character notices while in the hospital. I think the title’s a good one, and I hope to keep it.

I’ll probably edit this story one more time, but after that I’ll move it to the folder on my flash drive where I keep the finished short stories for The Quiet Game. I’m very excited; after this story, I’ll have only two more stories to hear back from beta-readers about, and then I’ll be ready to put The Quiet Game out. Let’s hope I hear back soon.

Oh, as for that promotional short story I mentioned the other day, I still have to find time to send it to the Copyright Office, but I will as soon as I’m done with my homework. Just bear with me, okay? I’ll have it out soon.

“Three Life-Saving Phone Calls” Finished

Posted: February 12, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report, short story, Writing
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While watching the State of the Union address (love you, Mr. President!), I worked on my latest short story, “Three Life-Saving Phone Calls”, a short story about a teenager trying to commit an elaborate suicide. The idea for the story came to me in one of my creative writing classes (apparently lots of people get great ideas for stories while around my teacher, or so I hear), and it was based on a really dark period of my life, when I actually did want to commit suicide when I thought that nobody loved me and I was all alone.

The story’s a little longer than five-thousand words, but I plan to see if I can slim it down a little during the editing stage. I also want to see if I can get this short story to win OSU’s English Department’s creative writing award for short stories. I won’t get that big a prize–only $250–but it’d be something to put on my resume and it’d be a prestigious award to have. Since the due date for submissions is in 10 days though, I need to edit quickly…after I edit my second short story for class.

Let’s hope I can handle it all and do well!

I’ll let you know how well things go. Wish me luck and hope for the best, okay? Thanks!

Getting A Promotional Work Ready

Posted: February 10, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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As many of you know, I’m preparing to release a collection of short stories known as The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones (you can find the link for the Facebook page below). As I’m getting ready though, I want to also release some other stuff, drum up a little excitement. Which is why I’m hopefully going to be releasing a promotional short story later this week, so that until The Quiet Game comes out, you’ll have something to at least get an idea of what my writing is like (especially if you’ve never read any of my work before).

I won’t say much about the short story in particular, except that I will tell you I wrote it in high school and have given it several edits over the years. However, as my high school English teacher Mr. Guinan said, “There comes a time when a story is done. Not perfect, but done. When you can’t do anything else to it, when you can’t polish it or improve it anymore. It’s just done.” And this story is definitely done.

So tomorrow I’ll see about creating a cover that matches the story, turn the whole darn thing into a PDF file, and when I have the copyright, I’ll upload it onto Amazon and onto Smashwords (the latter makes it available on Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and a bunch of other sites). Now, the copyright is still going to cost money, so I’m on the fence on whether or not to charge for downloads (and if so, how much). So if you have an opinion either way, please let me know. As always, I value your opinions.

I hope to have more on this short story soon. I also plan to create a page called “Other Work by Rami Ungar”, but I’ll get to that when the time comes.

And once again, thanks for reading and thanks for supporting me. I really appreciate it.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheQuietGameFiveTalesToChillYourBones

Update on “The Quiet Game”: Another Short Story Is Ready

Posted: February 4, 2013 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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The next short story in my upcoming collection of short stories, “I’m Going To Be The Next James Bond”, is finally ready for publication. This was the fourth short story I wrote over vacation, and it’s one that gave me a bit of trouble writing. Nevertheless I got it done and boy, do I like how it turned out. It’s weird, it’s creepy, it’s a little spooky. Hopefully readers will like it too.

I didn’t have to change much for the final draft. My beta reader for this short story, my mother Rabbi Wendy Ungar (yes it’s my mother, but she gives pretty solid advice, not just praise), told me to add in some creepy elements in order to better the story near the end, and that’s what I did. Now there’s a gross undertone with one of the characters, something that might make you a little afraid of that character too. Thanks Ima for the advice and for using Stephen King stories for it too.

I need three more stories in order to publish “The Quiet Game”. Hopefully my beta readers for those stories will also get back to me soon. In the meantime, I’ll keep you updated on the progress of everything as it coalesces. For the Facebook page for “The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones”, click here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheQuietGameFiveTalesToChillYourBones

“Enigma” Is Rewritten

Posted: February 3, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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And I think I’ve thought of a new title for it: “In The Lady Ogre’s Den”. Why I call it that, I can’t tell you. You’ll have to read the story to find out.

I like how this new version of the story turned out. Sure the ending might need a tweak or two, but I think this version is much better. Hopefully I can make it even better on the second draft. I’ll know once I start editing.

Unfortunately I had to take out the Navajo elements from the story. The black wolf character identifies itself as a death wolf, but that’s as close as it gets to the original Navajo themes. Also, I expanded the role of the main character Jason’s father, mostly because I thought that for this version his role needed to be expanded a little.

Anyway, I hope to have this particular short story edited and finished soon. Until then, I’ll just keep writing. I’ve got plenty of ideas, and they’re just screaming to be implemented and turned into short stories.

Hope for updates soon, so I’ll let you know.

I Love Getting New Ideas To Modify My Bad Stories

Posted: January 30, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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I often have ideas for short stories that start out promising but after I write them I look at them and I go, “How did I come up with this crap?” So I store the story away on my flash drive until I can come up with a way to make it better. Sometimes this takes days or weeks. Most of the time it only takes a few months, though I have one that’s been waiting for an idea for four years.

Remember the story I wrote over winter vacation about a possesion gone wrong? I had an idea that’ll basically mean total rewrite, but it’s a better story than it used to be. Perhaps I’ll be able to submit it afgter all!

Of course, this’ll have to wait until after I finish rewriting “Enigma”, which means there’s going to be a longer wait for the new stories I want to write. Virtual sigh, a writer’s work is never done, is it?

Well, I better get to work. Have a good night.

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