Archive for the ‘Reflections’ Category

My 4th Blogging Anniversary

Posted: August 2, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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Happy Birthday to the blog,
Happy Birthday to the blog.
Happy Birthday Rami Ungar the Writer
Happy Birthday to the blog.

Well, it’s a big day for me and for this blog, folks. Four years ago, at a library in Columbus, Ohio, 18 year old me logged onto WordPress for the first time and wrote a very bare blog post explaining who I was and why I was starting a blog (while also making a distinction between myself and the Rami Ungar in Israel who apparently is some big shipping magnate). I had absolutely no idea what I was doing at the time, because I’d thought blogging would be easy and that I didn’t need to watch the tutorials. I also thought that I’d have five hundred loyal and excited followers by the first anniversary and that they would be hanging on my every word.

Boy, did reality hit fast. I did learn eventually about blogging, and that doing it well is an ongoing process. I also did not get that many followers in that first year. Maybe 60. And I didn’t get that many views in the first year, either. Or for part of the second year. But I kept at it, kept blogging. People somehow found their way here and decided, for whatever reason, to subscribe and like and occasionally comment. And here we are four years later, with me in Germany, and you guys coming from the United States, Canada, England, Austria, and so many other places. It’s just humbling, so thank you all for being here.

You know, when I started this blog, I did it for a simple, slightly selfish reason: I wanted a ready readership for when I published my stories. Yeah, that’s it. I’ve known since I was a kid I wanted to be an author and to have people reading my books, so I wanted to make sure that when it happened I had a lot of people who would be willing to read my books when they came out or buy a copy of a magazine when I got something published there.

Well, like every journey, I’ve found something much different. I mean, some of you do read my books and short stories when they are published, and I’m sincerely grateful for that, really. But I’ve found much more. I’ve found wonderful friends, some of whom have helped me in so many ways in making sure that my stories are as good as they should be. Without blogging, I would never have discovered Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, which has been a great boost for my career and for my following. I started a new blog, From the Voice of Common Sense, which has been pretty fun to write and has had some interesting results.

And I’m sure more great things are to come. I’m hoping that this next year I’ll reach a thousand followers, and I’m pretty sure before that happens I’ll reach twenty-five hundred comments.  Depending on how many people read my posts, I could get somewhere between thirty-five and forty-thousand views, and at some point I’ll get five-thousand likes.

More importantly, I’ll probably make some more great friends, and maybe meet some of them offline (it could happen). I might publish a book or two, and I’ll certainly get a few short stories out, starting with “Tigress Lizzy” in the anthology coming out this October. And as for life…I don’t know. I’m hoping I find permanent employment after this internship with the US Army Civilian Corps is over. If that doesn’t happen, I have other options that I’m seriously considering. We’ll see what happens.

Thanks for celebrating with me, everyone. It means a lot to me.

Thanks for celebrating with me, everyone. It means a lot to me.

In the meantime, thanks for sticking with me through these four years, everyone. I hope we have a wonderful and somewhat scary time in the next year, as I work hard on becoming a successful horror novelist who might someday be able to take up writing full-time (I can dream).

You know, when I get to the fifth anniversary, I’m going to have to do something special. An autographed book giveaway? A big sale? Maybe name a character after someone I know? We’ll have to see.

That’s all for now. You have a wonderful rest of your day, my Followers of Fear. I know I will.

Something I Need to Get Off My Chest

Posted: July 31, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections
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Well, Wi-Fi’s back, after being off for about a week. It’s the highlight of a week that’s been rather rough on me.

Don’t get me wrong, for the most part I’m loving Germany. I’m getting great work experience that’ll definitely come in handy after this internship, I’ve got great prospects for afterwards, I’m learning a lot about this country, its people and the language everyone speaks. And I’m seeing and doing amazing things that some only dream of doing.

But like anything in life, there’s ups and downs and lately I’ve been getting a lot of downs. My catchphrase lately is “if it’s not one thing, it’s always another”, and it definitely applied this week when a lot of the time I felt stressed and fatigued and just plain miserable. In other words, not me. At some points I wondered if I’d made a mistake coming to Germany. At other times, I wondered if God was maybe punishing me for something I’d done (perhaps getting into Tarot was a bad idea after all).

What’s been causing this, you ask? A number of things. Work, for one. It’s good people and it’s got great benefits and I get to write articles, which is fun. But often I’m doing tasks that nobody likes doing, and they stress me out. There’s also a hundred different that for some reason or another are mixed up or unresolved and when that happens it comes back to bite me in weird ways. I only just found out that somewhere along the line, my mailbox wasn’t properly put into the system, so I wasn’t receiving any mail! You can imagine the annoyance fixing that was!

There are other problems, as well. It’s not easy to go shopping. The closest supermarket is limited in what it has (and it’s in German, so I can only get things I can make on my own), and the base’s commissary is a trip to make, so unless someone’s providing a car, I can’t go there to get the stuff I’d like to cook with. So this leads to me eating things that may not always be good for me, which affects my health (and I was starting to lose a little weight).

And you already know there was the Wi-Fi situation. For a week because of a bank error we couldn’t connect to the Internet. And let’s face it, you need Internet to live in this world. So much of our lives is invested in it these days, being cut off at home and having limited access at work was another trigger for stress.

Add in a few other things, and it got really bad for me some days. Today, I even snapped at my roommate who was trying to help me resolve a problem. I apologized right after I realized what I’d done, but it was still awful and I felt really bad for doing it. And there I was, beating myself up for that. Another problem.

As I’ve been saying from the beginning, it’s been a tough week for me.

But there are reasons to feel optimistic. For one, the weekend’s here, and our Wi-Fi’s been restored. Always a reason to rejoice there. I can relax at home and watch Netflix, or go out on the town and explore areas I haven’t seen before. And while I was without Internet, I got a lot of work done. I finished editing Video Rage, rewrote Streghe, wrote a lot of blog posts on MS Word which I would post at lunch the next day, and I wrote two outlines for short stories I plan to write before starting on the next draft of Laura Horn. Definitely not bad. Pretty prolific, actually.

Plus after kind of getting off it once I got to Germany, I’ve started meditating again. I think that made a major difference. Meditation lifts my mood, makes me calmer and helps ground me. Not doing it affected my mood, so I’m definitely trying to make it part of my life again.

And now that the Internet’s back, I can also Skype with my folks when they’re online! That’s a huge reason to celebrate right there.

And the other problems…well, I’ll resolve them somehow. I’ve got to think positive. Can’t let myself mope over them. After all, you can’t accomplish much if you spend your whole life depressed over every little thing, and I certainly don’t plan on that happening to me. I’m doing what I normally do, and I’m going to seize life by the horns. It’s how I’ve gotten this far, after all.

So wish me luck and encouragement, my Followers of Fear. After this week, I’ll need it so I don’t have a repeat next week.

Have a great weekend!

It Has To Be Longer

Posted: July 30, 2015 in ideas, Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, short story, Writing
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About four times in my writing career, I’ve come up with really great ideas for stories, and I think they’d work at under ten-thousand words, which is what is usually the maximum length for a short story. But as I think about this idea and the story I plan to write with it, or as I try to write it and I run into problems, I realize something important: it has to be longer than a short story. There’s just no way I’m going to be able to put everything I want in this short story within such a small range. This is going to need to be much longer.

In other words, it’s going to need to be a novel.

For me, this is always frustrating to some degree. I have this idea, and I think that maybe I can get it written within a few weeks. And then I realize there’s more than one direction this story can go. And I want to add in so much material, which is impossible with just ten-thousand words. And yet I don’t want to give up any of it! So I cross it off my short story list and put it on my novel list, even though I realize that it might be years before I get around to writing it.

It’s even more frustrating when I’ve already attempted to write this particular idea as a short story. I wrote a story about a man who gets resurrected from death through science. It was great. But it had so much in it, so much hinted at within its pages. When I lent it to a friend, he told me that it would work great as a novel or even as a movie. After a lot of thought, I realized he was right.

And remember “the short story I’ve been struggling with on and off with for over a year”? Also known as “The Murderer’s Legacy”, “Miranda’s Tempest”, and “Strong’s Trial”, I could not get that story to work for the life of me. And with every draft and every change, I felt I was getting closer and at the same time getting farther away from the story that this story should be. Eventually I figured out a way to make this story work, but it meant turning this into a full-length novel. I was just like, “Fine. I’m not going to think of another way this story could work anytime soon, so let’s just keep it as is and hope I get around to it sooner rather than later.”

And last night, I was thinking of outlining this idea for a short story that I wanted to write. I sat down in front of my laptop to start outlining, and just as I put the order of events together in my head, I thought, No way can I get all this in within even twenty-thousand words. This has to be a novel. Aw dammit. Oh well, the story calls for it. What am I going to do?

Yeah, what am I going to do? How many ideas for short stories am I going to have that will eventually need to be turned into novels that might take years to get around to because that’s how busy I get sometimes? I hate it. I wish there was a way I could make these stories work as short stories. Especially that one I was going to work on yesterday, it was going to examine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict!

But it’s just not going to happen. I can’t fit these stories within ten or twenty-thousand words. They won’t work then, they won’t have the same punch if they were novels. There’s a reason I never got a version of Miranda’s Tempest/The Murderer’s Legacy/Strong’s Trial I liked, because I was writing it with a view of making it shorter than it needed to be.

And you know what? Sometimes you just can’t control the story like that. As an author, you have a lot of control over your story, you are its God in a sense. But at the same time, the story has some control over you. Events go certain ways you never thought about, characters act in a different way you thought they would and take things in a different direction. Authors of all types and experience know that this is a thing and that it happens a lot. And when it does, you just have to go with the flow or your story won’t turn out the way you hope.

I just hope someday I have more time than I do now to write, that I can get to these stories sooner rather than later. Perhaps someday I will. I know several writers who started writing part-time and through hard work, perseverance, and a bit of luck, became full-time writers able to devote their full energies to writing. That could be me someday. I’m still young and early in my career. A few more books, some more advertising and reviews. You never know what’s going to happen.

I do wish I had less of these ideas where I think they’ll be great short stories, but later on I realize they need to be novels. As I said above, it’s annoying when that happens.

Do you ever have this problem with a story? How do you feel about it when it happens?

When you do end up writing these stories at the right length, does it normally work out?

Is Gun Violence America’s Chronic Condition?

Posted: July 26, 2015 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Reflections, Social Activism
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I’ve been without Wi-Fi these past couple of days at home, so I’ve been only able to get online at work and at a cafe not too far from my apartment. If that wasn’t the case, I would’ve written about this soon after these latest cases happened. But I’m making up for it now, and I’m doing it with the same sense of bereavement that I would if I were writing this as soon as it happened.

First South Carolina. Then the attacks in Tennessee. A few days later, we’ve got shootings at a movie theater in Louisiana, three years after the shootings in Aurora, and one in Los Angeles on Ventura Boulevard. That’s four major shootings in two months. And once again, it seems unlikely that anything’s really going to get done about it. America isn’t suffering from a gun epidemic. It’s suffering from a chronic condition, and maybe only half the country is willing to admit that this condition needs to be treated (I think we can call that a political schizophrenia of sorts).

Despite what some have said, this condition needs to be treated. And the treatment is not more guns. According to the latest research, self-defensive gun use occurs very rarely, and that when it does it does very little to actually stop injuries or property loss. So there goes that whole “good guy with a gun” belief. Besides, if you were going to treat AIDS, you wouldn’t give more people the virus, would you? So why give more people guns if guns are the problems?

Now I know what the Second Amendment says: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” And since the people in favor of the Second Amendment say we need to follow what the Constitution says, guns should be available…in case the government needs to form a militia in order to protect itself. But there should be more restrictions as to who gets guns, and what sort of guns. Why have an automatic rifle in your home? You’re not going to go hunting with it, and if you ever have the need to use it in your home, you’re likely going to end up making your living room look like it’s been visited by the Terminator or John McClain. What sort of use is there for that sort of weapon outside of a battlefield, then?

When it comes down to it, America’s chronic condition needs to be treated. The loopholes that allow gun sales to go through without sufficient background checks need to be closed, and the system errors that allowed Dylan Roof and the man from the Louisiana shooting need to be fixed as well. Background checks should be expanded and made tghter, and what sort of guns are available to the public should be restricted (like I said, what use is there for military weaponry i a private home? Might as well keep a rocket launcher around), and there should be fewer people allowed to carry firearms on them in public unless they have a legitimate reason for having them (stalker or important public figure who is likely to be targeted? Sure. Generalized anxiety of being attacked? There’s medication for that). And of course there needs to be more resources for the mentally ill, a lot of these attacks are carried out by people with mental illnesses. But of course perfectly sane people can carry out acts of extreme violence as well.

And that’s enough to worry me.

Say what you will, but after so many acts of violence involving guns, what’s happening isn’t a few rogue individuals with problems or just random accidents. These aren’t hurricanes or earthquakes. What we’re dealing with here is a long-term illness, and it needs to be treated. Research has to be done, effective treatments have to be developed. Otherwise this will keep happening, and more people will be lost and nothing will be done until none of us are left.

And I may just be shouting on the Internet, that happens a lot. But to stand by and not say something when evil is occurring in my nation allows evil to proliferate. So I’m shouting for treatment, and i’m hoping something actually gets done before another attack occurs.

Because no one should have to lose someone to something that is completely preventable. And that includes a chronic condition like gun violence.

8 More Problems That Only Horror Fans Have That Nobody Else Gets

Posted: July 22, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections, Scary Stuff
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Two months ago, I published a post about problems only horror fans have and understand. Since then, I’ve thought of more problems that face the horror community, so I’ve decided to write a post about those problems and try being funny as well as educational. And I’ll probably fail miserably while I’m at it.

And now you’re thinking, “He’s going to try to be funny and educational and fail at it too? EEEK!” I wish you wouldn’t think that, I put a lot of work into this blog post!

1. Not enough Slender-Man media. If you live under a rock, Slender-Man is an Internet meme I’ve visited before on this blog, a faceless being with a tall body and long, lanky arms wearing a suit. The myth varies depending on who’s telling it, but usually he lives in the woods, occasionally has tentacles, and likes to kidnap/scare/sometimes even kill children. It started as a couple of photos made for a contest on an Internet site and has since grown and become a modern piece of Internet folklore.

Sadly, Slender-Man’s copyrighted, and not by the guy who originally created him (who is fine with any adaptations as long as they’re good), but by a third party whose identity is unknown to the public. So if you want to make a for-profit work based on good ol’ Slendy, you need to find this third party and ask them for permission. Which sucks because how can you negotiate a deal with someone you can’t find? Such is the quest to make Slender-Man merchandise.

2. We’re getting our IT adaptation…with a catch. Last time I wrote about this, I mentioned how Cary Fukunaga’s two-part adaptation of the Stephen King classic was cancelled because Fukunaga and New Line couldn’t see eye-to-eye over budget and creative directions. Well, good news, looks like New Line is still trying to make the adaptation. Just two problems: one is it’s probably going to be a single movie. Really? This is a thousand page book! Even a three hour movie will hardly get most of what made one of King’s scariest creations very good.

Even worse, the guy being courted for director is Andy Muschietti, who directed 2013’s Mama. Now a lot of people found that movie scary, but I felt that it was overall not very good. Started out great, but got slow and cliched near the end. So you can see why I’m a little hesitant over this directing choice, especially with only one movie to work with.

Seriously, why not two parts? The Hobbit got three, and it’s one book! And when Peter Jackson adapted the LOTR trilogy, it was a big, risky move. Look at how that paid out!

*Sigh* I really hope I’m surprised by this movie if it comes to be.

3. “Why not a happy story?” This actually happened to me today. I was talking to my boss and we were discussing an ice cream truck that passes through the base every day. I was trying to think of a short story involving an ice cream truck with an original and scary twist. She just looked at me with this funny face and asked, “Why can’t you write a happy story?”

Who says horror stories can’t have happiness in them? Seriously, some of them do end with the monsters gone and the main characters still alive and actually stronger for their struggles against evil. Yeah, some of them end in tragedy. But there are happy endings.

And besides, would a happy story really be that interesting? Once upon a time a bunch of schoolchildren went to play in the flower fields. They picked flowers, and one of the ones they picked turned into a handsome prince. The prince said a witch had turned him into a flower after he refused to marry her, and he would’ve died with the first frost if the kids hadn’t plucked him among the flower fields. So the prince made them all honorary princes and princesses and they were forever allowed into his castle to eat ice cream and ride the horses and learn how to dance like they do at Viennese balls.

I think I might vomit if I don’t fall asleep from boredom.

4. “But don’t you get nightmares?” Another one from my boss (in her defense, I think she ordered a copy of Reborn City today, so at least we know she’s got good taste). Yes, I do get nightmares occasionally. It’s estimated that all adults get at least two nightmares a year. Rarely do I get them from the movies I watch and books I read, though. And I’m willing to risk the possibility that one day I’ll be scared in my dreams because of one of those books or movies. Just means someone’s doing their job in making something super-scary, right?

I’ll even dream about him if it means a good scary story!

5. Horror’s so cliched. Actually, no it’s not. True, a lot of horror stories do have their tropes and conventions that appear a lot: the virgin girl, the slutty girl, the campground, the sin factor, etc. But hey, have you seen people who get upset over Bible films if there’s even a single deviation from even the most obscure text? They want the same story every time! Now that’s a lot of cliches.

And horror doesn’t always rely on cliches. There’s a lot of originality in horror, if you care to look. It Follows, I Am a Ghost, Carrie, Dracula, Interview with a Vampire. All of those were very original, thank you very much.

6. Horror has no depth. Oh, so there’s no depth in a ghost or heads getting cut off? Really? Well, where’s the depth in comedies with fart jokes? Or stories where we all go in knowing the hero and heroine will eventually hook up and that’s the only reason why we paid money for this? Where’s the depth in that?

You’d be surprised how deep a horror story can go. Anne Rice’s early Vampire Chronicles are known for their poetic philosophy and imagery. Some, including the author, has described them as “the agnostic’s search for the truth” (this is a rough quote, I may have phrased it wrong). IT, which I discussed above, deals simultaneously with the loss of childhood innocence and the rediscovery of childhood belief. And don’t you dare tell me that The Shining doesn’t explore the struggle of personal needs and desires versus the good of the group! Think about it!

7. No, I’m not sex-starved and that’s why I enjoy horror. Yeah, horror sometimes is dirty. Doesn’t mean we’re making up for something. Unless you’re the filmmakers behind the Friday the 13th remake, in which case you packed in as many boobs as possible because you wanted people to see the movie AND it was a dry spell (Ooh, new slam on that shitty movie!).

And why are you wondering about our sex lives? It’s none of your business, you perverts!

Yeah, I like these guys. So what?

8. Ghost hunting. Okay, this might just be my problem, but just bear with me, because it’s related. Plenty of people believe in ghosts, interest in horror or not. Some of us believe that it is possible to find out about ghosts using modern-day technology, which is why we support ghost hunters and even watch some of the ghost-hunting teams that have their own TV shows.

So what’s the problem? Some people think ghost hunters are snake oil salesmen and make fun of them and their shows whenever the subject comes up. For those like me who believe in ghosts and maybe even base our ghost mythologies on what ghost hunters may uncover in investigations, it’s hurtful.

Yeah, this isn’t strictly a horror problem. But it’s a problem nonetheless.

~~~

Did you identify with any of these problems? Did I miss any? Was I funny? If not, did you at least learn something?

Well, hope you enjoyed this whatever your reaction. Just thought I’d get out another list. Hopefully I won’t find any more reasons we horror fans have it tough. Have a goodnight, Followers of Fear!

The wait till DVD…oh dammit!

History, Reflections, and Beer: A Tour of Frankfurt

Posted: July 18, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections, Tales from Abroad
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You know, Frankfurt is very close to Wiesbaden. So close, in fact, that along with Mainz it’s considered almost like a tri-city sort of thing.Still, it feels very far away despite the map, so I was very glad to go on a USO sponsored tour of one of Germany’s most well known cities today*. and make a few friends along the way, one of whom I made sure to get an email from (will be sending you something soon, Jose).

Unlike last week, I got to the meeting point early, and I had actually a very good idea where it was thanks to the help of my supervisor at work (honestly, he’s such a helpful guy). The meeting place was the Wiesbaden main train station, which looked like something out of an old movie with a side of American commercialism (every fast food franchise imaginable was there, including KFC!). I bought a ticket and the group assembled for the tour. We boarded the train and were there within half an hour.

Well, let me say this. Wiesbaden’s nice, but Frankfurt has that feel of an old German town. The houses have that look and feel to them that you associate with old German towns, the white walls and wood beams and red tiled roofs. Some of them have been around for hundreds of years! Add in the narrow, winding cobbled roads, and you definitely feel like you’re not in Kansas anymore.

A view of Frankfurt and its vineyards.

A view of Frankfurt and its vineyards.

We spent the first part of the tour, finding out about the local history, how Frankfurt has plenty of vineyards and micro-breweries, and several different places to check out local beers and wines. Heck, there’s even a university there that’s sole purpose is to teach people how to professionally make beer and wine! I almost wanted to sign up for classes. We then visited a park where the artwork is all made out of concrete (it was actually quite nice), saw a very lovely mansion that looked like it was right out of a movie set, and then we visited the local cathedral, which was quite interesting. I’m always awed by all the effort put into cathedrals, and how the overall effect is quite beautiful and spiritual.

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After the cathedral we passed by a house where a charnel house, a place where skeletal remains are stored, used to be (sounds like my kind of digs) and broke for lunch. After waiting an hour for food (which I’ll get into in a moment), we were invited to join in the Linden festival, in honor of the Linden tree in the center of the neighborhood (yeah, apparently it’s pretty important). Before I did that though, I went to see the Rhine River. And while I was there, I reflected on the river.

Certain natural features can really help define a place. London has the Thames, Paris has the Seine, and Germany, including Frankfurt, has the Rhine, and it really helps define the country. Yet strangely, the river is never the same one second from the next. It’s constantly changing, the water molecules moving constantly, the tide going in and out, every passing boat or barge changing the river along with time and momentum. This and many other thoughts went through my head as I sat alongside the river, admiring all the history it had witnessed over the millennia and just enjoying the view. When I dipped my hand into the river, I felt like I was dipping into the history of the river itself.

The Rhine River and me.

The Rhine River and me.

After that I went back to the festival, which was amazing! Every local shop was selling its wares, tables were everywhere for people to eat and drink and talk. Even the most well-staffed restaurant was having trouble keeping up with the demand (which is why our lunches were so late). I met back up with the group and we talked over beers and wines about a variety of subjects. It was a good time.

After that I decided to head back early. Not that I wasn’t enjoying myself or that there wasn’t anything to do, but it was getting late and I wanted to be getting home. I got on the train and headed home. All in all, it was a great experience. I made a couple of new friends, saw a lovely new neighborhood and city, and had a great experience. I hope I get to visit again some time soon!

Enjoying the local drinks and my time in Frankfurt.

Enjoying the local drinks and my time in Frankfurt.

For now though, I’ve got a short story to finish and an evening to relax. Have a good night, my Followers of Fear. I know I am!

*Interesting thing I learned. In Europe, a city is not necessarily based on size or skyscrapers like in the States. Rather, a city is called as such because someone important–an emperor or a high-ranking clergyman or someone along those lines–gave a town that special designation, which came with certain privileges, including the right to mint their own money. This is why Frankfurt, which looks more like a provincial town out in the country, is called a city. Someone high-ranking gave it that title once upon a time. Pretty cool, right?

Leaving For Germany

Posted: July 5, 2015 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Reflections
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Today I leave for my first post-college job, working with the US Army Civilian Corps in Germany. I’m all packed up (hopefully my suitcase is under fifty pounds, I think it is but that scale’s needle keeps moving), my carry on has everything I need, my passport’s tucked away, and my farewells have all been said on Facebook and Twitter, with lots of comments on both wishing me well. As far as I can tell, I’m all ready to go.

And yet it feels so unreal to me, like instead of going to Germany, I’m jumping into a fantasy world straight out of a movie. You can understand why I feel that way: while I’ve been to Germany before, this is going to be on the opposite end of the country, I’m going to be on a US Army base, and whenever I step out of that base, I’m going to be in a place where the language, culture and the people are very different from what I’ve grown up with (thank goodness I’m already a little familiar with all three of those). It’s definitely going to be unlike anything I’ve experienced before, and unlike when I went to Israel the summer before my senior year of high school or my study abroad trip, I’m not going with a bunch of people in the same boat as me. I’m going by myself! To say the least, I’m a little nervous.

Despite that, I’m looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to immersing myself in the life and cultures of both the US Army base and of Germany. I’m looking forward to meeting all these contacts I’ve been set up with through friends and through my own searching (who knew there were so many people friends with people I know in Germany?). I can’t wait to explore the cities, the castles, the forests and museums and Jewish sections of the cities I’ll be near. I’m looking forward to all the ideas I’ll have for stories or articles while doing this.

And I’m sure that, despite the fact that I’m diving into this alone, I’ll be fine. I’ve reason to believe that. Despite my nervousness, I’ve usually been good with new situations. My dad can testify to this: he saw me on my first day of kindergarten, my first day at Columbus Torah Academy, my first USY (that’s a Jewish youth group) convention, my USY trip to Israel, and then when I got to Ohio State. And, as he made clear on Facebook, I was fine, so I’m sure I’ll be fine this time around as well.

Plus my latest Tarot reading gave a pretty positive outlook on the whole thing, so there’s more reason to be hopeful. Yes, I’m still reading Tarot, and no, I don’t really believe in it but it’s nice to have a positive reading, isn’t it?

When I post again, it’ll probably be in Germany, and to say I’ve arrived safely. What else will there be to say, I can only guess. First impressions, what my roommate is like, how they weren’t kidding about Europe being in the grip of a heat wave, a bunch of other stuff I can only guess at. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, wish me a safe flight, in English or German, and wish me luck in my new environment. I have no idea what’ll happen, but I think it’s going to be one of the most exciting experiences I’ve ever had.

Auf wederschein, my Followers of Fear!

Measurable Changes

Posted: June 30, 2015 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
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Authors are constantly evolving. Even late in their careers, they’re never not learning new tricks or trying some experiment with their latest story. Check out Anne Rice’s latest stories, introducing scientific elements into what are normally supernatural stories, or JK Rowling going from fantasy coming-of-age series into literary and crime. Heck, His Royal Highness Stephen King is doing hard-crime and has introduced more alien and sci-fi elements into a lot of his recent stories.

Back in January I wrote a post about how I wanted to create the same images in my stories but with less words. As my word counts are still often very high, measuring whether or not I’m actually succeeding based on that. So while I’ve been editing one of my short stories for an anthology I wanted to get published in, I looked at specific paragraphs, looked at how they were pre-editing, and then what they looked like post-editing. What I got looked pretty promising.

Here’s one paragraph prior to editing:

One of the cheerleaders opened a door and Lizzy was thrown in, falling down a set of stairs. As she landed on hard concrete floor, she heard the girls laughing up above. They thought this was funny? She’d be lucky if she came away from this with just bruised ribs!

And here’s the same paragraph after it’s been edited:

One of the cheerleaders opened a door and Lizzy was thrown in, falling down a set of stairs, landing hard on concrete floor, the other girls laughing up above. They thought this was funny? She’d be lucky if she came away with only bruised ribs!

There’s a five-word difference, two sentences have been merged into one, and I changed “just” for “only” in the last sentence. There’s a more noticeable difference in the second example I have:

Suddenly Eric stood up, turning around in a circle to face the cheerleaders with an angry look on his face. Some of the cheerleaders actually shrank away from him, which Lizzy thought was extraordinary: she’d never thought anything but pimples scared these narcissistic twats.

And the edited version:

Eric stood up, glaring at each and every cheerleader in turn. Some of them actually shrank away from him, which Lizzy thought was extraordinary: she’d thought nothing but pimples actually scared these narcissistic twats.

Ten word difference, and if you ask me it creates the same basic image while being less wordy. In fact, I thin it’s written better than the first example, creating much more compelling images than before. And along with these examples, I’ve noticed a few more differences in how I write. For instance, I’m using less words involving the suffix “ing” (otherwise known as a gerund*). I would often write a sentence like this, “Getting up and heading to the cabinet, Lizzy slid back the secret panel and got out the scotch”. Now I prefer writing “Lizzy got up, went to the cabinet, slid back the secret panel, and got out the scotch.” To me, this seems not necessarily smoother, but it sounds better to me. It’s four succinct actions, one after another. Boom, boom, boom, boom, forming images in your head that run in fluid succession, like a scene on a Blu-Ray disc. Plus one word shorter, that’s not bad.

In any case, I feel like this is real good progress for me. Like I’ve said before, I’ve stopped worrying about word count because that sort of worry makes it difficult for me to tell the story as it needs to be told. But if finding ways to tell the same good story with less words can make for a better story, then yes I will pay attention to word count. And as you know, I’m all about telling a great story, so I’ll keep working on trying to tell a good story with less words, see where it gets me.

Hopefully many more stories, a few more published works and a lot of scared readers. Am I right?

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll see you next time, which I swear will be before I leave Germany. Have a good one!

*Funny story I can’t resist telling you, when I was in high school at Columbus Torah Academy, I was taking an English class and we were going over the different parts of grammar. When we came upon gerunds, I commented that the word sounded British (and they kind of do). My English teacher then, for whatever reason, told me to speak British. So I put on my terrible British accent, and start saying all these British phrases: “Pip pip, cheerio.” “Spot of tea and crumpets.” “God save the Queen.” And then randomly the head of the Judaic Studies department at the time, Rabbi Elbaz, a short Moroccan rabbi with this really thick accent, walks into our classroom. I say, “God save Rabbi Elbaz too.” The class laughs, and then Rabbi Elbaz says, “Oy Rami, now God will look into my records and see all the bad things I’ve done.” I swear, the whole class was laughing hysterically until he left! I wish I knew what he thought of it.

Time’s A Quick Bastard

Posted: June 25, 2015 in ideas, Living and Life, Reflections, short story, Writing
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I’m getting very naughty. First I’m swearing in Facebook posts, now I’m swearing in the titles of my blog posts.

Recently I had my five-hundredth idea for a short story or novelette since I started keeping a list. It was actually last night as I was getting ready for bed. I was thinking of an SVU rerun I’d watched earlier in the day and I thought of a minor character in the episode and what might’ve happened if he’d done some things differently in that episode. That birthed an idea (ah, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. One of these days I will do a post about how you’ve gotten in my head and given me so many ideas for stories). Anyway, it occurred to me that this would be my five-hundredth idea. And then I asked myself how many I’d actually at least gotten a first draft of. And today I counted.

The total count: 17. Yeah, only 17 out of 500 have at least made it past the first draft (what state they are afterwards varies). This was about the amount I expected, though I’m not happy about how little I’ve written. When I was thinking about this last night, I thought to myself, Time’s a quick bastard. It moves by so fast, and between school, the hurdles of getting a job, practicing German, the Netflix binges I keep getting myself drawn into, and everything else going on, you can’t keep up. Too bad. Some of these story ideas are really awesome.

That’s the sad part about being the author. You want to be able to write all the time, to not have to sleep or eat and the only distractions are ones you want to get distracted by and that don’t take up a lot of time. Sadly, reality is not always so pleasant, and we’ve got to deal with it how we can. As much as I would like to write more, as much as I would like to get a few more items on that list crossed off, I know that I don’t always have the time for it.

And I would like more time, definitely. I would. And maybe someday I will have more time. I know friends who’ve gotten publishing contracts or have gotten enough sales through self-publishing and they find more time to write and edit and publish and market. True, this often comes after many years of writing, when they’ve had careers, built up portfolios, had other stuff work for them. It’s something involving luck, ambition, hard work, dedication, and of course time.

Funny, time’s like money. You have to spend it to make it. Time’s not just a quick bastard, time’s a hard one to work with. And of course sometimes you don’t get the time you look for. Or you do but there’s family concerns or people want you to devote your time to other stuff because suddenly you have more of it. It’s a tough life to live, knowing that the time doesn’t always work with you in your writing career.

Still, I’m not letting time–what time I have–get away from me. After so much time, Video Rage is finally getting edited. I’ watched a documentary tonight over dinner that’ll help me with a story I’ve been struggling with for over a year. I’ve even figured out what short stories I might work on after I’ve finished with Video Rage, and what I’ll do after those are done. What little time I have, I’ll make work for me until I have more.

Time’s a quick and tricky bastard to work with. But I’m not going to let time get the best of me. Eventually, I’ll get time to work for me, so I’ll be the most prolific author I can be.

Until then, I keep doing what I’ve done since I first started my goal of writing to become published: just one word at a time, until the story comes together.

Character Depth in Horror Stories

Posted: June 21, 2015 in Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Last night as I was dropping off to sleep and feeling happy about setting up that new blog of mine (thanks to everyone who’s already signed up to follow that, by the way), my mind started to wander, as it usually does right before I fall asleep. This time around my mind went to horror stories (yeah, it does that quite often too), and I started to ponder character depth and development in horror stories. At some point I realized that in horror, you often have either characters who are very well-rounded and developed, or you have characters that are little more than archetypes, e.g. the Skeptical Dad, the Final Girl, The Psychic Child, The Expert, etc. And you know what else I realized, what made me get up out of bed and write this revelation down before I fell asleep and forgot? Sometimes these stories require different level of character development, depending on what the story is.

Let me explain. In certain scary stories, such as Stephen King’s The Shining (the book, not that poorly adapted Kubrick film), the characters are more than just archetypes and we get to know them very well. This is because their inner conflicts are just as important to the story as is the outer conflicts happening with the hotel. Jack Torrance is trying to keep his cool and be a good husband and father for his family after so many screw ups, while also fending off his desire to drink and the mental assaults of the hotel. His wife Wendy is trying to keep her family together while also keeping an eye on Jack in case he reverts to bad habits. And Danny, psychic and wise beyond his years, is trying to stay strong and endure the hotel’s attempts to kill him because he knows a lot is riding on his father taking care of the hotel through the winter. How they react to situations and grow as characters is just as important as what is happening within the hotel, so King makes sure they are well-developed.

Part of the terror (in the book, anyway), comes from the conflicts these characters wrestle with inside themselves as well as the ones the hotel sends them.

Meanwhile other stories don’t need as much character development. Take Insidious 3, for example (yes, I’m using the third entry in a horror film series, but bear with me). Besides main character Elise Rainier, most of the characters in the film do not get much character development. In the Brenner family, who are experiencing all these supernatural happenings, you don’t see much beyond the roles they play in the story: Quinn is a pretty girl with dreams of acting and is being victimized by a spirit, her dad Sean is the scatter-brained parent trying to keep his family together through grief and tragedy, and the annoying younger brother Alex is…well, the annoying younger brother. Despite not getting a lot of characterization though, these three characters do actually get some growth in the story: Quinn’s car accident and the spirit attacking her causes her, her brother, and her father to get out of their own little worlds and come together as a family to save Quinn’s life.

And of course, there are those stories that require little or no characterization or growth at all. This is common in slasher films, where the characters are often reduced to archetypes or roles (anyone who’s seen Cabin in the Woods knows what I’m talking about). This also happens in a short story I had an idea for recently (and that I might write as soon as I finish editing Video Rage). In this story, I decided that I wouldn’t spend time going over why the protagonist’s younger brother is a bratty kid or why the antagonists are as freaky as they are. The reason I decided this is because the events of the story are where the terror and intrigue come from, not from any inner growth. This is usually the case with slasher films as well: the events of the story are where we get our terror and excitement from, so more attention is pointed towards telling the story than going over any inner conflicts of the characters.

Half the fun of this show is seeing these two interact with each other.

What I’m driving at here is that how much character development is required from a story depends a lot on where the excitement and fear is coming from and how essential developing a character is in order to keep a reader or viewer invested in the story. In the case of a Nightmare on Elm Street film or the story I mentioned above, we’re reading or seeing the story because we know that the story’s events is where we’re going to get the excitement we paid to read/see. In the case of stories like The Shining or most episodes of Hannibal though, a major reason why we’re investing time into the story is because of the characters, not just what’s happening around them. This is especially so in Hannibal, because most of the conflicts and intrigue comes from the characters, their psychological states, and how they play against one another. We’re there not just because Hannibal Lecter is a famous and charismatic serial killer, we’re also there because we like seeing how Will Graham’s relationship with Lecter changes and evolves over time.

And knowing how much to balance of these two elements–character development and story-focus–is very important. Look at the remake of Poltergeist that came out recently. It was an awful film, and one of the many problems it had was that they tried to insert character development near the beginning of the film and failed miserably. Early on it focused on the dad losing his job and trying to find a new one, as well as mentioned something about the wife being a writer. I think the filmmakers were trying to translate this into an arc where the family tries to stay together and come together through rough circumstances, but ultimately the whole thread of the dad looking for a job and the parents trying to keep the family together fails to really get resolved or come together and ends up feeling unnecessary to the story. You’d think that it would just be enough to say the dad got promoted or transferred or a new job and leave it at that!

So whether it’s a zombie flick, a novel about a haunted house, or a psychological horror TV show, knowing the balance between character development and story-focus is just as important as creating a memorable and creepy villain or writing the story in such a way so that the story actually remains scary rather than goofy or just plain stupid (*cough* Friday the 13th remake *cough*). If you do, you’re more likely to write a good story worth remembering than you are to write garbage that horror fans sift through trying to find a nugget of gold.

I’ll certainly keep the balance in mind with the next story I write.

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