Archive for the ‘short story’ Category

The Quiet Game: Less Than 24 Hours

Posted: July 16, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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God, time seems to fly! Just yesterday it seems I started counting down the days till July 17. Now it’s the 16th, I’ve got so many people wanting to read my book, and I’m pretty sure I’ve solved all problems that would’ve delayed the publication of the print version if left unsolved (yes, you can breathe a little easier now).

I’d also like to reveal why there was almost a delay in the publication of the print paperback of The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. Look at the cover below.

tqg-cover[1]

You see all that lettering along the sides? Apparently it’s a little too close to the edge, so CreateSpace told me to change it so that it doesn’t get cut out when The Quiet Game goes to print. For that, I had to download a free trial of Photoshop and do a little bit of tweaking, but I ended up creating an awesome cover exclusively for the print version (the one above will be used for the e-book). Check it out:

print paperback version.

print paperback version.

Pretty sweet, huh? And I still manage to get the creepy effect without losing anything in the trim. And next time I design my own cover, I’ll know not to put too much on the edges so that CreateSpace doesn’t send me an email telling me there’s problems with the cover.

Hope you’re as excited as I am for the publication. I’ll write again when it comes out. Until then, hope you’re not too scared to read it!

The Quiet Game: Two Days Till The Release

Posted: July 15, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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2 days to go!

2 days to go!

Yes, it’s only two days away. Imagine that. When I started writing five short stories with the vague goal of turning them into a collection of short stories that I would release while Reborn City was still being critiqued, I saw the whole publication of it as far off in the future. Now it’s only two days away from hitting the digital bookstores and I cannot wait.

Unfortunately, I have some bad news I have to share with you: due to problems with the cover, The Quiet Game‘s paperback edition may be a little delayed in its release. I will try to rectify these problems before Wednesday, but if the print edition is delayed I am terribly sorry and I do hope you’ll forgive me for it.

The good news is the e-book version will be along on time, and I have no doubt it’ll be spectacular.

Whichever version you’re planning on reading, I hope you are as excited as I am and I hope you enjoy reading The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones.

The Quiet Game: 3 Days Till The Release

Posted: July 14, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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3 days left!

3 days left!

Good morning Blogosphere! And as the title suggests, there’s only 3 days left till The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, is released to the world for your reading pleasure.

You know, it’s been an exciting past couple of weeks. I’ve received lots of encouragement, and I’ve reason to believe that a good amount–two-hundred copies or more–may be sold in the first week. I can’t give you any information on what I’m basing that on, except for encouraging statements from family, friends, and acquaintances. And if I can figure out how to send a message to all my friends on Facebook, it may be a lot more than that!

I hope, at least.

I have to go online and do the final preps on CreateSpace for the release Wednesday. Until then, hope you’re as excited as I am!

Blog on you all later. In the meantime, I have work to do.

The Quiet Game: Four Days Till The Release

Posted: July 13, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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4 days to go.

4 days to go.

Cable, Internet, and phone are back people, and so am I, with my constant reminders that my collection of short stories, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, coming out on July 17th, 4 days from now.

Or maybe 3 days and 2 hours, but you know what, that’s not important. It’s 4 days for me anyway. It’ll be 3 when I wake up tomorrow morning!

As such, I want to thank everyone for the constant support I’ve been given. Plenty of people have given me encouragement and told me how excited they are to read the book. Or at least they’re excited to buy a copy and have me autograph it, because they can’t deal with scary stories.

Still, I like that they want to buy a copy. And I’m sure some of them–most of them–will read the book and write a review on Amazon, which may encourage more people to read it, and then lead to more sales and more reviews. I love the whole cycle, don’t you?

But like I was saying, thank you all for your support. I’m working hard to establish myself in a rapidly-changing industry, and all the likes, comments, followers, and just plain support I get from readers, friends, and family every day keeps me going and encourages me to write.

See you all in the morning. I’ll have plenty to talk about tomorrow!

The Quiet Game: Five Days Till The Release!

Posted: July 12, 2013 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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5 days to go.

5 days to go.

At home, the cable, phone, and Internet is still out, no thanks to a storm on Wednesday that knocked all three out. I have a feeling that it’ll all be restored tomorrow during the Sabbath, when traditional jewish homes like my own don’t use cable, phones, or the Internet. Wouldn’t that be typical?

But enough about that. it’s five days till The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones is available, and I cannot wait! Already I’ve had several people come up to me or  email me or message me or whatever saying they cannot wait to either download the book or get it in the mail. As for me, I’m just excited that my book is coming out, that people want to read it, and all this hard work I’ve been putting in since I was ten is paying off. In five days, I can consider myself a published writer with a book on the shelves.

Or on Amazon. It’s print-on-demand, so if a lot of people and a couple of libraries order copies, I guess I can call it print-on-demand then.

Assuming the Internet’s working tomorrow, I’ll write another post for the four-day mark. Until then, I’m counting down the hours!

The Quiet Game: Out In Six Days

Posted: July 11, 2013 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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Coming out in 6 days. Who's pumped?

Coming out in 6 days. Who’s pumped?

I had a special post prepared for yesterday, the one-week mark before The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones came out. But there was a huge thunderstorm and I lost my cable, Internet, and phone service, which made me unable to write and post the article. And it was going to be a good one too, with a short clip from the movie The Ring. You know, “seven days”? I did manage to get that clip on Twitter and Facebook though, so that’s something.

Anyway, there’s less than a week till The Quiet Game is available for download and/or purchase. The culmination of eight months of hard work and editing, it’ll be available as a print-paperback for $5.50 and as an e-book for $1.29. Five short stories, all pretty scary (or at the very least, pretty weird). I’m really looking forward to putting it out next week and I hope everybody enjoys reading it.

If you are interested in reading The Quiet Game and would like to know more, pleas visit the Short Story Collections page for a brief look at what is offered. I garauntee it’ll be worth the read. And if you would like to celebrate with me when The Quiet Game comes out, I’ll be throwing an online party on this blog the day The Quiet Game comes out. What will be there? Plenty: digital food and drinks, funny, groovy, and scary videos, and of course a link to the guest of honor: The Quiet Game‘s Amazon page.

Until then, look forward for more countdown posts and news from yours truly!

Buried Alive: Finished

Posted: July 4, 2013 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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This doesn’t happen in the short story, but it gets the idea across.

Today–and especially this evening–was like a writing whirlwind. I sat in front of my computer, at times struggling to finish this short story. But as I kept working and as the story got further along, I started writing faster and faster, not caring about word counts or anything around me. I had classical and opera music in my ears and I was putting words onto the page like there was no tomorrow. And about fifteen minutes ago, at around 11:35 PM, I stopped and looked at the manuscript I’d written.

I’d finished Buried Alive, a short story about a teenage girl who is buried alive in the backyard with her mother and sister by her abusive stepfather. I stood back and I felt a sense of satisfaction.

At 5,550 words, this is definitely one of the toughest short stories I’ve ever written. For one thing, it was in the first person, which is definitely not one of my best tenses to use (even writing in second person for Addict was easier). And it’s not easy to imagine oneself in a coffin, let alone in a coffin with two other people. People are good about not thinking about unpleasant things, even horror writers, so it was tough to get into the mind of a girl in that situation.

But eventually I managed to figure it out and I just started writing. And as the story went on and things got more desperate for the character, I made things creepier and stranger. I think I ventured into a sort of zombie fiction near the end, but I really don’t think you could call this a zombie story. It certainly got interesting, and I’m very proud of this story. I actually think it’s one of my best short stories, and I’m not going to let a high word count get in the way of me finding a home for it.

So tomorrow I’ll see if a certain friend of mine who has read plenty of my short stories wouldn’t mind taking a look at this one. I think he’ll like it, especially since I don’t really explain some of the weirder and scarier aspects of the story. But then again, one thing I learned from The Amityville Horror, you don’t always need to explain the source of the creepiness to make it super-creepy.

If this short story goes anywhere, I’ll let you guys know. Wish me luck.

The Quiet Game: 2 Weeks To Publication!!!

Posted: July 3, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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Coming out in two weeks. Who's excited?

Coming out in two weeks. Who’s excited?

As I prepare for a wonderful Independence Day tomorrow, I’m also preparing for something just as great in 14 days. The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones will be coming out in 2 weeks, and I am super-excited. Plenty of people have told me that they cannot wait to read it. You know what? I cannot wait for them to read it!

It’s been a crazy process since December 2012, when I started writing what would become the five short stories appearing in The Quiet Game. I’ve published a few short stories in some magazines and one on Amazon, I’ve learned to use Photoshop and CreateSpace, I’ve waited for copyrights to come through (sometimes very late), I’ve bugged people to get back to me on my short stories and tell me what I should change, I’ve created a book trailer and a Facebook page for the book, and now I’m counting down the days until The Quiet Game comes out.

So what do I hope will happen in two weeks? I hope that I’ll have some decent sales, a couple of good reviews and maybe one or two average or bad reviews to convince potential readers that those reviews weren’t just written by fans who want to make me happy. I hope that friends will come up to me and say, “Oh Rami I read your book” and then give me an honest response on what they thought, rather than saying “Oh I bought a copy, haven’t read it yet though” or “I’ve been meaning to get a copy but I’ve been busy/I forgot.” (I’ve gotten that response once or twice for past works).

But most of all, I’m hoping that people will read the book and tell me what they think. I think that’s every writer’s sincerest desire when their books are published.

Well, we’ll see in two weeks. Until then, I’m counting down the days and spreading the word.

A Conundrum With Resurrection

Posted: July 1, 2013 in short story, Writing
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No, this post is not about me wondering if there’s going to be an end of the world and I’m going to be raised from the dead. I’ve thought enough about it already and concluded that until the Messiah comes, it’s just not worth thinking about.

Yesterday I got an email from a friend of mine who was looking at a short story of mine. The story, titled “Resurrection”, is about a man who is brought back to life from the dead through a cryogenic process, and something of supernatural origin messes it up. It’s nearly five-thousand words, which makes it a very long short story, or a very long short story in the eyes of most magazines. I was hoping I’d get some good feedback from my friend, which I did, but I did not expect this to appear in the response:

“It is very good. Actually, it could be expanded into either a novella, a full blown book or even a screenplay.”

That was the first time I ever used the center-alignment option on this blog. I don’t know why I’ve never done that before.

But that’s beside the point. What my friend said got me thinking, and since then I haven’t been able to stop thinking! I mean, I could see this story being expanded in some form or another, though I don’t think a novella or a full-blown novel is in the works right now, with all that’s going on. A screenplay might work, and heck, other horror writers have written screenplays before, Stephen King being chief among them.

Of course, there’s a couple of problems: I don’t know anything about writing screenplays! And to top that off, I’m still a relatively unknown writer with some short story publishing to my name, a collection coming out in sixteen days, and a novel in November. The way Hollywood is right now, what are the chances my screenplay will make it to the lunch table, let alone to the big screen? And considering how much Hollywood hacks slash, rewrite, and ultimately murder screenplays, would I really want them to do that to my own work?

I’m not so sure.

So for now I’m going to put “Resurrection” on a shelf until I know what to do with it. I may edit it and try to publish it in a magazine. Or maybe I’ll expand it into a different format of creative literature. Or maybe I’ll even turn it into a screenplay. Or maybe I’ll save it for another collection of short stories. Who knows?

Until then, I think I’ll wait and see. Time usually tells, and I’m sure time will tell me the right answer, once I’m ready for it.

Still, I wouldn’t mind your thoughts and opinions on the subject, if you’re willing to give them to me.

The Quiet Game: 3 Weeks To Publication

Posted: June 26, 2013 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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new TCG cover

More good news after the SCOTUS verdict! The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, will be available to purchase in both print paperback and ebook format. I’m very excited about The Quiet Game getting published soon, as it’s been the culmination of nearly seven months’ worth of writing, designing, advertising, and just plain waiting for the copyright to come in.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Quiet Game, it’s a collection of short stories I’ve written that I’m putting out this July 17 for purchase. And some of these tales I’m going to be publishing are quite scary: in Addict, a man with sex addiction tries going cold turkey, only to be haunted by horrifying hallucinations; in I’m Going To Be The Next James Bond, several kids go into an abandoned hospital with a dark history, and find out the history is very much alive; an autistic child gets to experience true terror In The Lady Ogre’s Den; a senator finds that his ancestor’s sins are following him around in the form of a vengeful spirit in Samson Weiss’s Curse; and finally, there’s a game that’s more perilous and more deadly than any game ever played. The Quiet Game.

You can sign up for the Facebook page here, and join nearly 75 people to get instant news and updates, and you can check out the trailer below if you’re not sure whether or not you want to buy a copy. I hope you have a nice day and that the thought of my collection doesn’t scare you too badly.

Of course, if it does, I wouldn’t mind that. Mwha ha ha!

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