I’m back on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, and it’s good to be back. My latest article is Showing vs. Telling, which covers one of the most difficult aspects of learning to be a writer. Often we are told by our English teachers when learning creative writing to “show, don’t tell”, but rarely are we actually shown how to distinguish between the two. The purpose of this article is to do just that.
So if you have a moment, please go check out the article. And if you have a few more minutes, please check out the rest of the website. Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is one of the most helpful sites for independent authors, written by independent authors to help others write, edit, publish, and market their books for little-to-no cost. Take it from me, you never know what helpful article you’ll come across.
All for now. I’ve got a bit of work today to get done, so I’m going to get on it as soon as possible. Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear, and have a great day.
Hello my Followers of Fear. Well, it looks like Amazon has finally figured itself out, because both the e-book and paperback versions of Snake are now visible and available from its Amazon page. This is good, because Amazon has been known to have kinks in the webpages of its self-published authors during the first few days of a new book’s shelf-life. Why that is, no one is sure. It’s just one of those things you deal with when you are a self-published author.
Anyway, I’m excited and glad to say that both versions are now available and you can go online and order them now if you wish by following this link. The paperback version is about thirteen dollars, which is a little more than I’d like to charge for the book, but Amazon has more say on the prices than I do. Once again, that’s something you deal with when you’re a self-published author.
The good news is, the e-book version is much more affordable. In fact, from June 10th (yesterday) to June 24th, the e-book will only cost $0.99 to download. Afterwards, from June 25th to July 7th, the e-book will be $1.99. And from July 8th onwards, the e-book will cost $2.99 until the next sale. So if you’d like to get Snake‘s e-book, now is the time to go and download it.
Also, this is the last week to get Reborn City‘s e-book for $1.99. On the 15th the price will return to $2.99 until the next time I do a sale (probably in November), so now’s the best time to get RC on sale. Hope you decide to check both books out. You can check out RC by going here.
That’s all for now. I’ll write again when I have something to write about. Until then, have a great day, my Followers of Fear.
Not sure how, but it looks like I have another piece of good advice to tell everyone about. Laura Horn, the WIP I’ve been working on on-and-off since last summer, has reached another milestone, with Part III: The Ringleader, done and out of the way. This part of the novel was actually rather interesting to write: not only did the three main characters find themselves isolated from just about everyone they know and care about, but I had to cut out two chapters I found extraneous and unnecessary, and I merged two more into one, reducing the chapter count by about three. Just goes to show that a lot can change between the original outline and the actual writing of the novel.
With the completion of Part III, I also move pretty quickly to the climax of the story. At the moment, I only have about twenty-five chapters left, and most of them will probably be less than ten pages left. Good for me, because I’m aiming to get the first draft of this novel done before I go back to classes in August. With the rate I’ve been going these past couple of days, as long as I’m able to not get distracted and find time to write, I might jut get there some time between the end of the month and mid-July.
Before I start Part IV though, I’d like to be able to take on some quick projects: I’d like to write a few articles for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, as well as write some poems and some flash fiction pieces. Once I get those out of the way, I plan to finish off LH as quickly as possible and move onto the next project, which will probably be editing Video Rage and working on some short stories.
First, I’d like to update the page and word counts of LH (for those who weren’t around for the last update on those counts several months ago, I do this every time I make it to a milestone in writing my novels. Not sure why I broadcast it on my blog, it’s just something I like to do). Remember, by pages I mean 8″ x 11.5″ pages. The total for the Prologue was about 10 pages, and 2,190 words. Part I was 43 pages and 12,019 words. Part II was 107 pages and 29,634 words. And Part III came out to be 57 pages and 15,637 words. That brings LH‘s total to 217 pages and 59,480 words. Since most authors use word counts to gauge the length of their books, this makes LH just under novel length, by about 520 words. I’m looking forward to seeing where it gets with Part IV!
For now though, I’m going to head to bed. It’s been a crazy birthday, I’ve got a busy day tomorrow, and I’d like to be well-rested when I go about my day tomorrow. Especially with the articles and with work. Good night, Followers of Fear.
I don’t know what I should be happier about: today’s my 21st birthday, it’s exactly two years from the day I began work on Snake, and it’s also the day that Snake has become available for the public. I think two of those are cause for public concern!
Anyway, I’d like to focus on the latter, if possible. I’m very excited to announce that Snake is now published and available in paperback and e-book. It should be, anyway: it always takes Amazon a while to get e-books on the same webpages as the paperback versions. So if you go onto Amazon and you don’t see the version you’d like immediately, please come back later and hopefully it’ll be there. (I’ll write another post when all the kinks are sorted through).
It’s still pretty amazing to me that two years of work is finally available to the public. I just hope the public wants to read it and enjoys it now that it’s out! And if you do decide to buy a copy of Snake, please let me know what you think once you’ve read it. Did you love it? Did you hate it? Did something strike you as totally weird or that made it hard for you to enjoy the book? Did you get turned off by the painting of a naked woman on the cover (if you did, then that might be judging a book by its cover)? Let me know. I love feedback, whether positive or negative (except when it comes from trolls).
Anyway, if you’d like to check Snake out, you can go to Amazon to get a copy. I hope you like it and thanks for checking it out. And if you’d like to know a bit more about Snake before checking it out, you can click here.
That’s all for now. I’ve got some work to do, so I’m going to get on that. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.
Yes indeed, Snake is only one day away from being released. I can hardly believe it myself and yet I’m so excited! I just hope nothing happens to derail the publication and force me to push back the release. That would suck big time.
Also, today is the last day to enter the contest to win a free, autographed copy of Snake. Yes, that’s right, you can win a free, autographed copy of Snake, that I will ship anywhere in the world. All you have to do is follow the directions below:
Give me your name
Give me your city, state/province, and (if you’re outside the United States) your country
What’s your favorite scary movie/book or something that scares you
And tell me how far you would go for love and/or revenge (I would ask how far you would go for love and revenge, but I know not everyone likes to go that far, so I’m giving options)
The contest is open until 5PM Eastern Standard Time today, at which point I will select a winner from the entrants and announce it here on the blog. The contest is open to everyone who is not closely related to me, hasn’t helped with the creation and publication of this book, and/or isn’t receiving a dedication in the book. Good luck to all entrants and I hope you enjoy reading Snake, whether or not you win the contest.
If you would like to know more about Snake, you can click here, or watch the book trailer below.
That’s all for now. I’ll post the contest winner later today. Good luck, my Followers of Fear.
It’s only three days away from the release of Snake, the thriller that I started nearly two years ago. I’m really excited for the release of this book, which has been quite an exciting story for me to write as well as a ton of fun to edit and prepare for publication. I’m so glad that I can finally share it with the whole wide world now that the release date is only a couple of days away.
In the meantime, I would like to announce a special contest for Snake: from now until 5 PM on Monday, June 9th, readers of this post will have the chance to win a free, autographed copy of Snake, which I will send to them from anywhere in the world. You enter by leaving this information in the comments below:
Your name
City, state/province, and country (only do the latter if you live outside the United States)
Your favorite scary movie or book or what really scares you.
Answer this question: “How far would you go for love and/or revenge?”*
Anyone 15 or older may enter the contest, as long as they are not related to me the author, did not have a hand in helping to make this novel possible, or you are not one of the people to whom this book is dedicated (sorry folks, but I don’t want to be accused of favoritism. Besides, do you really want me to call you up, make you think you’re the winner, and then tell you you’re not just to mess with you? I didn’t think so). The winner will be chosen by me personally from all the entries. And if nobody enters…well, I won’t think about it.
Anyway, I hope you decide to enter. The contest winner will be announced on June 9th, before Snake comes out, so start preparing your answers now. And if you would like more details about Snake, you can click here or watch the video trailer below. And may the best person win. Good luck, my Followers of Fear.
*I decided to do “and/or” instead of just “and” like in the novel’s tagline. Let’s face it, not everyone will go to the extreme lengths that the Snake went to. Anyway, you can enter an answer for love, for revenge, or for both, whichever you feel comfortable with. Just remember to make sure it’s an impressive answer if you want that free book.
I never get tired of playing this video. Guess how long there’s left till Snake hits the digital bookstores?
Thank you, creepy little girl on the other end of the line. Yes, Snake will be out in seven days, exactly two years from when I began work on the novel. It also happens to be about twenty-two years from when I was born, meaning that every book sold is a birthday present.
For those who are unfamiliar with the book, Snake is a thriller novel about a young man who, in order to save his girlfriend from a powerful mafia family, becomes a serial killer called the Snake and starts hunting down members of the family in order to find her. But in the process of saving his girlfriend from the monsters holding her captive, will the Snake become a monster himself?
I’ve really been looking forward to putting Snake out, and I hope you’ll be as excited as I am come June 10th. Snake will be available in both paperback and e-book, and will be available first from Amazon before becoming available on Smashwords later on. I don’t have the price for the paperback yet (Amazon determines that, not I), but the e-book will definitely be on sale for the first couple of weeks, so it’ll be a good time to download it right after it comes out.
And guess what else? One lucky reader will be able to get a free paperback copy of Snake signed by me and sent to wherever they live in the world. The details for said contest will be made available about three days before Snake is released.
If you’d like to read more about Snake, you can check out the character interviews I released last month, or read the page for the book. Also, make sure to check out the video for the book trailer, which I’ve posted below.
That’s all for now, Followers of Fear. Expect another reminder at the three day mark (I’d do one at the five-day mark, but I don’t want to annoy my readers. That’s too much work. It’s hard enough annoying my family). Have a lovely day, everyone.
Ah, the Eiffel Tower. See how it glows in the night.
Hi honey I’m home! After about three weeks in England, France, and Germany, I’m finally back in the States. I will definitely miss being in Europe (I will especially miss transportation made easy through the Metro systems), but I was beginning to miss my family and my life here and I’m glad to be back.
Of course, now that I’m back I’m not going to spend the whole time on my butt (though for the most part that’s what I’ve been doing while I get reacclimatized). In addition to catching up on all my shows and going to see some movies that came out while I was abroad, I plan to be very busy this summer. I’ll be doing my usual chores and errands, for one thing, and I’ll be working in the financial aid office for the whole summer (and if I can find one, I’ll try for another job that’ll allow me to work one or two days a week to help with the income). I also plan to finish my novel-in-progress Laura Horn, which I think I can get done by mid-July if I don’t get too distracted. I also hope to write plenty of short stories after I finish the book, because God knows I have plenty of ideas for those (I came up with about 40 ideas for stories while in Europe, most of them short stories. The lesson to be derived from this is that if you’re a writer and you find yourself on a trip abroad, bring a notebook to write down any ideas you have).
What else do I plan to do? Oh yeah, Snake will be coming out on June 10th, so I’ll be getting ready for that. And The Quiet Game’s one-year anniversary will be in July, so I plan to hold a sale for that on the e-book. And I’ll try to do some author interviews now that I’m back in the States, as well as finally getting around to editing Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City. And maybe I’ll finish some of the series I’m watching on Netflix.
In short, I’ll be very busy.
But enough about that. I said I was going to share some of the stories from my study abroad trip. I think I’ll start with my last night abroad, with the final dinner. Why? Because it shows how much we bonded over the trip:
We were having a special dinner on the second floor of a beer garden at Alexanderplatz in Berlin called Lindenbrau. The weather was cloudy and rainy, but we didn’t really care, because we were all very happy. Maybe that was because of the alcohol and warm food, but we were happy. I was talking with my teachers and y roommate Henry and my friends, and I had a wheat beer in front of me. Most of us were really sad to go, but we were also glad that we’d had this experience together. Also, a few of us were itching to go home, or to go to other places if we were staying in Europe longer (I might have and gone to see Poland and Italy or maybe go back to England, but I couldn’t afford it).
And then our teachers, Dr. Steigerwald and Professor Willging (affectionately nicknamed Dad and Mom, respectively, by our group), stood up to say some words. They said how proud they were of us, and how they hoped we would all stay in touch for years to come. And then they handed out awards to us, the kind like “Most Likely To…” or “Least Likely To…” awards. We were invited to guess whom each award was for, and I got about three or four of them before anyone else. My award was, “Most Likely To Wander Into Rommel’s Chateau.” Considering how oblivious I can be sometimes, that’s not very surprising.
And then something interesting happened: Ramsey Hardin, one of the people on my trip who had become probably my best friend while on the trip, arrived late and hungry. He’d gone to a museum to get a little bit more culture, but on the way back traffic had been really bad, and he’d ended up about an hour or so late getting to the beer garden. Believe me, he was upset, and only a jug of beer and a really huge ham could possibly relieve that anger.
Happy Birthday Ramsey Hardin! And that David Corrigan with him, by the way.
But then a huge surprise came out: the waiter brought Ramsey a piece of chocolate cake with a single blue candle stuck into it, a flame dancing on the wick. It was Ramsey’s twenty-fourth birthday. Boy, did that cheer him up! I wonder what he wished for, though. He probably asked for a big book of history. Ramsey’s a huge history buff, and reads anything about the past. In fact, he was voted “Most Likely To Teach Alexander the Great History” or something like that.
We ended the evening with dessert and a few more drinks, and then I went back to the hotel, to get ready for tomorrow’s flight and to store all these wonderful memories in my head.
And trust me, I’ll have a fun time relating them to you all in the coming months (or until you’re sick of hearing about them). That’s all for now though. Hope you enjoyed the story, my Followers of Fear. I’ll tell another one when I have a moment.
Diversity is a big thing these days. We need more diverse student bodies, more diverse workforces, and above all, more diverse casts in movies, books, and TV shows. And I don’t consider that a bad thing. On the contrary, diversity is a good thing, because it represents our diverse population and the many wonderful people on it.
However, I take issue when writers stick in a single minority character or one female character into the main cast and say, “Diversity element added”. Because that’s not diversity. That’s just being lazy. You see, a really diverse cast doesn’t just have a couple of characters you don’t usually see in these sort of stories. A really diverse cast has fully developed characters that grow and evolve over the course of the story, and they all come from many different backgrounds.
Take the main cast of Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier (I would’ve done Reborn City instead, but I have a strange feeling that more people have seen Captain America 2 than have read RC. Just a feeling, but it’s a strong one). In that movie, the four main characters have great depth, they do some growing in the movie, and we see sides to them that have not been revealed previously. Three of them also happen to be the exact opposite of the usual superhero protagonist, namely a white guy on the front lines. Black Widow is a woman and Falcon and Nick Fury are both black, but neither of those traits define them or are the main points to make them interesting.
Okay, the main points that make them interesting is their fighting abilities, cool gadgets, and the awesome things they can do, but that’s beside the point! There’s more to them than the fighting and what’s on the surface. They are all given a chance to grow in this film, and we really get a chance to know them. Natasha and Steve Rogers develop a relationship over the course of the film that swings between best friends and a sibling love for each other, while San Wilson becomes the one person who can relate to Rogers because of their shared experience. And Nick Fury, besides revealing information about himself that might have been a surprise to many fans, also had to question the organization he lead. Specifically, is it doing more harm than good? And is it worth it to keep SHIELD around?
All these characters are different from what might be or have been considered normal for superhero films, but that’s not what makes them great. What makes them great is that they have depth, they have growth, and whoever wrote the film didn’t feel that just because they were black or female that was character development enough!
So with the upcoming Batman vs. Superman film, they’ve apparently already cast Wonder Woman (who is obviously female) and Cyborg (who is black). I don’t know what sort of role they’ll have in this film (or in any sequels which will inevitably pop up), but I do hope that their characters are given as much time to develop and grow and reveal their hidden sides in the movies as the other characters. There’s a huge literature from which the writers can draw wonderful storylines from. I’d really like to see what they do.
And if they only focus on Wonder Woman’s being a woman or don’t give Cyborg enough treatment as a character, it’ll diminish my enjoyment of the film that much more.
So thanks for listening to my rant on the need for real diversity in our popular media. I’ve got a flight in a few hours, so I’ll write again when I can (though when that’ll be I have no idea). Have a lovely day, my Followers of Fear.
Dr. Angelou, reading her poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at President Clinton’s 1993 inauguration.
As I booted up my laptop today and logged onto the Internet from my hotel room in Germany, I was greeted by the most depressing news: author, poet, activist, and just plain wonderful human being Dr. Maya Angelou had passed away. Dr. Angelou, who had been teaching at Wake Forest University since 1982 and was a prolific writer and poet throughout her life, had been experiencing health problems recently and had had to cancel several scheduled events because of it. She was 86 years old at the time of her passing.
Immediately I felt a horrific sense of loss. I never met Dr. Angelou, nor have I read as much of her work as I’d have liked to. But I remembered very vividly reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings one summer for school a few years back, along with The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Both books impacted me very deeply and I remember feeling powerful emotions reading Dr. Angelou’s book as I read the events based on her early life experiences, sadness and sympathy and anger and several others depending on what story she was relating to me through her words. It left a very deep impression on me.
And so when I heard that Dr. Angelou had died, I immediately felt the loss that people around the world are probably feeling at this moment. I took to Facebook to write that the world has lost a guiding light in Dr. Angelou, that her passing was swift and painless, and that her memory, words and deeds will last for centuries. But somehow I felt it wasn’t enough, so I decided to write this post about her as soon as I could. Hence this post you are reading now.
Dr. Angelou was an influence for good throughout the world. She worked her way up from a variety of jobs, including a cook, prostitute and nightclub dancer, to become a writer and journalist. Active in the Civil Rights movement, she worked with both Dr. King and Malcolm X, and has also influenced the feminist movement. Her writing has been hailed as “a work of art that eludes description”, and helped bring memoirs from African-American women writers from the margins of literature to the forefront. She made on average eighty public appearances a year, even as she reached her eighties, and was given numerous doctorates and awards, including reciting a poem of hers at President Clinton’s inauguration in 1993, and she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2011. In addition to poetry and autobiographies, Dr. Angelou wrote plays, screenplays for TV and film, essays, cookbooks, children’s books, spoken word albums, and also did acting and directing work on stage and in film and TV.
But most importantly, she gave people a voice. Dr. Angelou gave voices to many African-Americans, women, and others who had been pushed to the margins of society. Caged Bird, probably Dr. Angelou’s most famous autobiography, has been translated into many different languages. This is not only a testament to the popularity of the book, but also to how relatable it is to people of other nations and cultures, how many different peoples can relate to Maya’s own struggles and see it in themselves, or in their people’s struggles. Some have even credited it with allowing black women writers to finally have center stage in the world of literature, instead of on the side where for far too long they’d been ignored and underappreciated.
President Obama said a few hours after the news came out of Dr. Angelou’s death that she reminded us “we all have something to offer”. Whether it be in words (written or oral), in action or just in being there for someone, we all have something to offer. Dr. Angelou offered many a voice, a way to speak about the struggles of the underappreciated and marginalized. Her words resonated with many throughout her lifetime, and I’m sure that they will continue to do so for years to come. And as the years go by, as Dr. Angelou’s works are read and dissected and discussed and debated by readers of all kinds and stripes, as movie adaptations and TV specials and new stories and poems recreate her for a new generation, and as the occasional politician or news commentator tries to appropriate her legacy for some political cause or another, I hope that one fact shines through it all, that she gave the world her voice, and allowed others to speak through it and with it.
And speaking of having something to offer, I decided on the spur of the moment to create a tribute video to Dr. Angelou. It’s not very good, and at the very most it showcases that I’m slowly getting more comfortable with video-making on computers (a valuable skill these days, it seems). But the song I put in, “Bye Bye” by Mariah Carey, is heartfelt and speaks to the emotions of many, and I think it shows my sincerity. What do you think?
You know. about five or six days ago, Dr. Angelou sent out this tweet:
Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.
I think this tweet says a lot about Dr. Angelou, because it seems that her words were definitely sent by somebody to make a difference in the world.
So to all those who were close to Dr. Angelou in life, I wish you my deepest condolences. To those who only knew her through her words, her reputation, or through her actions and influence in the world, you probably feel the same as I and many others do: like we’ve all lost someone important. And to the good Dr. Angelou herself, wherever you may be, I hope you’re doing well and that you know that your legacy will continue to influence and help us all for years to come. Thank you.
Rami Ungar The Writer 