Rami Ungar The Writer

Writing Stimulant: A Good Horror Movie Goes A Long Way

Posted: April 5, 2012 in ideas, Living and Life, Writing
Tags: films, ideas, inspiration, writing

It’s amazing what happens when you see a good movie and it just makes you want to write. For instance, I just saw The Woman in Black with Daniel Radcliffe in it at my school’s union and was totally freaked out by it (I would write a review on it but it’s just too soon after the last review). Even while I was watching the film though, my head was swirling with inspiration. Horror is my craft, and I was carefully noting what the filmmakers had done, how they built up tension in this or that scene, how they symbolically signaled that Radcliffe’s character had discovered an important clue, and basically how they told the story (you can learn a lot about storytelling just by watching a good scary movie).

In addition to noting these things, I was also coming up with ideas, ideas for my own stories that I’d like to write someday. When I do come up with stories based on films I’ve watched, it usually has to do with some element from the movie that really stuck with me or something that I’d like to use myself someday, or even just some stray thought that goes through my head while I’m watching. For example, when I saw Taken with Liam Neeson back in high school, I thought how cool it was that he was taking out everyone and anyone with guns, and that led to my idea for a story on a serial killer who tracks down and kills mafioso (do not take that idea!). I also thought that when he was chasing down that punk from the airport, how much Neeson would have it if he was a werewolf, and that led to an idea about werewolf spies/detectives (don’t take that idea either, I will know if something similar is published after this blog post! Just kidding, I know you wouldn’t do that.).

I’m not going to go into details about the ideas I had in my head when I left the theater. I will say though, that once I’m done putting them down on the ideas list I have on my flash drive, I’ll get to work on finishing my new short story. I am in such a writing mood. Wish me luck.

Unlikely Advice (And Where I Got It From)

Posted: April 3, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
Tags: Once Upon A Time, short story, writing

Okay, so I’m watching Once Upon A Time on Hulu yesterday and one of the characters, August, who’s a writer, says that whenever he has writer’s block, he goes back and looks at what he did so that he can find “a nugget of inspiration” he may have left behind. Yeah, it sounds kinda funny to hear, but that’s what he said.

Anyway, I’m writing this new short story, and boy do I have such a case of writer’s block. I just can’t figure out how to make the story flow. I have the idea, I just can’t make the words come out. So I thought, “Hey, why not? I have to find something to help me get this out.” So I’m reading what I’ve already written, and then I think to myself, “You know, I don’t really like how my narrator is telling the story.” So I go along and change the style of narration and pretty soon the words start to flow again! Before I know it I’ve got three-and-a-half pages written and a few more on their way.

Has this happened to anyone else? Have you heard advice from some weird place and just found out that the advice is legitimate? Please tell me, so I’ll feel less embarassed.

Review: Stephen King’s The Stand (comic)

Posted: April 1, 2012 in Review
Tags: comic books, review, Stephen King, The Stand

The Stand, by Stephen King, adopted into a comic book form by Marvel Studios

I’ve always been a huge fan of Stephen King. You could say I want to inherit that throne someday, be a successor to the current King of Horror (that’s the goal at least; first stop, publishing a novel). And I’ve always loved The Stand. In addition to being one of King’s longest works, in my opinion it’s one of his best. You think you know the familiar old story: virus breaks out, kills off 99% of the population, the survivors struggle. However, Kiing weaves into it from very early on themes of war and the battle between good and evil, with survivors taking sides as a Cold-War-threatening-to-heat-up appears on the stage that is the now-dead USA. It’s an amazing story, and I recommend you all read it, especially the extended edition, which has all the stuff King was forced to cut out of the original edition due to budget costs. I also liked the TV miniseries adaptation, even if the ending was very different from the novel. The cast was phenomenal, especially the guy who played the villain Randall Flagg. So when I heard that Marvel was making a comic book version, I scooped it up without hesitation. And I was not disappointed: combining lines from the actual text with art and action, the comic book version was thrilling, especially its more dark, world-ending scenes filled with corpses and broken buildings. I thought the artwork made some of the character’s hairstyles look a little too frizzy for my tastes, but I still very much enjoyed it. It’s too bad they couldn’t put more of the original story into the comic book, but I’m sure that they had only a few hundred pages to work with and had to be choosy. Either way, I think they did a good job of adapting an amazing story. After reading the final volume today, I had to write a review of it. I give this work, a 4.6 out of 10. Good job Marvel, now how about an adaptation of It? Just leave out that one scene where the characters make love in the sewers and I’m sure we’ll be fine.

Dropping and Rue: Two Things That Have Been On My Mind

Posted: March 30, 2012 in Reflections
Tags: college life, Hunger Games, race

It’s been a while since I’ve really done a post to reflect on anything, but some stuff has been on my mind lately, so I’d like to talk about that.

First, Tuesday was the second day of the new term at school. I get an email concerning one of the classes I took the day before, a literature class I found interesting and intellectually stimulating. The email is from another student in the class, and it basically says, “Dropped out of this class. Anyone still haven’t bought books yet?” I don’t know why, but somehow I felt disappointed in this person. I mean, it was only a single day in the class, and you’re already giving up? I tend to stick with a class, even if I think I won’t do well in it. Granted, that may have been why my Linguistics grade last quarter wasn’t so good, but at least I can say I tried, right? I’d feel weak or like a loser if I dropped a class without giving it a real go.

What are your thoughts on this? Is it okay to drop a class after the first or second day?

Another thing that took me by surprise and has been on my mind lately:

I read an article about one of the actresses from The Hunger Games film. The little girl who played Rue? Apparently some extremely devoted “fans” are pissed off that the actress playing her is black instead of quote-on-quote “some cute little blond girl”. Really? I’ve never even read the books, but apparently Rue was supposed to have light-brown skin, so the actress is actually a pretty good portrayal. And people, it’s 2012! Don’t say that kind of stuff on the Internet, those tweets will come back to haunt you! And what does race matter anyway? I mean come on, they have a black guy playing Felix Leiter in the last two Bond films.

Race should be a thing of the past.

What do you have to say to these comments on race?

Reborn City: The Final Edit

Posted: March 29, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report
Tags: editing, Reborn City, writing

Ladies and gentlemen, I have finally finished the last edit of my novel, Reborn City! I had some free time today, so I sat down at a computer and just started editing. I got through the last four chapters and guess what? It almost edited itself, it went by so fast! I’m happy now, because now, I’ll be able to seriously consider finding an agent. Or maybe I’ll submit Reborn City to a contest, see if the judges like what I’ve written.

Whatever happens, I’m not going to stop until I’ve gotten published, and hopefully with Reborn City as the first in a long line of horror/sci-fi/fantasy novels. Until then, let’s keep our fingers crossed and praythat I’ll find someone willing to take a chance on a manuscript written by a college student from Ohio.

I’d like to find an agent now, but I don’t have the book I got from the library with the listings for good agents with me right now. Instead, I think I’ll work on a new short story. I had a great idea for this story the other day and I’ve been itching to write it. Now that the edits for Reborn City are done, I can finally scratch that itch.

Wish me luck!

Review: The Hunger Games Film

Posted: March 23, 2012 in Review
Tags: entertainment, films, review, The Hunger Games

Movie poster for "The Hunger Games", in theaters now.

I’m going to state this at the beginning of this post, I’ve never read The Hunger Games. Not even a page. It’s the same dilemma I had with The Help; you try to get the books but the reserve list is incredibly long, you can’t go out and buy it because you have a student budget and the oppurtunity to see the movie is right in front of you!

Moving on…

Alright, I went in knowing only that a teenage girl decides to participate in a battle-to-the-death reality-TV survival game in order to spare her sister, teams up with a boy from her town in order to gain the sympathy vote by pretending to be lovers even though she likes someone back home, and that the novels were very distopic in nature.

Well, I ended up liking the film. In fact, I loved it! Oh boy, was it superbly made! The special effects were awesome, the drama and terror felt so real, and the actors really brought the characters to life. A high-five to Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark; he really touched us all as a simple country boy with a heart of gold.

I’d also like to commend the director, Gary Ross, for his excellent work at building suspense: the scene where the mutant bulldogs show up, it felt like I was watching one of the better Friday the 13ths; building suspense, a lull where you don’t feel so scared anymore, and then wham! it jumps out and gets you! Even if you know the tactic they’re using to get you, it’s still quite the shock.

And finally, I’d like to commend the costume designers: the way you dressed up the denizens of the capital versus those in the districts? My God, even if their clothes are not as nice, I’d rather live in a district than dress like the people in the capital. Their fashion was so obscene to me I nearly retched in disgust.

My rating for this movie, a 5 out of 5, for getting a guy who knew next to little about the story, seriously considering getting the books and forget the reserve list.

Now if only the girl next to me would’ve not shushed me everytime I reacted to something when she was gabbing to the person next to her the whole film, that’d be great.

Reborn City Chapter Twelve

Posted: March 22, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report
Tags: editing, Reborn City, writing

I finally got around to editing the twelth chapter of Reborn City (and for those of you just tuning in, Reborn City is the novel I’ve been working on for the past couple of years). This puts me officially at the halfway point in the editing process. I’m glad I finally got to work on it and that it’s done. In the story, we’re steadily speeding along to the events that will lead to the climax of the novel and set up for the two sequels I have planned.

You know, I really hope that I am able to find an agent once I’m done with the current edit I’m going through. If I can’t find an agent immediately, maybe I’ll try a writing contest. Anyway, I’ll keep trying, and hopefully I’ll get it published someday.

All for now, bye.

Winter Quarter Wrap-Up

Posted: March 20, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, short story
Tags: college life, editing, Kony 2012, Reborn City, writing

I know, that title sounds like something after a NCAA basketball game, but I’ve already used “update” twice in relation to winter quarter, and I don’t want to be redundant.

Now on to the news. Well, I had a slightly lower GPA this quarter, a 3.1, but I’ve got less classes next quarter and despite the reviews of some of them, they don’t seem too difficult or terrifying to me, so hopefully I’ll have a higher GPA than this quarter. I’ll even be taking a class on the search for extraterrestrial life and ways of going about it (yes, my school offers a class on that, you can take it to fulfill a science requirement). Although I don’t believe in alien visitations, I still think the class will be interesting to take. Though if we’re going by what our book teaches, it’ll mostly be what allows life on Earth and how we go about looking for that on other planets.

And as for writing, I’m still working on the final edit for Reborn City, but I hope to get some more of that done. I also wrote a new short story based on the Kony 2012 video I mentioned in my last post. I hope, after that story’s been edited, that a certain magazine I know might want to take it. Fingers crossed, right?

I’m looking forward to spring quarter. More flexible schedule, more time at work, what could go wrong? Wait, don’t answer that.

See ya next post, when it strikes my fancy to write one. Have a good spring break.

Kony 2012: I’m In

Posted: March 13, 2012 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Social Activism
Tags: activism, human rights, Invisible Children, Joseph Kony, Kony 2012, Lord's Resistance Army, social media, Uganda, War crimes

I just saw the Kony 2012 video on YouTube. You know, it’s one thing to hear about kids being put into armies like that. It’s another thing entirely to be confronted by the evidence like that, all in your face, and want to do something about that. And you know, I do want to do something about that. Heck, I’m now writing for The Pulse, I start my first assignment this week, I’m all about the social activism now.

So, I’m in.

Joseph Kony has kidnapped nearly 30,000 children and forced them to become soldiers and sex slaves for his private army, the LRA. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court, the Ugandan army, and human rights groups for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

I’ll do what I can to help spread the word and bring Kony to justice, because no child should be abducted from their parents and forced to be a soldier or slave, and no parent should have to suffer their child going through that. On April 20, 2012, I’ll even go out and do the Cover The Night, an event happening in nearly every major city where we put up posters, stickers, you name it, to spread the word. I don’t care if it’s the Jewish Sabbath, God would want me helping people.

Finally, I’d like you to check out the website and the video (I’ll be putting them down below at the bottom of this post). If you don’t like what you see, spread the word. You may be an individual, but when an individual is motivated to do something big, all they need is to find others who feel the same way, and they can change the world.

So let’s change the world together, and nab Kony by the end of the year.

Thank you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

http://www.kony2012.com/

Review: Jonah Hill on Saturday Night Live

Posted: March 11, 2012 in Review
Tags: celebrities, comedy, entertainment, Jonah Hill, review, Saturday Night Live, shippers, Weekend Update

As last week I wrote a rather scathing review of Lindsay Lohan’s performance on SNL, I thought I’d follow up with Jonah Hill’s performance on last night’s episode. I’m happy to say, the man did not disappoint. Indeed, he fulfilled all my expectations and then some. From his hilarious impression of an annoying, fast-talking six-year-old wise guy to his performance of a Coolio song near the end of the show, he was hitting all the right notes. Heck, he even made the J-Pop sketch look good when he played a samurai who was out of breath and holding his sword wrong, and as a fan of manga and anime I usually get incensed when they do the J-Pop sketch.

Other highlights include the Weekend Update, featuring guest appearances by Kristen Wiig as Paula Deen, Andy Sandberg trying on the Sarah Palin persona because of an apparently sick Tina Fey, and Bill Hader as Stefon (and if SNL has any shippers obsessed with the Seth Meyers/Stefon relationship, I highly reccommend they watch this episode!).

All told, a very good show, even if the musical guests weren’t my type of music. I give this week’s episode, a 5 out of 5 (I’d feel guilty just taking off points for the musical guest).