Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

A Fun Halloween Attraction You Can Do At Home

Posted: October 11, 2014 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
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I think you’ll notice that when I am able to post something new this month, it’s more likely than not because it’s related to Halloween. Why? Because Halloween is awesome! Anyway, I managed to somehow get through critiquing five short stories and a biology assignment, so before I attempt to finish a short story for class, I thought I’d take the time to write 2 or 3 blog posts. God knows I’ve been meaning to for days.

The first of these posts is dedicated to those who are still planning what to do for Halloween. And if you’re planning on giving out candy and have some time and funds on your hands, I would like to recommend you guys do this fun little attraction, which I call the Terror Home Theater. You can set this up outside your house, or if you’re able to, in your own garage. What you do is you create a four-sided structure big enough for a group of people to stand in. You have people line up outside and have them enter five or less at a time through the only door in the structure. Remember, the structure should not allow anyone from the outside to see inside, and they should only be aware of thedoor that everyone is entering and exiting through.

On the inside, you should have your computer and a projector that’s aimed at the far wall. Once people are inside, the computer will play a movie that the projector will show everyone. The movie should be no more than a minute or two, and should have plenty of scary imagery. Think the footage from the video in Ring if you’re looking for an example (see video below if you’re unfamiliar with the movie).

The idea of the Terror Home Theater is that while everyone is focused on the movie, someone wearing a really scary costume will sneak in, either from a hidden side entrance or from behind a curtain. When the group of people have finished the movie, they will most likely turn around, either a little unsettled or wondering why that movie was supposed to be scary. At that point they will notice the person in the scary costume standing behind them, who is hopefully doing their best to scare them. And hopefully they will scream.

This is the Terror Home Theater, and there are lots of ways you can go about creating it and/or customizing it. The way I outline it above is a basic version that I thought would be interesting to do, if only I had the supplies and the time to set it up, as well as a neighborhood that people trick or treat in to do it. If you can, you can set it up in your garage using nothing more than curtains and someone manning the entrance and/or the controls (how you get the movie to play is up to you).

If you get the chance and are able to create one, I hope you will do me the honor of filming it, posting the results on YouTube, and then sending it my way. I would love to see what you pull off.

Would you do the Terror Home Theater if possible?

How would you make it your own?

Having a Facebook Page and Being on Twitter

Posted: September 27, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections
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I started my own Facebook page back in September 2013, and I logged onto Twitter for the first time nine months earlier in January of that year. I didn’t know if either of those accounts would amount to anything at the time I started them. That was partially because I’m wary of social media in general, even if I use them in my everyday life. I’d also been told by plenty of fellow authors that while Facebook and Twitter can be great marketing tools and maybe increase your following, they won’t necessarily increase your book sales by very much, if at all. I’d seen the same thing in my blog: while I’ve had a steady growth of followers over three years and a tremendous amount of views since last year, it didn’t necessarily mean that everyone reading my blog posts was going out to buy my books.

Still, I thought it was worth a try. Plenty of people had bred huge followings on both media platforms. And if they could do it, why couldn’t I?

So I started posting on my Facebook page and sending out tweets (though I kind of neglected the latter for a while save for links to my blog posts). Do I have a huge following on either yet? Not really. My Facebook page only has 126 likes at this point, and each post usually only gets a small fraction of any of those followers. And blog posts tend to get lower views than regular Facebook posts. Same with Twitter, though the amount of likes seem to fluctuate a lot. Last night I had 71 Twitter followers, then this morning it was 75, and now it’s 74.

And I’m not sure how many people check out my books through these pages, let alone buy or download copies.

Still, that doesn’t mean my forays into social media marketing have been utter disasters. I’ve found the online pages of friends of mine, and we’ve subscribed to each other’s pages/tweets/whatever. Occasionally we’ve even helped each other out, retweeting each other tweets or sharing articles that really speak to us. It’s a great opportunity to support one another and help each other out. And once or twice people I’ve had some pretty important people check out what I’m doing online thanks to Twitter: a director of a movie I reviewed once retweeted the review, and ACX, the company whom I wrote an article about a while back, not only retweeted the article, but now follows me on Twitter. To which I say, “AWESOME!”

 

So while I don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers through either platform, let alone that many sales, I think I’ve had a pretty successful run on both of them. I get to interact with friends, the occasional important company or filmmaker, and I’ve actually grown to like tweeting really unusual but funny stuff on Twitter. Like this:

https://twitter.com/RamiUngarWriter/status/514890936934215680

That one actually got a few Favorites and one Retweet.

In any case, I’m really happy with the followings I have been able to build, and while I wouldn’t mind bigger ones, I’m glad that I have people interested in what I have to say to begin with. And who knows? I’m early in my career. I could still build those followings with some hard work and plenty of optimism. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Though don’t expect me to get an Instagram (I don’t have the right kind of phone for it). Or a Pinterest. Or a Tumblr. Or a Flickr, Foursquare, Tinder, or…is there any others I’m missing? Never mind. I’m not sure I want to know.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to have a late lunch and then work on a short story for my creative writing class. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear.

 

The Results of My First Thesis Meeting

Posted: September 20, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Writing
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I know it’s been a while since I last blogged. Five days in fact. Man, I must be busy. And I would’ve blogged about this yesterday, but…well, I had biology and creative writing homework. Yeah, school’s basically taking over my life more than it usually does. God help me.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon was my first meeting with my thesis adviser. It was me, him, and another student who is also working on a novel. The idea is that we all collaborate to help each other out with these projects (of course, my adviser isn’t asking us for advice if he’s working on his own novel, but that’s beside the point). Since I’d already sent them both the first two chapters of my thesis project Rose, they had read what I’d written and had some feedback.

Let me tell you, it was very illuminating. The biggest thing about my work is that I’m always looking for holes to plug up, but they found some holes I’d missed, proving to me that I should not go into the field of repairing ships or they’d sink. What they told me was that the opening of chapter one was a little too lighthearted for a horror novel, and suggested a way to make it more of a dark, creepy story like I’d originally intended. They also gave me some suggestions on how to make our stalker much creepier and also recommended maybe I try switching to first person (and seeing as Rose is all about the main character’s point of view, that might be an idea I’ll keep).

So now I have until Friday to come up with some new material and send it to the both of them, and then we all meet up a week afterwards. I’m going to start with a little experiment to help refine the stalker’s character, and then I’m going to basically start rewriting Chapter One of Rose. The original opening, like I said, was a bit too lighthearted, so going back and redoing it should create the atmosphere I’m going for. And it’s not as if I haven’t rewritten an entire short story before on the suggestions of  my peers. What is Chapter One anyway, besides a short story that can be continued by several succeeding, interconnected short stories?

Obviously a bad analogy, but you get the idea.

Anyway, I’ve got to get to work, so wish me luck on the writing/editing front. And by the way, I turned in my short story Evil Began in a Bar on Wednesday to my creative writing class, so my classmates will be coming back to class Wednesday with feedback. I’ll be blogging about it then, but I’m hoping for good things.

Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.

Horror…As Therapy?

Posted: September 3, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
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I was having a comment conversation the other day with another blogger Caitlin Kelly, a freelance journalist from New York who at the moment is teaching at the Pratt Institute. Her post, which you can read here (and I highly recommend you do), was about how the effect of all the horrors going on in the world and being reported to us by the media. I mentioned in my comments that after digesting all the real horrors, it’s not uncommon for me to immerse myself in fictional horrors. Caitlin replied that one of her students, who “has seen his fair share of horrors”, also prefers the genre of horror. I said that for some people, horror acts as a kind of therapy.

Now, some of you who are reading this will probably be thinking “Horror? As a kind of therapy? We’re still talking about the genre where serial killers can be heroes, what trait your character embodies can determine whether you’re killed or traumatized, and fans debate on how good a movie is based on use of suspense, special effects, and gore, right?” Yes, we are still talking about that genre, but just bear with me.

Look at a news feed, particularly one devoted to global events or major issues facing Americans today. This is probably what you’ll see:

  • ISIS murdering Shiites, Yazidis, journalists, and anyone else that they don’t like.
  • Ukraine fighting both its own people and Russian insurgents.
  • Hamas attacking Israel and Israel firing back (and it’s only a matter of time before that starts up again, mark my words).
  • Several cases where police have shot and killed unarmed black men, with the most recent and famous case in Ferguson, Missouri.
  • Congress’s constant squabbling and bickering
  • An immigration crisis that continues unabated
  • Ebola spreading throughout West Africa and father beyond
  • Kristen Gillibrand, a well-respected senator and possible 2016 presidential candidate, being sexually harassed by older, male senators
  • The suicide of Robin Williams and the hurtful responses from people and groups such as Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Gene Simmons (my article on that is here)
  • CeeLo Green making horrific remarks on the subject of rape on his Twitter account
  • Justin Beiber is in trouble with the law again.

Depressing to read, isn’t it? What’s worse is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. All over the world, people are facing discrimination, violence, poverty, illness, corruption, greed, incompetence, and just about every other horror under the sun. And these problems are huge, multifaceted, and difficult to resolve. In fact, there are many people who may have multiple opinions on how to resolve just one of these issues. And assuming that the people in positions of power are able to come to an agreement and implement some sort of solution, there’s no guarantee that the issue in question will be fully resolved or not or will leave lingering micro-issues that will eventually grow and become major issues in their own rights.

“It’s true, I got defeated by some snot-nosed brats. I don’t like talking about it, though.”

There’s that. And then there’s the stories told within a horror novel or the latest scary movie. Let’s take Stephen King’s IT, for instance. The antagonist is a shape-shifting demon that can take on the form of your greatest fear and prefers the form of a clown. Well, that looks tricky to defeat, but it isn’t as hard to pin down or as multifaceted as an insurgency group or a virus or children brought to this country illegally fleeing violence and poverty. And guess who defeats It? Seven kids. They face their fears, band together, and defeat the monster in its own lair as kids, and then most of them come back as adults to finish the job. And after they’ve fought It for the second time, It’s dead. It isn’t coming back in any form ever again. Sure, at the end of the book the characters start to lose their memories of their war with It, but the story ends on a happy note.

In this way, horror stories–fictional horror stories–can act as therapeutic. We see very real versions of hell unfolding at home and abroad, and then we dive into a story where the characters are fighting their own hell. And we know deep down it’s fiction, but we don’t care. We sympathize and empathize with the characters. Occasionally we even recognize ourselves and our own brutal, tortured pasts in one or two particular character. And we see them defeating demons, exorcising ghosts, kicking serial killer butt, solving murders, and sometimes even bringing back the dead! Sure, plenty of people die in these stories and a good number of them end up traumatized by their experiences. But they usually defeat the enemy, they come out of the conflict stronger, and they sometimes even find romance.

What a horror novel can do for us.

And that fills us with hope. We think to ourselves, “Sure it’s fictional, but I see myself in these characters and the problems they face. So if they can take on ultimate evil and defeat it, what can I do?” In essence, horror takes the feelings of depression and jaded cynicism out of us and fill us with possibility and optimism. Weird, I know. These are stories that aim to scare us and fill our dreams with terror. But horror can do that and lift up your spirits too.

Horror is certainly one of the things that can lift up my spirits when I’m feeling down.

Has horror ever made you feel better after you’ve been feeling down? What happened? Why do you think you felt better afterwards?

Self-Pub Authors: Submitting Short Stories to Magazines

Posted: September 1, 2014 in Journalism, Living and Life, short story, Writing
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I’ve just written up and published my latest article from Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. Today’s article is Submitting Short Stories to Magazines. I figured that since a lot of authors, both traditional and independent, publish or attempt to publish short stories in magazines and anthologies, why not write an article that aims to help authors accomplish just that. And I plan to follow up on that article with another article about the short story submission process very soon, if I can, so keep an eye out for that.

And if you do decide to check out the article, please check out the rest of the website. Self-Pub Authors comes with many helpful articles written by indie authors for indie authors that aim to make self-publishing easy and cost effective. And you never know what sort of articles you’ll find on this website that could prove helpful in getting you some awesome reviews or a ton of readers or something.

That’s all for now. Have a good evening, my Followers of Fear. I certainly think I will.

666 Followers! I’ve Reached A Terrifying Milestone!

Posted: August 30, 2014 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
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I did say back when I surpassed 25,000 views that another milestone was on the horizon. And this one has come to pass: as of last night, I have passed 666 blog followers! You know what that means!

He’s coming for us all!

Actually, it doesn’t mean that. This is just a milestone I set up for myself. I don’t really think it has any relevance whatsoever to the demonic, especially since technically at this point I have 668 followers. And I don’t even believe in Satan as the Lord of Evil, so I don’t think I’ll be getting a visit from him any time soon.

Still, I’m happy that I’ve reached this milestone. It makes me feel like a seriously bad-ass horror novelist. And it just shows that I’m doing something right. Lately I’ve been getting a lot more views and followers on my blog, and there’s even been more people interested in checking out and buying my books, which makes me extremely happy. Thanks to all of you for helping me out and supporting me.

Well, that’s all for now. I just wanted to put that out there. You all have a wonderful day that’s hopefully free from demonic activity. And as it’s the first day of football season…GO BUCKS!

Twenty-Five Thousand Views!!!!

Posted: August 29, 2014 in Living and Life
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I am pleased to announce that at some point last night, Rami Ungar the Writer passed the 25K view milestone, something that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. At the time I am writing this, I actually now have 25,013 views. And I have only one thing to say to you:

These days, this is my default let’s-party-because-we-have-something-to-celebrate song. You like?

Anyway, back on subject. I’ve brought it up numerous times when I make it to important milestones, but I remember during the first year or two of blogging (which were also my first year or two as a student at Ohio State), it was rare for me to get views. One or two views a day was the most I could expect, and it was kind of disheartening to see so few people reading my blog. At times I even thought about quitting. But I kept at it, buoyed by the occasional follower or comment, and by the many articles I wanted to write or had inspiration to write. And people kept coming for some reason.

And now, I have reached a huge milestone in my blogging, with at least eight views a day helping to propel me to twenty-five thousand views. And I’ve got to thank everyone who’s visited, subscribed, liked, and commented on my blog for it. Thank you so much for your support and love. It means a lot to me and keeps me working hard so that someday I can be a really successful novelist.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll hopefully post something else before the end of the day. How can I not? Not only do I have a ton of stuff I want to write, but I have another milestone coming up. Yes, I have another one on the horizon, believe it or not. If I get it within the next couple of days, I’l post about it. Until then, thanks for all your support, and I hope I can continue to count on your support for a very long time. Have a great weekend, my Followers of Fear.

Why I CAN Believe It’s My Senior Year of College

Posted: August 14, 2014 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Reflections
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Imagine if you will a cloudy day in September 2011. A young man stands at the corner of 16th and College Road on Ohio State University’s campus. He is 18, casually dressed and a little cold but extremely happy and excited. Today is the first full day on campus as a student, and he’s walking around before he heads over to the Agriculture Building (wherever that is) to wait with several other students before Convocation, when he and so many other freshman will officially be greeted as students by President E. Gordon Gee and then from there begin their academic careers.

Three years of being here. Pretty good ones, too.

The young man feels that life si good. Already he’s begun making friends. He’s got a steady job at the financial aid office that pays well. He has a dorm room all to himself, and his own bathroom to boot. And he’s got people around him who are willing to help him if a problem arises, he need only ask. The only things to worry about are classes and getting to know what he needs to know in order to navigate college successfully. But he’s hopeful. He thinks he’ll learn what he needs to know before graduation.

Flash forward to August 2014. That young man is now 21, and he’s a full adult, as hard as it is for many, including him, to believe. He’s survived these last three years, and they’ve been pretty good for him, on the whole. He now lives in an apartment with a really good roommate a few blocks from campus, and he has an easy commute to his job, still in the financial aid office, where he’s earning a little more and is a valued member of the team (or so he likes to think they see him as one). He’s also done a lot besides attend classes in the past three years. His blog, which only had a few followers when he started writing it in August 2011, now has nearly 1200, a majority of them having subscribed through WordPress. He’s also started a Facebook page and a Twitter account, each with their own small followings, and, perhaps most amazing, he’s published three books.

And all around him, he notices one thing. He’s a senior now. This is his final year at Ohio State.

Yeah, that’s me. I’m a senior at Ohio State University. A lot has happened to me in the past three years, including all that stuff above. I survived my first year, with pretty good grades too. I survived the transition from quarters to semesters. I transitioned very well from dorm life to my apartment, and learning to live with someone else (besides a family member, I mean). I came out as bisexual, and was greeted with all the love and acceptance I could have ever hoped for. I went to Europe for three weeks, and it was amazing. And now I’m at the home stretch, with less than nine months till I don the cap and gown and walk down the aisle to graduate.

You know, it’s not too hard for me to accept the fact that I made it this far. I mean, I know that I should be saying “Where has the time gone? It felt like just yesterday I was a freshman.” Well, it actually feels like ages ago, way more than three years. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it, actually. Technically I reached senior rank sometime back in January, but my double major required more credits to graduate. Besides, why would I want to graduate early if it meant not spending the full four years and getting to go on a study abroad trip?

Oh yeah, tuition costs.

Still, glad I got to do the full four years.

Anyway, even if I wanted to be disbelieving about the whole “I’ve-got-a-year-to-graduate” thing, it’s pretty hard to act that way when you’ve been doing a lot of work just to make sure that your senior thesis–which you volunteered to do–goes somewhat smoothly this coming year. And then there’s the whole thing about trying to find a job after graduation. I’m already well into my job search for after graduation. There’s a job fair next month I hope to attend, maybe see what sort of jobs or internships I can get my paws on. So yeah, I’m pretty much used to the whole senior thing. And with seventeen credit hours each semester, I don’t think I’ll be developing senior-itis anytime soon. I’m going to be working harder than ever before.

Only 9 months to go. Start counting.

Still, I plan to enjoy this year. I may still not have everything figured out (and I doubt I ever will), but I’ve figured out plenty, and I hope to use what I’ve figured out to help me navigate senior year. I have no idea what’ll happen when I’ve finished my senior year (though since I have no immediate plans to further my education, the only tuition bills I’ll probably be paying is my loans), but I hope that whatever I end up doing, it’ll be good for me.

I just hope somewhre along the lines I get to increase my readership and get plenty of people interested in my books! God willing that’ll happen someday soon.

What was your last year of college like? Did you have trouble believing it, or were you pretty used to it by the time it happened?

Thankful For The Good

Posted: August 12, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections
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It seems easy these days to get caught up in all the horrors and tragedies going on lately and feeling hopeless and depressed over it. Right now in the Middle East, two wars are going on, each a continuation fo a longstanding conflict that is older than most of the readers on this blog. Go up north, and you’ll see a huge superpower that is making aggressive moves at its neighbors in order to reassert itself as a once feared and respected empire. And then come home to the United States, where the federal government resembles more of a daycare full of squabbling children than a functioning body of elected officials. We’ve got continuing problems with immigration, gun violence, police abuse, the wage gap, and more problems than I care to put in this post, all with no end in sight. Add to that the recent deaths of so many people, some of whom died before their times and under tragic circumstances, and it feels easy to give into despair.

But it’s in these times that we must look to the good and remember all that we have to be thankful for. Sure, my home country of the USA is far from perfect, especially on the federal level, but it is a country with plenty of opportunities. I’ve been able to take advantage of those opportunities, getting a quality education that I’ll finish up this coming May with my college graduation (any further education will be several years down the road if I decide to pursue it), and while receiving this education, I was able to receive counseling that allowed me to learn how to interact with people and get along (a subject which confused me growing up and still confounds me sometimes). And if that was not enough, I’ve been able to pursue my passions and publish three books, with another one recently finished, another one in the editing stages, and a sixth planned for this school year. Am I making lots of money each month? No, but that doesn’t stop me from working hard and making my dreams come true.

I’m also blessed to have a loving, if somewhat kooky family, great friends, and the near-guarantee that they won’t be suddenly taken away from me (it could happen, but it’s not likely). I also have a steady job that allows me to pay my bills and afford the things I need to get by, and I have taken part in programs that will help me find a job after graduation.

And I’ve been lucky enough to travel to other countries, Israel the summer before my senior year of high school and England, France, and Germany this past May. And there’s a chance (slight, but there), that I could go abroad again in the coming years, God willing.

And that’s not all. There are stories appearing in the world every day that makes life seem magical. A man in Florida graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA in business, all while battling cancer he’d had since he was 18. A dog whose hair was so overgrown you couldn’t tell which end was the front got her hair cut off and is now getting adopted. And my friend Matt Williams tells me that scientists have developed a new method for finding people more predisposed to commit suicide, so maybe someday we can make suicide a less common problem in the world. Even with the dark stuff, there’s still room for the light.

Look around you. What are you thankful for? What’s good in your life? Your friends and family? Your job or school? Is there someone or something that makes you forget all the bad and feel at peace? Did something come in for you at the library or in the mail that you’ve been waiting for a long time? Is it a book by me, by any chance? If it is, you might have just made my day.

When you think about it, you can find plenty more reasons to be happy than to be sad. So keep strong and never stop hoping and looking for a better tomorrow. I know life isn’t always easy. For some, it’s a constant hell. But we’re human beings, and while we’re capable of great horrors, we’re also capable of great good, and of being able to find the silver lining in any grey cloud.

So if events around the world have you stressed out, take a moment to reflect on the good. You may just find your stress and sadness floating away.

I’ll eave you with this video by the immensely talented singer Alex Boye. From the moment I saw it, I knew it was an incredible video with the power to help so, so many people. Check it out for yourself. You might just ind yourself perking up a little. I know I do when I watch this video. Especially shots with the special guest star of the video. You might recognize him. He’s quite the famous anchorman.

Self-Pub Authors: Writing Reviews

Posted: August 12, 2014 in Journalism, Review, Writing
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Most of you have read my reviews (and if you haven’t had the pleasure, I’ll probably be doing a review soon, because there are some awesome horror films coming out this month). Since I’ve done so many of them, and occasionally they’ve gotten a lot of views, I decided to do a post for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors on Writing Reviews.

I’m hoping this post will be helpful to the many authors who would like to try writing reviews themselves. Those things can have so much influence over a person’s decision to buy a movie ticket or place a reservation at their local library for a new book. And I had fun breaking down the process I use for writing reviews and making it into a helpful article.

If you have the chance, please check out the article. And if you’re a self-published author or are thinking of pursuing self-publishing, please check out the rest of the website. There are plenty of articles written by independent authors for independent authors to make all aspects of self-publishing easy and cost efficient.

That’s all for now. If I have time later today, I’ll write another blog post. Until then, I’m busy editing Video Rage. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.

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