Posts Tagged ‘college life’

The Quiet Game: One Month Later

Posted: August 17, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Review, short story, Writing
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tqg cover

It has exactly been one month since The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones came out. Yes, one month. Feels like a lot longer, but it’s only a month. A pretty crazy month too. I moved into my new apartment with my roommate Morgan, I worked most days, I saw some old friends and met some new ones, and in four days the fall semester starts (more on that later).

I’ve sold 25 print paperback copies and ten or eleven digital copies so far (there’s a guy I met who said he’s going to be downloading the book tonight. Depending on how long it takes for KDP to register a download, I may not find out till tomorrow). Also, I’ve gotten another review on Amazon, this one from Jason Haxton, owner of a box that is said to be possessed by a dybbuk, a demon from Jewish folklore. You may also know him as the author of the book The Dybbuk Box, a book detailing his experiences with the box, and the movie The Possession, which is based on Haxton’s book.

Here’s what he had to say on the book, which he gave 5 stars. The title of the review is Nailed It:

I happened across The author Rami Unger about a year ago when he was researching the paranormal online.
He nailed the Dybbuk story. Write more… soon! Jason Haxton Author of “The Dibbuk Box:.

Pretty awesome, huh? And coming from an author of a really excellent book and someone who’s experienced the supernatural before, I take it as a compliment. Plus his review has brought The Quiet Game‘s rating to a 4.5 average. I cannot complain. Oh and Jason, I have a book coming out in November. If you want me to let you know about that one too, I will.

If you’re interested in reading The Quiet Game, check it out on Amazon or Smashwords. And however you feel about the book, please write a review if you have the time. I always appreciate feedback, whether it be positive or negative feedback that I’m hearing.

Hope things are going well with you tonight. I’ve got another blog post and some writing to do before I go to bed tonight. Wish me luck.

An Interview With Some Friends–Part 2

Posted: August 11, 2013 in Journalism, Living and Life, Writing
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Earlier today I posted the first half of an interview made by some friends of mine, Rui Li and Josh Mangel. Now I’d like to post the second part, which was recorded and then transcribed on July 1st, before The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones came out.

Before you read it, I’d like to point out that part of the ending of the interview is a little hard to read. That’s because there was some problems with the audio that recorded the interview, and what was said was therefore unintelligible. What is here is my friend Josh’s attempt to get down exactly what was said. So please pardon that, and just enjoy what you read, should you find yourself reading the entire interview.

Once again, thanks to Josh and Rui. I really appreciate you two taking the time to come over to my place and interview me about my writing. It means a lot that you show an interest in it.

~~~

Rami Ungar, a young up-and-coming horror author, has been writing stories since he was the tender age of six. He has one book already published, The Quiet Game: Five Tales That Chill Your Bones, and another coming out in November, Reborn City, a science fiction novel. He also writes for two blogs, one that showcases his personal work, and one that offers advice to self-publishing authors. Rami is sharp as a knife, talented, and certainly has the uncompromising attitude needed for a writer.

We covered several topics with Rami, and he provided us with a wealth of information on writing and the publishing process. The first part of this interview focuses on Rami’s personal story and his influences and experiences, and the second half covers publishing and some of Rami’s other secrets.

Take us through the publishing process. How does that work? I don’t know very much about publishing, and it seems like kind of a crazy process.

Would you like to hear it for a novel or a short story or an article, what?

All (laughing). Sorry.

We could be here for a while.

I think it’s interesting, for people who are reading an interview, because not a lot of people know how that happens.

Well, for a novel… publishing novels has changed over the past couple of years. How much do you know about indie publishing?

Nothing.

Well, it used to be that you wrote a novel, and you had to get an agent, and that agent had to find you a publisher. That publisher had to publish your novel for you, and the marketing department had to do some work in order to make sure that people actually knew about your novel, and bought it. Having a publisher depended on how well your novel did, so if your novel didn’t do well, your publisher could drop you. With indie publishing, authors are able to create novels on their computer, design a cover, and distribute and market themselves. Basically, they’re doing all the work, and they’re making most of the profits. Amazon has really helped with this. Amazon offers the chance for authors to get out there and actually write themselves, publish themselves, and distribute themselves. I’m using Amazon myself in order to distribute my own work, so it’s actually been very helpful. The publishing industry is reacting to that. The Big Six, as they call the big six publishing companies, which includes groups like Penguin, or Doubleday, Random House; they’re reacting to this in ways they never expecting to, because they never saw this coming, and so they have to react. They’re letting fewer books in now, they’re publishing less, because they’re driven by profit, the books they believe will make money. Authors who have really good novels, but publishing houses aren’t accepting them, they’re like, forget the publishing house, I’m going to self-publish. They’re kind of facilitating their own deaths.

So, it’s very similar to the music industry in a lot of ways.

Yeah, the artists are taking control.

What do you think about – I don’t want to admit piracy, but if you go on the Internet, you can read dozens of interesting things just by clicking the button for free. What incentive is there for audiences to read something being published, something that costs money?

Well, the thing is, piracy is taking published works and distributing them illegally, so I’d like to think that the whole legal thing is keeping people from reading pirated work. A lot of authors choose to get copyrights, which is something that I recommend. You pay a small fee to get a copyright for your work, and the legal protection is very good. I’ve copyrighted my work, and so far it’s served me well; people can’t use any of my work without getting in trouble.

Who taught you these things? How did you learn the publishing process?

It’s all out there on the Internet, there are blogs devoted to teaching people how to publish on their own; in fact, I write for a blog.

What’s the blog called?

Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. It’s me and four other writers helping other writers writing articles that are meant to help other authors publish on their own. I’ve only been working for them for the past couple of weeks. I don’t get paid for this, but I love doing it. I write articles for them as they come to me, and I publish them and hopefully they help people to write better.

Have you ever had anyone who read an article write you back and say that the information that you shared helped?

Well, the thing is with a blog that people are free to comment, and they do, so I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my work, most of it, thank God, has been very positive. For novels, though, I often do what’s called a beta reader, and that is, I’ll ask someone, usually a friend who’s also a writer, or maybe just a very avid reader, to take a look at the novel, or sometimes a short story, and to give me feedback. I often get very helpful feedback that tells me what I should change, what I should rewrite, what I should keep…

When you do the blog and the website stuff, sometimes there are very hurtful comments. Have you ever been hurt by an online comment?

I once wrote an article on people that had been very rude to an author because she was against female genital mutilation, sometimes called female circumcision. They didn’t want her to be against this unless she was also against male circumcision. I wrote an article about that, and some people found the article, and they kept trying to convince me that male circumcision and female circumcision were just products of the devil. I just said, that’s not my belief, one may have health benefits, the other is actually very sexist in nature and serves no purpose other than to subjugate women and cause them harm.

How and when did you have the idea to publish a book, to write a book? Did you get the idea yourself or did your parents or family suggest it to you?

Well, I’ve always wanted to be a published novelist, but the whole idea of self-publishing came to me over time. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go this route, but I thought maybe I should… after hearing from people who had had positive experiences with self-publishing, I said, “Heck! Let’s do it!”

The Quiet Game is coming out in seventeen days. I’ve got another novel, my science fiction novel, Reborn City, is coming out in November. Pretty soon I’ll be able to start the process to self-publish my serial killer novel, Snake.

When you self-publish something, do you print copies yourself?

Amazon has a service called Print-On-Demand, which means that someone will order a book, and Amazon will print the order then and there and the send it to them. A little bit of the money from the sale goes to actually printing a copy of the book. With e-books, it’s even easier, because it’s just like replicating a file.

I know that a lot of this is probably already on the blog that you wrote about helping authors self-publish, but do you think that there is a future out there for a lot of the young authors? If you were giving specific advice to young authors about the very best things they could do, the best way to become an author…

Well, to become an author takes a lot of dedication: a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and a lot of passion. I would mostly say that if you want to become an author, you have to read a lot. You have to read many books from many different people. You have to write a lot, and try to learn as much as you can about writing as possible. Most importantly, you can’t lose your nerve; you have to keep going, because you’re basically typing four-letter words forty thousand times. There’s forty thousand words in your average novel, usually a lot more.

What have you done to market yourself? Do you talk to people even though you don’t want to, just to let them know what you’ve done so that others will share your story?

Marketing myself is actually not as difficult as it sounds. Sure, talking to people and telling them about my novels is part of it, but there are many other ways to market yourself; for one thing, I use Twitter a lot to get people interested in my work. These past couple of days, I’ve been using Facebook and Twitter to count down the number of days until The Quiet Game comes out. I also write a blog, a personal blog about my writing that has close to three hundred people following it and hopefully some of them will read my book. As I said, I also write for another blog that helps self-publish authors, so maybe some people will get interested through that.

Since you believe in God, do you carry around a personal item that can protect you from other things, like an amulet?

I do wear a necklace, my necklace is a mezuzah – that’s an object in Judaism that’s put on doorposts – it’s supposed to be like a protective amulet of sorts. I usually wear that all the time, and I feel it will protect me when I wear it. I’m very happy I have it. It was a bar mitzvah gift. I also have a ring with some words on the Talmud on it.

What does it say?

“He who saves a life, it is as if he saves the world entire.” Considering that I kill off a lot of the characters in my books, I have not been doing very well with that commandment (laughing)!

Have you ever wrote anything that opposes Judaism and been criticized by your father?

My dad has wanted me to write stuff based upon my own life or based upon Judaism, but things that go against Judaism in general, I’m not sure that I’ve ever written anything exactly like that that. I have written scenes full of murder, blood, and gore; I have written from the perspectives of Christians, Muslims, others. I also did write a sex scene once! It was between two people that weren’t married to each other, and Judaism does encourage people to wait until they’re married.

Would you say there are other things like Judaism that have influenced you that don’t necessarily relate to horror stories?

Things that have influenced me?

Some people would say, “I read R.L. Stine all the time when I was a kid, so I just loved R.L. Stine.” But have there been things that influenced you to write horror that have nothing to do with horror?

I do read a lot of Japanese comics as well, and those range so much in genre from comedy, to romance, to action – I’ve been able to derive ideas from those. There are stories that take place in other universes or the past, stories that involve magic, and stories that give me a glimpse as to how certain people view romance.

Is there anything else – maybe a park you like and its scenery, or a building, and you imagine the building…

I also use meditation. That’s helped me think more clearly when I write, so that’s helped.

Do you always meditate before you write?

I meditate twice a day, every day. I feel more creative and focused, when I meditate, so try and do it right before I start writing.

What I wanted to know was if there are some writers who have similar problems with writing: they don’t have a regular schedule, they sometimes sleep at night, sometimes during the day, and they don’t want to exercise because they want to just keep writing.

I’m sure there are people like that but I don’t know any personally. Most writers are on a pretty consistent schedule.

Do you have a pretty consistent schedule?

Yeah, I’d be worried if I didn’t have a pretty consistent schedule. It might point to a health problem, it might point to an unhealthy lifestyle, or it might point to something entirely different, I’m not sure. It depends on the circumstance.

How were you educated about writing before college?

I just wrote! I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I did it for the love of writing.

I meant to ask you that before, actually. Was there someone in particular who taught you about writing?

No, the school I went to didn’t have a lot of writing classes. In fact, we only had one writing workshop in fifth grade, and afterwards everything was meant to prepare you for writing essays in college. I didn’t really have any training in fiction, not until college. But getting this far without that training; people tell me that’s something else. I’ve got to say I got where I am with the support of my friends and my family.

Do you believe you have a talent for writing?

I believe that I’ve developed a talent for writing.

Do you have any events coming up, or readings?

Readings, no. I am trying to develop a stand-up comedy act (laughing). So if it’s any good, we’ll have to see. The Quiet Game is coming out on July 17th. It will be available from Amazon and other retailers in paperback and e-book format. The price is yet to be set; I should set it soon. Reborn City, my science fiction novel, will be available November 1st, so I’m going to be doing a lot work to get ready for that, including creating a Facebook page.

Do you have a favorite writer?

Oh my God, that’s a tough question. I really like Stephen King and Anne Rice.

I know a lot of famous people, before they become famous, they really admire another famous person and sometimes they imitate them until they realize that they need to find their true personality. Did you do that?

Yeah, there were times were I sounded a lot like a hybrid of Stephen King and Anne Rice. But over time, that’s really changed, so that I sound less like them and more like me. By sounding like me, I’ve been published a few times: short stories in magazines. I like my style as it is now; I hope to improve it over time. Like I said, my writing’s improved, and I like writing like I write. My style. Rami Ungar style.

I read some of your stories; I liked them.

Thank you.

I read one about the succubus and Hunter.

Oh yeah, that one.

I liked that one.

You would (laughing).

What do you mean by that (feigns insult)?

Well, you did mention the succubus, and those are…

What are those?

They’re demonesses that have sex with you while you sleep.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

Can you repeat that?

Demonesses that have sex with you while you sleep.

Can you say that again (laughing)?

Now you’re being sarcastic!

How can that be?

Well, they’re not real.

Oh, it’s not a real thing.

Well, it might be real, it might not be. You never know… He’s actually not human, he’s actually a space alien.

(unintelligible muttering)

Actually he’s a space alien. I’m pretty sure I saw her walking around with two antennae.

Oh, is that how you say it? I thought it was antenna.

Antennae. (pause) Well, thanks for coming over.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

 

An Interview With Some Friends–Part 1

Posted: August 11, 2013 in Journalism, Living and Life, Writing
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About a month back, I had an interview with some friends, Josh Mangel and Rui Li, who were interviewing various people for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with a class they were both taking. The interview is in two parts, mostly because all together it’s about 14 pages worth of interview. And here’s the interview’s first half, which was recorded at my house one lovely Wednesday afternoon with some soda and snacks in my living room.

Thanks to Josh Mangel and Rui Li for interviewing me and sending me the transcripts. I appreciate all you’ve done for me and I hope this project of yours was a success.

For all readers, please be aware that the interview was recorded July 1st, meaning that it was about 17 days before The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones came out. Just something to keep in mind. Also, the bold parts are questions from Josh and Rui, while the regular script is my responses. Just for clarification’s sake.

~~~

Rami Ungar, a young up-and-coming horror author, has been writing stories since he was the tender age of six. He has one book already published, The Quiet Game: Five Tales That Chill Your Bones, and another coming out in November, Reborn City, a science fiction novel. He also writes for two blogs, one that showcases his personal work, and one that offers advice to self-publishing authors. Rami is sharp as a knife, talented, and certainly has the uncompromising attitude needed for a writer.

We covered several topics with Rami, and he provided us with a wealth of information on writing and the publishing process. The first part of this interview focuses on Rami’s personal story and his influences and experiences, and the second half covers publishing and some of Rami’s other secrets.

How did you get started writing?

I think it was Harry Potter. I read it when I was five or something and just got hooked on it. I wanted to write like that. I wanted to write about magic, and mystery, and I’ve been writing ever since. Though, when I got into horror I got into a different area.

What attracted you to writing horror?

Well, you know, there’s a funny story about that. I’ve always enjoyed scaring people – I’ve always enjoyed sneaking up behind them and going “Boo!” Sneaking up behind people isn’t always acceptable, so I guess writing scary stuff is a better alternative. And I like doing it – I really enjoy it.

Did you decide to write out of a motivation to become famous?

I think that influences me a little bit. I think that influences every writer who’s ever gone through publication – to be the famous guy whose books are in all the bookstores, who’s recognizable anywhere on a busy street. But it’s really a lot less about that and a lot more about writing what I love and sharing it with the world. I’ve got a collection of short stories coming out in about seventeen days and I’m just looking forward to sharing these stories that I’ve written with the world. So if I can make a little money off it that would be nice.

What’s your collection of short stories going to be called? Can you take us through them?

The Quiet Game: Five Tales That Chill Your Bones. It’s five separate stories that I wrote mostly over winter break. One was written over the beginning of spring semester. One, The Quiet Game, the titular short story, is about an all-girls school in the middle of nowhere that wakes up one morning cut off from the rest of the world. Everyone’s deaf, and they can’t hear a word. They soon find out that there’s something strange going on at the school, something very sinister.

Another short story is called Addict, and it’s about a man with sex addiction who’s trying to go cold turkey. He has some really freaky hallucinations when he attempts it. Another short story is called I’m Going To Be The Next James Bond, but it doesn’t have a lot to do with James Bond. It’s about a bunch of kids who go into a hospital, an abandoned hospital, in order to prove they’re brave and the freaky stuff that happens there.

There’s another short story that I’m really proud of called In The Lady Ogre’s Den. It follows a child with autism who’s in the hospital and the crazy stuff that happens there. Really terrible stuff happens to him there. The last short story is called Samson Wise’s Curse, and it involves a dybbuk – that a spirit from Jewish mythology, it’s kind of like a possessing ghost.

Is there something about being scared that attracts you personally? Do you enjoy being frightened?

Well, yes actually. Some people enjoy having a drink every now and then, some people enjoy skydiving – me, I enjoy being scared through a story. That gives me something like a natural high, and I really enjoy that. I went to see World War Z last weekend with my mom and my sister. There are some really scary parts and I was enjoying myself every minute. I had to have my hand cover my mouth, cause I was freaked out – like, what’s gonna happen? I was really enjoying myself.

What would you say is the best zombie movie?

You know, I don’t actually watch a lot of zombie movies or read a lot of zombie novels…

Best horror movie, in general…

Oh, that’s a tough one.

Best five. Or three, or…

The original Amityville Horror is definitely an awesome movie, because you really don’t understand what’s causing the haunting, or why it’s happening – a lot of the stuff that’s happening is very mysterious, and that just serves to make it scarier. At one point during the movie, the male lead, he sees a giant pig with glowing eyes looking out of a window, and just sends a silent message to him, and we don’t know what that message is or why that pig is there. It’s just really scary.

Also, there are movies like Halloween or Friday The 13th or Nightmare On Elm Street. They’re much bloodier than a lot of other horror films but they really scare people, and if you see the original films, they’re very good. They’re really well thought out.

Do you think that all of your stories need magic in some form?

Not necessarily. I’ve written a novel about a serial killer in New York City, and there’s no magic at all. It’s basically humans against humans.

Do you think that in some ways that’s the scariest thing?

For me, the darkness that humanity is capable of, the evil, that is fascinating. I mean, I don’t like it at all when it’s really happening. I don’t really like it when there’s an actual killer on the loose, or someone’s actually planning murder. But, within a literary context, it’s fascinating to think about what cause someone to want to become a killer – what causes someone to want to do something so heinous, so atrocious.

Overall, what are you scared of the most in the world?

Overall – that’s really tough. I’ve got to say I’m not too fond of wasps, or bees, or large spiders. I can deal with a small spider, once I get used to the fact that there’s one right over my shoulder and I’m like – uggh! But large spiders like tarantulas just freak me out.

I think that all of those things that you are scared of are just because they can cause you to die. Would you say that death scares a lot of people?

I think that death is a huge factor in what people are afraid of. It harkens back to our survival instincts, to look for ways to live, and fear developed from that. But, there are a lot of things that can’t hurt us but scare people to death. That makes it much more interesting – something that can’t hurt you, like the sound of thunder. That can scare people to death. The fact that that happens, that people are afraid of thunder, or people are afraid of water, even just a small kiddie pool – that fascinates me to some degree.

Talking about death, do you think that you would be more afraid of your own death or the death of family members?

Definitely more of my family members. I’m not afraid of death, per se – I’m not willing to meet it anytime soon! But I’m very spiritual, I do believe in life after death, so I’m not afraid of dying. Though, like I said, I’m not willing to meet it anytime soon. I’d be much more concerned about the death of a family member.

So have you thought about how most others are afraid of the death of their family members, so when you write, you write about causing the death of their family members instead of them? I think that now most scary stories just cause the death of the people that’s reading the book.

Yeah, or it’s already realized, like in I Am Legend or something.

That’s a really complicated question, cause when I write, I’m not necessarily thinking that I’m going to write it this way so that people are more afraid or their family members’ deaths or their own deaths. I’m writing in the way that I feel will cause the most terror. For my serial killer novel, which is called Snake, there’s a scene – I’m not gonna get into too much detail, but there’s a scene where one of the characters, one of the killer’s victims, is horribly wounded, and that terrified me a little when I read it. When I read what I had written I was actually kind of afraid. So, I’m aiming to cause the most fear, I’m not aiming to cause any particular kind of fear. But I’m aiming to cause fear in itself.

Do you ever sit around, and just think of normal everyday household objects or actions that could cause fear if changed to be just the right way? Like a picture like that, if it broke and you slipped on a puddle of water, and you landed in the broken glass, that would be horrifying.

Yeah, but I don’t usually think like that; I think that that’s more random chance, and random chance isn’t usually terrifying. People aren’t usually afraid of random chance. They’re more afraid of what may be lurking around the corner of their eye, or what they feel could actually harm them or has intent to harm them.

Based upon the description of your short stories, it seems like you have a lot of topics related to kids. So you write a lot about kids and children – could that be because you have a personal story from when you were little?

Actually, yes. Though I don’t always write because of that. Children are much more easily scared than adults are. They’re afraid of things that don’t exist or aren’t tangible: the dark, the bogeyman, and the monster in my closet. Kids are much more easy to scare, much more easy to influence. That’s why they make great protagonists in scary stories.

Do you think that people are more scared of the tangible things or the intangible things and why?

I have a theory that as we grow up we actually just change our fears to be more rational. The monster under my bed, the thing living in my closet…

It’s the IRS now (laughing).

…the IRS, terrorists, an overprotective government. We change our fears to suit what we believe is rational or irrational.

So your target audience is children?

My target audience is not children because some of these novels are definitely not for children. In fact, I would argue that none of them are for children. They’re for young adults and full adults (laughing). People who have a sense of maturity and are attracted to scary stuff but aren’t so easily influenced by that and it warps them. Say, I would never give one of my books to a ten-year old and say “go read” because I know it’s gonna freak them out if they read it.

Could you share your personal experience from when you were little that served as the origin for your love of scary stories?

Every horror writer seems to have one of those stories. Stephen King, actually – he’s considered one of the greatest horror writers in our time and he saw a friend of his hit by a train, supposedly, and that caused him to get into horror. Me, my story’s a lot less bloody. You see, when I was young, couldn’t have been more than six, these two – I was at the synagogue one Saturday afternoon, cause, I’m Jewish, and I go to synagogue a lot – and I was wandering around. These two staff members, these two people who were hired by the synagogue to work there on Saturday mornings – like take books that were left in the aisles. This was before I moved to Columbus. These two staff members, they decided to play a prank on me. So, one of them snuck ahead of me without me noticing and the other one was behind me – there was a hallway where you could do that – and this was near the furnace room, or the boiler room, or whatever you call that. There was a humming noise going through the walls, and they just gave me this weird smile, a smile I would not see until I saw Heath Ledger as the Joker (laughing). It was that freaky. And they say to me,  “You hear that sound?” And I, being no more than six, and scared, just nod my head, because I’m freaked out, and they’re like “It’s the sound of de-eath! Death is coming for you!” (laughing) That humming became the sound of buzz saws in my ears – it sounded like buzz saws or chainsaws coming from the other room – and I just ran! I ran and I ran and I didn’t stop running until I was halfway between one end of the synagogue and the other half, and that’s a big distance for a six-year old.

A few weeks later, I went to that exact same spot, just to show that I wasn’t going to die. I went through, I survived, and I guess subconsciously I reacted by learning to love horror, learning to love scaring people, and learning to love to be scared.

How do you think your background, particularly your Jewish heritage, has influenced writing horror?

Well, that’s a really good question. A lot of my stories have to do with the supernatural, and I would argue that despite Judaism and Christianity not really believing in anything like ghosts, they’re very magical religions – I mean, the splitting of the Red Sea, or the ten plagues – that is one of the best horror stories out there. The ten plagues…

What about the sacrifice of Isaac (as a horror story)?

That would make a great thriller, if I didn’t already know the ending. I would argue that religions are very magical, because they’re filled with stories of people doing amazing things. Occasionally, spirituality does appear in my stories. I’ve also written a sci-fi novel, and the main character is a very religious Muslim. Like I said, I’ve written a short story including a demon of Jewish origin, a dybbuk, so that would also count a s being influenced by my Judaism.

So, just now, you also said your short story involves an all-girls school and a sexually abusive man. Does all the sex and girls have some origin in your real life? Like, you like a girl and…

The one, Addict, which is about a man with sex addiction, that’s actually based on the experiences of a friend of mine. He has suffered from sex addiction for a number of years. He knows about this short story, he’s ok with it, but he’s suffered from it for a number of years, so that could be an influence. As for the all-girls school story, that’s just from… I just thought it was an interesting concept. I mean, from what I understand, private schools, especially ones where you live on campus, can be very closed; people can be a very small community. If you cut that off from the world, and you introduce some very unsettling circumstances, strange things can happen, things that wouldn’t happen in a normal society. It’s very similar to what Stephen King did with Under The Dome, only I did it very differently.

Do you think that in some cases horror is not universal? Like, if you put it in a certain place… someone in New York doesn’t have the same experience as someone in the Midwest, they don’t have the same fears.

Well, that’s something that’s the job of the author to get the point across to the reader no matter who they are. So I’m not so much worried about a man in New York understanding the reasoning of a man in the Midwest, it’s more can anyone understand this (laughing). If people are understanding what I’m writing, if they’re able to identify, to empathize with the character then I’m doing my job.

So, you are writing for other people to read. If no one read what you write, would you still write?

Probably. I’ve got so many stories in my head that I need to get them out on paper, just so that they can get out of my head and somewhere else. But I think that with the publishing industry as it is today, a single person at home has the ability to create a novel all by themselves and distribute it to the entire world. There’s always a chance that there will be someone who’s going to read your work, you just have to make sure that people know that you’ve written something and that it is available somewhere.

Have you ever felt so sucked into your stories that you forgot your own life and the real world?

I’ve sometimes got very into my story and spent hours just writing. I’ve never exactly just sat down and read my own work for hours on end. I do get very much into my stories. I’ll usually go around planning them for several days before I write them, and when I do, it usually just flows out. I can get very taken with other ideas as well.

Have you taken character ideas from people you know and directly incorporated them into stories?

You mean, put a friend in a novel? I’ve done that before, but only for certain reasons, because there are a lot of problems with actually putting people you know in a story. They may get a huge head (laughing) if they find out there’s a character based on them in a story, or they may object to how that character is treated. They’ll say, “I don’t think my character should do this or that” or “Why is my character a ginger?” or “Why is my character killed off? I want him to live! Why isn’t he the main character?” Oy yoi yoi! (laughing) But there are circumstances in which I will put someone I know into a story as a character. For example, one time at my high school they were doing an auction to raise money for the yearbook, and I auctioned off a role in my sci-fi novel. It didn’t sell for a lot, but a friend of mine did buy that spot, and I wrote them in, and I actually really did end up liking that character, so they may appear in the sequel. I actually ended up making him the villain’s assistant.

How many stories have you written altogether?

Oh my god, I don’t even want to put a number on that. I’ve been writing since I was five (laughing) and there are stories that have been lost and never found again, and there are stories that haven’t been published, there are stories that are published, there are stories that are in the midst of getting to be published.

Video Rage: One-Sixth Of The Way In

Posted: July 30, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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I was hampered by a little writer’s block today, but after a pasta dinner, a nice walk and a shower, I was able to get a lot of writing in. And I’m happy to say, I got through Chapter Six of Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City. Like I’ve stated previously, Video Rage takes place about two or so weeks after RC ends and a lot has changed for the characters. People are pushed in ways they’ve never been pushed before, secrets are revealed, and the whole world is after them now. It’s a pretty crazy trip, but it’s fun writing.

Writing these first six chapters has been a lot of work. I had to re-immerse myself into the world of Reborn City, and since the plot of this novel takes place outside of Reborn City, I had to invent a lot of new aspects in terms of that universe’s society and culture. It was a little difficult at first, especially writing a good hook for the opening, along with showing what the Hydras have been up to and how they’ve changed since RC closed, but now it feels almost natural to go back into that world. Kind of like jumping down the rabbit hole, I guess.

I also had to split up Chapter Four into two parts while I was writing it. I realized that as a chapter it would be packing too much in, so I had to split it into two separate chapters. In terms of character development and storyline, I feel it was the right thing to do. I still have 31 more chapters to write instead of 30 like the original outline intended, but it’ll be 31 better chapters thanks to the split, if you ask me.

Tomorrow I hope to start Chapter Seven, if I can get through Chapter Six of Laura Horn quickly. Working on two novels at once has its drawbacks, but I’m getting a lot of work done, and I’m having fun with it. If I can, I’d like to make a habit of working on two novels at once from now on, if I can. Of course, when senior year comes around and I have a thesis to write, I may have to focus on just one novel! Good thing that’s a year away, right?

I hope to have more good news tomorrow. In the meantime, good night and have a lovely sleep.

The Benefits I’ve Gotten Through Blogging

Posted: July 1, 2013 in Living and Life
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I’ve been blogging here on WordPress for nearly two years (the second anniversary of Rami Ungar the Writer is actually a month and a day away, believe it or not). A lot has happened in that time. I started college, a job, and a new life. I began the publishing process for Reborn City, wrote The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, which will be coming out in 16 days, I published several short stories and one or two articles, became a writer for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, met my roommate for the apartment I’m getting in August, read all the Hannibal Lecter books, got into The Daily Show, and a few other things.

And witness to most of this is my blog. I’ve been able to record my musings, review movies, TV shows, and books, update people on my writing, and add links to the places my short stories are published. I’ve made some great friends through the blogosphere, a couple of whom have helped me with my writing my being kind enough to offer feedback on my work (by the way, both of those friends are Canadian, so I’ll give them a shout-out by wishing them a happy Canada Day!). I’ve met people who have offered me wonderful advice, given me their own thoughts, and even sometimes argued with me on this or that topic. I even had nearly two-thousand Anne Rice fans reading my review of The Wolf Gift, and I’m happy to say the majority of them reacted positively to it.

You know, my life has been enriched a lot by blogging. Sure at times I was lucky just to get a single person to read the posts I was writing. But these days I’m proud to say I have a little bit of a following going on, and I’m glad that you all keep reading my posts. Sure I lose a few followers every now and then, but most of them keep coming back (God only knows why) and it touches me deeply that you want to read what I’m writing. Thank you so much.

new TCG cover

I’m about to start on a new but related adventure: publishing and selling copies of a published collection of short stories. I have trepidation, excitement, doubts, and confidence all going through my system. But whatever happens, I have a feeling that my blog, and the people who read it, are going to be behind it every step of the way.

Oh, and speaking of publishing, remember Daisy, the short story I published on Amazon and Smashwords, not only as a promotion for The Quiet Game but also to see if anyone would read it? Well, it looks like 150 people have downloaded and read it, and I even got one review that gave it an “average” grade. Have no idea if that’s an indication of how The Quiet Game will do (I’m personally hoping it’ll do much better), but it’s still got me excited. Perhaps in the future I’ll have 150 downloads on the first day!

Have you downloaded a copy yet?

Have you downloaded a copy yet?

Off to go jog now. Once again, thanks for reading my work. I really appreciate it.

Helping My School Out

Posted: June 4, 2013 in Social Activism
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Earlier this week, it came to light that E. Gordon Gee, the President of Ohio State University, had said some things about the University of Notre Dame and Catholics in jest at an athletics meeting. Some took the comments as offensive,  He apologized for his comments and Notre Dame formally forgave him. Most of the Catholic students on campus and on Facebook have agreed that they didn’t find the comments offensive. Heck, I’ve heard more offensive comments from comedians on TV (Jeff Dunham and his dummies come to mind).

But today, President Gee announced his retirement, effective July 1st, because of the controversy his remarks led to.

Naturally, I and several other OSU students are devastated. President Gee was a positive influence on the campus. He brought a smile to us with his bowties and jovial nature and kind and quiet manner of speech. To many students, meeting President Gee was a milestone in their OSU careers. I even met one student who said she came to Ohio State just to meet President Gee, right before she took a photo with him at the student union. To us, losing him because of this little incident will be a big blow to the morale of the university and to the students.

This is me with President Gee back in my freshman year. He was an inspiration. I hope he stays that way.

This is me with President Gee back in my freshman year. He was an inspiration. I hope he stays that way.

Which is why, after discussion with some other students and a lot of thought about the subject, I started a Change.org petition to get the Board of Trustees at Ohio State to let President Gee keep his position and continue to serve Ohio State as he’s done for several years. So far, 125 people have signed, and I’m hoping that I can get that number up to 10,000, or about one-sixth of the Ohio State student population.

I’d appreciate it if you signed the petition, and possibly shared it on your own blog or Facebook. This means a lot to me, and I’m trying to make a difference as best as I can. If I can, I want to see this petition reach the goal count. If you can help me, that’d be great.

If you decide not too though, that’s okay. I respect your opinion and your choice and I hope we can find other things to agree on. But if you feel like it, please do sign the petition. You don’t even have to donate money to do it! And the best part is, you’ll be making a difference for about sixty-thousand students.

That, my friends, will be the best part.

The Usefulness of Literary Analysis

Posted: May 9, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections
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I recently read a blog post (you can read it here) where the author commented on the attitudes some people have toward different academic studies. According to the author, fields of study like physics, mathematics, and biology–fields collectively known as “hard sciences” and based on reasoning and mathematical proofs–as more important and more factually true than the study of literature, which is seen as “soft” and therefore variable, indefinite, and downright false.

Now I admit that those who study literature (and those who create it) aren’t solving the mysteries of the universe, curing cancer, or creating alternative forms of energy. And I admit that you can look at a novel, poem, play or short story and draw many different meanings from the author’s comparison of blue curtains to the blue sky. And yes, fiction is, by definition, outright falsehoods. There’s no Hogwarts, the zombies aren’t coming for us, and in all likelihood Dante never visited all three realms of the afterlife.

But I don’t think that the English major is inferior to physics or chemistry or engineering. Far from it. I believe the English major fulfills a different role than the hard sciences. Fields like elementary neuroscience and evolutionary biology and botany seek to understand the physical world around us. Literature and English majors, on the other hand, seek to understand the human condition, to understand our collective soul. We’re focusing on a whole other dimension of existence, multi-layered and able to bring understanding and meaning to the lives of others. We make metaphor of life, turn it into art, show our darkest fears and our deepest desires in the struggles of characters brought to life through letters and words.

Isn’t that worthwhile in itself? To make people understand through a story not only themselves but the world around them? To feel empathy for a character, joy when they triumph and sadness when they struggle, because that character reminds a reader of themselves or what they want to be? I think it is, especially since reading and writing bring so much fulfillment to me and to the people I know who feel the same way I do.

Besides, the hard sciences may be solving mysteries and doing important work, but there is something that they lack, and that is the ability to identify with and inspire the masses. The theory of relativity will never be able to define an age like The Great Gatsby did, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle will never have the same effect on our youth like Harry Potter did.

Sure, you can argue that the space race defined the sixties and seventies and that the Internet and technology defines us now. But let me remind you that those age-defining technologies were first dreamed about in a literature course or on a writer’s desk while his pen rolled across a page. From cell phones to space ships to the Roomba, all were first talked about and made awesome and terrible by some writer somewhere (especially if that writer’s name is Isaac Asimov).

And yet even today’s technology is influencing literature. Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress was as much inspired by the Internet as the blog and the webisode were. Several science fiction writers are now writing works on how social media and hacking are becoming a total part of our society and reflecting on that. And I wouldn’t do some of my best writing without technology.

So these fields aren’t competing with each other for superiority or totally exclusive. On the contrary, they merely handle different fields of our existence and feed each other occasionally. It’s like the relationship between bees and flowers: the bees get their food from the flowers and spread the pollen around so that the flowers can create new seeds. In this sense, they are helping each other grow.

So deride my English major anytime. I may not be solving some mysterious aspect about black holes or quarks, but I might just give you an idea someday on how to solve that mystery. And you may never be able to write your own homage to Edgar Allen Poe, but your work on cancer research or molecular genetics may give me or a friend some new idea for a future bestseller. It could happen.

What’s your take on this subject?

Spring Semester 2013 Wrap-Up Report

Posted: May 3, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report
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It’s been a while since I’ve had anything to really write about, but I have something now. While I moved out of the dorms on Tuesday afternoon, I did not recieve my final grades till just now, so I’m writing this post now which some of you may have been eagerly anticipating. Others of you may also care less, but I hope you read this post anyway.

So anyway, a whole semester went by a little too fast if you ask me, but I did very well. I got a 3.3 GPA, an improvement by 0.1 from last semester. I didn’t get all the As I wanted, but I’ll work for that this coming semester. I did very well in Creative Writing with an A and American Literature with an A-. I also met some really awesome professors and learned a whole bunch.

I also worked hard on finishing up The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones and I’m now waiting for the copyright. Also, thanks to my friend Matthew Williams, Reborn City is close to having its final draft finished, and Snake is getting its 3rd draft. I’m a busy guy, but with all this effort I’m putting in, I should have RC out by the holidays and Snake by summer 2014 (hopefully).

In the meantime, I’m going to be working in the financial aid office at Ohio State like I did last summer, and I’ll be writing when I have the chance. Plus I’ll probably be seeing plenty of movies and reading a lot of books, so expect reviews. And let’s not forget I’ll hopefully be getting a Kindle, so if you want me to read your books, better start bribing me now.

So here’s to the start of summer. Let’s hope it all goes well.

Snake: Adding Depth To My Characters

Posted: April 29, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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I’ve always wanted a snake in a basket. Yes I’m strange, but you already know that, right?

I’ve been busy lately. Exams, preparing for two summer jobs, and a recent addiction to Doctor Who, plus all my normal writing and editing obligations. I’ve been one busy guy, but I wanted to take a break to share with everyone how the editing job for the third draft of Snake is coming along, especially since the main aim of this draft was to add more depth and history to some of my characters.

So far, mission accomplished. I’m about halfway through the draft, I’ve written one of the two new chapters I meant to write, and I’ve gone into some depth into the characters’ personalities and history. I’ve definitely had some fun working on Allison, my heroine, exploring where she got her feisty attitude and seeing how it’s been affected by her ordeal. At the same time, I’m still searching for the right place to insert some more back story between my killer and the heroine, because there’s a lot there that I need to add in for the relationship to make sense.

Oh well, I have 54 chapters to go. I should be able to figure something out and insert those parts (and for those of you with your mouths open right now because I said 54 chapters, don’t worry because most don’t make it past five pages). And by adding all this character history, the characters become more real, their actions make more sense, and their struggles make them that much more endearing.

Except in the case of the killer. In that respect, you find the Snake more creepy and fascinating at the same time. At least that’s my take on him. He’s changed so much from when I first created him. He’s definitely not the same character I created back in June last year.

Well, there you have it. I’m going to hopefully do some more work on Snake tonight, but first I’m going to grab some dinner. Can’t edit on an empty stomach, am I right?

 

Critiquing For A Friend

Posted: April 24, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections, short story, Writing
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I saw a friend of mine yesterday at the library a little after 2pm. He and I began talking about finals (the topic de jeur during this last week of the semester) and he mentioned that he had to write a short story for his history class based on some of the stuff he’s been learning in class. I offered to look at his short story and critique it if he wanted, to which he said he’d send it over.

This evening I took a look at it and I wrote a quick critique of it before e-mailing my friend. After I finished and sent the email, I thought to myself, Hey, that’s the first time I critiqued something for a friend that wasn’t required by a class of mine. I don’t count that one time my sister asked me to look at her speech as she was running for a position on the board of the youth group we both belonged to in high school, mostly because we couldn’t get past the opening without her disagreeing about my assessment of the opening. God, that was a long time ago.

“This blog post is perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever read online. Now your friend’s short story…”

Okay, enough rambling. Back on topic:

I’ve been in two workshop classes in the past year, and I had to do a similar assignment to what my friend did when I took a world history course my first year in college. I’ve looked at a lot of short stories, occasionally had to look stuff up just to understand what a certain word meant or what the action revolved around, and written close to fifty critiques for each story. I’ve seen bad short stories, I’ve read ones that absolutely floored me with their first drafts, and I’ve read one or two that confused me so bad that I mentioned how confused I was in the critique letter.

But writing for a friend…it’s an entirely different experience. You want to give them the best critique possible. You want to tell them their story has potential. You want to say they did a great job. You want to tell them it’s only a matter of time before they’re selling books in bookstores and receiving royalty checks. But at the same time, you have to point out flaws, you have to say that they should possibly rewrite the whole thing, and sometimes you have to tell your friend that, for one reason or another, the story stunk to high heaven and you absolutely hated it. It’s a very different experience than critiquing for classmates you don’t know that well, and finding a balance between kind to your friends and critical of the work is tough, especially if you’re sensitive to a friend’s feelings or there’s a chance that they may say their work is too high-brow and those who don’t like it or understand it are literary fools.

Luckily my friend doesn’t aspire to literary stardom and even if he did, he’s a chill dude who doesn’t get emotional over critiques. But still, I took his feelings into account when I critiqued his work, and I hope he appreciates the critique and isn’t daunted or upset by what I had to say. (For the record I wrote a very positive critique and suggested that he rewrite the story from the POV of the sheriff character and do more showing and less telling) It was the first time I understood what my friend Matt goes through every time he looks at a chapter of Reborn City for me and tells me what he thinks, and what my friends and family go through when they review my work for me, and it’s a pretty crazy feeling.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever do a critique like this ever again, though I’m sure I might be asked in the future to look at someone else’s work, especially if it’s for class. If I am asked by a friend to look at his work though, I hope I’ll be able to do a serviceable critique that will help them with their work and with their writing over time. Because if there’s one thing writers can do for each other, especially indie writers, it’s help to make each other’s work better and make sure they reach wider audiences.

What do you think when you get your work critiqued or someone critiques your work?

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