Posts Tagged ‘Forever Young’

Updates on What I’m Doing

Posted: July 11, 2023 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Writing
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It’s that time again. I have a lot going on, so I thought I would list it now right now. Besides, it’s a good excuse to slip in some reminders about things.

So, without further ado, here’s what’s going on in my crazy life. Enjoy!

Hannah and Other Stories
As you are no doubt aware, my new collection Hannah and Other Stories is on its way. It contains tales of ghosts, budding serial killers, and carnivorous horses, among other things, and it’ll be out on September 23rd, while currently available for preorder.

Before we get there, however, there’s a bit more work to do. BSC Publishing Group will be sending me the notes for the last draft any day now, at which point I will quickly edit it. We will then send out the eARCs to the ARC readers, who will hopefully read it and provide some helpful blurbs and reviews that will make people want to read Hannah more.

In addition, I’m doing everything I can to make sure this book is successful. I’ve already been booked for a couple of podcasts and shows, some of which I will list below, and I’ll likely be scheduled for more once the eARC is ready. I’m also posting short videos on my YouTube channel about the inspiration behind some of the stories in Hannah, as well as a candlelit reading of an excerpt from one of the stories. I plan to post more videos and excerpts as time allows.

With any luck, these and more avenues I’m pursuing will allow Hannah and Other Stories to be successful once it’s released. It would be amazing if that were to happen.

Speaking of which, if you would like to preorder a copy of Hannah, you can do so here. And you can read an excerpt here. I hope you check them out, because it’s a fucking great collection. Not something horror fans will want to miss.

The Quiet Game: Five Tales to Chill Your Bones
As I’ve said before, The Quiet Game, my first collection and first published book, will pass its ten-year release anniversary next Monday, July 17th, 2023. Obviously, I plan to do a blog post and a YouTube video, as well as other social media posts, to mark the occasion. I’m even doing a giveaway: if you preorder a copy of Hannah and email me letting me know you did before Friday the 14th, you could win a signed copy of The Quiet Game.

My email is ramiungar@ramiungarthewriter.com. I’ll hopefully announce the winner on the 17th. I hope you all take a chance to enter.

Short Fiction
I’ve some good news on this front. I recently wrote a weird fiction short story that I think has potential. And very soon, I’ll be writing a grimdark story for an anthology. I was actually invited to submit a story to this anthology, so I’m very excited to start on the story. And once it’s done, I plan to have it edited and submitted as soon as possible. Same with the weird fiction story.

After that, I have a bunch of short stories, novelettes, and novellas to work on. I want to finish rewriting the ending of “They Sleep Within the Rock,” AKA the story where I put neo-Nazis through hell. I also have to edit “It Changes You,” AKA the Backrooms story before shopping it around, and rewrite/heavily edit “The Underground Kings” and “Forever Young,” two short stories I think have a bunch of potential.

All of them, I feel, have a chance of being published somewhere. And after they’re worked on…

Crawler
For those of you who are unaware, Crawler is a mummy novel I started writing last year. I got about seven or eight chapters in, but then stuff with Hannah started to heat up, and I had to put it on the back burner. And then I took it off the burner and onto a trivet. I’d like to get it back on the stove again by the end of the year. It may not be the biggest new thing in horror, but I would like to get it done.

Fingers crossed that happens.

Upcoming Events
Here are some of the things I’ve got going on in the near future that I think you may be interested in. Hell, maybe you’ll have an opportunity to stop by for some of them:

  • This coming weekend, Saturday, July 15 and Sunday, July 16, I’ll be joining HWA Ohio at the Columbus Book Festival in downtown Columbus. It’s an amazing festival to support local authors, organizations and groups. If any of you are in Columbus this weekend, please feel free to stop by. There’s entertainment for all ages, and I would love to see you.
  • The weekend afterwards, on July 22 and July 23, I’ll be at the Dayton Convention Center in Dayton, OH for the Gem City Comic Con. I’ll be selling books and reading Tarot cards there, so please stop by if you can. I believe if you go to their website, you should still be able to get tickets.
  • On August 10, I’ll be joining some members of the New York HWA chapter for their podcast, Galactic Terrors. It’ll be broadcast live on Facebook and YouTube before becoming available as a podcast. I’ll be reading from Hannah and maybe answering some questions from those listening in. Further details, such as links and who else will be on the show, will be provided as we get closer. I’ll be sure to post those details as soon as we get them, so hopefully you can attend.
  • On September 9 and 10, I’ll be with HWA Ohio at Mystics & Marvels at the Franklin County Fairgrounds in Hilliard, Ohio. At this event last year, HWA Ohio really cleaned up, and I almost sold out! I’m looking forward to returning this year, and I hope more people come by. Including you!

And there will be more events as time goes on, especially with Hannah releasing in September. I’ll be sure to let you know about them as soon as they’re confirmed!

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. If anything else comes up, or there’s something I really want to talk about, I’ll be sure to let you know on this or any of my other platforms (which now includes the Threads app as rami_ungar_writer). Until then, however, good night and pleasant nightmares!

Hannah and Other Stories: Latest Draft Completed!!!

Posted: January 29, 2023 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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Temporary placeholder artwork for Hannah.

Well, that took less time than expected. Still took awhile, but it didn’t take two months as I predicted.

So, for those of you who are unaware, I have a short story collection called Hannah and Other Stories being released some time this year. It contains seven original stories of varying lengths and covers the following subjects: a rumor about a figure on the Internet who is targeting vulnerable teens; carnivorous horses; and budding serial killers, just to name a few. It’ll be released by BSC Publishing Group, whom I’ve worked with before through their magazine The Dark Sire.

And since New Year’s, I’ve been editing the last four stories in the collection, trying to expand on certain things such as showing rather than telling and cutting out stuff that doesn’t do the story any good. I think between that and all the other edits I made, the collection is that much stronger and will make for one hell of a read upon publication.

Of course, I doubt it’s finished yet. We’re probably going to have to go through and make another round of edits before we can set a release date, let alone format everything, create a cover, and make one hell of a marketing plan. But I think that at this point, we’ll just be making some minor alterations to make sure the stories are well-edited and the plots flow well.

Then again, they do say writers are their own worst judges of their work, so who knows? We may have more than cosmetic work up ahead.

The page and word count as I finished the manuscript. It’s going to be a long book.

Well, it’s with the publisher now and they’ll hopefully let me know what they think very soon. In the meantime, I”ll be taking the next few days to relax and catch up on some movies I’ve been meaning to catch and some reading I’ve been meaning to do. I’ll probably also celebrate finishing the latest draft with some good food and some wine. After that, and with my creativity replenished (plus, I’ll likely feel like I need to work on something or I’ll die), I’ll get to work on some other stories that require another draft. These stories are Forever Young, about an unusual child actress; It Changes You, taking place in the Internet phenomenon known as The Backrooms; and They Sleep Within the Rock, the story I wrote about neo-Nazis getting their just desserts.

You can tell why I call all this editing The Great Editing. It’s a lot!

Anyway, after those stories are edited, I haven’t made any commitments yet. It’ll depend on whether or not BSC Publishing Group has sent me back any decisions regarding Hannah and whether or not I need to do further edits. But I do hope I can work on some new stuff by that point. I’ve a bunch of new story ideas I want to work on, so I’m hopeful.

In the meantime, however, I’m going to make a late dinner, maybe open a bottle of homemade wine, and figure out what I’m going to do for the rest of the night. Until next time, my Followers of Fear, I look forward to sharing Hannah with you and hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed working on it.

Good night and pleasant nightmares!

Oh, one more thing: you may have noticed, but at the top of the blog there are a lot less pages. In fact, I recently consolidated all my books onto one page, simply titled Books. I figured that would make things easier for both new and old readers to find my works and the links to them, rather than having to scour fifteen different pages for them.

Just wanted to mention in case you hadn’t noticed. Good night!

Announcing The Great Editing! Or, My Writing Plans for the Next Couple of Months

Posted: December 26, 2022 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Writing
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I did say in my last post that I would be talking about my upcoming plans in another post, didn’t I?

So, you’re probably aware that I have a collection of short stories coming out sometime in 2023 from BSC Publishing Group. That collection, Hannah and Other Stories, has been going through a lot of editing over the course of 2023, though we took a break for the holidays in November and December. Starting January 3rd, I’ll be starting work again on the collection. BSC sent me notes for four of the stories, so I’ll be working through those for the first couple of months of 2023.* After those edits are done, it’s back to the publisher, where they’ll hopefully give the okay to move onto the next stage and start getting things like the cover and the marketing push ready.

It also means I’ll be editing “Forever Young” and “It Changes You,” the stories I wrote in November and this past month. I think if I can find the right publishers or magazines or anthologies, I can either get them published individually or as part of another collection, but they’ll need work before I can send them out. Hence, editing.

And between now and January 2nd at 11:59 PM, I’ll be editing “They Sleep Within the Rock,” the novella I wrote where I put neo-Nazis through Hell. I wrote it last year, but have not touched it since then for some reason, so I want to get that done before I get back to work on Hannah. It’s about twenty-six thousand words, so it’ll definitely take more time than a single evening writing session to finish. However, it’s divided into ten chapters if I remember right, so I think if I knock two sections a night out, it should be fine.

Anyway, given all that editing, it’s no wonder I’m calling this the Great Editing, like it’s some dramatic event that could shape history or something. Then again, as a writer, isn’t part of my job making mundane things dramatic? Yeah, pretty sure it is.

In the meantime, however, it’s late and I have work in the morning, so I’ll be taking the rest of the evening off. So, until next time, my Followers of Fear, good night, pleasant nightmares, and, if I don’t post again before Saturday, December 31st, 2022, Happy New Year!

*I assume. Hard to tell how long all this will take. Life is unpredictable, isn’t it? For all I know, I could get it all done in a few weeks, or I could be finishing it all up in June. You just never know.

One more thing: I know I posted this in the last post, but I might not post again this week! Might as well repeat it so the message gets heard.

Anyway, for the first week of January, the electronic versions of most of my books will be on sale, as well as the audio book for The Pure World Comes from certain retailers! It’s my hope in doing so that it’ll be a great kickoff to 2023. Anyway, if you would like to read any of my books at a discounted rate, this would be a great opportunity to do so. So between January 1st and January 8th, go to the retailer of your choice and you’ll find most of my books there on sale. I hope you enjoy reading them, and if you do, please let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love reader feedback and it helps me out in the long run (as well as other readers).

Well, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. This time, I’m serious. Good night and pleasant nightmares!