Posts Tagged ‘horror’

Review: American Horror Story Season 6 Premiere

Posted: September 15, 2016 in Review, Scary Stuff
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(The following review contains some spoilers. Reader discretion is advised)

It’s finally here. After months of speculation, of no subtitle or definitive casting list, we have the new season of American Horror Story…and I had to wait a day because I don’t have a TV and I work. That sucks, but you learn to live with it. Anyway, since Hotel ended, there has been rampant speculation as to what Season 6 would be. Rumor was we were supposed to get the theme earlier this summer, but after Orlando, the show’s producers decided to hold back, and instead tease us with multiple trailers that may or may not be related to the actual story of Season 6.

But as of last night, we have a theme, and it is Roanoke! Now for those of you not familiar with American history or who haven’t seen the show’s first season in full, let me explain: Roanoke was an early American colony on the North Carolina coast in the late 16th century. One day, ships from England returned to the colony after a long absence with supplies, only to find the colony mysteriously empty, with not a person in sight. There were no signs of plague or foul play, and the only indicator of what might have happened was a single word carved into a tree trunk: Croatoan. The strange circumstances around the “Lost Colony” has led to a number of theories, both credible and crazy, as well as numerous fictional works about the disappearance.

And it looks like AHS is tackling Roanoke’s legend this year, and they’re doing it in odd fashion too. Rather than telling it like a regular story, as they’ve done in past seasons, AHS is presenting season 6 as a Discovery Channel docuseries called My Roanoke Nightmare, which tells the story of a couple who move into an old house and start to experience strange, supernatural events, both through interviews in what I assume to be a studio, and through dramatic reenactments with actors (it’s very meta). And from the looks of it, it may not be your average haunted house story. Already there are plenty of hints that there’s more to this season than meets the eye, and with showrunner Ryan Murphy promising that this season will begin to tie up the series’ sprawling mythology, you know you’re in for something interesting.

So what did I think of the first episode? Well, it’s definitely intriguing. It’s not the fright fest that the first episode of Hotel was, but I think that’s intentional. This episode is meant to be a lure, showing just enough to get us interested in the story. Which it does very well, giving us a format and a setup that is different from the norm. And near the end, you’re given quite a lot of weird stuff that hints at a very dense story for this season, which will definitely make longtime fans want more.

And speaking of more, I get the sense that, like the story, there’s more to the characters we’re seeing. As the season is modeled after a docuseries, you don’t really see the people in it. You see a version of them meant to keep people interested in the show. You’ve got the interracial couple who we’re supposed to root for, as well as a sister-in-law who has a lot of baggage, and as time goes on, I’m sure we’ll get more characters who start out as versions of people who are meant to keep our interest in the story, but, in typical AHS fashion, their characters will go in directions that nobody will expect, and it’ll be both bonkers and totally amazing.

In any case, this season will conclude in November after ten episodes, just like a real docuseries, so I have a feeling that we’ll get a pretty fast-paced season compared to the past. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing (a few slow moments to develop characters are sometimes necessary for good storytelling), but it’ll definitely be different, and in an anthology series that has surprised and terrified us year after year, that’s definitely what we, the viewers, expect.

All in all, this is a solid start for the show’s sixth season. It’s not super-scary, but it definitely is interesting and I have a feeling plenty of people will be buzzing about the possibilities right up until Episode 2. On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m giving the first episode of American Horror Story: Roanoke a 4 out of 5. Good luck, AHS. I have high hopes for you this year. Don’t let us down.

Well, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m getting The Conjuring 2 from the library this weekend, so I’ll most likely be doing a review of that as well. Yeah, I’m not doing too well on that whole “two blog posts a month” thing, am I? Well, until then, have some pleasant nightmares!

Updates on What I’m Doing

Posted: September 2, 2016 in Living and Life, Writing
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As many of you know, I’m cutting the number of blog posts I do every month down to two (unless I have something special to talk about, in which case we may get one or two more here), so I can use what little time I have to actually get some fiction writing done. And I thought, what better way to start this than to list all the things I’m doing?

Well, actually there are probably a lot better things I could talk about, but all writers are at least slightly narcissistic. Why else do we insist that people should read the fiction we write?

In any case, let’s start talking about me and the things going on in my life right now. This is Updates on What I’m Doing.

I’m now fully employed.

Let me guess, you thought I’d be talking books first, didn’t you? Nope, I’m doing this, because it’s so important, and the main reason I’m doing this cutback.

So, as many of you know, I started an internship here in Columbus, working in an Equal Employment Opportunity office, like I did last summer in Germany (ah, Deutschland! How I miss you so every day!). In an EEO office, we handle everything from promoting diversity and tolerance to getting employees accommodations for disabilities and handling mediation when someone is discriminated against. Within our office, everyone is expected to be able to work the full variety of these tasks, with perhaps some specialization in certain areas for some employees.

Personally, I love the job. The work is good work, the people are nice and laugh at most of my jokes, and the pay allows me to live on my own, which is a godsend (seriously, I love my family, but at this point in my life it’s better for me to be on my own and independent). And as of last Monday, I’m no longer an intern, but a full employee. Yeah, they decided to keep me! I’m so very grateful, and I’m looking forward to working in such a great office for ages to come, getting experience and getting settled into this weird thing called adulthood.

I’m also grateful for a morning cup of tea that’s s good as Starbucks but five times cheaper. Gotta love that.

The one thing I would complain about is that I don’t have as much time to write as I used to. Not surprising, I was unemployed prior to this, and that meant a slightly freer schedule. But the silver lining is, I actually can write knowing I have an income. So maybe I’ll write more slowly, but at least I won’t be doing the whole starving artist routine (seriously overrated).

Which brings me to my next point:

Reestablishing a writing routine

I used to say that I had no writing process, that I just wrote where I could and when I could. Turns out, that’s not really the case. I actually had a pretty established routine during the job search: after a full day of job-searching, I’d stop around five o’clock, have dinner, and write the evening away, watching TV and getting words in during the commercial break. I actually got through two drafts of Video Rage this way.

Well, I moved. And I don’t have a TV, so I stream mostly. And I have an earlier bedtime, which means less time to write. So there goes that routine out the window.

And since then, I’ve been trying to reestablish a routine, though I haven’t had as much success as I would like. I think I just sat down in front of the computer and hoped that something magical would happen. Obviously, magic didn’t occur, despite my prayers to all gods and demons within the vicinity. However, my friend Pat Bertram gave me an idea that’s been helpful: she recently joined a writer’s group where people try to write 250 words a day. Now, I can’t do it every day, but I try to do it as often as possible, and so far it seems to be working. Is it the writing routine I would like? No, but it’s baby steps, and that’s a good enough start if you ask me. Perhaps later on I’ll get to the point where I can write like I used to, even without a TV.

We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?

The Reborn City series

As many of you know, I have a final book planned for this series, which I intend to call Full Circle.  Well, as November is National Novel Writing Month and I wanted to do FC for that month (even though I doubt I’ll even get near ten thousand words), I’m doing some preliminary work on the novel this month. I’ve written a bit of the outline, I’ve come up with a list of names and traits for the group of villains, as well as a travel route for the main characters to take, and I’m working on a family tree for a certain character.

The one thing I’m worried about is the number of plot lines I’ve got going in this final novel. Some of these plot lines were set up in the first book, like some things Rip saw in his soul sage hallucinations, so I need to resolve them in the final novel or attentive readers will get angry and point out stuff about them on the Internet. When I put them in the first and second books, I thought they were great and it would be no problem to wrap them up in the final book. Now that I’m actually there, though…well, I have to wrap them all up. And I’m worried that people will find them letdowns or extraneous.

Oh well. I dug myself into this whole. I can dig myself out again. I must’ve thought those plot lines belonged the whole time I was writing/editing/publishing the first two books, so I’ll work them into the third book and see what happens. Who knows? Some people may not like them, but others might, and it’ll be true to my vision, which is what writing is all about, right?

Rose

So if I’m working on FC right now, does that mean I finished the latest draft of Rose? Well, no I haven’t. The thing is, this draft is proving much more difficult than the first two. I changed an important aspect of the story early in the draft, which ended up changing the entire story at a fundamental level, and I’m kept busy just trying to get the story to match that change. Not to mention that I’m adding a lot of material every time I sit in front of the computer to work on it, and that slows me down a bit too. Add in all the other stuff you do while editing–rephrasing sentences, taking out unneeded material, etc–and I took three months to get to Chapter Six.

Yeah, I’m not happy about that. So I’m taking a break to work on other stuff and maybe get my mind into a better place so that when I return to Rose, I can give it the right sort of treatment. I don’t know when this will be, as FC will be given priority so I can get it out and finish the RC series once and for all, and perhaps after FC I’d like to work on stories other than Rose.

But hey, sometimes that’s how writers work. At times we’re able to work on a story, at other times we aren’t. And sometimes those gaps between periods of work on a manuscript can be very long. Stephen King tried to write Under the Dome twice in the 70’s and 80’s before getting it out in 2009. I’m not saying something similar will happen with Rose, but it might be quite the gap before I get to work on the third draft again.

Other Projects

This post is getting rather long, so I’ll just give a quick update on everything else that I’m working on:

  • Teenage Wasteland: I think after FC, this might also get a higher priority than other books. As a collection of short stories, it should take less time and effort than one big novel, so I’ll be working on this in-between drafts of FC most likely, or whenever I need a break and want to clear my mind. I’ve got about seven or eight stories already prepped for that book, and I’d like somewhere between thirteen and twenty-two in that collection, so I think I can get it done sooner rather than later. If so, I’ll make sure to let you guys know.
  • Laura Horn: Like Rose, LH had a major aspect of it changed in a previous draft. Unlike Rose, it didn’t give me this much grief. So I think I could get Laura Horn done very quickly as well, perhaps as soon as FC and TW are done.
  • A replacement for #FirstLineFriday: got something in the works, and it could be ready by October. That’s all I’m saying right now.
  • 5K Likes: We are so close, I can almost smell it! Make it happen, folks! Make it happen!

 

And that’s basically it at the moment. And I think after I finish with the Reborn City series and all this other stuff, I’ll try to limit the number of projects I have going on to two at a time. Because this is ridiculous.

Expect a blog post from me later this month, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got something planned I’ve been looking forward to talking about for a while. Until next time!

The Fifth Blogging Anniversary! Q&A and a Giveaway!

Posted: August 2, 2016 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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Happy Birthday to the blog
Happy Birthday to the blog
Happy Birthday, Rami Ungar the Writer
Happy Birthday to the blog.

Five years. It’s been five years since I started this blog, feeling my way haphazardly through the process of writing and posting about my writing and my life (in order of priority), with the hopes of building an audience so that by the time of I published my first book (at eighteen, I figured it was only a matter of time before that happened), I might have some ready readers eager to buy my first book, and every one after.

That didn’t go exactly as planned. But I have gotten a lot out of Rami Ungar the Writer. For one things, I’ve made lots and lots of friends. Angela Misri, Matthew Williams, Kat Impossible, Ruth Ann Nordin, Pat Bertram, Joleene Naylor, Dellani Oakes, and so many more. I’ve had the chance to write for other blogs, including Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, and, yes, I’ve met people who’ve picked up my books and read them.

I’m also this close to nine-hundred followers, as well as so very close to five-thousand likes (like, sixty away! Sixty!). That’s something I’m very excited to achieve, though I’m not sure when either of those will happen.

But it’s more than just stats or book sales. The fact is, you’ve all been with me through a lot. Four years of college, the highs and lows of that fun, crazy experience. Progress in my writing career, including my first three published books, and the creation of several more, which I hope to get out as soon as possible. My study abroad trip, and then my internship in Germany, and all those fun, cool experiences. The long period of unemployment that nearly drove me insane, and finally the beginning of my new job/internship, which I hope will someday become a full-time position (God willing!). All of you, my Followers of Fear, have been with me through these past five years, and I’m really grateful for all the love and encouragement and interaction you’ve had with me. I hope that in the next five years, we can continue with this awesome relationship of ours, and maybe grow to let more people into this awesome community we’ve constructed online.

And that’s what the blogosphere is, when you get down to it. It’s a community. Connections of thousands upon thousands of writers on a million different subjects, getting together to talk about whatever. It’s a beautiful thing, and I’m so happy to be part of this community, no matter the size of my following or what we talk about on this blog.

Though I am happy that some of you are into horror and that some of you also read my books. I appreciate that a lot!

Now, onto the other stuff I promised with this post. First, a reader-suggested Q&A, with questions from this blog and from Facebook, as well as a couple of things I wanted to unload off my chest, so I asked myself (yes, I ask myself questions. I just don’t usually answer back. That would be weird). So without further ado, let’s begin:

What is your earliest recollection of your love of writing? (Sherri Kauth, from Facebook)

I don’t think there was ever a time I didn’t love to write. Or rather, a time I didn’t like storytelling. I would draw for hours, pretending I was making a great fantasy story or the storyboards for the next Pokemon movie. When I started learning how to spell and write and read, my pictures were accompanied by words, and as I got older I used more and more words, until I was writing novels. It wasn’t until I was ten that I really set myself to writing (with the occasional flirtation of becoming a mad scientist or a rockstar), but all things come in good time, am I right?

If you had to write in a completely different genre from what you’ve done so far, which one would you choose? (Kat Impossible, from the blog)

Easy, I’d go with erotica! I’ve read erotica before, and there’s definitely an art to it. It’s more than just simple porn, it’s a story revolving around sex. And I’ve written a sex scene or two in my time, one of which ended up in the final draft of Snake (of which someone close to me said, “He nailed it!”). I even have an erotic pen name I’d use if I ever got into the genre, along with some ideas for stories.

Of course, I’m not so sure my current employers would enjoy having an erotica writer on staff. Then again, they’re okay with me writing horror stories, so long as I don’t talk about them at work, so…

What is a favorite hobby besides reading, writing, or watching horror movies/TV? (Joleene Naylor, from the blog)

Oh goodness, that’s most of what I do when I’m not at work or eating or sleeping. Hmm…I guess rocking out to music or reading too much manga. And hanging out with friends, and family too (when I feel like I can retain my sanity).

Who is the favorite character you have created? (Tammy Whaley, from Faceebok)

Ooh, another tough one. In a way, I love all my characters. They’re like my children. Even the psychopathic ones. But if I had to choose, I’d have to go with Laura Horn, from the novel of the same name that I’m working on. In a way, she’s the character that I’ve made go through the hardest trials, and for whom her growth as a character is especially dramatic. For all of that, I want to give her a hug and tell her that she’ll be okay, even though I’m the source of her suffering (like I’ve said before, Writers are Cruel Gods). So I guess her suffering makes her my favorite character. What does that say about me?

What’s something from the past year you regret?

This is one I’m asking myself. Yes, I do have something: back in winter, I said I was going to do a series of posts about mental illness and its portrayal in horror stories. However, since then I’ve been so busy with so many different things, I haven’t had a moment to really work on this series, let alone do a post about attitudes about mental illness in general. So that’s been a problem for me. I felt guilty about it, since a lot of you were enthusiastic about me doing the project. And if I ever have actual time for it in the future, I will try my hardest to do the project. For now though, it’s on a far back burner until I can actually do something about it.

Well, I’m getting to the point where I’m really worrying about length, so I’ll wrap up the Q&A there (too bad, because I wanted to include more questions). Thanks to everyone who submitted questions, and I hope you liked the answers.

And finally, the giveaway. If you are interested in getting an autographed copy of one of my books, here are the rules. Below in the comments, you have to submit the following:

  1. Your name, as it would be listed on your mail (if you have a nickname you’d prefer, we can talk about that later).
  2. Which book you’d like from me (the choices are The Quiet Game, Reborn City, Snake, or Video Rage).
  3. What you find scary personally.
  4. The hashtag #RUscared? (See what I did there?)

Include all that below, and I’ll pick a winner a week from today, on August 9th. I’ll contact the winner, and send them the book, no matter where they live. Excited? Good. Ready? GO!

Well, that’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll let you know if anything comes up before Friday. In the meantime, thanks again for sticking with me through all this time. I really appreciate it.

Review: “HEX” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Posted: July 31, 2016 in Novel, Review, Scary Stuff
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I came across this book while looking for something new and scary to read. It looked and sounded good, and it apparently had only just come out in the US, so not many people were talking about it yet. I figured I’d give HEX a try.

And it definitely didn’t prove boring.

So, what’s it about? HEX is about the small town of Black Spring, New York, which is under the curse of an apparently immortal witch named Katherine van Wyler, who wanders around town with her eyes and mouth sewn shut (nightmares right there). Anyone who lives or moves to Black Springs is trapped there by the witch, with attempts to leave longer than a week or two leaving residents feeling depressed and suicidal. With every attempt in history to get rid of Katherine meeting with tragedy, the town has isolated itself from the rest of the world, with the HEX office controlling who moves into town and what Outsiders see when they visit, as well as monitoring the witch’s movements at all times using the latest and greatest in technology. Unbeknownst to HEX and the townsfolk, however, some teens in town are trying to study the witch with the hope of breaking the curse and leaving town. The results of that meddling cause a chain reaction leading to something no one in Black Spring will ever forget.

I thought that HEX had a lot going for it. For one, Heuvelt tells the story beautifully through the POVs of four of the townsfolk: Steve Grant, a doctor and father who tries to live in a rational world despite the fact that there’s a witch in his town; his eldest son Tyler, an idealistic youth and YouTube vlogger who leads his friends to study the witch; Robert Grim, HEX’s irritable leader (whose description in the book makes me think of Mitch Pileggi of X-Files fame); and Griselda Holst, a woman with a past who practically worships Katherine as much as she fears her. They’re all very well-written characters, and you really come to sympathize with each and every one (though occasionally I wondered if Griselda might use some therapy).

Heuvelt also knows how to tell a story, taking it in directions I didn’t think the story would go, and making the surprises genuine, even if some of them, in retrospect, could be seen coming. He also manages to create this atmosphere and dread that sticks with you and makes you want to know more, punctuating it with these moments involving the witch and her magic that really gets you.

I can’t really think of anything bad about this book. Nothing about it particularly struck me as bad or as needing improvement. I could nitpick that it may be a little too perfect, or that it could’ve dealt a bit more with the social media aspect of the story, but like I said, it’d be nitpicking.

The interesting thing about HEX is that the English version is really the second version: Heuvelt is a Dutch author, and HEX was originally published in Dutch with Dutch characters and a Dutch setting back in 2013. But in the acknowledgments section at the end of the book, Heuvelt explains that he was asked to make some changes for the America edition, and he ended up doing a sort of HEX 2.0, as he called it, rewriting the novel in English (apparently he’s fluent), giving it an American setting with American characters, and even a new ending.

So of course, one would wonder after reading the English version what the Dutch version is like. Well, Heuvelt won’t tell. His only advice is to “go bribe a Dutchman” (and oh darn, mine just happened to disappear in a flash of bright light). But even if you never find out what the Dutch version is like, you can be satisfied that the English version is pretty awesome as well.

All in all, I’m giving HEX a 4.3 out of 5. It’s creepy, has a great premise and characters, and is brilliantly written. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to read something new and different and scary and happens to see this on the shelves.

That’s all for now. Remember, today’s the last day to submit questions for a Q&A in honor of my five-year blogging anniversary (details here). You’ve got till midnight, and then I’m working on that post.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear!

Review: The Witch (2015 film)

Posted: July 24, 2016 in Review, Scary Stuff
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So this film has had some buzz around it for a while. It was made on three-million dollars, earned forty-million at the box office, and apparently scared the likes of His Royal Scariness, Stephen King. Naturally, when it hit theaters back in February, I wanted to see it, but no theaters near me were playing it. When I found out last month that it was on DVD, I immediately went to my library’s website to reserve it…only for some punk to steal my copy when it came to me (a curse upon them, preferably involving witches!). But this week I got my copy, and I sat down over dinner to see what the big deal was.

The movie follows a family of 17th-century Puritans–parents William and Katherine, teenagers Thomasin and Caleb, and twins Mercy and Jonas–as they’re banished from their Puritan settlement because apparently Will’s interpretation of the Bible is too extreme for the community (not sure how that is, but maybe I’m too Jewish to notice). They settle in a field on the edge of a vast forest, unaware that there’s a witch living in the woods.

What surprised me most about The Witch is how it differs from other horror films. It’s not a traditional film, in the sense that there’s a central evil that’s pretty obvious and the majority of the horror comes from that villainous evil. In fact, the titular witch is pretty peripheral in the story, acting more as a catalyst for the horrors of the film. I actually struggled to find the terror in the film until I realized that it wasn’t the witch that was the source of the terror (though she is pretty powerful, visceral, and primordial), but the family itself. Once the witch interferes with this family, they start to slowly implode upon themselves. It’s a really dark, psychological descent into hatred, fear, and suspicion, with the occasional intervention of the witch and a lot of heavy Bible speak. And it is scary to watch what happens to this family.

I also really liked the attention to detail. The filmmakers went to great lengths to find a remote location for the setting, and from there hand-build the house and farm, as well as the clothes the actors wore, and just about everything else. They even had museums consulting on this project, which goes to show their dedication. The authenticity, coupled with sparse lighting and the dirty feel of the place, adds to a very creepy atmosphere. And the music, usually involving a fiddle or zither, invokes 2001: A Space Odyssey in its ability to place us in the story.

Despite how scary it was and the research that went into the film, The Witch did have its problems, though. There are some scenes that felt more like they belonged in a novel, rather than in a movie, quiet moments where characters are thinking and not speaking, and we can’t read their minds.It’s in these scenes that we have trouble connecting to the characters, which is bad when this film is so reliant on its characters to begin with.

There’s also an unresolved subplot involving Caleb and his relationship to his older sister Thomasin that’s never really resolved, and I would’ve liked to see where that could’ve gone.  And like I said, it took me a while to realize what sort of horror film this was, though maybe that’s just me going in with certain expectations and being confused that they’re not being met.

And the old-fashioned dialect, plus the heavy accents and sometimes raspy voices, can make it difficult to understand what they’re saying. I had to turn on the subtitles about ten minutes in just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

Other than those points, though, The Witch is a terrifying descent into religious mania and terror in a dark situation, with supernatural twists and a lot of religious overtones worthy of discussion by theologians (which apparently has happened). I’m going to give this film a 3.8 out of 5, and recommend you watch this one with the lights on while you’re at it. A wonderful debut from writer and director Robert Eggers. I hope I get to see more of his work in the future.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Make sure to read about the giveaway and submit your questions and comments for the Q&A happening on August 2nd (details here). I’ll check in again very soon, believe me. In the meantime, a good night to all.

Hopefully free of supernatural beings, right?

#FirstLineFriday

Posted: July 22, 2016 in ideas, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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It’s Friday again, so you know what that means. It’s #FirstLineFriday!

So if you don’t know what #FirstLineFriday is, let me explain. On Fridays, you:

  • Create a post on your blog entitled #FirstLineFriday, hashtag and all.
  • Explain the rules like I’m doing now.
  • Post the first one or two lines of a potential story, a story-in-progress, or a completed or published work.
  • Ask your readers for feedback, and urge them to try #FirstLineFriday on their own blogs (tagging is encouraged but not necessary).

This week’s entry is from a story I had earlier this week. As usual, it’s creepy and weird, which is standard Rami Ungar. Anyway, enjoy:

The locals say that the hospital, which was built about forty miles from where the government tested a couple nuclear bombs, absorbed some radiation in its bricks during construction, and that’s why so many horrible things happened in the children’s ward. My daddy disagreed; he said that evil got root in there, and then the evil festered.

Ooo-ooo-ooo!

So what did you guys think? Pretty catchy? Scary? Any errors? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

And while you’re at it, why not try #FirstLineFriday on your own blog? It’s eas, it’s fun, and for authors it’s great practice working with different openings. I’m not going to tag anyone this week (unless you want to do this, so consider yourself tagged). Hey, occasionally I need occasionally I need a break from looking through my list of followers and seeing who I haven’t tortured yet.

And if you haven’t heard already, my five year blogging anniversary is coming up, so click here to learn about how you can participate in a Q&A with yours truly, and enter for a chance to get an autographed copy of one of my books. Trust me, you do not want to miss out on that.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m going to try to get a ton of editing and whatnot done this weekend. And if you want to ask me any questions for my five-year blogging anniversary on August 2nd, click here for details on that.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

The Quiet Game: Three Years Since Publication

Posted: July 17, 2016 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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tqg cover

Three years. How time flies.

On June 17th, 2013, my first book, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, was published on Amazon and Smashwords. The book, a collection of original short stories I wrote while I was working through the editing process of Reborn City, actually did pretty well for itself, with eight paperback copies printed and quite a few e-books downloaded in the first month, which, for a first-time self-published novelist, was actually pretty good. And I had a much smaller reach then than I do now.

Now it’s three years later. A lot has changed since then: I’ve published three more books, I graduated from college, had an internship in Germany, and I’m working for the government again in a position I hope I will work in for several years to come, among other things.

And The Quiet Game still gets some readers every now and then, plus it has the distinction of having the most reviews of any of my books. Most of those reviews, I’m happy to say, have been rather positive. Here are a couple of them:

5 wonderfully crafted tales! I purchased this as an eBook originally and put off reading it for quite a while, I really wish I hadn’t waited. Sometimes when one purchases a collection of short stories you expect some of them to be less entertaining or of lower quality than the others, but none of these disappoint. Well worth the money, especially considering after you read each story the author gives you creative insight into what inspired him to write each tale, which is really wonderful.

–Jeff D

I liked that each story was unusual. I think that the book was appropriately named. I prefer chilled bones rather than scared out of my whits since I am a bit of a chicken

–ENJ

Imagine if you will a young Stephen King penning dark scenarios inspired by his youth, and what you get is this anthology. Through this collection of short stories, Rami Ungar brings us into the world of dark urges, childhood traumas, ghosts, phantoms, and dark psychological thrillers. An inspired creation, and definitely a good intro to this indie author’s world!

–Matthew Williams, author of Whiskey Delta and Papa Zulu

I always enjoy being called a young Stephen King. It makes me feel like I can someday catch up to him and be regarded as a great horror author like him some day.

So if you’re interested in a quick collection of short stories, and you like them short, sweet, and to the creepy point, perhaps you’ll like The Quiet Game. From ghosts to dybbuks to ogresses and a few other things besides, you’ll have a scary good time. I’ll include the links below, if you’re interested in at least checking out the book.

And if you do end up getting a copy and reading it, I do hope you give me your thoughts, whether in a message, a comment, or a review. Positive or negative, I love feedback from my readers, and I would be happy to hear from you (especially since I become a better writer when I get feedback from folks).

That’s all for now. Got a busy week ahead of me, so I’m going to get to that. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear!

Links: Amazon, Createspace, Barnes & Noble,iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo

#FirstLineFriday

Posted: July 15, 2016 in ideas, Living and Life, Novel, Writing
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It’s Friday again, so you know what that means. It’s #FirstLineFriday!

Now if you don’t know what #FirstLineFriday is, let me explain the rules. On Fridays, you:

  1. Create a post on your blog entitled #FirstLineFriday, hashtag and all.
  2. Explain the rules like I’m doing now.
  3. Post the first one or two lines of a potential story, a story-in-progress, or a completed or published work.
  4. Ask your readers for feedback, and encourage them to try #FirstLineFriday on their own blogs (tagging is encouraged but not necessary).

As I said in my last post, I’ve been having a lot of great ideas for stories. And on Monday, I had this rather strange and unique idea for a novel, inspired by Japanese mythology and culture (one of my best sources of ideas, by the way), and has an interesting structure to it that would be unusual and fun to write. Obviously, I can’t go into more details without giving away the plot (and I hate to give that sort of thing away). But I can hopefully give you a very good opening for this story, while maybe adding a hint in that opening.

Anyway, enjoy:

Almost everybody has a bucket list, along with something on that list that they want to accomplish before they graduate or leave town or die: to learn how to code (the dream of my somewhat nerdy brother Eric, as well as my somewhat cool boyfriend Luca), to go to a heavy metal festival and see their favorite bands perform (my friend Rudy, who plans to do just that after graduation), or to confess their feelings to the rebellious, cool-as-hell River Fuhrmann (my friend Lavender Murphy, who has no idea that the rebellious, cool-as-hell River also has a thing for Lavender, but is too proud to admit it). I have my own bucket list, but mine is rather unusual, as at the top of my list was ghost stories.

Thoughts? Overly long? Any errors? What’s on your bucket list*? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

And while you’re at it, why not try #FirstLineFriday yourself? It’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s great practice for authors of all stripes. Sadly, I’m taking a small break from tagging, so you’re safe from my torture for now. But if you want me to tag you, consider yourself tagged. Or better yet, let me know. I’ll catch you next week.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m hoping to see a movie this weekend and maybe write a review of it. If not, you can expect a blog post this Sunday.

Until the next time, my Followers of Fear!

*Mine involves meeting and/or having my books read by Stephen King and/or Anne Rice, going ghost-hunting with the Ghost Adventures Crew, having a custom car made from a hearse, and writing for Doctor Who. Does that surprise any of you?

New Settings. Reboot.

Posted: July 13, 2016 in ideas, Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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My writing space

My writing space

As many of you know, I’ve been living in my own space for a little over a month, and I’ve been working at my new job for about the same amount of time. I’d been wanting to move into my own place for ages after I moved back in with my dad, but it took a paying job to finally make it happen (hopefully the job keeps going for quite a while). And I love it here. I can do my own thing (which is actually pretty weird, truth be told) without having to hold back for other people; I can cook my own meals, including some fun meat recipes (my dad’s a vegetarian, so I’m having a blast expanding my chicken recipes); and I finally have my own spot where I write my stories, something I haven’t had in years. Plus the neighbors are quiet and I’m in a pretty nice partof the neighborhood, so it’s pleasant to live here. And close to work, too. I’m happy about that.

There are only three things I can really complain about:

  • Laundry is almost as expensive as it was in my college dorm. Maybe more.
  • I don’t have a dishwasher, so I have to hand-wash everything. That’s not so bad, but when you’re sure you’ve scrubbed something as hard as possible, and then you find there’s some grease left…
  • As far as I know, my building isn’t haunted in any way, shape, or form. Yes, I consider that a con. It’s a minor con, but it’s a con, nonetheless.

On a somewhat related tangent, I took an AP Psychology course in my last year of high school, and I actually remember quite a bit from that class. One was that some very interesting things happen when you move house or change jobs, mentally. You are better able to break bad habits (though I can’t seem to lose my sweet tooth, no matter what I do), and something in your brain frees up, allowing for the easy formation of new habits and routines, and even heightened creativity.

Well, I’m definitely doing that heightened creativity thing pretty well. In fact, I haven’t been this creative since my first time in Europe! Since I moved into my new apartment, I’ve had a multitude of new ideas, and I’ve gotten even more ideas since I started working at my job. They’ve mostly been short stories, which are the most common ideas I have (and the ones I struggle with the most to get right, weirdly enough), but I’ve had a couple of novel ideas as well, really good ones. Like, really good. Like, the kind that I think people will compare to Stephen King novels someday, really good. I had one of those the other day while putting away my groceries. I was pulling Dr. Pepper out of a box and onto the top shelf (I think I formed a new bad habit, over consuming caffeinated sodas. What can I say? I need caffeine to get through work some days), and I had this idea for a story involving an actress and reincarnation. And I was like, “That’s a good idea. It could work.”

Ouroboros, a symbol of reincarnation to some. I may try to integrate it into that story idea I had.

Of course, with the many ideas I’ve had over the past six weeks or so, I’ve had less time for actually writing and editing. I’ve been working on Rose for a couple of weeks, but I’ve only gotten through Chapter 2 so far. I think that’s partly because I’m rewriting a lot of the first couple chapters based on the suggestions I got from my advisor and second reader after the second draft (and that’s a lot of material to work with), but on most weekdays I only have a couple of hours to write. Once I get home, I check my email and everything else I didn’t have access to while at work, I make and eat my dinner, I make a lunch for tomorrow, I shower. Anytime left over is for writing, editing, or blogging before I go to bed (unless I have to make a midweek shopping trip to the grocery store or something. Then I have even less time).

Honestly, I wish I could divide myself in two during the day. One Rami stays home and works on the stories, the other goes to work and gets the assignments done.

Yeah, I know. Bad idea. One Rami Ungar is a sign of the Apocalypse. Two of me would surely cause calamity and discord just by our very existence (kind of like a certain American presidential candidate I could name).

But I digress. The point is, these new environments re getting my brain going, giving me all sorts of ideas for stories that I hope to write as soon as possible. In the meantime, I’ll keep working, and I’ll keep riding this creativity wave for as long as possible.

And I hope that you all get to enjoy the ideas I come up with during this period someday. I would very much like that indeed.

Thoughts on Lovecraft: Part 2

Posted: July 10, 2016 in Living and Life, Review, Scary Stuff, Writing
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So I recently got back into reading The Complete Fiction of HP Lovecraft, after about a year’s gap since I last dove into his work on my Kindle. I actually got from 15% to 32%, which for a 1112-page book is pretty good, if you ask me.

Now, if you don’t know who HP Lovecraft is, he was kind of the King of American Horror between the reigns of Edgar Allen Poe and current monarch Stephen King, though he didn’t really achieve any sort of fame or influence until after his death. When I read him last year, I found his style old and outdated, and while some of his stories were actually pretty creepy, others were just strange or boring (see my thoughts in Thoughts on Lovecraft: Part 1).

So what were my thoughts one year later, having read several more stories? Well, he still prefers to write like a contemporary of Poe, one of his main influences in writing, which I find still rather irksome (I could parody it here, but I did that well enough in Part 1, so why try and repeat it?). I’m not that big a fan of that style, as I find it stuffy and somewhat boring, so occasionally that made for an annoyance to get through.

And Lovecraft is still a proud and unrepentant racist and xenophobe. Seriously, “The Horror at Red Hook” manages to drag so many non-white ethnicities, including Kurds and Yazidis, through the mud.

And he’s the only author I’ve ever met who’s used the word “eldritch,” meaning sinister or creepy (why didn’t he just use those words?).

But other than those problems, the tales I read in this section of the book were much better than the ones I read in the last one. Sure, the short story “Azathoth,” which was the first mention of the Elder God, is actually just a fragment of a novel Lovecraft never got around to finishing, which was annoying. Imagine, I get to the end of that short piece, and I was like, “Wait, that’s it?” Thank goodness for Wikipedia, which explained to me why I shouldn’t be so angry.

And there was that story, “Imprisoned with the Pharoahs,” which got a little dense with the language and made it annoying to get through, though as a fictional account of one of Harry Houdini’s adventures, it is pretty cool in retrospect.

But other than those two, these were very good stories. They were creepy, dark, and had some pretty nice twists and turns in them. I can see why a few of them have been adapted several times into movies or radio plays and the like. “Herbert West–Reanimator” is a fun tale about one man’s growing obsession with overcoming death and extending life (very Frankenstein), and how that obsession causes a domino fall of events that shows the readers the price of obsession. “The Lurking Fear” felt like a Stephen King novel from an earlier age, filled with elements of insanity, the supernatural, and insane tastes. And “Shunned House” needs to be made into a movie by Blumhouse Productions, because it is freaking scary! It’s a vampire novel that hearkens back to the days when vampires were barely human, and is probably the best of the stories by him I’ve read so far. Imagine a movie version, with James Wan in the director’s seat! No one would see it and think of vampires with Twilight or any of that other sentimental crap out there ever again.

Eek! Rats in the walls! Now I can’t sleep.

Also, “The Rats in the Walls” is great if you want to scare anyone around a campfire. Just saying.

You know, the more I read of Lovecraft’s work, the more I see why he’s been so influential. Sure, his early stories could be rather pointless or silly, and never approached scary, with the exceptions of a few, like “The Tomb” and “The Temple.” But as time went on, as tends to happen, he got better. He figured out what worked and what didn’t. He learned how to get into our heads and make us tremble, make us wonder. He pushed the envelope for his day, introducing elements of cannibalism, satanism, gods that care nothing for us except maybe as snacks. And he did it so well.

And even now, after I’ve decided to take a break from him, I still find myself getting inspired by him. I’ve already gotten a few new novel and short story ideas from his stories, particularly “The Lurking Fear.” I have no idea when I’ll write them, but I think that when I do, they may even chill me.

So yeah, I think I’m definitely a Lovecraft fan now. Last year I wasn’t so much of a fan, but now I think I am. He’s definitely grown on me. And I think I may visit him again someday, perhaps even before the end of the year. Especially if he gives me so many good ideas. And if you like a good scary story and can handle some old-timey writing style, then I suggest you visit Mr. Lovecraft too.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got my own stories to work on, so I’m going to get on that. In the meantime, I hope you have a scarily good time, my Followers of Fear. Until next time!

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