Posts Tagged ‘living and life’

Autumn Semester 2014: The Pre-Game Show

Posted: August 20, 2014 in Living and Life, Writing
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Well, its a week before classes start, and I turned in the first round of tuition fees when I go off to work today. So it’s time for me to do what I do before the start of every semester: let everyone know, whether they care or not, what my semester is shaping up to be like and what I’ll be doing this term. And this is a special update, because it’s my last year at Ohio State. Meaning this is my last autumn semester. And one of the last times I’ll be able to look forward to a new term and new classes and new experiences…

Please excuse me while I go pretend to cry.

…….

Okay, I’m back. Still here? Excellent! Well, as usual I’m going into the semester with hopes that I can get A’s in all my classes (though my past track records suggest that I’ll probably get at least one or two B’s). I’m taking a total of seventeen credit hours this semester, far more than I’ve ever. Fifteen of those are divided among five three-hour classes, while the other two are for my thesis work (more on that down below). This semester, I’m taking two classes for my English major, two for my History major, and one course to fill out all my general requirements. For English, I’m taking an advanced creating writing workshop and a special course on Shakespeare. Regarding the workshop, I wanted to take one more before I graduated, having taken two during my sophomore year. I’m not too keen on the fact that we’ll be focusing mostly on literary fiction, but hey, I’m adaptable, I’m sure I can write something that’ll pass as literary and get me good grades. As for the Shakespeare class, it looks like we’ll be focusing more on the comedies, such as Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice. I’ve got a complete collected works of William Shakespeare’s, so I hope that’ll be allowed for class. If not, I won’t mind having to buy copies of the plays, though I do wish we could explore some of the tragedies, like Titus Andronicus. When I saw that in London, I absolutely loved it (though that shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me and knows the play’s subject matter).

For History, I’m taking a class that goes over the history of war, from early Mesopotamia to today’s wars and a class that looks at the early history of East Asia. Both should provide an interesting look into both subjects, and the former class should be interesting for me as a guy who’s done plenty of study on WWII.

Movie time.

And as for the one general requirements course, it’s an interesting one. It’s a Biology class, the last class I have to take for my science requirements and my general requirements. However, this one seeks to explore the subject of biology and anatomy through film. Yeah, I have no idea what that means either. But I’m just going to go with it. Besides, it sounds very, very interesting and it means watching films two nights a week, so who’s to complain?

And as for my thesis, it’s going to be a tough but fun project. As I’ve said before, I’m working on a novel called Rose, about a woman who dies on the night of her engagement party and is resurrected by her stalker. However the magic that brings her back changes her biology and makes her totally dependent on her stalker for survival, even as she tries to escape from him, and from whatever evil the magic let into the house. I’m hoping it’ll shape up to be an awesome horror novel with plenty of room for introspection and character development.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m tired and heading to bed. You all have a good night, my Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares, one and all!

Editing a Key Detail in “Video Rage”

Posted: August 18, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Social Activism, Writing
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I’m about a third of the way through editing Video Rage. And while I was editing Chapter 12 yesterday, I had a bit of a problem that I had to really rack my brains to solve.

Does anyone remember the Kony 2012 video from two years ago? If you don’t, here’s a quick reminder: Joseph Kony is an African warlord leading a terrorist organization that recruits children to be soldiers and sex slaves. The video Kony 2012 exposed many people to Joseph Kony’s crimes to many people in the West for the first time, amassing nearly 100 million views and becoming one of YouTube’s most viral videos ever. However, despite a powerful Stop Kony campaign, a Cover the Night event, and a sequel to clarify points made in the first video, interest in Joseph Kony and Invisible Children, the organization behind the video, waned after questions of the legitimacy of the campaign came up and the video’s narrator/producer suffered a very public mental breakdown.

Maybe it was because I was really impacted by the video at the time, going out of my way to make a Kony 2012 T-shirt and participating in Cover the Night, but when I decided to make an original viral video in Video Rage, I wanted to use Kony 2012 as an example to compare to the viral video in the story. So I wrote it in, ignoring the reservations I had about using such a famous (and infamous video).

Well, perhaps there’s some truth to the phrase “Another year older, another year wiser.” I was 20 when I wrote that chapter, but I’m 21 as I edit the novel. And I decided to cut Kony 2012 from the story. It’s just that a well-known video like that being featured in my novel might do more harm than good, especially considering everything that went on in the aftermath. So I ended up replacing it with a fictional documentary that I made up pretty much while editing. It took me a while to come up with the subject matter behind the documentary and what it did to achieve the level of fame that it would inspire a viral video in the novel’s universe nearly forty years later, but I finally managed to come up with something that I was satisfied with. And hopefully any future reader will be satisfied with it as well.

So what’s the point of this post? I’m not sure there is a point. Maybe I just wanted to tell you all a story while letting you know how the editing for Video Rage is going. Or maybe I was trying to illustrate how something that seems like a good idea when you’re younger or at an earlier stage of a project (or both) can really seem like a bad idea later on and you just have to nix it. (Strange that Stephen King didn’t think of that when he wrote in that scene in IT with the kids all having sex with each other).

In any case, I’ve fixed what I considered to be a great problem with that one chapter of Video Rage, and I think that the rest of the draft will go smoothly…if I can stay on track with finishing the second draft of the book.

Well, that’s all for now. It’s late, so I’m going to bed. Have a good night, my Followers of Fear. I’ll update you on Video Rage and anything else that needs updating as time goes on. In the meantime, pleasant nightmares.

Gene Simmons Just Doesn’t Understand Depression

Posted: August 16, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections
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Gene Simmons, frontman of KISS

Since the unfortunate death of Robin William on Monday, there’s been a lot of memorials, tributes, and discussions about the loss of this famous entertainer and his battles with depression, substance abuse, and, as we learned recently, with Parkinson’s disease. While most of the discussion has been rather good and dedicated to healing and trying to understand the tragedy, there’s been a lot of people whose contributions have been less than helpful. After the coroner’s report came out, some news networks chose to focus on the degree of rigor mortis that had set into Williams’ body or how he killed himself rather than have a meaningful discussion on the effects of depression or on the actor’s life (why would we want to know that CSI stuff on a real actor?). Rush Limbaugh said that the reason Williams took his life was that, as a leftist, he was never satisfied with what he had and kept wanting more, and his dissatisfaction led him to ultimately take his life (why does anyone listen to this guy anymore?). And that group of ignoramuses who think they’re Christians but are not, Westboro Baptist, has announced plans to picket Robin Williams’ funeral (do any of these people have day jobs, or do they make and sell crystal meth to finance their protests?). And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that numerous people sent hurtful and abusive tweets to Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda on Twitter, causing her to shut down her account (sometimes I think the Internet just brings out more of the worst in us than the best).

But the worst reaction I’ve heard is from Gene Simmons, frontman from popular band KISS. Mere days after telling immigrants to the United States to “learn goddamn English” on a HuffPost Live interview, Simmons said during an interview with SongFacts.com that he doesn’t “get along with anybody who’s a drug addict and has a dark cloud over their head and sees themselves as a victim.” He went further to say:

Drug addicts and alcoholics are always, “The world is a harsh place.” My mother was in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. I don’t want to hear fuck all about “the world as a harsh place.” She gets up every day, smells the roses and loves life. And for a putz, 20-year-old kid to say, “I’m depressed, I live in Seattle.” Fuck you, then kill yourself.

I never understand, because I always call them on their bluff. I’m the guy who says “Jump!” when there’s a guy on top of a building who says, “That’s it, I can’t take it anymore, I’m going to jump.” Are you kidding? Why are you announcing it? Shut the fuck up, have some dignity and jump! You’ve got the crowd.

Now, I’ve never exactly been a big KISS fan to begin with, but Simmons’ comment have definitely made it very unlikely that I ever will become one. Sure, your representative has sent a message to the HuffPost saying that you regret your comments and that they were spur of the moment, but I’m not sure how many people will be forgiving you any time soon for this. Especially since you didn’t come out and say it yourself but had your representative shoot off an email.

And let me take the time to point out a few things about depression, and other mental disorders that can cause suicidal thoughts and behaviors. First, let’s get one thing in the open right now. Depression is an illness. Sometimes it’s even a chronic illness, like diabetes or cystic fibrosis. Plenty of people forget or don’t realize that depression is an illness, maybe because it’s in the brain and isn’t caused by a virus. Even so, telling people with a chronic illness that they should kill themselves is just wrong. We don’t tell people with MS, Crohns disease, and lupus to kill themselves. Instead we tell them to have hope that treatments will emerge someday and give money to the charities that raise money for research. I don’t see why people with depression have to be treated differently.

Not to mention that if every person with serious depression followed your advice and actually took their lives rather than mope around, we’d have a lot of deaths. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 16 million adults aged 18 and over suffered from at least one major depressive episode in 2012, or 7% of the US population. Some of those people would be people I know. I and many of my friends and family have dealt with depression or know someone who has dealt with it over the years. That’s how prevalent depression is. At one point in my life my own depression was bad enough to make me consider suicide. Should I kill myself then? Or should I work on treatment and making myself better?

And I applaud your mother for being able to continue living and finding meaning in life after her experiences with the Holocaust. It’s not easy to do that. Many survivors suffered from problems afterwards, including depression, paranoia, anxiety, and many other disorders. A few even took their own lives. And they probably felt the same sort of feelings of darkness that the kid in Seattle felt.

That’s the insidious thing about depression. It affects people in different ways, from all walks of life, and it affects so many. And still we have no idea what causes it. There’s plenty of research that points to it to being a biological or genetic disorder, as well as research that points to environmental or social causes. And there’s even evidence to support that a combination of these factors could cause depression. Depression can also be a side effect of other chronic illnesses. Plenty of people with cancer, Parkinson’s, or MS end up developing depression. We don’t entirely understand what causes depression like that either, but we do research and we try to fight back.

And don’t be the person who yells at the person on the ledge to just jump and get it over with. Very rarely is anything ever grained by taking a life, especially one’s own. And people kill themselves for a number of reasons: depression, anxiety, paranoia, schizophrenia. Sometimes they feel they are actually helping people or the world by taking their lives. Other times they feel that they don’t matter in the long run and no one will miss them. And occasionally we can’t understand the reasons why people take their lives. But that does’t mean we should ignore them or egg them on. That’d just be too cruel and would mean humanity isn’t worth savng after all.

Rest in peace, O Captain, My Captain.

So let me do what you obviously couldn’t do, Chaim Witz. I’m not going to tell people with depression or considering taking their lives to either have an attitude adjustment or just get it over with and kill themselves. If you are depressed or considering suicide, talk to a licensed therapist. If you can’t afford one or there’s none in your area, talk to a teacher, counselor, clergymen, or someone you trust who is in a position to help you. Or if you live in the US, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, where therapists and counselors are standing by to help you.

And I know things won’t always be sunshine and daisies. In fact, even with treatment there are plenty of people who have trouble and feel down or upset. But that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. Like any illness, you’ve just got to keep working at it and hoping that things will improve. Perhaps then, things will get better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh yeah, tuition costs.

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

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

Only 9 months to go. Start counting.

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

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

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

Thankful For The Good

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Year Blogging Sale Ends Today

Posted: August 9, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, short story, Writing
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Last week, I marked three years of blogging on WordPress, and decided to hold a sale: all e-books of Snake, Reborn City and The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones cost only $0.99 to download from Amazon or Smashwords. Today is the last day to download those books, so if you’re looking for something new to read and have an e-reader and you don’t mind a little terror or some violence, now’s a good time to check out my books.

And if you decide to check out my books and you find the time to read them, please take the time to let me know what you think of them. You can leave a comment on a related post, or you can write a review on the book’s page on Amazon or Smashwords (whichever you downloaded the book from). Positive or negative, it doesn’t matter, I love getting feedback on my books. So please, let me know.

That’s all for now. I’ve got a big day ahead of me, so I’m going to get right to it. Have a wonderful weekend, my Followers of Fear.

Plotting the Path

Posted: August 9, 2014 in Novel, Reflections, Writing
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What an eerie path to take.

Every author has a different metaphor for what it’s like writing a novel or creating a story or even outlining a story. Stephen King said in his memoir On Writing that he approaches writing like an archaeologist uncovers an artifact, finding the top of it sticking out of the dirt and then carefully chipping and dusting away to uncover the rest of it. I guess that means His Royal Creepiness likes to come up with the story as he writes it and doesn’t plan too far ahead, but whether or not he does, he’s almost always brilliant with it.

Another author, I forget who but I’m pretty sure they were Freshly Pressed for writing an article on this, once compared writing to putting together a sandwich. You have a bunch of different ingredients, and it’s up to you as the chef of this particular sandwich to make it into a delicious meal that people will want to savor and discuss for hours to come. Like I said, I can’t remember who this author was, so I can’t tell you whether or not they were brilliant at it, but they certainly can create a compelling metaphor.

And there are plenty of other metaphors that one author could apply to the writing of a novel: mixing an interesting cocktail; building a house; decorating a room; putting together a collage; building a Rube Goldberg device (I love those things!) and then some, on and on, etc. Each author probably has their own metaphor that relates to their own process.

How some people see writing a novel: building one of these.

I thought about this a lot while I was writing the outline for my thesis Rose, especially since during the early stages of writing the outline I had a lot of trouble figuring out where to go with the story after the first chapter or two. And after a lot of thought, a bi of frustration, and finally typing out a sixteen-page outline complete with short character bios, I finally figured it out. To me, writing is like sending my characters down a path in a heavily wooded forest, and letting them find the way to the end.

I think this has a lot to do with the many philosophers, musicians, and others who have said “Life is a road/path/journey”. For me, I’m seeing the path my characters are traveling on as they move through the story, meeting each obstacle, struggling against their own darkness and striving to be better people. And sometimes, this metaphor takes on a much more…I guess literal tone. For example, those of you who’ve read my novel Snake know it takes place in and around New York City (for those of you who haven’t, now you know). In a strange way, I see the path the Snake takes, not just the one in the woods but how he travels from location to location and scene to scene. I see what he does to get from Point A and Victim 1 to Point B and Victim 2, and from there to Point C and Victim 3 and so on and so forth, whether he’s driving a stolen car or walking through a dark neighborhood or using a disguise to figure out what his next move will be. (Right now, someone is reading this post and hears this description of Snake and is either deciding the book’s not for them or they’re strangely intrigued and want to find out more. I hope it’s the latter).

This “path” metaphor gets even more literal in some of my other works. In Video Rage, the sequel to Reborn City which I’ve begun editing, most of the novel is spent on the open road, so those characters of mine aren’t just on a path with many twists and turns in a metaphorical sense. They’re really on that road!

Which to take to get a better story?

Whether in a metaphorical or a literal sense though, writing like my characters are on a road or a path helps me visualize where my characters and the story are going and where I ulitmately want them to go. During the writing of the outline for Rose, there were several paths that the story could have gone on, and in the early parts I couldn’t figure out where to go. Some of those paths I tried, and I ended up not liking the direction the story would’ve gone down if I went down those paths. Thankfully I ended up taking the right path around the third or fourth attempt, and things got a lot easier from there on out. I’m looking forward to seeing what people think of the path I took with this story, and the others I’ve written.

What do you think of this metaphor for writing?

What metaphor do you like to use? What are some others that you’ve heard that you agree with?

Rose: Outline Finished

Posted: August 6, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Or at least the first draft is. There’s always a chance that my adviser will make me rewrite certain parts of it, but I hope to keep it like it is.

Anyway, late last night I went about finishing the outline, and somehow I managed to do it before it was too far past midnight. This outline gave me more problems than outlines usually do, because up until I started writing the outline I had only a few scenes planned out, so I had to come up with the rest as I was writing. Once or twice I had to actually go back and erase what I’d written before because I didn’t like which direction the story was going. Around the third attempt though I managed to get this story going in the right direction and from there it was just a matter of figuring out where I wanted to go, what would be the logical step to get there, and what sort of events could happen without stretching the limit of credulity.

In the end, I think this story will turn out very well. It’s about twenty-eight chapters, and will probably be around the normal length for one of my books, between eighty-five thousand and one-hundred thousand words. I often wrote the outline looking for plot holes and trying to find good ways to plug them up (I hope I succeeded). And I hope I create an interesting and somewhat scary story about a woman who dies but is resurrected by her stalker through magic and finds herself trapped in his house with not only him, but very malevolent supernatural forces. Thank goodness I have an adviser who will be helping me out with that part. He’s a published writer himself, so odds are he’ll have a few lessons to help me.

And while I’m waiting for my research books to arrive in the mail and for the new semester to start (three weeks from today, by the way), I think I’ll edit Video Rage. God knows it’s about time, and I have time to do it now before things get really crazy! In fact, I’ll start it today! But first I need to run an errand, then I need to vacuum the apartment, then I need to run the dishwasher, then I need to have lunch before I go to work, then I have work, and later tonight I’m supposed to be at a friend’s birthday party…life’s crazy sometimes.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll keep you updated on Rose, Video Rage, and other projects as time goes on and I have news to give. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.

A Trip to Campus for Research

Posted: August 4, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Part of my research for my thesis/new novel Rose was that I had to look into the life of a sociology grad student, because my protagonist Rose Taggert is one. Well, was one. I mentioned when I first announced what I was working on that Rose died and was resurrected by her stalker, didn’t I?

Anyway, since my knowledge of sociology was limited to the introductory course I took last year, I decided to contact the sociology department at Ohio State to see if they could maybe help me. After first heading to their main office, and then getting redirected to their undergraduate advising office, I talked over email with one of the advisers, who then told me to email their graduate adviser Kelly Hopkins (boy, was that a little roundabout). After a couple of emails to determine when was a good time to meet, we finally agreed to meet at nine this morning, and I made the trip onto campus. Once back in the same office I started in, I was taken to Ms. Hopkins room (no idea if she’s married, so I’ll just go with “Ms.” for now), where she was all too happy to give me an explanation of what the sociology grad program was like after I explained to her about my protagonist Rose.

We spoke for a little under a half hour, Ms. Hopkins doing most of the talking while I asked a question here and there. Turns out that sociology grads at Ohio State spend their first two years earning their Masters degrees, after which they take very intense candidacy exams to enter the PhD program. At that point they start taking specialized courses for PhD students, as well as taking specialized courses for their area of specialization and working on their dissertation. The grad students spend a lot of time together in classes and in their offices together, usually becoming lifelong friends by the time they graduate. They also develop close relationship with their faculty advisers, and many of them have the chance to teach during their tenure as grads.

Based on this information, I was able to get a clearer picture of who Rose will be and what her grad life was like prior to the events of the novel. She’s probably in her third year of grad school, so she’s about six months into the PhD program. She is specializing in criminology and community studies, particularly studies involving gun violence, and was probably either a GTA working underneath a professor in an introductory course or already a PhD student teaching a class of her own when she met the student who would become her stalker, depending on how long ago I end up wanting them to meet and the latter becoming fixated on her.

I’m glad I was able to meet with Ms. Hopkins and speak with her today. I know Rose’s life as a grad student isn’t the most important part of the novel, but it’s one I wanted to seem authentic to readers. Besides, it’d be a little bit embarrassing if a sociologist or sociology student read Rose when it came out and was like, “What the heck sort of program is this girl in?” Always glad to have the details right.

I also learned something interesting from Ms. Hopkins: when I told her that my work was heavily influenced by Stephen King, she mentioned that she had a friend who was a make-up artist for horror movies and had worked on a few Stephen King adaptations of King’s work, including The Shining, and knew King personally. Apparently King’s a very nice, sweet guy in person (doesn’t surprise me; we horror authors usually are, though at one point I thought I needed to be a little bit creepier in order to be a better author). I ended up handing Ms. Hopkins two of my business cards so that she could pass them onto her friend (and maybe even King. Do I dare dream of it?). Hopefully at least one of them will go online and check out my work.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to do some more work on my thesis outline later today. At this point I think I might be done by the end of the week, with about thirty or so chapters. I’m still not sure where eactly this novel is going, but so far I like what I’ve come up with and I think my adviser might as well. I’ll keep you guys updated.

Have a great day, everyone!

Snake: Review #2

Posted: August 3, 2014 in Novel, Review, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

snake

How far would you go for love and revenge?

Last night while I was out seeing Guardians of the Galaxy (which was a great film, by the way), a new review of Snake was posted on Amazon. I’m very excited and happy for this review, because reviews let me know what the readers think of the book and gives me feedback on where I can improve with the next book.

Today’s review comes from Gefilte63, which means it’s from my dad. Now before you roll your eyes and think to yourself, “Obviously he gave his son a glowing review”, I think you’ll find my dad can be quite the book critic (and critic of a bunch of other things, but I’ll save that for my stand-up comedy act). His four-star review, which he entitled A great story, a real page turner, goes like this.

This novel is a much easier read than the author’s last effort. It is a great story that keeps you wanting to see what happens next; it reads like an action/thriller movie.
Areas for improvement would include better editing. At times there is too much conversation where it isn’t necessary. Also a few plausibility issues but overall a great read!

Okay, remember when I said reviews give me feedback on where I can improve? Well, apparently I need to do a better editing job next time around. And apparently there are plausibility issues (I’m thinking he’s talking about parts in the latter half of the book), so I’ll try and make sure that’s less of a problem in the future (though if I could point out, sometimes a lot of things in life are implausible but are reality nonetheless. I mean, have you seen our gun situation?).

Anyway, I would like to thank my dad, Rabbi Michael Ungar, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to not only read Snake but to write a review for it. I hope in the future you continue to read, enjoy, and review my books.

If you would like to learn more about Snake, you can check out the page for Snake or you can check it out on Amazon and Createspace. And by the way, this week until August 9th, all e-books of my work, Snake included, are only $0.99 when you download them. So now’s a great time to check them out!

And I’ll be seeing about getting my books onto other formats like NOOK and iTunes soon, so stay posted for information about that.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got some work to take care of, so I’m going to get on that. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear!

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