Posts Tagged ‘living and life’

One Week Till My Study Abroad Trip

Posted: April 29, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report
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I can’t believe how soon it will be before I’m flying overseas to study WWII. But everywhere around me, I find the things that remind me how little time is left before I go. The constant email reminders, the calls between my medical insurance company to make sure that I have all my medication before I go, the planned shopping trip with my dad to get me some last minute clothes, the research into plugs so I know if I have to stop by RadioShack for adapters. Any day now I’m going to wake up, get dressed, and then head off to the airport.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m going on a study abroad trip to England, France, and Germany to study WWII, particularly the European theater. There’s about fourteen students, including me, and two teachers accompanying us overseas. Everyone on the trip has been studying together since the beginning of the semester, so we’ve all gotten to know each other as well. I’m so looking forward to this trip. We’ll be seeing Churchill’s bunker, the place where Turing cracked Germany’s codes, Omaha Beach and the Pegasus Bridge, the Paris Shoah Museum and the place where the Versailles treaty was signed, Wannsee and Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and so many other places. In addition, there are many places I and my classmates want to visit while we’re abroad. There’s been talk of seeing an actual Shakespeare at the Globe (we’re thinking of seeing Titus Andronicus; I wonder if my classmates realize that’s one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest and most violent plays?), and we’re in Paris I plan on going down into the catacombs (God help anyone who gets in my way). Oh, and there’s apparently an actual British police box somewhere in London. I’m so visiting that with my sonic screwdriver.

The TARDIS! Allons-y!

Sadly though, I won’t be doing a lot of blogging or blog-reading while I’m gone. I plan mostly to disconnect from the Internet while I’m abroad, so I can get as much of Europe as I can while I’m there. I’ll also be writing a lot less than I normally would (that’ll be agony in itself, but I’ll survive). However, the university is requiring us to keep blogs while we’re abroad, so I’m posting the link for mine here. And if for some reason there’s a problem with the link, my blog address for when I’m abroad is u [dot] osu [dot] edu [slash] ungar [dot] 19. So if you want to know what I’m up to while I’m abroad, just go to that site and you can read all about it.

So wish me luck while I’m abroad. I promise to come back with plenty of stories and a couple of blog posts about my time there (and whether or not I met any ghosts in the catacombs or if I managed to successfully prank anyone on my trip). And trust me, there will be plenty of photos. I even have plans to make a video slideshow of my trip once I get back. It’ll have the most amazing music too.

Oh, one more thing: I’d just like to remind everyone from May 1st-31st, Reborn City‘s e-book will be on sale for 99 cents. You read that right, 99 cents. So if you’re interested in reading the book and you have an e-reader, now would be a good time to get a copy. Once June 1st comes around, the price will go up to $1.99, and on June 14th the price will go back to the normal $2.99. So check it out while it’s on sale! And if you like or hate RC, please write me a review. I love feedback, whether it be positive or negative.

That’s all for now. I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll do some more blogging later. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear.

Laura Horn: Making Some Wonderful Progress

Posted: April 27, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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You may be familiar with my WIP Laura Horn, which I started last year and which I’ve had a heck of a time just trying to get halfway through. Between school, work, and other projects, it’s been a struggle to work on this novel, which is sad because I think it has a lot of potential. If I can only get through the first draft, I’d be able to test that theory about its potential!

But as I’ve spoken about before here, my study abroad trip will be in a little over a week (my, how time flies!), and I’ll be taking a break from blogging, writing, and most computer-related activities to go explore England, France, and Germany. This includes working on Laura Horn. Most likely I’ll kill some time in the airport on it while waiting for my flight to Heathrow, but after that it won’t be till late May that I’ll be able to work on it.

The good news is that since I took my finals, submitted my final papers, and now only have the distractions of work, trip preparation, and whatever’s on TV/in theaters/on my bookshelf to keep me from writing, I’ve been able to make a lot of progress on Laura Horn. In the past couple of days, I finished one chapter that I’d started on about two weeks ago and wrote about three more chapters. This has me elated, and I’m planning on getting more done before I go off on my trip. I hope to at least get three more done before I leave, because I’ll be a little over halfway through the novel then and when you know you’re well beyond the halfway point, the process of writing a novel becomes a bit easier and you find yourself being less intimidated by the amount of writing you have to do.

In any case, I plan on making some wonderful progress with this novel, and hopefully when I get back from Europe, I’ll be able to finish it by midway through July at the very latest. If I can do that, then I will probably feel less regret that I took so many breaks with writing the novel and look forward more to the editing and publishing process. That’s the hope, in any case.

In the meantime, I’m going to head to bed with the hopes that, after having watched a couple of scary movies these past couple of days and with the possibility of watching one more tomorrow (Oculus, to be exact), my twisted imagination cam come up with something really fun and creepy to write. In fact, I’ve been playing with this idea in my head for a story. I know how it’d start, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get the story to go beyond the first scene. Here’s hoping I can come up with something in my sleep!

And with that, I wish you a good night, my Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares, one and all!

“Travelers of the Loneliest Roads” Is Now On WattPad

Posted: April 24, 2014 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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A while back I wrote a short story called “Travelers of the Loneliest Roads,” a story of a young woman hitchhiking on the back roads of America who gets picked up by a very strange ride. I wasn’t having much success in finding a magazine to publish it in, so I thought I’d share it on WattPad, where short stories rejected by publishers have found some success.

I really like this story. It was my first experimentation with trying to make the story progressively more terrifying using techniques I’ve picked up from various novels and movies, and I thought I did a damn good job. I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone here who checks it out has to say though. After all, you know what they say: authors are often some of the worst judges of their own work.

Anyway, if you’d like to read “Travelers”, please click here. I hope you enjoy reading it and whatever your thoughts about it, please let me know what you think. As I’m fond of saying, I love feedback, whether it be positive or negative.

That’s all for now. I’m going to try to get some more writing done before my shows come on later tonight. So until next time, happy reading my Followers of Fear.

Ten Haunted Locations That I Want To Visit Before I Become A Ghost Myself

Posted: April 23, 2014 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
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For those of you who read the title and are thinking to yourselves, “He plans to become ghost?”, yes, I do. I plan to become a ghost and haunt people as I like. Nobody’s safe, too. I plan to haunt everyone and anyone! Mwha ha ha!

Anyway, most people who know me know that besides being a fan of horror stories, I’m also a believer in ghosts and have had a few experiences as well that terrified and excited me (though mostly terrified). I thought it’d be interesting if I did a list of ten places purported to be haunted that I want to visit and see if I can capture ghostly evidence. And it’s possible that I might be able to go to a few of those soon, so I’m super-excited for them!

The list isn’t in any real order, except my number one is last and I REALLY want to go there when I have the chance. The rest of the list is pretty random in order. I didn’t intend for that to happen, it just did. Or did it?…

So without further ado, let’s get this list started!

10. Longfellow’s Wayside Inn
Location: Sudbury, Massachusetts, USA

The oldest working inn in America, the Wayside Inn gained its name as it was the place that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote his collection of poems, Tales of the Wayside Inn, back when it was the Howe Inn. There is another tale though of this historic inn: the inn is reportedly home to Jerusha Howe, the daughter of the inn’s original owner who fell in love with a sailor who disappeared at sea. She died pining away for her missing lover. Today, male guests at the inn report being visited by Jerusha in two adjoining rooms she is said to frequent, leading to some amorous ghost stories that have been collected in a trunk full of love letters in one of the rooms. You can see why I’d want to go there. It’s the making of a great supernatural romance story, among other things.

9. Lizzie Borden House
Location: Fall River, Massachusetts, USA

Lizzie Borden was a woman living in Fall River, MA with her family in 1892 when her family was brutally murdered with an axe. The violence of the massacre and Lizzie’s subsequent strange behavior afterwards made her seem like a prime suspect, but bungling on the part of the local investigators led to her acquittal at trial. The case gained quite a lot of attention in its day, making it one of the most infamous murders in American history. Today the house is a working bed and breakfast, and guests have reported being dragged from beds and other unpleasant happenings. Doesn’t that sound like it’s right up my alley?

*This location was visited July 6th-7th, 2017. Full report of that experience here.

8. Alcatraz
Location: Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, California, USA

America’s most famous federal prison, it held numerous famous criminals, including Al Capone, from 1934 to 1963. Today the prison is a landmark and a museum (and it was also a short-lived TV show), but it’s also reportedly haunted by former inmates who died here, sometimes under mysterious circumstances. Not only that, but the island was called by Native Americans “the Evil Island” and rumors of demonic activity continue to this day. I can imagine wanting to spend a night in the big house if it was this one!

7. Ohio State Reformatory
Location: Mansfield, Ohio, USA

I’m proud to say that this one is in my state, and haunted tours are regularly given there around Halloween, so I’m definitely going to visit it one of these days. During its heyday, this prison housed over 155,000 prisoners, and there were several mysterious deaths, murders, and suicides. Since it closed, it has been used by film crews for a variety of films, including the Shawshank Redemption, but it has also been the home of some very nasty spirits who are said to touch prisoners and even become violent. Maybe I should visit there this Halloween. Anyone care to come with?

*This location was visited August 5th, 2018. For full details, check out my post here. I visited a year later for an overnight ghost hunt. Click here for more details.

6. The Stanley Hotel
Location: Estes Park, Colorado, USA

The inspiration for Stephen King’s The Shining, the Stanley Hotel has been the site of many paranormal experiences, with people becoming so frightened they’ve had panic attacks and have been sent to the hospital. Some of the most famous haunted rooms are the ballroom, where music is said to be heard, and Room 217 (any King lover knows why). There’s also a reported ghost thief that steals luggage, jewelry, and othe valuables from right under the guests’ noses, and there’s been no proof it might be a maid. They had me at Stephen King.

5. Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Location: Weston, West Virginia, USA

One of the most haunted sites in America, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was one of the busiest insane asylums in the nation, housing 2400 patients at its peak. It was forcibly closed in 1994 due to treatment of its patients, but popular belief states that some guests haven’t left. There have been screams, doors opening and closing, and a bunch of other weird happenings there, and it has been investigated by numerous paranormal investigators, including the Ghost Adventures Crew, who did a live seven-hour long lockdown during which viewers on the Travel Channel website could view and examine evidence in real time. And I think it’s about time I got committed there, don’t you think?

4. Pennhurst State School
Location: Spring City, Pennsylvania, USA

An asylum for the physically and mentally handicapped, Pennhurst was plagued by overcrowding and not enough staff members for all its years. There are reports of children five or six years old not being taught to walk because there weren’t enough staff members to teach them, and of patients lying in their own feces or delusions for hours on end. The facility was finally closed when an investigative news team exposed the overcrowding and abuse there, leading to a public outcry. Today the facility is reportedly haunted by patients who never left its walls, and tours and investigations there have yielded some interesting findings. As one of those investigations inspired a novel I plan to write someday, I hope to get a tour someday. Road trip!

3. Aokigahara
Location: Honshu Island, Japan

An ancient forest at the base of Mt. Fuji, the forest is nicknamed “Suicide Forest” due to its popularity as a place for suicides, despite official’s efforts to stop visitors from killing themselves. It is said that in addition to the suicides, the forest is haunted by demons and yurei, spirits who have been unable to move onto the afterlife. If I ever tour Japan, I’m making this place a sure location to visit. Only Godzilla could keep me away!

2. Hellfire Caves
Location: West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

A series of man-made caverns that extend very deep underground, the Hellfire Caves were once the stomping grounds of the Hellfire Club, a group of politically and socially affluent figures led by Sir Francis Dashwood, who reportedly held a number of pagan rituals in the caverns. Some accusations against the group say that these rituals were satanic in nature. To this day there are reports of dark spirits in the caves, as well as reports of Sukie, the ghost of a woman who was accidentally killed by three village boys who lured her to the cave and a rock fight broke out, as well as the ghost of Paul Whitehead, a friend of Dashwood’s who asked that his heart be put in an urn in the caverns upon his death. When the heart containing his urn was stolen in 1829, reports of a man in 18th century garb sighted in and around the caverns started to crop up. I wonder whose heart he’s looking for? Because these caves have certainly stolen mine.

1. The Paris catacombs
Location: Paris, Il-de-France, France

A series of underground ossuaries in the heart of Paris, the catacombs were once a series of ancient mines before becoming the homes of nearly six million corpses and skeletons when Paris officials needed to do something about the health problems caused by poor burial practices. Today certain sections of the catacombs are open to the public, and the legends about them never seem to cease, including that of the ghost of the man who oversaw the transfer of the bones below, of a man who got lost while going down to drink liquor and became a wandering ghost forevermore, and a bizarre tale of a woman who was kidnapped and tortured by a werewolf below, among others. I’ll be visiting France for my study abroad trip, so you can bet I’ll be making a visit to the catacombs before I leave the City of Light. And I’ll be taking plenty of photos.*

*This location was visited on May 21, 2014. For a full account of that experience, click here.

Have you ever been to these or other haunted locations? Has anything happened to you? If it did, could you give us some detail?

Two Weeks Till My Study Abroad Trip

Posted: April 22, 2014 in Living and Life, Progress Report
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Today is April 22. And as the title of this post makes very clear, there is only two weeks until my study abroad trip. Can I just say one thing? I’M SO EXCITED!!!!

My study abroad trip is about three weeks long, and I’ll be visiting England, France, and Germany in an intensive study of the European theater of WWII. I first heard about it a year ago, though I think a part of me wanted to go on such a trip since I got to Ohio State and heard about the study abroad programs available. I met with one of the leaders of it not too long after I heard of it, Dr. Steigerwald, and we kept in touch. Then this past autumn I went through the application process to get onto the trip. I got in, and I met the other people who’d be going on the trip with me.

And this whole past semester has been basically defined by the trip. Almost all of my classes I took with most or all of the members of my study abroad trip (which allowed us to become good friends), and each class we took together had something to do with the trip. We also had to write papers and read a lot of books about WWII. I even had to write a 25-page research paper of a topic of my choosing for the trip! And as much fun as it was to learn about the actual relationship between National Socialism and the occult, it was still a lot of work, especially hwen you add in all the applications for scholarships and grants and getting the medical stuff taken care of and then some!

It feels really weird that it’s only two weeks away. I can’t believe how much time has passed since I got onto the trip, or how much time has passed since the semester started. Despite everything we were doing as prep for the troop, it felt like it was a million years off in the distance. To find that it’s already late April and I’ll soon be packing up, paying my fees, and heading onto the plane, is kind of heady.

But I’m super-excited that it’s so close. I’m so looking forward to seeing the actual sites where famous battles and events happened and getting a better understanding of them. I plan on taking a lot of photos while I’m over there too, so I’ll be able to preserve the memories of my trip as best as possible. And I’m looking forward to doing a bunch of other things while abroad, along with seeing these famous European cities. The members of my trip have been talking about seeing a play at the Globe Theatre while in London, maybe Titus Andronicus (do they know what it’s about? It’s very bloody). And while we’re in Paris, I’m going to see if I can get in on a tour of the Paris catacombs. That will be fun! And a friend of mine on the trip expressed an interest with me of visiting the Reichstag. If we can, we’ll go.

Oh, before I forget, I want to let everyone know that even while I won’t be blogging on this blog that much while abroad (can you blame me), OSU is having us keep blogs while we’re abroad (on a WordPress format, no less). I’ll post a link to the blog before I go, but that means that if you want to, you can read about what I’m doing on my travels while I’m gone. I hope you’ll enjoy reading that.

Well, that’s all for now. I’m going to get to work on dinner in a few minutes, so I hope you have a lovely rest of your day. Have a good evening, my Followers of Fear.

Self-Pub Authors: Creating Character Names

Posted: April 22, 2014 in Journalism, Reflections, Writing
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My latest article for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors just went live this morning. Today’s article is Creating Character Names, which is something I’ve seen plenty of authors (myself among them) struggle with. I thought it’d be fun to contribute something about the subject to the site, and thus this article came to be.

As you may remember, I mentioned a bit ago that I wrote about five articles for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors that I scheduled to come out before I leave for my study abroad trip (and if I have my way, there will be more on that later today). The first, Doing an Excerpt, came out on April 7th. The second, When Trolls Attack, came out on the 13th. Creating An Acknowledgements Section will be out on the 27th, and I believe What Makes A Strong Character? will be published May 2nd. So please do check them all out if you get the chance.

And if you are a self-published author or are considering going into self-publishing, I highly recommend checking out Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. It is a wonderful site full of very helpful articles on a variety of subjects related to writing, editing, publishing, and marketing, written by some really awesome indie authors (myself and yesterday’s interview, Ruth Ann Nordin, among them).

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got to go to work, so I’ll write some more later. Have a wonderful day, everybody!

Conversations With Ruth Ann Nordin

Posted: April 21, 2014 in Author Interciew, Writing
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There is so much I’d like to say about Ruth, but I only have limited space to do so. Let me start with the things you definitely should know about her: Ruth is a prolific author, having written an astounding forty-six books, consisting of many different types of romance, as well as science fiction, fantasies, and non-fiction. A co-founder of that wondrous blog Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, many authors, including myself, look forward to her articles on how to self-publish cheaply and to do it well. And having been in the business for a number of years, she knows what she’s talking about. Though if you ask her, she will say that she still has a lot to learn.

I was able recently to sit down with Ruth and pick her brain on writing, her experiences with writing, and what she’s been up to lately. And as always, it was a wonderful and illuminating experience.

How did you get into writing?

When I was in the eighth grade, I went to the library looking for a certain plot.  I searched through all the books in a section and couldn’t find the book I wanted to read.  Then it occurred to me that I could write the book and read it.

Do you have a routine when it comes to writing?

I wish I did, but I don’t.  I do have the luxury of staying home during the day so I can write, but I also have a husband and four kids to take care of, and they are constantly interrupting me.  I pretty much write during the entire day, but I write in 10-20 minute spurts.

How did you get into self-publishing and what has the experience been like?

I got into self-publishing because I wanted to have full control over the content in my books.  My experience has been extremely rewarding and surprising.  The rewarding part is that I get to see my books in ebook and in paperback.  I have the pleasure of going back and reading them whenever I want.  The surprising part is how quickly self-publishing took off for authors.  Back in 2009 when I gave up on the idea of going with a publisher, I pretty much assumed I would never sell any books.  Back then, there wasn’t this expectation you could make money self-publishing books.  You believed the publisher was the only way to see money (via advances and royalties).  These days, the opposite is true.  Never in a million years, did I think things would be as they are today.

Why did you help start “Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors”?

At the time Stephannie Beman and I decided to create the blog, there was no other blog out there dedicated to helping other authors who were thinking of self-publishing their books.  I had searched the internet, and it seemed that every blog I came across was dedicated to helping authors who were looking to find a traditional publisher.  I wanted to educate, inspire, and support other authors who wanted to self-publish their books.  Back then, the big thing was just letting authors know it was okay to self-publish.  There was a lot of stigma associated with self-publishing.  Today, that stigma is still there, but it’s so small that it doesn’t even come on the radar.  These days, the focus is more on educating new writers on how to produce quality books that can compete with (and often be even better) than traditionally published books.

What inspires you the most?

The characters in my stories are the ones that inspire me to write.  If I don’t feel an emotional connection to them, then the book isn’t worth writing.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

When I’m not writing, I’m usually doing household chores, spending time with family and friends, or reading.  Most of my reading is nonfiction, some for spiritual growth and some for research on how to better write or run my business.  My fiction reading is mostly for genres apart from romances.  I write romances so much that I like to get a break from the genre to read other things.  I love horror the most, probably because it’s a lot different from romance.

What are you working on now?

I always have several projects going on at the same time.  I’m working on two co-authored books with Stephannie Beman and three that are on my own.  Four are historical western romances and one is a contemporary fantasy romance.  See why I like a break from romances when I read?

If you were stuck on a desert island and could only have three books to pass the time till you were rescued, what would those books be?

The Bible, How to Market a Book by Johanna Penn, and Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World by Kristen Lamb.

 

If you would like to find out more about Ruth, you can visit her on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, as well as on her website, her blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter. And while you’re at it, make sure to check out any of her 46 books. I bet you won’t regret you did.

The Leibster Award…Nominated Again!

Posted: April 17, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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I love these award memes. I should definitely try to revive the one I created a while back. But first, I have to thank Arran Bhansal for nominating me for this award. I really appreciate it. Now onto the rules:

1. Write 11 random facts about myself.

2. Answer 11 questions Arran came up for me.

3. Nominate 11 bloggers (if I can think of that many).

4. Come up with 11 questions for my nominees.

Okay, 11 random facts about myself. Let’s see:

1. I take precautions to keep spirits from getting into my room. Does that surprise anyone? Mainly salt, because it acts as a purifying presence against evil. Works incredibly well. I sleep much more easily these days.
2. I am terrible with names and faces. Sometimes I even forget my own.
3. I once heckled a comedian. I regretted it afterwards and have been occasionally beating myself up over it ever since. Still not sure why I did it. Bad case of judgment, I guess.
4. My most recent date was back in February or early March. It’s someone I’m friends with, but I think I’d like to just stay friends with them on reflection. Still, it was a lovely date and I think we became closer.
5. Today I remembered some animated movies I used to love but haven’t seen in years. Does anyone else remember The Black Cauldron or The Princess and the Goblin?
6. When my sister and I were little, people used to ask my parents which one of us was adopted because we both looked so different. My dad would joke that one of us was actually the mailman’s kid, and he was black. Nobody was sure if he was being funny or serious.
7. I’m a terrible singer. It’s never stopped me from trying though.
8. My favorite animal is a tiger. They’re so big, majestic and yet so dangerous and vicious. What’s not to love?
9. My study abroad group and I want to see a play at the Globe when we’re in England. I hope it ends up happening! It’d be so cool to go there and see an actual play in a recreation of the place where Shakespeare had his plays performed.
10. I once considered getting my hair dyed black. I’m glad I kept my hair naturally blonde, though. It looks better that way.
11. If I were to get a tattoo, it’d be of The Great Red Dragon as depicted in the William Blake painting on my back. Yes, that is a reference to one of the Hannibal Lecter books. Still really scary and awesome, though. Am I right?

And now for the 11 questions.

1. Who has been the greatest inspiration for your writing? Probably Stephen King and Anne Rice. They were the ones who made me realize my love of horror and spurred me on to write deep, powerful stories with ideas of love, fear, growth and reflections of what it means to be human. Of course, JK Rowling and the HP books got me into writing in the first place, so I guess you could say she has had the biggest influence of all.

2. Do you have a specific writing routine? I wish. My life doesn’t allow for it at the moment. It’s mostly when I can find the time to write. That’s when I do it.

3. How do you unwind when you’re not writing? I read, watch TV or surf the net. These days I tend to do less of that though. There’s just only so much you can find on the Internet before it just seems like the same old trash in new forms.

4. How much of you is in your main characters? Depends on the character. Some characters are based directly on me. Others have had my life experiences wrapped into their origin stories or their interests are similar to mine. And others are so far removed from me they’re separate people altogether. But I don’t mind that. After all, it’d be boring if they were all based on me, weren’t they?

5. What are your views on the traditional vs. self-publishing debate? Well, I’m a self-published author and I write for a website that tries to help other authors self-publish, so I guess that kind of tells you my views. If you look at the publishing industry, there’s never really been a point when the industry has been “stable”, because it’s always in flux. If you ask me though, I think it’s great that people still want to go with traditional publishing houses. Good for them. I just feel that those houses are pickier than ever about what books they publish, so they’re sending more people to self-publish and that leads to the publishers facilitating their own deaths. Weird, but it’s true.

6. What are you currently working on? I’m trying to get through Laura Horn, a thriller novel I’ve been trying to write since last year. Because of my life, it’s been an on-and-off project I hope to finish it this summer though, if I can.

7. Is there anyone you can talk to about your work, or do you find that you can’t relate to others? I’ve been fortunate to meet plenty of people online and off who help me every day with my writing, so it’s wonderful that I’ve got this great support network. I hope someday to repay all of them for the help. Just not sure how.

8. What was the last book that truly moved you? I guess that’d be Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s an awesome story. You can read my review of it here.

9. Do you listen to music when you write? Yes, usually classical music and opera. I find I write better with the pure, organic sounds of the greats in my ears. I’ve got a whole playlist on my iPod devoted to them. I call it my Writing Music.

10. If you could describe yourself in three words, what would they be? Your worst nightmare.

11. Finally, very random.  If you could be a farmyard animal, what would you be, and why? That is random. I guess a tomcat. So much freedom to just run around and catch mice and curl up in the sun. Of course, I wouldn’t mind being a nice big dog either. Plenty of room to run around and watch sheep and lick faces. Woof!

Okay, let’s see if I can nominate 11 bloggers:

1. Angela Misri.

2. Stories by Williams

3. Writing in a Dead World

4. Quoth the Wordsmith

5. Life and Other Disasters

6. Timothy Pike, freelance copy editor.

7. Therin Knite

8. Osharlequin

9. Lesley Carter

10. Jodie Llewellyn

11. 2bcreativeblog.

As for the questions, here we go:

1. What is your favorite genre of fiction?
2. What scares you the most?
3. When you were growing up, what did you want to be when you were an adult?
4. If you could hang out with one superhero for a day, who would you pick and why?
5. What is your pet peeve?
6. What is something you never thought you’d end up doing but you found yourself doing it?
7. What do you look for in a potential romantic partner?
8. What is something you wish you could change about yourself?
9. What is something you’d like to do before you’re 80?
10. What is your fondest childhood memory?
11. If you found a large brown spider crawling up your leg right now, how would you most likely react?

Okay, that’s all for now. I’ve got a bunch of people to tell that they’ve won an award. Good night everybody!

Reborn City: Reviews, ABNA, and a Big Sale!

Posted: April 16, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Review, Writing
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Reborn City

I’ve been meaning to write this post since Monday (along with 2 or 3 other posts) but life hasn’t been kind enough to allow me to do so. In addition to classes and work and homework, there was Passover, the Jewish holiday celebrating the Exodus from Egypt. I’ve been to two seders in the past two days, and both of them consumed my evenings, so there was definitely no time to write a blog post.

But today miraculously I finished my homework in the early afternoon, so now that classes are over, the laundry is running, and I’ve nothing else to draw my attention right now, I’m going to knock out some blog posts, starting with this one. And if you’ve seen the title, you can tell it’s about Reborn City.

First, I’m happy to say that RC got its fifth review on Amazon last week (I would’ve posted about it sooner but I wanted to see how things went with the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. More on that below). It’s taken a while to get to five reviews, but I’m happy to say it finally happened. And this one comes from my dad, who despite being my dad is not one to pull his punches and say everything I want to hear about my novel. I’m not kidding, he’s panned some of my early work before.

Anyway, my dad gave me a five-star review, which he entitled A real page turner. This is what he had to say:

As a first published novel, this is a great effort. There are some technical/editing issues, but the story is quite good.
Characters are well-developed and the world that the author creates is quite believable–even with the superpowers of the Hydra members. I am looking forward to the sequel as there is definitely some unfinished business.

Well Abba, I hope to have the next book in the trilogy, Video Rage, edited by the end of this summer, so hopefully we can resolve that unfinished business sooner rather than later. And I’m glad you enjoyed the book and found it believable. I’ve always been the kind of guy who’s believed that a story isn’t good unless the reader can believe it, so it’s good to know that at least one reader does.

Now for some sad news. On Monday afternoon, I found out that Reborn City did not make it to the quarter-finals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Yeah, I know. I was hoping it would get to the quarter-finals as well. But you know what? This was my first novel, so I wasn’t expecting an underdog coming to the forefront and winning the whole darn thing. And my aunt made a good point on Facebook, that it was amazing that I made it to the second round to begin with. So I’m not too bummed out, though I’m a little jealous of the other authors who made it to the quarter-finals. And there’s always next year. Snake will be out by then, so maybe I’ll have a bit more luck next year than I did this year. You never know.

And finally, I’ve got a big announcement. May 1st is the six-month anniversary of Reborn City being published. In honor of that–and partly because I’ll be out of the country for most of the month–I’m putting RC‘s ebook on sale for the entire month. Instead of costing $2.99 as it usually does, the ebook will only cost $0.99 from May 1st to May 31st. And from June 1st to June 14th, the ebook will cost $1.99, after which it will go back to regular prices. Sounds great, right?

As for the print book…well, Amazon kind of sets the prices for that, so that’s kind of out of my power. But hey, if you want to read the print version, it’s a little less than nine dollars right now, so it’s definitely more affordable than a month of Netflix.

If you would like to check out Reborn City, you can find it on Amazon and on Smashwords. And if you’d like to read an excerpt before you check out the reviews, you can click here. And if you do decide to read RC, please let me know what you think of it when you’re done. I love hearing feedback from readers, positive or negative (just as long as it’s not a review left by a troll. Those are never fun).

That’s all about RC for now. I’ve got 3 more blog posts to write, so I’m going to get on them. Wish me luck and Happy Passover!

Self-Pub Authors: When Trolls Attack!

Posted: April 13, 2014 in Journalism, Living and Life, Social Activism
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There have been a spate of articles, petitions, and organizations and groups popping up lately, all with one purpose in mind: to expose the evil of people who bully authors and others online, leaving hurtful reviews and comments all for the sake of their own cruel pleasure. I thought I’d add my two cents in and write an article about what one should do if exposed to this sort of harassment from “Internet trolls”, as they’ve come to be called.

If you head over to Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, you’ll be able to read my article When Trolls Attack! which has some very good tips on what to do if, God forbid, you are exposed to that sort of bullying. And if you have been exposed to any trolling on the Internet, I hope things are better now. And if they aren’t, I hope that maybe some foo these tips might be of service.

And if you’re a self-published author, I highly recommend taking the time to look through this site. Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is full of many helpful articles that are designed to make self-publishing not only cheap, but easy and fun. I’m proud to be one of the writers on the blog, and the others are very amazing writers whom I admire for their work and dedication.

And speaking of Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, I thin I mentioned the other day that I wrote five articles coming out in the next couple of weeks on that site before I leave for my study-abroad trip. The first article, Doing An Excerpt, came out last Tuesday if I remember correctly. Today’s article is the second one. On the 22nd we have Creating Character Names. On the 27th we have Creating an Acknowledgements Section. And finally on May 1st we have What Makes A Strong Character? All good stuff, and I can’t wait to share it with you all.

That’s all for now. I’ve homework to do, so I’m going to go and do it. If I get a chance, I’ll write another post later. Until then, have a good day, my Followers of Fear!

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