It’s been a while, but I’ve written a new article for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. This one is called Writing a Blurb for Your Book Cover and has some wonderful tips for writing that little summary on the backs of books that you read before you decide whether or not you want to invest time and money in reading this book.
If you like the article, please let me know. And if you like what you read and want to read more, please check out the rest of the website. Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is a website from indie authors, by indie authors, and for indie authors in order to help authors write, edit, market, and publish in an easy and affordable manner. You never know what bit of advice might help you publish that next big novel.
All for now. See you later, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got to get to class.
I’m not sure how I did it. I’m not sure I care to know how I did it. I just know that I finished the third draft of “What Happened Saturday Night”, formerly known as “Frauwolf”. And boy, what a writing marathon that was! I just didn’t stop writing.
After hearing the criticisms of my classmates, I went through the story, adjusting the first half or so (the half they really liked) and then completely rewrote everything past page 7 or so (the half they disliked). Throughout the editing and rewriting I tried to keep in mind that, even though this was a werewolf story, it was also a story about two people who really care about each other. A story about human interaction, in other words. And isn’t that all literature? It’s about how humans interact with each other and/or their environment. Even in ghost stories, it’s about human interaction, about confronting our fear of mortality and the afterlife.
I’d do well to remember that for future stories, and not try to create an amazing, complicated universe before working on the human aspect. Perhaps now that I’ve written it down I will.
Anyway, I also played around with some of the already apparent symbolism in the story–using a werewolf as a metaphor for awakening to sexuality, I wonder how many others have used that one? Probably a few–as well as switching the story to present tense. I actually had originally planned to do the second draft in present tense, seeing as Rose is written that way as well, but at some point I slipped back into my standard past tense. Well, it’s closer to what I’d planned, and the ending works better now than it did in the second draft, so I’m hoping my teacher approves.
And speaking of endings, when I was typing out the last words of the story, my iTunes started playing “Va, pensiero”, an Italian opera piece as sung by Russell Watson. It’s such a beautiful piece, and it seemed to fit the ending of the story so well. I think that’s a good sign for this draft.
Anyway, I sent it off to my teacher. She’ll review it and let me know what she thinks. Hopefully I’ll get some good feedback on this story. Because of the LGBT themes, I figure I could send it to a magazine that specializes in that sort of literature. I’ve already found a few that might be good fits. Fingers crossed that they like what I send them.
Well, I’m tired, it’s very late, and I’ve got more work to do tomorrow (still got a thesis to get through, after all). I’ll see you guys in the morning. Goodnight my Followers of Fear. Don’t let the werewolves bite.
This morning Epic Rap Battles of History released their latest video, which this time around is serial killer-themed. To be specific, it’s Jack the Ripper, the famous Victorian serial killer whose identity has never been discovered (contrary to popular reports) rapping against Hannibal Lecter, born in the novels of Thomas Harris and made famous in portrayals by Anthony Hopkins and Mads Mikkelsen. The two killers are played by Dan Bull (Jack the Ripper) and ERB star EpicLloyd (Dr. Hannibal Lecter).
And here I thought they couldn’t make me any happier when they made Stephen King vs. Edgar Allen Poe. I hope they do Stan Lee vs. Walt Disney some time. Or Alice Liddell vs. Dorothy Gale. Or maybe even Anne Rice vs. Stephanie Meyer! Those would be awesome.
Actually, I kind of predicted this battle: back in June when this video came out, I hoped for a Jack the Ripper vs. Freddy Kreuger video. Well, I got one half of that combo, didn’t I?
Anyway, enjoy the video. I certainly did.
Who do you think won? I’m having a hard time deciding, personally.
There are various phrases and maxims that authors just dread hearing. “Nobody wants to read that sort of thing.” “Where do you get your ideas?” “Adverbs are your enemy.” That sort of thing. Here’s one that’s been espoused by creative writing teachers, how-to books, and maybe even your parents since writers have tried to teach would-be writers how to write:
“Write what you know.”
By this, they typically mean draw on your personal experience in life to write your stories. Anything you learned from steady research or anything you made up in your head, please leave at the door before opening up your notebook/turning on your computer/sitting down in front of the typewriter. Please keep this in the realm of experience and what is possible rather than what you imagine. If it’s not based on your actual knowledge and life, then you should stay away from it.
Most writers hear that and want to barf. A few do.
There are variety of reasons why no one wants to subscribe to this rule. Some see their lives as too boring or unworthy for writing about. Others feel that their own lives are too small and they don’t want to restrict themselves to just their own subjective experiences. And many (myself included) are attracted to things that can’t be personally experienced (usually, anyway), so they find that rule way too restricting to actually be usable.
I remember back in elementary school or junior high, my dad, my sisters and I were driving home from somewhere or other, and somehow the topic of discussion got onto the sort of stories I write. My dad suggested that I try, instead of vampires and cavemen and Frankenstein monsters and pirates I try writing a story about my own personal life. My reply was something along the lines of, “So you’re saying I should write a story about a Jewish kid who has rabbis for parents and has three annoying sisters?”
My dad’s reply was, “Um, yeah. Maybe.”
I think in that car ride I swore that I would never write based on what I know if it meant writing that sort of story. Let’s face it, it’s just not in my DNA. I can’t write those coming-of-age stories about a kid learning to be an adult in a community of religious Jews or about a man working his way up the corporate ladder at the expense of his humanity and marriage. Not unless those stories involve ghosts, demons, monsters, or serial killers. Otherwise it’s just boring for me, and no writer wants to write a boring story, one they personally can’t get into.
I also swore that I wouldn’t take writing advice from my dad again, though I broke that promise when he ended up giving me pretty good advice, such as “don’t be afraid to open yourself to new experiences” and “maybe you should look into writing and publishing short stories.” Now there’s some good advice for writers!
Seriously doubt these books were written with the rule “write what you know.”
I also did end up writing about stuff I know, but not in the way a high-and-mighty literary writing instructor might think. Probably not in the way my dad thought either. I certainly don’t write stories about college seniors living with a roommate and trying to get the grades and make ends meet. But I do include what I know in other ways.
For example, in a recent story that I wrote, the protagonist and narrator, in addition to having to deal with being a werewolf, also has to deal with the fact that she has feelings for her best friend, who is a girl. When I was coming to the realization of my own sexuality, I felt the same sort of fear and anxiety my narrator feels in the story, and I had a number of the same questions, such as “Would people accept me as I am?” “Am I really this way?” “How many things could go wrong if I came out of the closet?” Just because it was an element of a werewolf story did not make it any less meaningful or not based on my life.
Another example is one based on something my dad told me once (this is becoming a dad-centric post, isn’t it? Abba, I hope you appreciate all these mentions). He once told me that a great-aunt of his was well known for having dreams where she encountered the dearly departed. This inspired a novel involving a large family of Jews of many generations and their own dealings with the supernatural. I base this work on that story my dad told me as well as my own experiences with the supernatural (and I’ve had some freaky ones, to be sure).
Yes, I have experience with this.
In short, for me writing what I know is taking things I know about or have experience with and making them part of a larger story, often with fantastic or terrifying elements. It’s what works for me, and it’s what I love doing.
Of course, this is my version of how this works. For others, it may be different. There may be writers who write entirely based on what they know and what they’ve experienced, and there may be others who write absolutely nothing based on their real lives (I have a feeling that many fantasy writers are like this). It’s a bit of a spectrum, if you think about it in a certain way.
But like I said, every author is different, and no rule works for every author. “Writing what you know” is a prime example of that. It works for some people, and it doesn’t work for many. It all depends on the author, what they like working on, and how much they want to put their own lives in their stories, among other things. I’m the kind of guy who will take elements of my life or my own knowledge and put it into the stories as part of a larger whole rather than as the entire basis for a story. And that’s just how I work. For others, it’s quite different, but I think that’s good. Because no two writers are the same, and that means that no writer is going to produce the same kind of story.
To me, that’s really exciting.
Do you use any elements from your own life in your stories?
Back in 2011 and 2012, I did two reviews on different book series that I’d come to enjoy. I was still in the middle of them, but I was pretty much hooked on them, enough that while I hadn’t finished either series at that point, I wrote reviews on both of them. Sadly though, the reviews didn’t really do either series justice. I was still figuring out the components of a good review at that point in my blogging career, so that probably explains why they weren’t as good as they could be.
In any case, I read the last book of one series earlier this year and last night I finished the last book of the other. In honor of these achievements, and because I haven’t done a proper review since August, I thought I’d do a double review on both of these series.
So, let’s begin!
Kieli by Yukako Kabei
Volume 1 of “Kieli”. I swear, the series blew my mind when I first started reading it.
Everyone loves a unique story, something that has never been seen before on the printed page. We felt that way with Alice in Wonderland, Lord of the Rings, and so many other famous stories. Kieli does just that. A light novel series* out of Japan, Kieli mixes just about every genre possible: paranormal, science fiction, steampunk, fantasy, romance, Western, and then some! All while telling a very compelling and heart-wrenching story.
From a young age, Kieli has been able to see ghosts, but she doesn’t tell anyone lest her theocratic society think her a heretic. One day she meets an immortal soldier named Harvey, who is delivering a haunted radio to a battle site so that the ghost haunting the radio can finally be at peace. Thus starts their adventures together, as Kieli joins Harvey on his quest and ends up helping him fight off ghosts, Church soldiers, other immortal soldiers and a plethora of other antagonists. At the same time, Kieli starts learning about her past and about what it means to grow up and be an adult.
While at times it may frustrate readers that Kieli has a hard time separating her own identity from being with Harvey, it’s a compelling story. The characters are troubled and have to learn to sort out their own problems as well as the antagonists facing them, and the mix of genres is done almost seamlessly without looking too weird or contrived, and the relationship between the two main characters feels real. You’ll want to keep reading all the way through the final book, which nearly made me come to tears.
All in all, I give Kieli a 4.5 out of 5. This was a series that made me want to create fantastic worlds like the one depicted int he series, and I wanted to create characters that felt just as vibrant and complicated as Kieli or Harvey. Maybe thanks to Kieli, someday I will.
Book Girl by Mizuki Nomura
The Japanese cover for the first entry in the “Book Girl” series, “Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime”.
Another Japanese light novel series, Book Girl is told from the point of view of Konoha Inoue, a troubled high schooler who actually published a massively popular novel under a pseudonym in junior high. However his success came at the great cost, and he swears never to write again.
That is, until he meets Tohko Amano, a girl who literally eats the stories told in books to survive. After Konoha sees Tohko “eating” a story, she forces him to join the literature club and write stories for her as snacks. That’s only the start of his problems though, because a lot of strange stuff tends to happen around Konoha, including missing students and attempted murders. Against his will, Konoha is often dragged into solving these mysteries by Tohko, who often finds a literary equivalent to the mystery being investigated (such as Wuthering Heights or The Phantom of the Opera, in some cases).
While Kieli made me want to create worlds, Book Girl made me want to tell incredible stories with wonderful language. Nomura is able to weave words together in order to make you feel like you really know the characters, especially Konoha, and become really attached to them, as well as attached to finding out how the mystery is solved, as well as how Konoha confronts his past and learns to stand on his own two feet again. It’s a great series if you happen to love mysteries as well.
For telling a compelling story with wonderful clarity, emotion and language, I give the Book Girl series a 4.8 out of 5. I really will end up missing this series now that I’ve finished it, but hopefully I took enough away from it so as to improve my own stories.
We can hope, right?
Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got some homework to do before I go over to my mother’s house, so I’m going to get to work on that. Happy Thanksgiving, my Followers of Fear. This year, I’m thankful for you guys.
*A light novel is a form of literature that was born in Japan and grew out of the pulp magazine industry. Light novels are usually around the length of a novella (40,000-50,000 words), have dense publishing schedules, are often serialized in anthology magazines before being published as cheap paperbacks, and usually include illustrations, about one per chapter usually. The format is very popular in Japan and popular series have been adapted into numerous formats several times over. There’s also a growing market in the English-speaking world for light novels, and many companies have begun licensing and translating these series for new audiences. I’m hooked on the genre myself.
Well, I finally got an email from my thesis advisor M on what he thought about my new thesis outline. Here’s what he had to say:
Very full chapter outline. You’ve sure thought it through. At this point, it looks solid. It’s going to be about execution, of course. But I say go ahead with your plan and keep writing.
He also signed it M. That’s kind of funny, considering that I keep forgetting to ask him if I can call him by something other than “M” on my blog.
But back on point, the new outline reduces the story by about six chapters from twenty-seven to twenty-one, making the story much simpler and allowing me to focus on the two main characters. And since I’m now eight chapters in, I’m now officially a little over a third of the way through the story! Woo-hoo! Only thirteen more to go!
As with my previous novels, I’ve counted out how many pages and words I’ve written so far. At the moment, Rose is about sixty pages in (that’s 8.5″ x 11″ pages), with an average of seven and a half pages per chapter. And at this moment, the word count is 17,546 words, with about 2,193 per chapter. So we’re around the length of a novelette at this point. At the rate I’m going though, it’s likely to be novel length (sixty-thousand words or higher) before long.
So next up is to, like M said, execute what I’ve written in the outline on the actual page. My next step is to slowly make the story much stranger than it already is (if you’re new here, Rose is about a woman who is resurrected through magic by her stalker, and that’s just the start of her problems), while also exploring the relationship between Rose and the antagonist. Hopefully by the end of this story it’ll be a very scary, very strange story that’ll be both moving and terrifying.
Well, I hope to start on Chapter Nine before long. I’ve got some homework to do, and I’m in the middle of editing something right now, so that might slow me down a little bit, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to catch up before the end of the month. By New Year’s I’d like to have at least gotten started on Chapter Fourteen. We’ll see what I do.
Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got a busy schedule these days, so I need all the luck I can get! I’m sure a lot of you can relate.
It’s been a while since I posted on my books that are in the process of getting written/edited/published/whatever, so I thought I’d write up a quick post to just let you all know about how those projects are going and when we can expect them to be in print. Spoiler: not any time soon.
Video Rage
The long-awaited sequel to Reborn City (especially by my sister and my stepmother). Last I was working on it, I’d made considerable progress on the book and had made it about halfway or so through the manuscript. Of course, senior year started, and I had to switch gears to work on Rose (more on that below). So I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back to that, but it’ll probably be when I don’t have classes, a thesis, and a job search to deal with all at once. So hopefully at some point next year. Yes, I know, it’s sad and frustrating. But when you’re working with my busy schedule, what can you do?
Actually, there is plenty you can do: offer me a job that matches my qualifications if you got one. Either that, or come by and do my homework for me. I’ve got an 8-10 page Shakespeare paper due December 9th. Any volunteers? No? Good, that’s cheating and I could get expelled for that.
Laura Horn
I’ve been thinking a lot about this novel lately. For those of you who haven’t seen me post about it before (it’s been a while), Laura Horn is a thriller about a teenage sexual assault victim who comes across information that threatens the United States and finds herself the only one who can stop it. At the same time, she must confront her demons and the man who assaulted her. The thing is, after I finished the first draft, I realized that certain parts of the story required too much suspension of disbelief. There was so much going on, some of it involved a stretch of the imagination to actually imagine happening, and at times I felt like there were glaring errors in the plot that I was missing. And then I found some of them!
All in all, the whole thing is unwieldy. But, I love the characters, especially my protagonist. I love the journey she goes on, and how it makes her go from a scared little girl to…well, she’s stronger. In a better place. And I liked the idea of the story very much.
So I think when the opportunity presents itself, I may try rewriting the story (because apparently a second draft for me is rewriting the whole damn thing, at least lately anyway). I’ve already got an idea for a new storyline that makes a lot more sense, it’ll be a bit shorter than the original version, and I think I’ll still get the story I want without facing those problems of believable storytelling. I just need the time to write it (what else is new?). So don’t expect LH to come out any time soon. I know, I know. It looks like nothing will be coming out soon, and that’s a fair opinion. But you never know. Something may change.
Rose
Last I updated you guys on my novel-that-doubles-as-my-thesis, I had to rewrite the outline again because the direction would’ve made the whole story a little crazy. So I sent the new outline to my advisor, and I was supposed to meet with him Friday. Sadly, the meeting got cancelled, so I’ll be emailing him this coming week to see if he would just send me his thoughts in an email. It might make it a bit easier since carving out a time for three busy people to meet up for even half an hour or more and just talk. If I hear anything, you guys will be among the first to know.
Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors
Hope to get a new article out some time soon. That’s all I’m saying on this.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got a bit of editing to do tonight, so I’m going to get on that. Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear. These days, I need all the luck I can get my hands on.
It’s the truth: authors want their families to read their work.
Whether it’s our first book or our thirtieth or higher. Whether we’ve just published a blog post we wrote during our lunch break yesterday or a short story we’ve been working months on appearing in a prestigious magazine. There’s one thing all us authors want when this sort of thing happens: we want our folks to pay attention to it. Hell, we want our folks to buy at least one copy, drop everything else to read it, and then call us up to comment on it, tell us how much they loved it or hated it, and then go on Amazon or whatever site they got it from and write a (hopefully) three star or higher review.
This isn’t just narcissism on our part (though I’m sure that plays a big role in it). Authors like vindication, it’s one of the reasons we write and publish. And praise from our families on something we toil away at for hours and hours at a time is at the same time both something we kind of expect and something we desperately want. It’s a big deal for authors, no matter what the relationships between us and our families, that they take a look at our work and let us know what they think (and hopefully they actually like it and aren’t just saying it’s the most awesome thing ever to make us happy).
Sadly, that’s not always going to happen. My folks love me and I love them. Sure, occasionally we get on each other’s nerves and more than once I’ve fantasized about Daleks chasing them down the street (or was that my TA who keeps assigning extra work for our recitation class?). But yeah, we care pretty deeply about each other. Still, I know there are certain members of my family who won’t read my books, or won’t read them immediately. And I have to accept that.
The latter is pretty easy to explain: my folks are busy. Everyone above the age of 18 in my immediate family has a job of some sort. Plus my sister has schoolwork, my parents all have kids to still take care of, and bills to pay, and pets to take care of, and chores to do…basically, a lot on their plates. Eventually they get around to it, but until then I just have to be patient. Do I like it? No. But I know I can’t do anything to change it, so I wait and I let those members of my family get around to it in their own time. Eventually they get it done.
For the former, it’s another matter entirely. Some of them just aren’t big readers. It isn’t how they relax in the evenings. And I won’t even pick that fight, so why even bother getting them to read it if I know it’s a losing battle? Others like to read, but they don’t enjoy anything with monsters. Or ghosts. Or murder. Or blood. Or missing limbs. Or the occasional hot and heavy sex scene. Or darkness. Or scares. In other words, what I write is the exact opposite of what they look for in a story. Well, you can try with these people, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work. For some, unless you’re writing comedy, romance, or a highfalutin coming-of-age literary novel, they just won’t read it.
Though if you still want a specific family member or friend to read your work, by all means go ahead and try. You can try by emphasizing to them the aspects of the story they would most likely enjoy (this worked with a friend of mine when I highlighted the romantic aspect of Snake). It’s better than cutting a deal with them or guilt-tripping them (though I think the latter worked for me one time).
And if that doesn’t work, don’t be too glum about it. There are always people out there willing to read your work. You just have to work hard and try to connect to them, wherever they may be. That’s part of the reason why I blog and post on Facebook and tweet and all that: because I know that by doing so it has the potential to open all sorts of doors. Maybe even allow me to find some people who would enjoy my work. You never know.
Does your family read your work?
How do you get your folks to read your work when it doesn’t necessarily appeal to them?
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the meme photos and where I got them, I made them. Yeah, I made them. I found this website that allows you to create your very own memes. It’s amazing! Now I can put hilarious memes in my stories whenever I want.
Oh dear. Maybe that’s not such a good thing after all…
I’ve been advertising my novel Reborn City a lot lately (and doubtless I’ll be doing some of that here too), but I thought this was interesting enough that it deserved a blog post.
Near the end of RC, I introduced hoverbikes, motorcycles that, instead of wheels, hover in the air much like the hoverboards seen in Back to the Future Parts II and III. The way they hover is through magnetic plates that act against the magnetic forces in the earth, allowing them to hover. The thing is, neither hoverboards or hoverbikes exist, so for now they’re still just science fiction.
Or are they?
Last month, tech company Arx Pax unveiled its own hoverboard, which does apparently hover a few inches off the ground. They are currently funding research and construction through a Kickstarter campaign which at this time has surpassed its original goal of two-hundred fifty-thousand dollars and made over four-hundred thirty-six thousand dollars. Backers have the option of getting their own Developers Kit or “White Box”, which allows them to create their own hover devices. Check out their campaign video.
Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Apparently the science behind it also revolves around magnetic forces, though not the same kind that the hoverbikes in Reborn City use. What the Hendo Hoverboard does is manipulate magnetic fields, which creates flux, or changing magnetic fields. In conductive surfaces like metals, it creates current, and according to a law known as Lenz’s Law, the current will create its own magnetic field which will act in opposition to the original flux. With enough flux, the magnetic fields will repel each other and, in the case of the Hendo Hoverboard, cause it to levitate (thanks to the Nerdist channel for explaining this to me. Click here for their video explaining the concept of the Hendo Hoverboard).
Now, the Hendo Hoverboard does have its limitations. It can only work on certain circumstances, it’s loud, and it has a short battery life. But part of the hopes of its creators, as expressed in the video above, is that people who buy a Developer Kit will be able to make breakthroughs and develop the technology further. With technology progressing in amazing new ways each and every day, and with people in high school developing amazing new programs or devices (like this kid who developed his own smart gun) we could be seeing new developments in this field within the next decade or so, enough that Wikipedia might stop calling hoverborads a”fictional device”.
And since Reborn City takes place in the year 2056, or about 41 years from when those first developer kits get shipped, there’s plenty of time to fine-tune the technology and find new applications for it, including in creating hoverbikes. Perhaps even utilizing the design that I made for the ones in Reborn City.
Below I’m including an excerpt from RC featuring the first appearance of the hoverbikes, which will also feature in the sequel Video Rage. If you’re interested in checking out RC, it’s on sale through Friday on Amazon and Smashwords, and there’s still a giveaway to participate in for a free copy. Hope you like what you read, Followers of Fear. And I’ll try to stop myself from talking anymore about RC till Friday, but I make no promises. HYDRAS!
When they were all safely inside, Harvey closed the door and pointed to a row of crates sitting under a single, unlit light bulb. The crates, five in all, were large and rectangular, and were marked with big red letters that read HEAVY BULK OBJECT.
“D’ya guys want help openin’ ‘em up?” asked Harvey.
“I got it.” said Rip. Extending his claws, he went to the crate closest to him and cut through the nails holding one of the sides to the rest of the crate. The wooden side fell with a loud clatter, revealing the hoverbike inside. It looked like a regular motorcycle, except it seemed more box-like and instead of wheels had two half-circle panels at each end. The entire thing had been painted black, even the handles and panels.
“Huh.” said Rip. “I thought it’d be mo’ showy.”
“Them rich kids prob’bly wanted to do the paint job,” said Fox. “Give it their own gang colors an’ shit.”
Iori scoffed. “Never say ‘gang’ an’ ‘rich kids’ in the same sentence.”
With Harvey’s help, Rip lifted the hoverbike up and out of the crate. The key, a small plastic rod with an electronic laser identification tag at the end, was wrapped around one of the handles with a small metal chain. Unwrapping the chain from the handle and setting the key in the ignition, Rip tried to start up the engine.
There was a loud rumbling sound from within and the hoverbike rose a foot and a half into the air, bobbing slightly where it stopped. From beneath the panels there was a faint blue glow, probably from the magnets, Zahara guessed. Everyone around Zahara gasped and stared at the hoverbike.
“Wow.” said Ilse. “’Kind of ‘em to put the gas in ‘fore we needed ‘em.”
“Y’all mind if I test it out fo’ ya guys?” asked Harvey.
“Be our guest.” said Rip, gesturing to the bike.
Harvey swung his foot over the hoverbike and sat in the seat. It dipped slightly but other than that did not react to the new weight that had been added to it.
Harvey sat there for a second, looking like he was trying to get his excitement under control. “Alright.” he said. “Now how the fuck d’ya drive this thing—?” Harvey twisted the throttle and the hoverbike sped forward. He lost his grip and fell off the bike, landing in Rip’s arms with a loud grunt. Both of them fell to the ground, neither really hurt but both looking shaken. A few yards away the hoverbike had come to a stop, hovering serenely as if nothing had happened.
“Shit.” said Harvey.
“That bastard’s gonna take some practice.” Rico observed, looking at the bike.
Zahara was still staring at it, not really listening to the others. She had seen what Harvey had done and thought that if he had just twisted the throttle slowly and hadn’t tried to move too quickly, he wouldn’t have fallen off the bike.
I have to try it out. she thought, feeling like she was being drawn to it. I just have to know if I’m right. Before she realized it, Zahara was striding towards the bike and swinging her leg over the seat.
“Zahara?” said Alto, and Zahara knew without looking that all the others were watching her. “What’re ya doin’?
“Babe, are ya crazy?” said Ilse. “Ya can’t just get on the bike an’ expect t’ get it right on the first try when we haven’t even tested it out—!”
But she ignored them. Bending over the handlebars, she twisted the throttle slowly. The bike sped forward, going at a pace that was slower than what had it had been going when Harvey had gotten on but still pretty fast. Feeling the air whipping around her, Zahara timed a turn and spun to the left as the wall neared. Navigating the maze of boxes and crates, she reappeared in front of the Hydras, braking with ease.
Only when she looked at the others and saw their mouths hanging open did she realize what she had done: she had ridden a hoverbike without any previous practice and made it look easy. She looked at all of them, then at the bike, then back to the rest of them again.
Finally Miguel closed his mouth and said, “Well, whaddya know? The chica’s a gangsta after all.”
“Yeah.” said Owl. “The riding-a-hoverbike-like-it’s-easy-as-pie type of gangsta.”
“Wow Zahara.” said Ilse, and Zahara felt herself glowing with pride and accomplishment.
Just a little over a week since the last review came up, a new one has been posted on Amazon. I guess it was only a matter of time before Snake started to catch up with Reborn City and The Quiet Game.
Snake is about a young man who becomes a serial killer in order to save the woman he loves. It’s definitely one of my darker works, and considering I’m a horror author that’s saying something. Anyway, this is the fourth review of Snake, and it was posted by Michele Kurland, who gave the book 4-stars (Michele also gave Reborn City and The Quiet Game pretty nice reviews as well. I guess I’ve got a fan). Her review is entitled This page-turning read was another great effort by Rami. Here’s what she had to say:
Well, I took yet another vacation where I made my family “just wait until I finish this chapter.” This page-turning read was another great effort by Rami. He is not afraid to take risks in plot twists and turns, character development and he takes the reader on quite the journey in this book. So looking forward to his next creation!
Well Michele, I have several new creations, I just have to find the time to get them edited and published! And I like it when I make it difficult to put the book down. It shows that I’m doing my job as a fiction writer.
If you would like to read Snake, you can find it in both paperback and e-book from Amazon and Smashwords. And if you do decide to read it, please let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love feedback, and you can leave it for me in a comment or you can leave a review online for me to find.
And as I keep reminding everyone, Reborn City is having a big sale and giveaway. You can find out details here if you wish to learn more.
That’s all for now. I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll get to it. Have a good evening, my Followers of Fear.
Rami Ungar The Writer 