Before I started work on the next chapter of my thesis (or de-stressed with a shower, I can’t decide which at this point), I thought I’d take a moment to announce something that’s been in the works for a while. I’ve finally uploaded my most recent novel, Snake, onto Smashwords, where it is available as an e-book in a number of formats for only $2.99.
If you haven’t heard me mention Snake before, it’s a novel about a man who becomes a serial killer in order to save his girlfriend when she is kidnapped by the mafia. A dark, terrifying thriller with a running theme of romance, you’ll be terrified as well as entranced by this horrific lover, who is willing to become a monster himself if it means saving the love of his life from other monsters.
I had actually hesitated to put Snake on Smashwords for two reasons: 1. I wanted to try KDP Select through Amazon using Snake, and they don’t like authors distributing through other websites while their books are listed on KDP Select. 2. I don’t get that many sales through Smashwords. But I didn’t see much difference between sales on KDP Select and normal KDP, so I decided to give it a try. Who knows? Perhaps people on Smashwords will really cotton to Snake.
If you’d like to learn more about Snake, you can check out its page or go straight to Amazon (which also has the paperback version) or Smashwords to read about it. And if you decide to get Snake (which has been compared to Stephen King by one reviewer), please let me know what you think once you’ve read it, whether in a comment or in a review. I love feedback, positive or negative (though most of it seems to be positive, so I’ll let you make judgments about that).
I’ll write again if there’s time tonight. Have a good one, my Followers of Fear.
I’m happy to announce that I’ve just finished the first chapter of Rose, the novel I’m writing for my thesis. I started it yesterday after I’d finished my homework, and worked on it on and off throughout the day. I was really surprised by how quickly I got through it, but I think I can attribute that to this new diet I’ve put myself on. I think cutting out all the diet sodas and junk I’ve been eating has not only helped me lose a couple pounds, but maybe also sharpened my focus and creativity. Or perhaps something’s in alignment and this will pass when we move into Virgo next Tuesday.
Anyway, Chapter One was quite a bit of work. It’s always hardest for me starting a new project, especially with that first page. You want to start off with the right hook that’ll keep a reader’s interest and encourage them to keep going. It actually took me a few attempts to get going with this and find what felt right. But after I found an opening sentence that worked for me and after I managed to get a page typed, it sort of rolled on from there, and I had relatively little trouble writing out the rest. Which leads me to this morning, where I’m announcing for all the world to see and hear that I’ve finished the first chapter of the book.
My first impressions of this chapter is that it’s rather wordy (and phrase-y, too. I use plenty of fun phrases, like “the stars beneath her”). In fact, it’s 4,240 words over 15 pages. Not bad for a first chapter at all, and it wouldn’t surprise me if subsequent chapters were of a similar length. The first chapter is also pretty uneventful until the last couple of pages, but it allows me to introduce Rose to readers and interest people in her before I actually start eh main events of the story and put her through so much horror that you can’t help but want to hope that she’ll make it out okay.
In the meantime, I’ll hopefully start on Chapter Two later this week and see how that goes. I’m meeting with a professor from the Japanese department on Tuesday to get some phrase translation, so that should be helpful (if I didn’t mention it earlier, Rose’s stalker is Japanese). And unless something comes up in the next couple of weeks worthy of an update or mention of Rose, I probably won’t do another update post until I’m at least seven chapters into it, about a fourth of the way through the book.
On an unrelated note, this morning I had a new idea for a short story and added it to my list, making for a new total of 300 short story ideas (and only nine of them written. God help me get through them all!). And tonight I might be able to do some more editing on Video Rage, so hopefully nothing will come up to prevent that from happening.
That’s all for now. I’ve got a meditation class to get ready for, so I’ll sign off now. Have a good day, my Followers of Fear, and wish me luck.
I was having a comment conversation the other day with another blogger Caitlin Kelly, a freelance journalist from New York who at the moment is teaching at the Pratt Institute. Her post, which you can read here (and I highly recommend you do), was about how the effect of all the horrors going on in the world and being reported to us by the media. I mentioned in my comments that after digesting all the real horrors, it’s not uncommon for me to immerse myself in fictional horrors. Caitlin replied that one of her students, who “has seen his fair share of horrors”, also prefers the genre of horror. I said that for some people, horror acts as a kind of therapy.
Now, some of you who are reading this will probably be thinking “Horror? As a kind of therapy? We’re still talking about the genre where serial killers can be heroes, what trait your character embodies can determine whether you’re killed or traumatized, and fans debate on how good a movie is based on use of suspense, special effects, and gore, right?” Yes, we are still talking about that genre, but just bear with me.
Look at a news feed, particularly one devoted to global events or major issues facing Americans today. This is probably what you’ll see:
ISIS murdering Shiites, Yazidis, journalists, and anyone else that they don’t like.
Ukraine fighting both its own people and Russian insurgents.
Hamas attacking Israel and Israel firing back (and it’s only a matter of time before that starts up again, mark my words).
Several cases where police have shot and killed unarmed black men, with the most recent and famous case in Ferguson, Missouri.
Congress’s constant squabbling and bickering
An immigration crisis that continues unabated
Ebola spreading throughout West Africa and father beyond
Kristen Gillibrand, a well-respected senator and possible 2016 presidential candidate, being sexually harassed by older, male senators
The suicide of Robin Williams and the hurtful responses from people and groups such as Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Gene Simmons (my article on that is here)
CeeLo Green making horrific remarks on the subject of rape on his Twitter account
Justin Beiber is in trouble with the law again.
Depressing to read, isn’t it? What’s worse is that this is only the tip of the iceberg. All over the world, people are facing discrimination, violence, poverty, illness, corruption, greed, incompetence, and just about every other horror under the sun. And these problems are huge, multifaceted, and difficult to resolve. In fact, there are many people who may have multiple opinions on how to resolve just one of these issues. And assuming that the people in positions of power are able to come to an agreement and implement some sort of solution, there’s no guarantee that the issue in question will be fully resolved or not or will leave lingering micro-issues that will eventually grow and become major issues in their own rights.
“It’s true, I got defeated by some snot-nosed brats. I don’t like talking about it, though.”
There’s that. And then there’s the stories told within a horror novel or the latest scary movie. Let’s take Stephen King’s IT, for instance. The antagonist is a shape-shifting demon that can take on the form of your greatest fear and prefers the form of a clown. Well, that looks tricky to defeat, but it isn’t as hard to pin down or as multifaceted as an insurgency group or a virus or children brought to this country illegally fleeing violence and poverty. And guess who defeats It? Seven kids. They face their fears, band together, and defeat the monster in its own lair as kids, and then most of them come back as adults to finish the job. And after they’ve fought It for the second time, It’s dead. It isn’t coming back in any form ever again. Sure, at the end of the book the characters start to lose their memories of their war with It, but the story ends on a happy note.
In this way, horror stories–fictional horror stories–can act as therapeutic. We see very real versions of hell unfolding at home and abroad, and then we dive into a story where the characters are fighting their own hell. And we know deep down it’s fiction, but we don’t care. We sympathize and empathize with the characters. Occasionally we even recognize ourselves and our own brutal, tortured pasts in one or two particular character. And we see them defeating demons, exorcising ghosts, kicking serial killer butt, solving murders, and sometimes even bringing back the dead! Sure, plenty of people die in these stories and a good number of them end up traumatized by their experiences. But they usually defeat the enemy, they come out of the conflict stronger, and they sometimes even find romance.
What a horror novel can do for us.
And that fills us with hope. We think to ourselves, “Sure it’s fictional, but I see myself in these characters and the problems they face. So if they can take on ultimate evil and defeat it, what can I do?” In essence, horror takes the feelings of depression and jaded cynicism out of us and fill us with possibility and optimism. Weird, I know. These are stories that aim to scare us and fill our dreams with terror. But horror can do that and lift up your spirits too.
Horror is certainly one of the things that can lift up my spirits when I’m feeling down.
Has horror ever made you feel better after you’ve been feeling down? What happened? Why do you think you felt better afterwards?
It’s been not even one full week into the new semester and there have been some interesting developments in the classes I’m taking. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m taking a creative writing course this semester. The course requires us to turn in two short stories and a revision of one of them at different points throughout the semester, though not necessarily in that order (I wanted to turn in a revision and two original short stories, but I don’t have anything to revise at the moment, so forget that). And as I’ve also mentioned in previous posts, Ohio State’s English and Creative Writing departments tend to focus on classic and literary fiction. Genre fiction doesn’t often get as much discussion in Denney Hall.
I came into class with the idea that we were going to be writing several literary short stories during the semester, and even had a list of ideas for stories I could write. Imagine my surprise when my teacher announced that we could turn in genre fiction, so long as it was interesting. Yes, she said that. As long as it’s interesting and doesn’t hold to time-honored (0r time-worn) conventions, I could turn in something from genre fiction. The following conversation then ensued:
Me: So I could write a terrifying horror story, and as long as it is interesting and doesn’t hold to conventions, I can turn it in?
My Professor: Of course.
Me: Party time.
You can probably tell I’m excited. I love writing horror stories, and with the focus on finishing the first draft of Laura Horn and editing Video Rage taking up most of my time this summer, there hasn’t been all that much time to seriously focus on writing a decent scary story or two. However, there’s been plenty of time to accumulate ideas for short stories, so at the next available opportunity, I plugged in my flash drive and started looking over the Word document that contains all my ideas for short stories.
So much to work with, so little time.
What a list that was, with 294 entries at last count. Yeah, I know. And no time to seriously work on them. One of these days I’m going to have to set aside a period of time where I won’t work on any novels and I’ll just work on reducing the amount of ideas on that list, maybe put out a couple more collections of short stories.
But the other night when I went over the list, remembering ideas I hadn’t thought of in a while (good thing I keep a list!) and trying to remember what I was thinking of when I wrote down the idea I had for certain stories, I was looking for particular stories. They had to be the right length (under 10,000 words), they had to be one of the more interesting ideas I’ve had (I like to think they’re all interesting, but I tried seeing it from the POV of someone who’s not me) and I had to look for a story that wouldn’t be tied down to the conventions of horror.
And as many of the horror fans know, that last one can be tough. As the Scream movies, Cabin in the Woods, and Behind the Mask so wonderfully point out, horror stories often work within a certain narrative framework. This gives the writers who create these stories more freedom than you’d think as we struggle to please our fans who are looking for a certain product in their story, but there has been criticism (some of it well-founded) that horror stories can get a little too predictable, to the point where you get useful advice videos like this:
He does bring up some good points. Actually, a slightly paranoid fear of a horror movie death is why I’ve never smoke weed, drink sparingly, and I’m not violent outside of the books I write (I’m not commenting on the sex and abstinence part). I don’t want to die like that. That would suck! Especially if somehow my soul gets trapped in the place where I was murdered or is digested by whatever killed me or something. That would suck even more!
So in the end, I managed to pick out about eight or ten short stories that I thought fit the bill for what I was looking for, and I selected two out of them. Neither of these stories have any particular reason as to why I chose them. I just thought they were very unique and that they would be choices my teacher and classmates wouldn’t find boring or stereotypical. In fact, I’m hoping to keep them on the edge of their seats with suspense.
And as for what those short stories are, I’ll give you some hints. This is the hint for the short story I’ll probably start work on sometime next week:
And here’s the hint for the one I’ll probably start in late September, early October:
Anyone want to hazard a guess at subject matter and plot line? There are wrong answers, but no consequences if you guess wrong.
Well, that’s all for now. I have some homework to do if I want to get any form of creative writing done, so I’m off to do that. Wish me luck, and have a good weekend, my Followers of Fear. I’ll let you know the progress of each of these short stories as there is news to report and maybe even let you know what my classmates think. Hopefully they will be terribly scared.
As of last night, I’m a little more than halfway through editing Video Rage, the sequel to my first novel Reborn City. It’s been a long and slow process, not helped by work, preparing for the new semester, and the general craziness of life itself. Still, I am making progress. And I have become a bit more cognizant of the fact that I like to make issues that are important to me part of the stories that I write.
I’ve mentioned this before, but RC and its sequel VR have a lot of themes in them that reflect societal problems we face today, including Islamophobia, racism, and drug addiction, among a few others. I thought that these were the only book I’ve written where these issues have become so embedded within the story’s narrative, but then I realized that wasn’t the case. Snake, my other novel, explores the trade in human beings and in flesh, albeit slightly less prominent due to the focus on a certain serial killer. And Laura Horn, the novel I finished last month, stars a main character who suffers from the trauma of sexual assault. Even Rose, the novel I’ll be writing for my thesis, has a lot of themes reflecting issues that I find important, including gender dynamics and women being viewed solely for their biology, domestic abuse in relationships, and even gun violence*.
*Speaking of which, I have a post about that. Remind me to write about it later this week.
I think I write in all these themes into my stories for a number of reasons. One is because a lot of what I write is taken from today’s world. You look around you, and you’ll see the world plagued by many issues that are not easy to solve and nowhere close to being solved. Often I will write a story and the problem can either be inserted into the story or it just evolves its way in, showing up throughout the story. Another reason is that, as an author, I have the potential to influence plenty of people through the words I write and the stories I tell. If I can do some good through that, then why shouldn’t I? Third, sometimes you feel so upset about the problems yourself you can only vent about them through words on paper, which is something I sometimes do. And fourth, because I can.
In any case, I look upon this habit of mine as beneficial. Like I said, inserting issues such as racism, gun violence, LGBT rights or whatever into my stories has the potential to perhaps do some good in the world and allow for discussion that sometimes is stifled out of fear or because of strong emotions (or because being politically correct can make you feel like you’re walking on eggshells). And besides, I think it makes the plots of my stories much better. Rose originally didn’t have the gun violence aspect to it, but when I realized that it could make things in the story more interesting and allow me to flesh out the main character more, I decided to go with it, and with fantastic results too.
And if the reviews I’ve gotten on my books are any indication, people like my books better because I add in these issues.
Do you insert issues important to you in your stories? What issues and how do you put them in? What have the reactions been like?
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Rami Ungar The Writer 