Posts Tagged ‘novel’

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?

Why Ghosts Are The Scariest Monsters In Horror…After Demons

Posted: April 16, 2014 in Reflections, Scary Stuff
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Vampires are scary…but also kind of sexy and occasionally needy or envious of humans. Werewolves are scary…but in some cases they are cute and sometimes even sexy. Zombies…just walk a little faster and you’ll avoid them. Frankenstein’s monster…take the guy to a therapist to talk over his daddy issues. Witches….just tell them you have no intention of burning them at the stake and that you’re more interested in working with them and maybe using their powers to better mankind. Or leave them alone if they have Satanic leanings. Demons…well, they’re basically an incarnation of ultimate evil. Not even religion or faith can protect you sometimes.

But after demons, ghosts are probably the scariest of monsters, and they’re certainly my favorite. And I have some pretty good reasons why they should be your favorite as well. Let’s run through them, shall we?

1. There are plenty of people trying to prove their existence. Just go on TV, you’ll find shows dedicated to paranormal investigators who go to reportedly haunted locations (I’m a huge fan of Ghost Adventures, personally). And while some of what they find can be explained through science and reason, and while their methods may not exactly follow the scientific method, some of what they’ve found is pretty compelling and hard to explain rationally, which is more than I can say for some people who go hunting for Bigfoot or aliens. And plenty of paranormal investigators will take the time to show people who are skeptical that while the methods they use aren’t perfect, they will attempt to show you that their methods are as free from interference as possible.

2. Ghosts are found in nearly everywhere on Earth. Nearly every religion on Earth, every ethnic group, every cultural group and every philosophy has some conception of what the afterlife is like, and a good number have stories of the dead coming back to intervene in the lives of the living. Heck, even the Judeo-Christian tradition does (the witch of Endor, for example). Is it Jung’s collective unconscious at work? A human need to calm ourselves with beliefs of life after death, that we still exist in some form after our bodies begin to rot? Or maybe it’s something more.

3. Everyone believes in ghosts at some point. Don’t try and deny it. At some point everyone’s a believer. I’ve seen people discount werewolves or vampires or the Loch Ness monster right off the bat, but when it comes to ghosts they’ll admit that, if they don’t believe in them now, they certainly believe in the possibility or that they did in one point in their lives. And why not? After all…

4. The former victims of death are just as scary as death itself. Think about it. Death seems like the worst thing that could happen, but then there’s the possibility that something worse than just dying. And nobody wants to see a reminder of death, of how it can twist the soul and turn the spirit inside out, coming our way to do us harm. At least not most people I know.

5. There’s no set rules about ghosts. Minus that they’re the souls of the dead, of course. Vampires drink blood and are usually afraid of sunlight. Werewolves react to the cycles of the moon and are allergic to silver. Zombies are the undead and need a good beheading to kill them off. But ghosts are much more flexible than other monsters. They can be confined to one singular place, or they can be mobile spirits that can travel to various places as they are allowed. Everything from appearance to how they haunt to how they can mess with the living. It’s all pretty open, much to the delight of every horror author ever.

Now, I’m not trying to convince you that ghosts exist (though I do think ghosts are one of those things that skeptics can come to believe in much more easily than with other subjects and if I did somehow make you a believer, then welcome t the club). But I certainly think that ghosts are out there, and that they are honestly some of the scariest things out there…that aren’t the result of humans, I mean. So the next time you hear about a movie or a book featuring ghosts, take a moment and think about what that movie or book is tapping into. It’s more than just a primal fear of death, it’s something that could actually conceivably exist and do us harm. And that is one of the most terrifying thoughts of all.

Oh, and you know which culture has the scariest ghost legends of all? Japan! The yurei is a spirit that exists on the physical plane because of some lingering grudge or regret that keeps it from moving on. Yurei tend to wear white robes, have pale skin, long black hair and no legs. There are also subcategories of yurei, depending on how they died, what keeps them there, and who exactly has died. The most famous yurei is probably the onryo, a spirit that stays on this Earth out of a desire for revenge. And if you’ve ever seen The Ring or the Grudge (Japanese or English versions) you know what I’m talking about. Those things are Terrifying with a capital T!

Look at this thing! Can you blame me for being terrified?

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!

Some Good News, Some Bad News

Posted: April 11, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, Review, short story, Writing
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Good News: Somehow I managed to get several articles written for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, all of which will come out in the coming weeks leading up to my study abroad trip. The next one comes out tomorrow, if I remember correctly.

Bad News: As the end of the semester comes closer, I’ve got a number of exams and papers to prepare for, including a 25-30 page paper for a research seminar! Oy vey! So as much as I’d like to focus on making progress in Laura Horn before I go abroad, I doubt that with my workload I’ll make it to Chapter 35, which would be a nice stopping-point before I go on my trip.

Good News: A short story I wrote for a class assignment got an A+ from the teacher, who “cried at the end of the story” and wanted me to publish it, along with some suggestions on ways to edit it. I plan to submit it somewhere this weekend, as well as submit a couple other short stories to other magazines.

Bad News: Another short story I wrote got rejected from a magazine this morning. I’ll try submitting it somewhere else, but I worry. Some of the criticism the editor gave me made me wonder if this short story is as good as I thought it was.

Good News: Reborn City got another five star review. This, along with a sale I plan to hold next month and the possibility of making it to the next round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award make me hopeful.

Bad News: I won’t know about the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award until Monday most likely, and I don’t want to go into more detail about the review or the sale until I have that info. Plus, RC‘s my first novel and I’m up against 399 other books in my category, all vying for 100 spots at most. I hope the excerpt I gave them is good enough!

Good News: I’ve found a camcorder that is within my budget that I can get after I get back from my trip. Creating book trailers and maybe starting a YouTube show or improving my YouTube channel might get easier with one of those camcorders.

Bad News: My local theater isn’t playing a movie I really want to see, a horror film with Karen Gillan of Doctor Who fame. Well, that’s not as bad as it could be. I might know a certain woman (my mother) who’ll want to go see it with me, even if we have to drag her fiancee with us to do it. Forget I mentioned it.

When you get right down to it, a self-published novelist’s life is never easy, especially when you also happen to be a student with a part-time job and a lot of homework. Sometimes, like when I get criticism from magazine editors, I feel a little down. But there’s always opportunity for improvement. There are people who enjoy what I write and let me know when they get the chance to do so.

When I first started writing this blog nearly three years ago, I was just some freshman with one publishing credit to my name, a novel in need of some serious editing, and no idea how I was going to build a following or get my novel onto the printed page. Nearly three years later, I have a few more publishing credits, I’ve got two books out, a third on its way, and two more in various stages of writing/editing. I write articles occasionally for another website to help other self-published authors out, and I’ve made some friends who’ve been invaluable assets in helping me get this far.

So is my life as a writer ideal? I don’t know a single writer who can say that their lives are ideal. Even the biggest names in the industry are wracked by the usual anxieties, wondering if their work is up to scratch or if people will think their manuscript is sh*t or if they’ll ever live up to their childhood idols or if they’ll sell any copies.

I think for where I am at this point in my career, I’m at a pretty good stage. Would I like things to be better? I don’t know a single writer who wouldn’t want that. But I’m a lot better off than I could be, and I have plenty of space to improve, and the resources and friends to allow me to do that.

So as the weekend creeps nearer, I’m going to work to improve, to write and to publish and be the best I can be.

Good News: The future is open, and my Tarot tells me fortune is headed my way. I’m heading to meet it.

Snake: Two Months Away

Posted: April 10, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Two months away.

Two months away.

It’s hard to believe. So much time has passed by, but you lose track of it and then these things just sneak up on you. I’m a little in shock. My youngest sister Liat is fourteen as of today. I remember when she was an itty-bitty baby, and now she’s a teenager with a really dark sense of humor. What happened in fourteen years?

But in all seriousness, two months from today my second novel Snake will hit the digital bookstores, where people can download it to their e-readers or order a print copy should they choose to do so. It’s been a very exciting process getting Snake ready for publication, and I’m looking forward to putting it out and hearing what people think of it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Snake, here’s the blurb I’m using to advertise it:

How far will you go for love and revenge? When a young man’s girlfriend is kidnapped by the powerful Camerlengo Family, he becomes the Snake, a serial killer who takes his methods from the worst of the Russian mafia. Tracking down members of the Camerlengo Family one by one for clues, the Snake will go to any lengths to see the love of his life again…even if it means becoming a worse monster than any of the monsters he is hunting.

Sounds interesting, right? Either that or kind of twisted and creepy. I’ve gotten both reactions before. Anyway, I hope you’re looking forward to reading Snake as much as I am looking forward to you reading it. And if you want to read an excerpt from Snake, you can click here and do so. Or you can scroll down a little and watch the book trailer for Snake. I promise you, it’s veeery creepy.

Have a good day, my Followers of Fear! I know I am, and so is probably my sister. Happy Birthday, Liat. Don’t go too wild on your birthday, okay?

Laura Horn: Part II Done

Posted: April 6, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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One of the creatures I think represent Laura Horn. It definitely captures her spirit.

I was starting to doubt I’d get this done before I left for my study abroad trip, but I got through Part II of my novel-in-progress Laura Horn. This brings me a bit closer to finishing the entire novel, and I’m happy to say it’s really starting to take shape.

Laura Horn is a story of a girl who is a victim of sexual assault but never told anyone about it. When she gets her hands on something belonging to elements within the American government, she becomes the one person who can bring down to stop a plot against the United States of America. At the same time, she must also face her past and learn to walk to the future. That was the concept that I started writing with, but since then it’s also morphed into a very different story than the one I originally envisioned. Along with being a story about overcoming the past (with a political thriller plot in the background), LH has also become a story about learning to trust again, about being a true friend in times of crisis, and about being courageous in the face of overwhelming odds.

If this book were written by any other author, it might make for great YA fiction. But since it’s me, I’m not sure it could really count as YA fiction. Heck, Reborn City has plenty of elements of YA, but I doubt you’d call that YA either, given the thematic nature of the novel. And Snake? No way in hell can that be called YA. That’s straight thriller with elements of a slasher film.

So now for the page and word counts. And remember, when I say “page”, I mean 8.5″ x 11″ paper with twelve-point Times New Roman font. That’s the thing with doing these counts: there are those who care more about the page count, and then there are those who measure with word counts, usually other writers who distinguish the differences between short stories, novels, and everything in-between using word counts. It’s a weird dichotomy, and one of these days I’ll write a blog post about it. But now is not the time for it.

Anyway, the page counts for the Prologue, Part I, and Part II were 10, 43, and 107 pages respectively, for a total of 160 pages. And the word counts are 2,190 for the Prologue, 12,019 for Part I, and 29,634 words for Part II. That puts the total word count at this moment at 43,843 words. Wow, that’s quite the increase in page and word count since I finished Part I. We’re well into novella range, which I define as between forty-thousand and sixty-thousand words (60,000+ I define as a novel).

Anyway, I might take a break from fiction writing tomorrow and just veg out on TV. Then on Monday, assuming my homework isn’t trying to bury me, I’ll start Part III, which I’ve entitled “The Ringleader”. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll finish it before I leave for Europe. Not likely, but I can hope.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m going to bed, so goodnight to you, my Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares, one and all!

Conversations with Angela Misri

Posted: March 31, 2014 in Author Interciew, Living and Life, Novel, Writing
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Some of you may be acquainted with Angela, or have heard me gush over her awesome feedback to my novel Snake. But did you know that Angela’s first novel, Jewel of the Thames, has just been released (I’ve already got it on my Kindle)? When I heard about it, I was so excited for her, and I got the chance to interview her before JotT came out.

Angela was born in London, England, but currently she lives in Toronto, Canada with her family. She has been writing for a number of years, most notably for CBC Radio as a journalist. She also does freelance and digital projects on the side, but currently she’s been devoting her time to the Portia Adams books she’s been writing (last I checked she’s got around eight or nine casebooks in the series).  She is a fan of mysteries, Doctor Who, and most stuff Sherlock Holmes (but not Elementary).

RU: Hello Angela, it’s a pleasure to talk to you. Give us an idea about what Jewel of the Thames is about.

AM: Sure Rami: Jewel of the Thames is the first book in a series of stories about aspiring detective Portia Adams. It is also an homage to my favourite detective novels – the Sherlock Holmes books, the Nancy Drews, the Hercule Poirots. All of the books I read from childhood till now, and all the great authors who inspired me to create this character. So far in this series, I have written ten casebooks – cases that Portia has taken on – and the first three make up Jewel of the Thames.

There is a lot that had to happen in the first book – Portia needs to find out what her link is to the property she has inherited in London, and she needs to start standing on her own. The whole book is three casebooks wrapped in a mystery driving towards a big reveal at the end. You’re gonna have to read it to find out what the heck I’m talking about.
RU: Considering my level of confusion and intrigue, I will. Now tell us a little about your protagonist, Portia Adams. Who is she exactly?

AM: Hmm, what can I tell you without spoiling it? She’s a 19 year old Canadian who at the very beginning of the books loses her mom, leaving her a poor orphan in 1930s Toronto. It is at the reading of her mother’s will that she discovers she has been left a mysterious property in London and that she has a guardian – Mrs. jones from New York.

Portia is an intelligent introvert who has always preferred books and quiet to social situations, she loves school, hates fashion, often forgets to eat and has no friends. This is partially because she’s viewed as odd and anti-social despite her mother’s best efforts. Her overwhelming curiosity leads her to what interests her rather than what others are focused on, and gives her a focus most don’t understand.
She’s tall and slim, with dark brown hair which she wears unfashionably long and usually in a bun, with startling blue eyes. Feel like you know her a little better?
RU: Maybe just a bit. What do you say your writing process is?
AM:  write long-hand in Moleskin notebooks, so for Jewel, my writing time was my commute back and forth to my full-time job in downtown Toronto. So for 30 minutes in each direction on transit twice a day I would write about Portia Adams, ignoring the smells, sounds and closeness of the Toronto Transit crowd. As a result, I have about 30 Moleskin notebooks filled with my handwriting in lots of colours detailing Portia’s adventures.

Angela and her moleskin notebooks

RU: Wow, that kind of writing schedule requires tenacity. What do you think will draw people to Jewel and to Portia?

AM: Hmm… I guess the same things that drew me to her – a young female protagonist who is learning to stand on her own – I find that premise compelling. Her relationships are part of what make her the woman she is, and as those develop I think she will become an unforgettable character, as will the recurring characters around her like Brian, Sergeant Michaels and Mrs. Jones. That’s how I feel about her at least, I find that even when I’m not writing about Portia, I’m thinking about her. I’ve got a bit of a WWPD mentality in my own life, so that when things happen, I often think What Would Portia Do?

It doesn’t hurt that the setting is London in the 1930s, a really interesting time in history between the two great wars and smack in the middle of the great depression. I hope that people come to care for Portia, because I know from my own experience as a reader that a connection with the characters is key. I guess I will be looking for that kind of feedback from book 1 as I get into the editing phase of books 2 and 3.
RU: Speaking of Books 2 and 3, are you going to continue writing and editing on the bus to and from work, or have things changed since you found out Jewel of the Thames was going to be published?

AM: Things have indeed changed, but actually before I got my contract for Jewel. Last June, after I finished writing the third book in the series, I decide it was time to concentrate my time on this part of my life. I’ve spent the past 14 years working as journalist for the CBC, I think it’s fair to try ‘something else’ for a while.

So I work from home now as a freelance journalist and so far I’m loving it. I try to write a few hours every morning (in the series on book 4, blogging, research) and then spend the afternoons working my freelance contracts. I think I’ve hit a rhythm that works for me, so we’ll see how it goes.
RU: I’m glad it’s working out for you. And you know, I feel kind of bad, because I forgot you were also a journalist for the CBC. How did you get into writing and journalism in the first place? What inspired you to go down that path?

AM: (Laughs)  Don’t feel bad about that! But to answer that question, I’m going to steal from the bio I wrote for my publishers last week:

“Everything changed for young Angela Misri one spring day in 1992 at an assembly in the gym where, as per usual, she was giggling and whispering with her friends in the audience. Suddenly her name was called by the Principal of the school and she was jostled out from the safety of the herd and to the front of the room. Having not really listened to the preceding speech, she was shocked to learn that a poem she had written as part of a school assignment had been published in an anthology of like-quality poems by Canadian children. The Principal smiled the biggest smile she had ever seen on a teacher, and handed her a copy of the coil-bound anthology, turning the young poet towards the audience of her schoolmates and starting the applause that followed her back to her safe haven between her best friends.
That was the moment when Angela discovered that despite being of Indian descent, there were in fact other options for your life’s work than medicine or engineering.”
So there you are! That was the moment for me, and I’ve been writing ever since. I wrote my first book when I was your age, Rami. It’s a historical fiction called ‘Savitri’ and it’s sitting upstairs in a binder. The only other copy is on a floppy disk (no, I’m not kidding, that’s how long ago it was since I was your age ; ) . I haven’t read it in about 15 years and I will admit, that I am scared to. I’m worried that the vision of the story (which I still think is the best I ever wrote) will not live up to reality.
RU: That’s a problem that a lot of authors face when they think of their early stories. So how did you come up with the Portia Adams stories?

AM: It was after reading the Stephen King short story called ‘The Doctor’s Case’ that the idea for Portia came to me. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do, it’s one of my favourites. As the title suggests, its an original Holmes-Watson story with a twist – Watson solves the case before the great detective. I loved that idea, and Portia started to form in my mind as a kind of homage to King and Conan Doyle.

The first case I wrote jumped straight into the jewel thefts and was over in less than 12 thousand words. I read it over a few times and realized that if this was going to be more than a short-story, I need to write some backstory for my detective. So I went back, created a beginning for Portia, and did a whole bunch more research into the time period, the whole family tree of Holmes, Watson and many others from the original canon. Once I had expanded Portia’s world to about 20 thousand words, I had the idea for the third case in the book – the one that happens on the train. I wrote that in two days and then, rereading it, decided I needed another case between the jewel thief and the train story because she was moving around too much. I felt she needed more time to get to know London and to get comfortable with her new College, so I wrote the casebook I called “A Case of Darkness.”
RU: What’s next for you?
AM: Wonderful, an easy question! I have written books 2 and 3 of this series already, so my next steps are to edit the heck out of them for my publishers and get them into production! I have also started a new dystopic novel that I’d like to carve out some time to write.
RU: Ooh, that sounds interesting. Now just a couple more questions. First, how have your family and friends reacted to the news about Jewel?

AM: They’re very excited but not really surprised. I guess it’s normal for me to be the most nervous about putting my work out there (since it’s mine) but most of my friends and family told me it was just a matter of time before I would get published. I don’t know if they were just saying that to be supportive, but I was no where near as confident. Now that it is really happening and there is a date when a physical book will be available in stores, their excitement has doubled. Seriously, I have the most supportive network – and that includes this blog and you Rami!

RU: I’m happy to be a part of that network, and I’m glad you’re a part of mine. Now here’s a fun question: if some big Hollywood producer came up to you and said they wanted to make a movie or TV show about Portia, who would you want to play the characters?

AM: I LOVE this question as you well know, because I’ve spent too much time thinking about it.

So I would love Katie McGrath (of BBC’s Merlin) to play Portia. I think she has the right balance of beauty and bark that my detective needs. I believe Jensen Ackles (of the CW’s Supernatural) would make a kick-ass Brian. And I think Irene Jones would benefit from the beauty and wit of someone like Lynda Carter (original Wonder Woman).
RU: Since I don’t know who those people are, I’ll take your word for it that they’re perfect for the roles. Final question: If you were stuck on a desert island and could only take three books with you, what would those books be?
AM: Hmm.. I guess Stephen King’s The Stand, Tolkein’s The Two Towers, and Conan Doyle’s Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. If I had a fourth option I’d have to take an Ann Rice. Can I please take my iPad instead Rami? I’m going to need more books than the average human.
I’d say yes, but there’s the question of charging it when the battery gets low. And the lack of a Wi-Fi network. Anyway, thanks for joining us, Angela.
If you would like to find out more about Angela, you can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest, as well as on her blog a Portia Adams adventure.

Fishing For Life

Posted: March 30, 2014 in Living and Life, Writing
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I have a friend who sometimes will go off the Internet for twenty-four hours and will just search the area around her for fun, excitement, stimulating conversation, something new and enjoyable. She calls it “Fishing for Life”, which I think is an appropriate title for what she does. As a college student, I can’t exactly go offline for a full day (what if I miss something important for classes?), but I admire the concept of disconnecting for a little while and going out into the world to enjoy it. And I did a bit of that this weekend.

Yesterday I was at my apartment, and I was going stir-crazy. I’d been cooped in because I had to work on an assignment, and then when I’d tried writing, I’d found myself unable to do it. I just had no motivation to write, I was just too restless. So I basically went on Facebook looking to see if anyone wanted to hang out. A friend of mine was going to a birthday party of a mutual acquaintance of ours, so I decided to buy a gift card and tag along. I ended up having a wonderful evening: over drinks (my lawyers swear non-alcoholic because obviously I’m not old enough to drink) I talked to and met some wonderful people. The birthday boy danced around the house, for some reason wearing a giant lizard suit and officer’s coat (hey it’s his birthday, he should go wild if he wants) and giving hugs to everyone who came. There were two girls who were from a small town about an hour from Columbus, and their high school used to bring in Chinese teachers straight from China just to teach the language. And I met a lovely young woman who shared a love with me for the TV show Hannibal and said she would check out The Following when I told her she looked like one of the characters. It was a wonderful couple of hours, and by the time I got home I was refreshed and relaxed and able to write again.

And then today I went to meditation class. That’s sort of a weekly ritual for me, going downtown on the buses to drop and pick up books at the library and then head up a couple floors to meditate, but today it took on an extra special meaning, as I realized that meeting my meditation group was also a way of fishing for life. And in our small study room, with soft music playing and our minds collectively aimed at clearing ourselves of thoughts and impurities and awakening ourselves, I felt a peace I hadn’t felt in so, so long. Even five or ten minutes after we’d finished meditating, my scalp was still tingling where my seventh chakra was supposed to be. And during the meditation, I had a couple of ideas for stories, one of which reminded me of an Anne Rice or a Dean Koontz story mixed with a manga I read a few years back.

I have to say, I rather enjoyed going out and fishing for life. And when I do it, I feel so much better and things come more easily to me. I guess as much as I like to sit in and work on the next great American Horror novel (or what I hope will be that), I need a certain amount of interaction with other people and in other places in order to write with any sort of competence or joy.

So the next time I feel antsy and can’t write, I’ll see what’s going on in or around campus. I could find a great idea for a story while I’m out and about, and while I’m at it I could find something even greater.

Do you ever go fishing for life? What happened when you did?

I’ve Got Too Many Ideas For Stories At The Moment

Posted: March 29, 2014 in ideas, Living and Life, Writing
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Over the past two semesters, the number of ideas I’ve had for stories has been growing quickly. At last count, I had about 117 ideas for novels/TV shows/movies/comic books/video games (I usually put those all on the same list), 152 ideas for short stories, and 36 ideas for articles on writing/editing/publishing/marketing. Just goes to show what happens when you give a mind with an active imagination and an affinity for storytelling too much stimulation.

I’m not complaining or anything. I love all these ideas I’m getting, and I make sure to write them down as soon as possible so that I can remember them for later (my writer’s pride won’t let me forget them).  It’s just that I want to write them all, but obviously with school, work, homework, bills, errands, and everything else in my life, I can’t devote myself 24/7 to writing, much as I would like to some days. So writing is a slower process for me than what I’d like for it to be. So with all these ideas coming to me and not as much time to write them as I’d like, there’s a good chance that I won’t write them all. Just a small fraction of them.

Sometimes I wonder if perhaps this is why James Patterson has so many co-authors. If he’s just overwhelmed by ideas and that is why he relies on so many different people to help him write his work. Of course we all know his publishing company paid him a hefty advance for so many books a year over the next however many years, but you get the idea. You want more time and energy or you want help churning your ideas out as stories or a cork on whatever font of imagination you’ve got flowing inside your head. You just want the madness to stop and for the work flow to just even out.

But that’s just not something that’s going to happen. All these ideas keep coming to you, and you have no choice but listen to them, and write down as many as you can. Luckily with this many ideas I’ll have plenty to work on and never the excuse that I can’t come up with anything new. As a writer that’s a blessing, because as bad as it is to have too many ideas, it’s even worse to have writer’s block or ideas block or whatever you want to call it and just sit around each day wondering why you can’t write anything at all.

Well, I’ve finished getting that off my chest. Now I’m going to try and write another chapter of Laura Horn before I have to get going. A friend invited me to a party, and I am itching to get out of the apartment. Honestly, I’ll go stir-crazy if I don’t do something tonight. Have a good night, Followers of Fear.

I Now Have A Thesis Advisor

Posted: March 25, 2014 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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As if one piece of great news wasn’t enough for today, I got some more: I finally have a thesis advisor! His name is Professor Martinez, and he’s a professor in the Creative Writing department at Ohio State. I emailed him about 16, 17 days ago (I was emailing just about everyone with a “Professor” title at that point) and got an email back two weeks ago, asking to take a look at some of my material. Today he emailed back and said yes.

I’m very happy about finally finding an advisor. I seriously wanted to do a novel for a thesis for all the benefits it could do for me as well as for the challenge it presented. Unfortunately OSU’s staff tends to be more literary fiction-oriented than genre fiction-oriented. That, and a lot of the teachers I asked were either too busy or uncomfortable with genre fiction or novel writing to work with me. I’m really glad I was able to finally find someone willing to work with me.

Also, it looks like I’ll be working with another student. In the email, Professor Martinez mentioned that I was going to be working with someone named “Paul” and that we’ll be critiquing each other’s work. I have no idea who Paul is or what his work will be like, but I like the idea of working with not one, but two people giving me feedback and helping me shape this novel I want to work on into something great.

Well, that’s all for now. If anything else comes up, I’ll let you know. Wish me luck. I’m going to try and get a grant for the thesis even though the deadline is past to apply (you need a thesis advisor to apply for grants, and I got mine after the deadline). Good night, Followers of Fear.

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