Posts Tagged ‘Reborn City’

I’m In A Bit Of A Slump

Posted: March 31, 2013 in Novel, Reflections, short story, Writing
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You’d think I’d do something a bit more festive for my 400th post. But no, all I got is some bad news.

Truth is folks, I’m in a little bit of a slump. I have two short stories that are not coming along like I want them to, and I feel absolutely no desire to work on either of them while I’m drained. Every time I sit myself down in front of a computer with the intention of writing, I find myself instead watching crime shows online or reading or playing Angry Birds on Facebook. Not only that, but I’ve been neglecting one short story I’ve been meaning to send to some magazine or another, but when you’re a full-time student with homework and a part-time job, you sometimes don’t feel like doing the research.

What I’d rather be doing is working on novels. I’d rather write or edit them or even research them. But the only novel I’m going to write anytime soon is Reborn City’s sequel, which I won’t start on until I’ve put out RC on the Internet, and my beta reader for RC is only halfway through the novel at this point. And although I have plans for a sequel to Snake, I want to wait a little while before I even think of starting the sequel to that, and besides, my beta reader for Snake’s been busy herself, so she hasn’t had a chance to start on it yet.

So what do I do in the meantime? Work on short stories, but those are harder for me than novels. Novels I can stretch out, go deep into the character’s history and identities and personalities, do all sorts of interesting twists and turns and create a whole mythology for. Short stories are compact, usually less than 10,000 words, and we writers have to fit a whole story into that amount of space. You can see where a guy like me, who grew up on a steady diet of novels, usually novels that were part of series, might encounter problems. The joke is that the short story is the novel’s neglected younger sibling, but really, it’s the sibling that requires more skill to handle.

So I’m in a slump. I have no idea what to do at the moment, with no novels t0 write, only the occasional chapter to edit, and two short stories whom I can’t seem to fully finish. Even when I come up with new ideas for novels, which I do a lot, I can’t work on them anytime soon, so that’s not helpful.

Any suggestions would be most welcome. They could be anything from tricks or strategies to help me finish the short stories to suggestions of something else I could try doing while I wait for inspiration and chapters to edit and whatnot.

And if you feel the same as me or have felt the same as me, please let me know. It’d make me feel better.

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop–Part 2

Posted: March 24, 2013 in Novel, Reflections, Writing
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I did a TNBTBH back in February (and yes, that is an abbreviation) for The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones after being nominated by fellow blogger and author Lorna Douvaena. On Friday, my friend and fellow author Matt Williams did his own TNBTBH on his Whiskey Delta trilogy (check out the exact post here: http://storiesbywilliams.com/2013/03/23/next-big-thing-blog-hop/). As usual with these posts, he nominated several others to do this, including me. So I’m doing a Part 2 to my own TNBTBH…without Jason Voorhees behind me (anyone get the reference? If not, you need to watch the first two Friday the 13th films).

And what work am I doing this time? Reborn City, of course! Matt and I both seem to have a fondness for it.

What is the working title of your book?

Reborn City, which is the name of the city in the first book and the name of the trilogy of the whole. I wanted to do a different name for the trilogy, but guess what? Trilogies named after the first book series are on the rise. Might as well get on the bandwagon.

Where did the idea come from for your book?

I was walking home one day from the library back in high school and was listening to rap music on my Walkman (yes, I had a Walkman in those days). At that time I’d just seen and become enthralled with the movie Freedom Writers, which was filled street gangs. A stray thought went through my head that I should write a story about a street gang, and it took hold. At that moment an explosion went through my head and I went to the nearest Dairy Queen to eat ice cream and figure out how I should go about writing a gangster story. All the elements of the story–the science fiction element, the themes of racism and Islamophobia, the street gang leaders with their special powers–came later on. As they say, the rest is history.

What genre does your book fall under?

Science fiction. ‘Nuff said.

Which actors would you pick to play your characters in a movie?

If I had a choice…I’m not sure. I’ve such a firm idea of what my characters look like in my head, I’m not sure any current actors could play the characters. We might need to look for some newcomers.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind if Samuel L. Jackson played my main villain Jason Price. He’s the perfect actor for the role, and I actually based the character on some of Jackson’s best performances.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

“Street gangs in a post-apocalyptic future”. That’s what I tell people when they ask, anyway.

Is your book self-published, published by an independent press, or represented by an agency?

It’s going to be self-published. However, if a major publishing house wanted to give me a deal…well, let’s talke and see if it comes to anything.

How long did it take you to write your first draft?

About two years. I was in high school when I wrote it, so I had to take a lot of breaks for school, homework, my after-school job, the Sabbath, and just to find time to relax. I hope for the sequel I can keep it within six months, since I’ll hopefully have a lot more time on my hands.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I hate comparing one work to another, but I think that perhaps Hunger Games might be a good comparison. The government’s evil, and the fate of many rides on a bunch of disillusioned teenagers with a penchant for getting into deadly fights.. If that doesn’t sound like Hunger Games, I need to reread the books.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I think the thought that like Freedom Writers, both the book and the movie, inspired many teenagers to apply themselves through writing and words rather than fighting and guns. I thought if RC could help people, why not write it? That’s kept me going through the years, especially when I realized the book might also help combat Islamophobia.

What else about your book might pique readers’ interests?

I think that it’s a unique tale, involves street gangs in a post-apolyptic landscape, and that most of the characters have very real problems that resembles problems in today’s world might draw them in. But then again, read the book when it comes out and tell me what you think. You might like it.

That’s my TNBTBH. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you read this blog post today and you’re working on something, you’re nominated for a TNBTBH. Congratulations. Let me know when you’ve written your post!

Good night, everybody.

A Welcome To My New Followers

Posted: March 17, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting a lot of new followers over the past month or so, and especially during these past two weeks. So with that in mind, I’d thought I’d extend a welcome to my new followers and thank them for deciding to follow me and read my blog. And to my returning followers, welcome back and thanks for continuing to read my blog.

Also, I wanted to clarify some things for the newest readers. Occasionally on this blog, you’ll see words and phrases such as The Quiet Game, Reborn City, or Snake. These are my works-in-progress that I’ll be self-publishing hopefully within the next year or so. Each is very different from the other, and are at different stages of getting ready for publishing. I’d like to take this oppurtunity to tell you all about each of them and to let those who are already familiar with the works in question how progress is coming along.

So without further ado, here’s a look at my WIPs:

The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones

TQG cover

This is a collection of short stories I’ll be putting out soon. I wrote these short stories over winter break and the beginning of spring semester, and it’s almost ready for publication. I’m just waiting for the US Copyright Office to get me my copyright and then I’ll be ready to upload this onto the Internet. Since the Copyright Office takes about two and a half months though, we’ve still got a bit of a wait to go before it comes out. So please be patient, and in the meantime you can read the description for the book on the page “Books by Rami Ungar” or watch the trailer below:

Reborn City

This is a science fiction novel about street gangs in a post-apocalyptic future I wrote in high school and that’s being reviewed by a beta reader before I prepare it for publication. The beta reader, Matt Williams, also happens to be a published writer and blogger, so you should seriously check out his blog here: http://storiesbywilliams.com/. Currently Matt’s halfway through the novel or thereabouts, and since he finished his latest novel Pappa Zulu, he’s been able to get the chapters back to me that much faster. I can’t wait to see what results from our collaboration.

Snake

This is a thriller novel I wrote over six months from June to December 2012 and follows a serial killer in New York who is hunting members of a powerful mafia family, his reasons for doing so clouded in mystery and in murder (how’s that for a description). I recently finished the second draft and have sent off the first four chapters to a beta reader I trust. Hopefully she’ll be able to let me know what she thinks very quickly. In the meantime, there are a few excerpts of Snake on this blog, so if you get bored you can probably go looking for them and find them.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. I hope this piqued your interest in some of my work. Once again, thanks for reading and agreeing to follow my blog. It really means a lot to me. Have a nice day, and I’ll post again soon.

Rami

Reborn City: Zahara the Expatriate

Posted: March 12, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
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Merriam-Webster.com: expatriate–to leave one’s country to reside elsewhere

I’m about to edit another chapter of Reborn City (yes, I’m still editing, but my beta reader’s schedule has freed up a little, so the chapters are coming faster than before). Before that, I read a blog post (read here:http://stevenglassman.de/2013/03/11/grokking-expatriates-in-sci-fi/) about how certain characters in science-fiction are considered expatriates and what category of expatriates they are (yes, there are categories. Read the blog post if you doubt me). The post covered everything from Superman to Futurama to Star Wars to even Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters, and it got me thinking: Zahara Bakur, main character of my own science fiction novel, is an expatriate, or expat for short.

For those of you who haven’t read the novel–which is basically everybody but me and my beta reader and fellow author Matt Williams–Zahara was born and raised until her elementary years in Cairo, which in the RC universe is one of the last remnants of the Egyptian state (don’t ask me why, just read the book when it comes out). However Zahara’s father moves the family to New York City, which is now its own independent city-state, to attend NYU’s law school, and the poor girl has to adopt to a much more liberal and sometimes very Islamaphobic culture. Over the years she gets used to New York and finds friends that don’t judge based on a person’s religious affiliation, but things shake up horribly for Zahara when she’s fifteen.

What happens? Her father has to relocate to Reborn City, which is the Las Vegas of the strange world of RC. There Zahara has to adjust to living in a city that is worse than New York City in how Islamaphobic it can be. When Zahara finds herself coerced into gang life, she finds the whole gangster culture mind-boggling, especially the taken-for-granted hostility between the various gangs and the equating of surviving violence and conquering enemies as being tough and cool. Zahara has to live with this sort of culture and try her best to adjust to it while also integrating the gang culture with the culture of New York, her Muslim upbringing, and her naturally peaceful nature.

Even without all the science fiction elements in this story, you can see how much conflict Zahara has to go through.  But as the story progresses, I hope Zahara can find a new strength that she didn’t have before. I’ll see where the two sequels go with the story and hopefully things will get better for Zahara and her friends.

But before that, I have to see the first book out on the digital bookshelves. I’ll let you know how things go as I get updates. Blog on you later.

Happy Birthday To Islam’s Founder

Posted: January 24, 2013 in Novel, Reflections, Writing
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My calendar tells me that today is the birthday of Mohammad, the founder of Islam, and I thought I’d mark this on my blog. Why? Because the main character of my science fiction novel Reborn City, Zahara Bakur, is a Muslim teenager, and one of the thintgs I do with her is try to show a side of Muslims not always portrayed in the media.

Muhammad lived in the 6th and 7th centuries in the Arabian peninsula. Around the year 610, he recieved revelations from the Archangel Gabriel, and began preaching in Mecca, stressing the importance of monotheism and lessening the divide between the very rich and the very poor in Mecca. This and a bunch of other events led to Islam, which means “submission to the will of Allah”, spreading across the Middle East and eventually around the world. Today, there are 1.57 billion people who identify themselves as Muslims, and they all look to Muhammad’s example and preachings in order to live life they believe Allah wants them too.

But what I like most about Muhammad is that while I know he felt obligated to carry out the Divine Will, he was mainly motivated by a desire to help others. In fact, before he saw Gabriel, Muhammad was looking into many spiritual practices and ways in order to better himself and those around him. In fact, the reason he went to the cave he met Gabriel in was because of this desire, though he had no idea he’d recieve a revelation there.

In a way, Zahara is very similar in this desire: although she follows many of the edicts of her faith because she believes it is Allah’s Will for her, she also does it because she feels it makes her a better person. Consequently her view of life, molded partially by her faith, allows her to exact a positive change over some of the other characters over time. Of course, she has to get herself about neck deep into trouble to accomplish this, but it’s a science fiction story, so what do you expect?

The point is though, Muhammad tried to help others in ancient Arabia, Zahara tries to help others in a fictional dystopic world, and billions of Muslims across the globe try and help people just by following their faith and being kind to others, as opposed to the images we are sometimes bombarded with depicting Muslims as dangerous. And it is the factual image stated above that I want to remind people of as Muslims everywhere observe the Prophet’s birthday.

Aasalam Ailakum, and thanks for reading.

I Can’t Wait To Self-Publish

Posted: December 2, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
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My dad called me last night and told me to get my hands on a copy of the latest issue of TIME magazine, saying there was an article that ran 5-6 pages on the ever-growing industry of self-publishing. I asked a friend of mine in my dorm if I could borrow his copy, and this evening I sat down to read it. What I saw encouraged me; there were so many stories of authors who had found success in the self-publishing industry, and even those who’d sold only a few hundred copies or less were finding ways to increase sales. It made me think: I hope that when Reborn City comes out, it’s a success.

Of course, I’m a bit far away from that at this point. I’ve only gotten three chapters finalized, and I’m waiting for the next one. At this rate I’ll probably be finished sometime between March and June. But I’m already gedtting ready, spreading the word as much as I can. Soon I’ll start up my own Facebook page as a writer, and see about creating a fan page for RC. I’m also getting a lot of work on Snake done and I hope to have that done by the end of the year, God-willing, and then I’ll start planning publishing that (and seeing if there’s someone who can look at it and give me an opinion before I put it out). And if I have the energy, I may just put out a small collection of horror short stories. With the power of e-publishing and the author as the marketer, the possibilites are endless.

So let’s hope I can get RC soon. If I can sell 1000 copies of RC, I’ll consider this all a success.

By the way, question for the other self-publishers who read this blog: how are your books doing? And what’re you doing to increase your sales and exposure (besides blogging a lot, of course).

Snake: Part III Done

Posted: November 25, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Part III: Search and Rescue was the longest part of Snake I’ve written yet, a whopping twenty-nine chapters. I am happy to say that after I finished my homework this evening, I worked on the last two chapters for this section, and I finished it up! Can I just say, woo-hoo! There are eight parts of Snake, including the prologue and epilogue, and therefore with Part III marks the halfway point for the parts (but then again, the Parts are just for organizational purposes, so they’re no indicators of length left to go; the chapters do a better job of that, truthfully). A the end of this part, the Snake has finally gotten back what he sought out to get back when he started hunting mafioso, so he’s now got to fight to keep it, and he’ll be getting a little help along the way.

However, I think I’ll take a small break before I start Part IV: Alliance. Maybe I’ll edit a short story or two. It is about time I take a second look at Animal Child. Or maybe I’ll sit back an read a book. It’s all up to me, at any rate.

So before you click away from this post, I’d like to update you on word and page counts, like I’ve been doing after I’ve finished the previous parts (and when I say “page counts”, I mean when the pages are 8.5″ x 11″ paper, double spaced, and 12-point Times New Roman font, so take that into account before making a loud whistle). The page and word count for the prologue was fourteen pages and 3,979 words. From Part I, forty-one pages and 10,177 words. From Part II, ninety-six pages and 23,801 words. And from Part III (cue drum roll)…one-hundred and twenty-six pages and 30,733 words. In total, this leads to two-hundred and seventy-seven pages and 68,690 words.

So not yet as long as Reborn City, but it’s getting there, isn’t it? And if I’d stayed in NaNoWriMo, I’d have done an excellent first try for Part III alone.

I’ll keep everyone updated on my progress. Please continue to support me, and I’ll let you know what’s what with both RC and Snake.

More from the Self-Publishing Front

Posted: November 20, 2012 in Progress Report
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Hi again. So you know how I’m planning on self-publishing my novel Reborn City, right? Well, I also said I was planning on starting a small, independent press for legal purposes, and was contemplating what sort of business my press should be. Well, my uncles–one of whom is a lawyer–jumped in and asked me some questions. Several emails and phone calls later, and a bit of counseling on legal matters (thanks, Uncle Joel and Uncle Arthur; your metaphorical checks are in the mail), and I’ve come to the conclusion that a press won’t really help me, not until I at least have something I can offer to major publishers who are considering distributing my work, and unfortunately at this point, I don’t.

Hopefully someday though, I will have something to offer them. Just got to finish the final draft of Reborn City, and then get it out. Maybe then, I’ll have publishers knocking on my door (can’t hurt to hope, right?).

NaNoWriMo Is For Those Who Can Devote Time To It

Posted: November 18, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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And unfortunately, I can’t devote my time to it. I’d like to though; I’d like to be able to spend hours each and every day just typing away on my computer, pushing out word after word to create an awesome story that people will want to read. The only time I would stop writing is if I was hungry and wanted to make something to eat; or if I had to run an errand; or if I wanted to work out; or if it was just too late in the day, so let’s forget work and just play.

Sadly, I cannot live that sort of lifestyle right now. Instead, I spend more than ten hours a week in classes, and close to that amount at a part-time job. In addition to that, I spend several hours over the week working on homework, reading books and writing papers and doing projects, and that’s especially so in the last 3-4 weeks of class before finals. Add into that meals, sleep (essential, even in college), errands, and just finding time to relax, there’s only so much time to write.

So I’m going to have to drop out of the National Novel Writing Month challenge. It’s just too much at the moment to try and get out fifty-thousand words in thirty days with the workload I have. I’ll still work on writing Snake and editing Reborn City, but I won’t do it with the focus of just getting 50K words written.  Instead, I’ll work on them with the hope that eventually I’ll get them done and share them with everyone.

Am I sad that I can’t finish the challenge? Yes I am; I was getting so much done at the beginning of the month, I thought that if I couldn’t get 50K words, I’d get very close to 30K. Not so at this point. But hey, look on the bright side: I managed to write twelve chapters of Snake and type out 12,329 words. Not bad for my first time, right? That’s more than your average short story.

Maybe next year, if I don’t have that much of a workload, I’ll try again at NaNoWriMo. In the meantime, I’m off to work on chapter forty-seven of Snake. Wish me luck.

News on the Self-Publishing Front

Posted: November 8, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Writing
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I’ve mentioned this once or twice, but I’m preparing to self-publish my science-fiction novel Reborn City (still being looked over by a friend at this moment, hope for some new news soon). I’ve also mentioned that I’ll be starting up my own independent publishing press, both as a way to gain more legal control over my published work and as a way to gain maximum profit if, God-willing, my books are picked up by a major publishing company.

Well, I contacted Ohio State’s Student Legal Services to see if they had any advice in that area, because I have no idea whether or not forming these sorts of businesses requires any paperwork to be filed or fees to be paid to the state or whatever. They emailed me today, about an hour after I’d sent my email to them, attaching a document with all the different business types here in Ohio and what was required to create any of them. Looking over the document, I think my best bet would be to create a sole proprietorship, which would give me all the control over the business and its assets, and all I’d have to do would be to file a form with Ohio’s Secretary of State if I’m using a business name other than my own (which I plan to do). I’ll probably download both the document SLS sent me and the forms for the business once I can get to a printer, so until then I’ll be making sure no one else has the name I plan to use for the press (I’ll let you know what it is as soon as the paperwork’s filed and I have everything in order).

You know, this self-publishing process is easier than I thought it might be. So far, the only fees I might accrue are copyright and trademark fees, especially given I’ll be formatting my work as e-books and the sites I’ll be using don’t charge for the formatting. Hopefully my books will be successful as well (fingers crossed). Now I just have to put the final touches on Reborn City, get a cover, set up the business, set a release date, and do some advertising. Not too much trouble, right?

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