Posts Tagged ‘short story’

A Stubborn Short Story

Posted: February 21, 2013 in short story, Writing
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We’ve all heard of authors who’ve written stories over a period of years, famous works the authors have written over periods of years, taking long breaks that have lasted decades. Benjamin Franklin did it with his memoir; Mark Twain did it with Huckleberry Finn; and I have a friend, a published thriller writer who’s been working on something for several years, but has written it on and off, when the inspiration strikes her.

I’ve heard of all this, but only for novels and memoirs. Never for short stories!

And yet this is what’s happening with my demonic-possession-gone-wrong story; I started it today, got a few pages in, and then I couldn’t do a thing with it. What gives? I have no idea, but I just can’t work anymore on this story. And I have no idea if it’s me losing interest in the story or the story not wanting to form at this very moment under these current conditions or some combination of the two.

And yes, I realize I’m making the story itself seem like a living, breathing being with will and defiance to my own will, but that’s what it feels like.

Suffice to say, I’ll take a break from this short story, though hopefully not for years. Maybe I’ll come back to it in a few days or weeks, and work on it bit by bit. If I can, I’ll make it into one of the best short stories I’ve ever written.

In the meantime, I have plenty of other stuff to work on. In fact, there’s a story about a dissociative fugue I can start on possibly tomorrow, if I can get my homework done before the Sabbath. Wish me luck.

Oh, and by the way, has this ever happened to you, with any sort of creative work?

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

Posted: February 21, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I was tagged by Lorna Dounaeva (http://lornadounaeva.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/the-next-big-thing-blog-hop/) for this post, which is similar to the award memes that make the rounds of the Internet. The Next Big Thing Blog Hop is a chance for us to talk about our works-in-progress, or WIP, and we have to follow certain steps to fulfill it. First, I have to tag the person who tagged me (thanks, Lorna!). Then I have to introduce and explain The Next Big Thing Blog Hop to those reading the post (check!). Then I have to answer ten questions about my WIP, and include pictures if possible. After the questions are done, I must tag five other writers with WIPs, and then let them know through emails or comments.

I’ll get to that, but first the questions, which will be focusing on The Quiet Game:

1. What is the title of the book you are working on? The title is The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones.

TQG cover

2. Where did the idea come from for the book? I think it started when I realized that editing my sci-fi novel RC was taking longer than I thought and that I’d probably finish my thriller novel Snake around the beginning of winter break. I’d played with the idea of working on a collection of short stories after Snake was done, but by the time winter break arrived, I thought it’d be a good thing to do, especially with my plans to self-publish. So as soon as I’d finished Snake, I got to work on it.

3. What genre does your book fall under? Horror, definitely horror. To be more specific, four of the short stories feature supernatural horror, while the fifth features psychological horror.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Well, it’s a collection of short stories, so that’d be five movies if I were extremely lucky. The only actor I can think of though, would be Taissa Farmiga from American Horror Story, who would play Traci from the titular short story, The Quiet Game. Although she doesn’t look very much like my conception of the character, she’d definitely define and bring the role to life, and that’s what I’m looking for.

Taissa Farmiga, everybody.

5. What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book? Be prepared to enter the darkest corners of your mind in…The Quiet Game.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I’m doing the self-publishing thing. It’s the way of the future, and I’ve tried the traditional route to publishing novels and collections. Although it’s still prestigious,the traditional route is still very difficult to do and from the way some of the bigger companies in New York have been merging and acting, they know it won’t last forever. Besides, I want to get my work to my readers sooner rather than later.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manusript? Probably a month or so, though one of the short stories did need to be rewritten at some point, so that’s another couple of days there. Each story took different lengths of time to work on, so it was an uneven work schedule. Still, it was very much worth it.

8. What other books would you compare this story to in your genre? I don’t know; it’s so hard to compare one collection of short stories to another. In fact, I’d say it’s almost impossible, though my Mom did compare one of my short stories to Stephen King’s It, which I thought was a huge compliment.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book? I got inspiration from anywhere. The Quiet Game came from a comment-conversation on a friend’s blog; Addict came from the experiences of a friend of mine. If I tried to go back and figure out the origin of each story, I’d have interesting stories to tell right there!

10. What else about yoru book might pique reader’s interest? I think that it’s by a new author and that each story is different, scary, and unique might draw some in. That’s the hope, anyway.

And now, onto the tagged people:

1. Matt Williams (http://storiesbywilliams.com/)

2. Angela (http://aportiaadamsadventure.wordpress.com/?ref=spelling)

3. Cristian Mihai (http://cristianmihai.net/)

4. Pat Bertram (http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/)

5. Jason Alan (http://jasonalanwriter.wordpress.com/)

Congratulations to the tagged winners, and I can’t wait to read what you’re in the process of creating.

“The Quiet Game”: A Reading

Posted: February 20, 2013 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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TQG cover

Ah, so many announcements about The Quiet Game, and so few hours in the day! If you haven’t heard already, I created a cover for my upcoming collection of short stories, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones, earlier today and posted it all over the blogosphere, Facebook, and my Twitter account.

Now I have a second announcement: this Friday at my dorm, Jones Tower, there will be a huge Purim celebration. Yes Purim, the Jewish holiday that celebrates our deliverance from the hands of the Babylonian Prime Minister’s plot to murder every single Jew. During the celebration, there will be Hamentaschen, the traditional treat eaten during Purim, masks you can make (it’s basically our Halloween, if you didn’t know), and I’ll be doing a reading from some of my short stories at some point during the festivities. It’s going to be great; I plan on doing a whole lot to make sure it’s so spooky, they may not want to have me read again–

On second thought, maybe I should tone it down a bit.

I’ll try and make a video of the reading and post it on YouTube. Keep your eyes peeled for it.

And if you happen to be in Columbus on Friday night and have nothing to do at 10 PM, please show up. I’d appreciate the support.

Unless of course you’re crazy or want to kill me, in which case I’d like to warn you there are members of the audience who will be attending and who are a part of martial arts societies and groups on campus, and they won’t hesitate to hurt you.

Have a good night, everybody.

More New Ideas That I Can’t Wait To Work On

Posted: February 20, 2013 in ideas, short story, Writing
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As if creating the cover for The Quiet Game wasn’t good enough for me, I have new ideas for short stories that I plan to get on as soon as possible! The first short story is one I’ve been meaning to do a rewrite for a while, the one involving a demonic possession that went wrong…for the demon, that is. I’ve been ruminating over how best to rewrite and improve it for a while now, but now I’m ready to work on it. I just need the free time to do it! But if I can’t get my homework done and I don’t have anything else to do, I will get it done.

The second short story is one I just had the idea for today during my Abnormal Psychology class, involving a character who wakes up from a dissociative fugue. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a dissociative fugue is when, for reasons still not entirely understood, a person forgets their personal identity and past and adopts an entirely new identity with its own past and habits. It’s a very strange disorder, which can last anywhere from a couple of hours to several months, and usually involves the person stricken with the fugue disappearing or fleeing to a new location, possibly because of the fugue-identity’s whims or beliefs or memories (once again, not much is known about fugues).

When someone awakens from a fugue, they tend to be very confused and usually lose all memories of their fugue identity or what happened while they were in their fugue state. And since fugues are unpredictable and people don’t realize until after the state that they were in a fugue state, there’s not a lot of literature on them except for case studies written after the fugue. Sometimes the memories from these states can be recovered with therapy, but it’s rare and there’s no consistent or approved treatment for dealing with fugues.

Plus the fact that you can’t predict a fugue makes it hard to get a test subject. If anything, people who have had fugues usually have had childhood traumas or head injuries, but only a small percent of people with head injuries or traumas actually have fugues.

I’m sorry for rambling on, but do you see the set-up for a great short story here? Because I do! And I can’t wait to write it.

First I have to rewrite the possession short story. Wish me luck!

“The Quiet Game”: The Cover

Posted: February 20, 2013 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I took some time out of my day today to create the cover for my upcoming collection of short stories, The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones. I used a photo I’d taken over the weekend and used PhotoShop to add the title and the writing in the sky that’s in the titular short story. The result is what you see below:

TQG cover

The photo is of Orton Hall, one of the oldest buildings on campus, with a snowy night background. With the lettering in the back, I feel it makes for a very scary cover that gives me the effect I’m looking for.

The best part though, is that I did it all by myself, with only a little bit of help from the people who run the computer lab at the Science and Engineering Lab at school, and I did it in barely half an hour, if even that much! I feel so proud of myself for being able to use a program that before I had so much trouble using. Now I can add this to the Facebook page and put it on the “Books by Rami Ungar” page to show the world.

Thanks for supporting me so far. I hope to have the book out by mid-April, when the semester ends. I hope you’re looking forward to reading it, almost as much as I am looking forward to publishing it.

Enigma: Retitled & Almost Ready

Posted: February 13, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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I got feedback for one of my short stories, “Enigma”, the one about the autistic boy. My bera-reader, a woman who’s worked with people with disabilities for years, told me she really enjoyed the story, especially since certain parts scared her and she couldn’t figure out what would happen next or whether the wolf spirit in the story was a hallucination or an actual spirit. I don’t give any hints on that subject, though I usually tend towards supernatural.

My beta-reader also didn’t care for the name change I gave “Engima”, but I feel that the new title works more for the rewrite I gave this story. That being said, the new title is “In The Lady Ogre’s Den”, based on something the main character notices while in the hospital. I think the title’s a good one, and I hope to keep it.

I’ll probably edit this story one more time, but after that I’ll move it to the folder on my flash drive where I keep the finished short stories for The Quiet Game. I’m very excited; after this story, I’ll have only two more stories to hear back from beta-readers about, and then I’ll be ready to put The Quiet Game out. Let’s hope I hear back soon.

Oh, as for that promotional short story I mentioned the other day, I still have to find time to send it to the Copyright Office, but I will as soon as I’m done with my homework. Just bear with me, okay? I’ll have it out soon.

“Three Life-Saving Phone Calls” Finished

Posted: February 12, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report, short story, Writing
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While watching the State of the Union address (love you, Mr. President!), I worked on my latest short story, “Three Life-Saving Phone Calls”, a short story about a teenager trying to commit an elaborate suicide. The idea for the story came to me in one of my creative writing classes (apparently lots of people get great ideas for stories while around my teacher, or so I hear), and it was based on a really dark period of my life, when I actually did want to commit suicide when I thought that nobody loved me and I was all alone.

The story’s a little longer than five-thousand words, but I plan to see if I can slim it down a little during the editing stage. I also want to see if I can get this short story to win OSU’s English Department’s creative writing award for short stories. I won’t get that big a prize–only $250–but it’d be something to put on my resume and it’d be a prestigious award to have. Since the due date for submissions is in 10 days though, I need to edit quickly…after I edit my second short story for class.

Let’s hope I can handle it all and do well!

I’ll let you know how well things go. Wish me luck and hope for the best, okay? Thanks!

I’m Writing What I Know For Once

Posted: February 11, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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Last semester, I wrote how I continue to write about subjects I have no personal experience with, despite my creative writing class’s textbook’s insistence that I do so. It wasn’t that I thought anything from my own life wasn’t good enough for writing about, it’s just that I was more interested in writing about a demon causing a human to become a cannibal or a war between humans and werewolves than I was writing about my anxiety before a test or my sometimes stormy relationships with my sisters. When people like my dad would tell me to at least give it a shot, I would usually reply, “That’s too scary for literature.”

But lately–and I blame the workshops I’ve been taking for this–my writing has taken a more personal tone. Over break, I wrote “Enigma” (later renamed to “In The Lady Ogre’s Den”), which has an autistic child as the main character. I’ve worked with kids with autism before, and I’m even on the spectrum, though I’m very high-functioning. Later I wrote “Old Sid” for class (I’ll be turning that one in a week from Wednesday) and that story takes place on the Ohio State campus, where’ I’ve either been working, learning, or both for the past two years. And recently I’ve been working on a short story called “Three Life Saving Phone Calls”, which is based on some dark experiences in my life that for a time made me very depressed and even contemplated suicide. Sure, I’ve changed so much around that it’s now only very loosely based on my life, but if someone were to look closely, and if that someone knew a lot about me, they could see through the fictional veneer and spot what I’ve taken from my own life and put into the story.

Why the change? Like I said before, I think it might have something to do with the workshops I’ve been taking. The emphasis on literary fiction as opposed to genre fiction requires me to be more personal than I have been, and a lot of what those workshops have been teaching me I’ve assimilated into my writing. I guess finding ways to make my own life and experiences interesting is part of what I’ve taken away from these classes. I’m not exactly sure if it’s the best thing for my writing–after all, I’m still devoted to genre fiction, and I prefer to use imagination rather than confront an actual serial killer–but while I’m stuck with this new appreciation for things in my life and using them in my writing, I might as well take advantage of it to the fullest.

And besides, who knows? “Three Life Saving Phone Calls” seems to be just literary enough that I could submit it to a major literary journal, one that pays its contributors. That’s the hope, at least.

What about you? Do you use your own life in your writing, or is your work so strange that your life couldn’t find a place in your work?

Getting A Promotional Work Ready

Posted: February 10, 2013 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
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As many of you know, I’m preparing to release a collection of short stories known as The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones (you can find the link for the Facebook page below). As I’m getting ready though, I want to also release some other stuff, drum up a little excitement. Which is why I’m hopefully going to be releasing a promotional short story later this week, so that until The Quiet Game comes out, you’ll have something to at least get an idea of what my writing is like (especially if you’ve never read any of my work before).

I won’t say much about the short story in particular, except that I will tell you I wrote it in high school and have given it several edits over the years. However, as my high school English teacher Mr. Guinan said, “There comes a time when a story is done. Not perfect, but done. When you can’t do anything else to it, when you can’t polish it or improve it anymore. It’s just done.” And this story is definitely done.

So tomorrow I’ll see about creating a cover that matches the story, turn the whole darn thing into a PDF file, and when I have the copyright, I’ll upload it onto Amazon and onto Smashwords (the latter makes it available on Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and a bunch of other sites). Now, the copyright is still going to cost money, so I’m on the fence on whether or not to charge for downloads (and if so, how much). So if you have an opinion either way, please let me know. As always, I value your opinions.

I hope to have more on this short story soon. I also plan to create a page called “Other Work by Rami Ungar”, but I’ll get to that when the time comes.

And once again, thanks for reading and thanks for supporting me. I really appreciate it.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheQuietGameFiveTalesToChillYourBones

An Idea That Came Too Late

Posted: February 6, 2013 in ideas, short story, Writing
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I spoke a few days ago about how I had written short stories that were terrible, and that I tucked these short stories away until I can find some way to improve, edit, and/or rewrite these short stories. Lately several of these short stories have gotten edited and rewritten, due to inspiration coming my way and helping to improve the stories while keeping the basic ideas. I’m happy about that.

However, I mentioned a four-year-old story that I’d hoped would get a rewrite or edit someday. I just needed the idea. And tonight I got it. I had such an idea to run with, one that would turn this crappy story into a suspenseful, emotional rollercoaster. I was so happy and thrilled.

But that thrill only lasted a few seconds. You see, the short story I wrote in high school was about a school shooting. And no matter how good of an idea I got, it’s just too soon to do this sort of story. There’s a raging gun debate, parents, teachers, and students are scared stiff that their school might be attacked next, all sorts of options are being discussed. But most of all, there are just too many raw feelings after Sandy Hook.

As great as an idea as I had this evening, I couldn’t write this story without feeling a little guilty. In fact, I’m not even sure I want to rewrite it now. It’s just too soon, and I don’t know if there will ever be a time when I’m comfortable rewriting this story. I’ll keep it stored away on my flash drive, just like I’ve done since high school. Maybe I’ll even edit it someday, when the fears have died down and the memories have dulled a little with time.

For now though, it’s best that I don’t work on this story, especially with so many other stories for me to edit and write. I think that’s the best decision. Don’t you think so too?

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