Well, I finally got an email from my thesis advisor M on what he thought about my new thesis outline. Here’s what he had to say:
Very full chapter outline. You’ve sure thought it through. At this point, it looks solid. It’s going to be about execution, of course. But I say go ahead with your plan and keep writing.
He also signed it M. That’s kind of funny, considering that I keep forgetting to ask him if I can call him by something other than “M” on my blog.
But back on point, the new outline reduces the story by about six chapters from twenty-seven to twenty-one, making the story much simpler and allowing me to focus on the two main characters. And since I’m now eight chapters in, I’m now officially a little over a third of the way through the story! Woo-hoo! Only thirteen more to go!
As with my previous novels, I’ve counted out how many pages and words I’ve written so far. At the moment, Rose is about sixty pages in (that’s 8.5″ x 11″ pages), with an average of seven and a half pages per chapter. And at this moment, the word count is 17,546 words, with about 2,193 per chapter. So we’re around the length of a novelette at this point. At the rate I’m going though, it’s likely to be novel length (sixty-thousand words or higher) before long.
So next up is to, like M said, execute what I’ve written in the outline on the actual page. My next step is to slowly make the story much stranger than it already is (if you’re new here, Rose is about a woman who is resurrected through magic by her stalker, and that’s just the start of her problems), while also exploring the relationship between Rose and the antagonist. Hopefully by the end of this story it’ll be a very scary, very strange story that’ll be both moving and terrifying.
Well, I hope to start on Chapter Nine before long. I’ve got some homework to do, and I’m in the middle of editing something right now, so that might slow me down a little bit, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to catch up before the end of the month. By New Year’s I’d like to have at least gotten started on Chapter Fourteen. We’ll see what I do.
Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear. I’ve got a busy schedule these days, so I need all the luck I can get! I’m sure a lot of you can relate.
It’s been a while since I posted on my books that are in the process of getting written/edited/published/whatever, so I thought I’d write up a quick post to just let you all know about how those projects are going and when we can expect them to be in print. Spoiler: not any time soon.
Video Rage
The long-awaited sequel to Reborn City (especially by my sister and my stepmother). Last I was working on it, I’d made considerable progress on the book and had made it about halfway or so through the manuscript. Of course, senior year started, and I had to switch gears to work on Rose (more on that below). So I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back to that, but it’ll probably be when I don’t have classes, a thesis, and a job search to deal with all at once. So hopefully at some point next year. Yes, I know, it’s sad and frustrating. But when you’re working with my busy schedule, what can you do?
Actually, there is plenty you can do: offer me a job that matches my qualifications if you got one. Either that, or come by and do my homework for me. I’ve got an 8-10 page Shakespeare paper due December 9th. Any volunteers? No? Good, that’s cheating and I could get expelled for that.
Laura Horn
I’ve been thinking a lot about this novel lately. For those of you who haven’t seen me post about it before (it’s been a while), Laura Horn is a thriller about a teenage sexual assault victim who comes across information that threatens the United States and finds herself the only one who can stop it. At the same time, she must confront her demons and the man who assaulted her. The thing is, after I finished the first draft, I realized that certain parts of the story required too much suspension of disbelief. There was so much going on, some of it involved a stretch of the imagination to actually imagine happening, and at times I felt like there were glaring errors in the plot that I was missing. And then I found some of them!
All in all, the whole thing is unwieldy. But, I love the characters, especially my protagonist. I love the journey she goes on, and how it makes her go from a scared little girl to…well, she’s stronger. In a better place. And I liked the idea of the story very much.
So I think when the opportunity presents itself, I may try rewriting the story (because apparently a second draft for me is rewriting the whole damn thing, at least lately anyway). I’ve already got an idea for a new storyline that makes a lot more sense, it’ll be a bit shorter than the original version, and I think I’ll still get the story I want without facing those problems of believable storytelling. I just need the time to write it (what else is new?). So don’t expect LH to come out any time soon. I know, I know. It looks like nothing will be coming out soon, and that’s a fair opinion. But you never know. Something may change.
Rose
Last I updated you guys on my novel-that-doubles-as-my-thesis, I had to rewrite the outline again because the direction would’ve made the whole story a little crazy. So I sent the new outline to my advisor, and I was supposed to meet with him Friday. Sadly, the meeting got cancelled, so I’ll be emailing him this coming week to see if he would just send me his thoughts in an email. It might make it a bit easier since carving out a time for three busy people to meet up for even half an hour or more and just talk. If I hear anything, you guys will be among the first to know.
Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors
Hope to get a new article out some time soon. That’s all I’m saying on this.
Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got a bit of editing to do tonight, so I’m going to get on that. Wish me luck, my Followers of Fear. These days, I need all the luck I can get my hands on.
It’s the truth: authors want their families to read their work.
Whether it’s our first book or our thirtieth or higher. Whether we’ve just published a blog post we wrote during our lunch break yesterday or a short story we’ve been working months on appearing in a prestigious magazine. There’s one thing all us authors want when this sort of thing happens: we want our folks to pay attention to it. Hell, we want our folks to buy at least one copy, drop everything else to read it, and then call us up to comment on it, tell us how much they loved it or hated it, and then go on Amazon or whatever site they got it from and write a (hopefully) three star or higher review.
This isn’t just narcissism on our part (though I’m sure that plays a big role in it). Authors like vindication, it’s one of the reasons we write and publish. And praise from our families on something we toil away at for hours and hours at a time is at the same time both something we kind of expect and something we desperately want. It’s a big deal for authors, no matter what the relationships between us and our families, that they take a look at our work and let us know what they think (and hopefully they actually like it and aren’t just saying it’s the most awesome thing ever to make us happy).
Sadly, that’s not always going to happen. My folks love me and I love them. Sure, occasionally we get on each other’s nerves and more than once I’ve fantasized about Daleks chasing them down the street (or was that my TA who keeps assigning extra work for our recitation class?). But yeah, we care pretty deeply about each other. Still, I know there are certain members of my family who won’t read my books, or won’t read them immediately. And I have to accept that.
The latter is pretty easy to explain: my folks are busy. Everyone above the age of 18 in my immediate family has a job of some sort. Plus my sister has schoolwork, my parents all have kids to still take care of, and bills to pay, and pets to take care of, and chores to do…basically, a lot on their plates. Eventually they get around to it, but until then I just have to be patient. Do I like it? No. But I know I can’t do anything to change it, so I wait and I let those members of my family get around to it in their own time. Eventually they get it done.
For the former, it’s another matter entirely. Some of them just aren’t big readers. It isn’t how they relax in the evenings. And I won’t even pick that fight, so why even bother getting them to read it if I know it’s a losing battle? Others like to read, but they don’t enjoy anything with monsters. Or ghosts. Or murder. Or blood. Or missing limbs. Or the occasional hot and heavy sex scene. Or darkness. Or scares. In other words, what I write is the exact opposite of what they look for in a story. Well, you can try with these people, but I can’t guarantee it’ll work. For some, unless you’re writing comedy, romance, or a highfalutin coming-of-age literary novel, they just won’t read it.
Though if you still want a specific family member or friend to read your work, by all means go ahead and try. You can try by emphasizing to them the aspects of the story they would most likely enjoy (this worked with a friend of mine when I highlighted the romantic aspect of Snake). It’s better than cutting a deal with them or guilt-tripping them (though I think the latter worked for me one time).
And if that doesn’t work, don’t be too glum about it. There are always people out there willing to read your work. You just have to work hard and try to connect to them, wherever they may be. That’s part of the reason why I blog and post on Facebook and tweet and all that: because I know that by doing so it has the potential to open all sorts of doors. Maybe even allow me to find some people who would enjoy my work. You never know.
Does your family read your work?
How do you get your folks to read your work when it doesn’t necessarily appeal to them?
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the meme photos and where I got them, I made them. Yeah, I made them. I found this website that allows you to create your very own memes. It’s amazing! Now I can put hilarious memes in my stories whenever I want.
Oh dear. Maybe that’s not such a good thing after all…
Boy, has this short story been something of a saga for me. For this second draft, not only did I have to go back twice to redo it because I didn’t like where it was going, but I also changed the name of the short story about…six times? I settled with “What Happened Saturday Night” after a while as the new title. So maybe this post should be called “What Happened Saturday Night: Finished”.
Anywho, for those who don’t know, for my creative writing class I have to turn in two original short stories and a revised short story for the class to critique. Having previously done a short story about fallen angels and one about a woman who turns into a wolf, I decided to do a revision of the latter story. And just like the first draft, where I went back several times because the plot was going nowhere fast, I had to go back several times on this one. The first time was because I realized the story’s ending would resemble that of a previous story, and I didn’t want to be repeating myself. The second time I added in a cult element, but then things got really complicated and I decided I didn’t need that.
So for this third round, I decided to simplify things, go in a new direction I hadn’t thought of before, and see what I got. I also turned off the Internet so I wouldn’t get distracted (it worked). And finally, four days before it was due, I finished the new draft of “Frauwolf”, which is now called “What Happened Saturday Night”, and I incorporated a lot of the suggestions I got from my peers. So now it’s done, with a little over five-thousand words. A little wordy should I try to get it published, but I’m sure after my next critique in two weeks I’ll get some great suggestions on how to improve it and maybe trim it down if necessary. It still incorporates the main elements though: a girl who turns into a werewolf, and her relationship with her lover, also a woman. Can’t argue about that.
For now though, I’m tired and I want to go to bed. I’ve got a big week starting tomorrow, including midterms on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I’d rather be well-rested for those.
I’ll try and blog later this week, my Followers of Fear. Until then, a terrifying sleep, and a good week to you all.
I’ve been advertising my novel Reborn City a lot lately (and doubtless I’ll be doing some of that here too), but I thought this was interesting enough that it deserved a blog post.
Near the end of RC, I introduced hoverbikes, motorcycles that, instead of wheels, hover in the air much like the hoverboards seen in Back to the Future Parts II and III. The way they hover is through magnetic plates that act against the magnetic forces in the earth, allowing them to hover. The thing is, neither hoverboards or hoverbikes exist, so for now they’re still just science fiction.
Or are they?
Last month, tech company Arx Pax unveiled its own hoverboard, which does apparently hover a few inches off the ground. They are currently funding research and construction through a Kickstarter campaign which at this time has surpassed its original goal of two-hundred fifty-thousand dollars and made over four-hundred thirty-six thousand dollars. Backers have the option of getting their own Developers Kit or “White Box”, which allows them to create their own hover devices. Check out their campaign video.
Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Apparently the science behind it also revolves around magnetic forces, though not the same kind that the hoverbikes in Reborn City use. What the Hendo Hoverboard does is manipulate magnetic fields, which creates flux, or changing magnetic fields. In conductive surfaces like metals, it creates current, and according to a law known as Lenz’s Law, the current will create its own magnetic field which will act in opposition to the original flux. With enough flux, the magnetic fields will repel each other and, in the case of the Hendo Hoverboard, cause it to levitate (thanks to the Nerdist channel for explaining this to me. Click here for their video explaining the concept of the Hendo Hoverboard).
Now, the Hendo Hoverboard does have its limitations. It can only work on certain circumstances, it’s loud, and it has a short battery life. But part of the hopes of its creators, as expressed in the video above, is that people who buy a Developer Kit will be able to make breakthroughs and develop the technology further. With technology progressing in amazing new ways each and every day, and with people in high school developing amazing new programs or devices (like this kid who developed his own smart gun) we could be seeing new developments in this field within the next decade or so, enough that Wikipedia might stop calling hoverborads a”fictional device”.
And since Reborn City takes place in the year 2056, or about 41 years from when those first developer kits get shipped, there’s plenty of time to fine-tune the technology and find new applications for it, including in creating hoverbikes. Perhaps even utilizing the design that I made for the ones in Reborn City.
Below I’m including an excerpt from RC featuring the first appearance of the hoverbikes, which will also feature in the sequel Video Rage. If you’re interested in checking out RC, it’s on sale through Friday on Amazon and Smashwords, and there’s still a giveaway to participate in for a free copy. Hope you like what you read, Followers of Fear. And I’ll try to stop myself from talking anymore about RC till Friday, but I make no promises. HYDRAS!
When they were all safely inside, Harvey closed the door and pointed to a row of crates sitting under a single, unlit light bulb. The crates, five in all, were large and rectangular, and were marked with big red letters that read HEAVY BULK OBJECT.
“D’ya guys want help openin’ ‘em up?” asked Harvey.
“I got it.” said Rip. Extending his claws, he went to the crate closest to him and cut through the nails holding one of the sides to the rest of the crate. The wooden side fell with a loud clatter, revealing the hoverbike inside. It looked like a regular motorcycle, except it seemed more box-like and instead of wheels had two half-circle panels at each end. The entire thing had been painted black, even the handles and panels.
“Huh.” said Rip. “I thought it’d be mo’ showy.”
“Them rich kids prob’bly wanted to do the paint job,” said Fox. “Give it their own gang colors an’ shit.”
Iori scoffed. “Never say ‘gang’ an’ ‘rich kids’ in the same sentence.”
With Harvey’s help, Rip lifted the hoverbike up and out of the crate. The key, a small plastic rod with an electronic laser identification tag at the end, was wrapped around one of the handles with a small metal chain. Unwrapping the chain from the handle and setting the key in the ignition, Rip tried to start up the engine.
There was a loud rumbling sound from within and the hoverbike rose a foot and a half into the air, bobbing slightly where it stopped. From beneath the panels there was a faint blue glow, probably from the magnets, Zahara guessed. Everyone around Zahara gasped and stared at the hoverbike.
“Wow.” said Ilse. “’Kind of ‘em to put the gas in ‘fore we needed ‘em.”
“Y’all mind if I test it out fo’ ya guys?” asked Harvey.
“Be our guest.” said Rip, gesturing to the bike.
Harvey swung his foot over the hoverbike and sat in the seat. It dipped slightly but other than that did not react to the new weight that had been added to it.
Harvey sat there for a second, looking like he was trying to get his excitement under control. “Alright.” he said. “Now how the fuck d’ya drive this thing—?” Harvey twisted the throttle and the hoverbike sped forward. He lost his grip and fell off the bike, landing in Rip’s arms with a loud grunt. Both of them fell to the ground, neither really hurt but both looking shaken. A few yards away the hoverbike had come to a stop, hovering serenely as if nothing had happened.
“Shit.” said Harvey.
“That bastard’s gonna take some practice.” Rico observed, looking at the bike.
Zahara was still staring at it, not really listening to the others. She had seen what Harvey had done and thought that if he had just twisted the throttle slowly and hadn’t tried to move too quickly, he wouldn’t have fallen off the bike.
I have to try it out. she thought, feeling like she was being drawn to it. I just have to know if I’m right. Before she realized it, Zahara was striding towards the bike and swinging her leg over the seat.
“Zahara?” said Alto, and Zahara knew without looking that all the others were watching her. “What’re ya doin’?
“Babe, are ya crazy?” said Ilse. “Ya can’t just get on the bike an’ expect t’ get it right on the first try when we haven’t even tested it out—!”
But she ignored them. Bending over the handlebars, she twisted the throttle slowly. The bike sped forward, going at a pace that was slower than what had it had been going when Harvey had gotten on but still pretty fast. Feeling the air whipping around her, Zahara timed a turn and spun to the left as the wall neared. Navigating the maze of boxes and crates, she reappeared in front of the Hydras, braking with ease.
Only when she looked at the others and saw their mouths hanging open did she realize what she had done: she had ridden a hoverbike without any previous practice and made it look easy. She looked at all of them, then at the bike, then back to the rest of them again.
Finally Miguel closed his mouth and said, “Well, whaddya know? The chica’s a gangsta after all.”
“Yeah.” said Owl. “The riding-a-hoverbike-like-it’s-easy-as-pie type of gangsta.”
“Wow Zahara.” said Ilse, and Zahara felt herself glowing with pride and accomplishment.
So last night, it’s very late and I’m exhausted. I’m getting ready for bed when an idea for a short story comes to me all of a sudden. I go to write it down in the notebook I carry around with me, so that in the morning I can write it down in the morning on the list I keep on my flash drive for stories. But just as I’m about to write it down, a thought occurs to me: Haven’t I had this idea before? As I think about it, I recall an idea, very vaguely, of a short story idea that sounds very similar to the one I just came up with, but I can’t remember that well.
I don’t feel like booting up my laptop and logging in just so I can look up something on my flash drive and then shutting down again. So I scribble myself a note reminding me to see if I already had this idea and I go to bed. The next morning (or I guess this morning) I see the note, get on my laptop, and pull up my list of short story ideas (now up to 367 ideas since the last time I added an entry. God help me find the time to write them all). I type in some relevant key words into the “Find” feature, and sure enough, entry number 108 matches the idea I had last night. The only differences were the genders were switched on the characters.
At that point, I felt a little silly. I know it’s common for authors to have similar ideas across all their works (Joss Whedon has powerful organizations whose very purpose allows them to wield strong influence in nearly every sphere of society, HP Lovecraft has those slithery Cthullu creatures, William Shakespeare had more than a few manipulative villains who seemed honest on the surface but were vile beasts underneath it all). Heck, a lot of my ideas involve female protagonists who rise to the occasion after travailing over several obstacles. I just never expected to happen across the same idea like that.
At least I can take comfort in the knowledge that this has probably happened before.
As for the idea that I had last night…well, maybe I’ll keep it, maybe I won’t. I know there’s room for variation, but the question is, do I want to do it if it sounds so similar to my previous idea, and should I do it when it seems so similar?
If you ever find two short stories of mine and they have similar plots behind them, as well as characters, settings, and whatever else, you’ll know the answer I came to.
Have you ever had an idea that was very similar to a previous idea? How did you deal with it?
Today in my creative writing class it was my turn to get critiqued. And as you may recall, my short story was about a woman who turned into a werewolf. Or as she preferred because of her gender, frauwolf, which became the title of the story.Unlike other stories, I thought this first draft was a piece of crap. And it was, too. But it was the only draft I could finish, so it was the draft I ended up sticking with. And last week I bought sugar cookies to bribe my classmates with, so that when they tore my story into little pieces they would be nice about it.
Well, the bribe didn’t work. Apparently cookies that are about 90% sugar don’t work on college students, because only half of them got eaten, and mostly by the students with sweet tooths. But they were nice while they tore my story apart, I’ll give them that.
Anyway, the biggest problems with “Frauwolf” seem to be that I throw way too much in and that the readers felt yanked along by all that was happening. Well, that’s not surprising, considering it’s me writing this story. I like to write novels, especially long, expansive novels that may in fact involve into series. So I tried to add a huge amount of stuff into 5,000 words and the result was a story that was rushed along so as to get to everything happening in the story. The result is an overly-complicated and insane story that deviates from what I originally intended (as you read two posts ago, that was the problem I had with Rose).
My classmates also had some trouble with the relationship portrayed in the story. They couldn’t get why my main character’s girlfriend still stuck around with her, among other things. Well, I guess that makes sense. I don’t delve that deep into the foundation of the relationship. For the next draft, I think I will do that thoug.
And speaking of next draft, I’ve got one more story to turn in this semester, and it has to be a revision of a previous story. I’m thinking I’ll work on this one, maybe change the setting and the story line and see what comes of it. Besides, I’m not nearly satisfied with this story as I should be, so I’ll put off editing my other short story, “Evil Began in a Bar”, until another time. Besides, my critique gave me some great ideas of where to go with this story, so I really want to see what I can do with them. I might even write something worth publishing.
I’ll let you know what comes of all this editing, and what my classmates say at my final critique. In the meantime, I’ve got to get dinner ready before my evening class, so that’s all for now. Have a great day, my Followers of Fear.
Just a little over a week since the last review came up, a new one has been posted on Amazon. I guess it was only a matter of time before Snake started to catch up with Reborn City and The Quiet Game.
Snake is about a young man who becomes a serial killer in order to save the woman he loves. It’s definitely one of my darker works, and considering I’m a horror author that’s saying something. Anyway, this is the fourth review of Snake, and it was posted by Michele Kurland, who gave the book 4-stars (Michele also gave Reborn City and The Quiet Game pretty nice reviews as well. I guess I’ve got a fan). Her review is entitled This page-turning read was another great effort by Rami. Here’s what she had to say:
Well, I took yet another vacation where I made my family “just wait until I finish this chapter.” This page-turning read was another great effort by Rami. He is not afraid to take risks in plot twists and turns, character development and he takes the reader on quite the journey in this book. So looking forward to his next creation!
Well Michele, I have several new creations, I just have to find the time to get them edited and published! And I like it when I make it difficult to put the book down. It shows that I’m doing my job as a fiction writer.
If you would like to read Snake, you can find it in both paperback and e-book from Amazon and Smashwords. And if you do decide to read it, please let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love feedback, and you can leave it for me in a comment or you can leave a review online for me to find.
And as I keep reminding everyone, Reborn City is having a big sale and giveaway. You can find out details here if you wish to learn more.
That’s all for now. I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll get to it. Have a good evening, my Followers of Fear.
I would’ve written this yesterday when my last thesis meeting occurred, but I was pressed for time, and then I had homework up the wazoo, and then I got up late today, and then I still had homework, and then…what was I typing about? Oh yeah. Well yesterday I met with my advisor M and fellow thesis-writer P (he’s not working on Rose, of course. He’s got his own thing). I told them some of the changes I wanted to make with the story, and they liked some of my ideas once I’d taken the time to explain them.
But the conversation took a different turn when it came to the latest work I’d sent them. They began asking about all these fantastical elements I’d been adding to the story, wondering where I was going with the story and maybe if I was taking the focus off of Rose and the antagonist. Up until then, despite several offers to show them what I’d planned for the rest of the novel and even show them the outline I’d written, they’d said no. But today, in order to give them more of an idea of where I was going with this story, I gave them the basic idea of where Rose was going.
They had issues with the course of the story, to say the least and told me why.
Basically, the plot of the story would have gone with a powerful Japanese god joining the story and trying to kill Rose. They pointed out that my antagonist would’ve been relegated to barely secondary antagonist and that the story would’ve gotten too complicated for a single book. And I had to admit, they were right. It would’ve gotten pretty complicated, maybe unnecessarily so, if I went down that path.
So I took all that in, realized they had some definite points, and worried that maybe I still have a ton to learn as an author (good thing I’m still pretty early in my career). I’m now going to start a new outline for Rose (the fifth, by the way), and see where I go with it. I’ve got some ideas, so I’m going to brainstorm some more. However, I’m going to try and focus it on those two characters, Rose and the antagonist, and keep the focus on their topsy-turvy life. After I write the new outline, I plan on sending it to my advisor and getting his feedback on it. Hopefully he’ll like what he sees.
So for now, I’m off to read some manga, watch some TV, and see what comes to mind. Hopefully it’ll be something really great that will impress readers. Wish me luck, Followers of Fear.
And remember, there’s a huge sale on Reborn City and a giveaway going on right now. Click here for more details.
One whole year. One whole crazy, kooky, lovely, exciting, frustrating, magical, mystical, marvelous year. Can you believe how much time has passed since then?
Actually, yes I can. I’ve had that sort of crazy life. But yeah, it’s amazing that an entire year has passed since Reborn City was first published. It’s my first novel and I’m especially proud of it. And the reception to it has just been great. I’ve had a lot of people who’ve told me how much they’ve enjoyed reading RC, how they thought it was really original and that they couldn’t wait to read the sequel.*
For those of yo who are unfamiliar with RC, let me tell you about it. Reborn City is the first in a science fiction trilogy I started writing in high school, and that I’ve been working and polishing on and off since then. It follows Zahara Bakur, a Muslim teenager who lives in the titular city, a Las Vegas-like entertainment town in the year 2056. After the death of her parents, Zahara is forced by circumstance to join the Hydras, an interracial street gang whose leaders have special abilities and powers. Zahara finds a new home with the Hydras, despite the constant violence in her neighborhood and the discrimination she faces because of her religion. However, when tragedy strikes, Zahara learns that there are people in the government interested in the Hydras for very specific reasons, and the choices she makes will influence not only her life, but the lives of those she cares about.
Currently, Reborn City holds a 4.7 rating based on seven reviews on Amazon, and people have been mostly very positive with what they’ve had to say. Take a look:
This is an extremely commendable effort by a new young writer, whom I believe we will see much more of in the years ahead. Rami Ungar’s vision of a frightening dystopian future is peppered with those elements that make us all human. There are quite a few surprises in the book, and I am anxious for the next volume in the series to be released.
–Marc M. Neiwirth
This is not a genre I typically delve into, but I took this book on vacation and couldn’t put it down. The plot had me turning pages at quite the clip. The characters were unique and interesting and the imagery had me creating my own visual of what Rami’s interpretation of the future looked like. For first time novelist, Rami Ungar, this was an outstanding showing of talent and commitment to his passion of writing. Looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next!
–Michele Kurland
As a reader who does not read books in this genre, I must admit that I could not put down the book. I attribute this to the talent of the author. I am looking forward to reading the next books published by Ungar. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy action with features of supernatural powers and sci-fi.
–Enjie
And in honor of a full year since Reborn City was published, I’m doing a couple of special things to celebrate. First, I’m doing a two-week sale. All e-books of Reborn City will be only $0.99 and the print paperback will be $6.50, down from their usual prices from $2.99 and $8.99, respectively.
In addition, I’m holding a contest. From November 1st-November 14th, you have the opportunity to win an autographed copy of Reborn City, sent to wherever you may live. This contest is available to all, except to those who are closely related to me or had some hand in the creation of Reborn City. All you have to do is leave a comment below with your name, where you’re from, and a superpower you would like to have. Easier questions than what was asked at the Bridge of Death, right?
If you would like to check out Reborn City, you can buy a print or digital copy from Amazon and Smashwords (the latter only has the e-book version). And if you like (or hate) what you read, please let me know what you think, whether in a comment or in a review. Positive or negative, I love feedback, so please let me know your thoughts on the book.
Good luck to all contest participants and fun reading, my Followers of Fear. And thanks for a wonderful year, everyone. I couldn’t have done it without you.
*Speaking of which, I’m sorry editing and publishing Video Rage is taking so long. I’ve been busy with my thesis and school, so there hasn’t been any time to work on it. But I’m hoping that with a slightly easier next semester in the spring, I might be able to actually put in some time finishing up the second draft of VR. Of course, I’ll deep into the job search at that point, so that could get in the way.