Posts Tagged ‘writing’

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?

A Plethora of Short Stories

Posted: November 7, 2012 in ideas, short story
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Or to be more specific, short story ideas.

You see, over the past couple of weeks I’ve had several bursts of inspiration, each leading to an idea for a short story. Today, I’ve reached ten ideas I could run with. The bad news? It’s National Novel Writing Month, and while there’s no rule excluding short story writing during NaNoWriMo, I want to focus on my two novels, one being looked over and edited by a friend, the other at forty-one chapters with the forty-second on its way.

But you know, there’s a silver lining in all this. If I can get through Part III of Snake by the end of the month, I might sit down and punch out one or two of those short stories. And who knows? That might lead to me working on several more. I could end up having a whole collection of short stories…which I could put out as a collective e-book. Oh, that’s a great idea. One sci-fi novel, one thriller, a collection of short stories. Sounds like the beginning of a great bibliography, if you ask me.

So I’ll keep collecting ideas. If I come up with thirteen, I’ll know it’s meant to be for me to do a short story collection. I even have a title in mind (but I’m not sharing it here; it’ll be a surprise).

NaNoWriMo Day 4: Progressing on the Snake

Posted: November 4, 2012 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Yes, it’s a gruesome image, but it works so well with what’s happening right now in the story.

I just finished a chapter on Snake, so I thought I’d discuss some of what’s going on in the world of Snake and in my life. First, I’d like to discuss how I’m doing so far in my first NaNoWriMo. So fat, about as well as I could hope. With classes, homework, and the need to relax and sleep (and not always at the same time), I’ve gotten about 4 chapters done, or one a day. Of course, these chapters are all less than six pages, so it’s not something to go wild about. However, I did add a chapter to Part I of the story, and I’ve gotten the first three chapters of Part III finished.

Actually, make that two chapters. I usually look over a chapter again after I finish it, and so far I haven’t looked over Chapter 38 yet. But I don’t think I’ll be changing that much; it’s pretty good as I wrote it.

So, I probably won’t finish Snake by November 30. I probably won’t write 50,000 words either. But hey, I’m getting a lot done, and I’ve gotten to a very important part in the story, one where the Snake’s brutal attacks on the mafia family he’s been stalking is starting to have its consequences.

And none of these consequences necessarily affect the Snake.

So I’ll let you know if I happen to finish Part III earlier than expected. In the meantime, I hope you all are having a good time with NaNoWriMo, and good luck to each and every one of you.

Submitting “Doll’s Game”

Posted: November 2, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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Today I had to turn into my class the short story I wrote, “Doll’s Game”, and can I just say it’s the worst piece of fiction I’ve written since I entered college? I’m not kidding, it’s just baaaad. I even made a point of telling my classmates that. Why do I think it’s bad? Because it’s literary, which I’m terrible at. I seriously prefer a scary story with demons or serial killers, but I can’t submit that sort of story in this class. Otherwise I’d turn in my succubus story for consideration.

But hey, who knows? I may think it’s a horrible story, but my classmates may disagree with me. They may actually like it, and give me helpful suggestions that will improve the story enough that I might want to submit it somewhere for publication. Who knows?

Well, in a week we’ll know what I should do with it, and whether or not I can make a diamond out of a lump of coal. I’ll let you know then.

And speaking of short stories, I’ve got one coming out Monday. Look out for it, it’s a science fiction story called Ripple. I’m looking forward to it.

A Snake Conundrum

Posted: November 1, 2012 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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Oh, I hope this Snake unties itself like my problem did.

This evening I was working on Snake, and I had my titular character pull out his phone and check his location using his phone’s GPS. As I was typing that out, I stopped and thought to myself, Wait a minute. Something doesn’t sit right here. And then two things hit me:

1. I don’t have a smartphone that can connect to the internet or has apps. I don’t even text on my phone. How do phones and internet connections work exactly?

2. The Snake uses a burner phone so he can’t be traced if he makes phone calls. Can burner phones ever be smartphones?

Well, the first question could be answered with a simple Google search, but I heard voices out in the hallway and I thought I’d ask my neighbors if they could make it easy for me to understand. Thankfully they did, explaining to me in full detail and in terms I understood how a phone connects to the Internet and how it isn’t dependent on wireless access, only on bars and how much allotted data space you have, so a GPS app would work in the situation I have planned.

Now that answered my first question. When I voiced the second question, my neighbor said that you can jack an iPhone and reconfigure it to become a burner. Tempting, but I don’t think the Snake would waste his time like that.

So I did some digging on Google. Apparently there’s an app for iPhones and Androids that allows you to temporarily turn your phone into a burner phone, which is handy if you’re a telemarketer or you want to pull a phone prank. The brilliant part is that if you’re suspected of something but you don’t have a burner phone, the police can only connect you to the crime if you have this app and you’ve used it around the time of the crime (DISCLAIMER: I’m not encouraging anyone commit a crime from reading this. If you get the idea from me, I’m not liable, it’s all on your head for breaking the law and potentially ruining the lives of who knows how many people).

So that little conundrum is fixed. Back to the writing. I want to see if I can get the full 50K words novelists try to write during NaNoWriMo. So far I have a little over a thousand. 40k more to go!

It’s NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth!!!

Posted: November 1, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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And yet for some reason, it’s celebrated in other countries too. Shouldn’t it be INternational NOvel WRIting MOnth (InNoWriMo)? On second thought, maybe not. That abbreviation sounds worse than NaNoWriMo, actually.

Right, onto the reason we’re reading this post. It’s National Novel Writing Month, when writers buckle down and really put their hearts into their novels. Some decide that this is the time to start what they hope will be the Next Great (insert country here) Novel. Others try to write a novel in only 30 days, doing all the research, writing, and editing in that amount of time. And some, like me, will put their all into their works in progress and edit their on-the-way-to-being-published projects…after they’ve done all their homework.

As you can already tell from this post, I’m already in the novel-writing mode. I had fun in a haunted house last night during Halloween (one of my favorite times of the year), so I’m ready to write scary stuff. I’ve also got a short story coming out on Monday, so that’s sure to be a boost. Yes, there’s a short story of mine coming out on Monday. It’s called Ripple, it’s a science-fiction story about a war with aliens, and I hope you read it and give me some feedback.

I’ll be primarily focusing on my serial killer thriller Snake, trying to write as many chapters as possible (and possibly adding one, if I think it’s appropriate). I’ll also work on my science-fiction novel Reborn City when my friend who’s helping me edit the story gets back to me with chapters (thank you Matt! You’ll show up in the Acknowledgements section in the book when it comes out). I don’t think I’ll owrk on any short stories–except the ones for class and the ones I finished prior to November. Basically, I’ll be doing a lot of work…when I’m not at work or doing school work.

So wish me luck. To all other writers taking part in NaNoWriMo, good luck on your various creative works. Let’s get writing.

This I Compose by Rami Ungar

Posted: October 29, 2012 in Living and Life
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In my documentary class, we had to make a video on how we write, compose, or create literary projects. After we received our grades, we were allowed to upload the videos onto YouTube if we so desired. And so, I uploaded a video onto YouTube for the first time ever. And it was easier than I thought it would be.

The video below is called “This I Compose by Rami Ungar”, and it follows me as I write “Doll’s Game”, the short story I’ve been working on for my creative writing class. My teacher certainly liked it, because she commented on how I was able to keep it from just being a happy nding and how I was able to make a coherent narrative. For all my efforts, sweat, blood, tears, and anything else you can throw in, I got an A, which I’m pretty happy about.

The video isn’t anything fancy compared to what others have made, and it doesn’t have any background music, mostly because it’s hard to find music with the appropriate copyrights that you want to put into your videos. It also has my voice in it, which isn’t exactly musical to listen too. But I like it, and with any luck, you might too.

So here’s “This I Compose by Rami Ungar”. I hope you enjoy it, and I think this is the point I tell you to subscribe to my channel, though I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get more than one video a year up, if at all. I guess it depends on if I can get a video camera, a recording device, a Mac, and time to edit. Anyway, watch the film.

The Succubus Story is Finished…Again!

Posted: October 26, 2012 in Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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Alright, so I finished the new version of Dodi Li, the succubus story I wrote over the summer whose first draft I hated so much I put it away as a learning experience on what happens when your story’s too plot-heavy. But thanks to an idea I got in my creative writing class, I worked out a new story that was much better, and now has a new name: Revenge for a Succubus’s Beloved. Sounds like an awesome title, right?

I think the only thing to stay from the first version of the story was Umuruk, the succubus character. Her character stays the same though, a demoness who fell in love with a human and watches over and protects him. However, that protection can lead to trouble…

I’ll put this story away for a while, especially since NaNoWriMo is in six days and I have to get back into Snake. However I’m certainly going to try to get this one published, and it shouldn’t be too hard, seeing as the latest edition of Writers Digest’s Nevel & Short Story Writer’s Market has a lot more horror publications listed in its pages than it did last year. Fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Once again, have a nice weekend, and don’t go too crazy with the Halloween parties.

I’ll Be Using Smashwords

Posted: October 24, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report
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When I publish Reborn City, that is. I did a little research, and I found out that Smashwords, besides being a retailer for e-books, allows authors to self-publish their works as e-books, formats them for other distributors such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and even gives you ISBNs. All this and more for how much? Free! And the authors keep exclusive rights to their works while Smashwords distributes the books. Not only that, but authors keeps up to 85% of the profits (70.5% from partner distributors) and can take their works off or modify them at any time.

With all this and more, is it any suprise that so many authors are using Smashwords? I don’t think so!

I would like to thank my friend Pat Bertram for pointing out the website and its many features (for her blog, click here: http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/ ). Once again, I hope to have RC out as soon as possible, so please bear with me till then and keep reading Rami Ungar the Writer.

If you want to check out Smashwords, here’s the address: http://www.smashwords.com/. While you’re checking it out, I’ll be signing up for a free account. Have a stress-free day.

I Made Somebody Cry

Posted: October 23, 2012 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
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Under all that makeup is a tortured soul. Or an alcoholic. Or he read something I wrote and was really moved. It’s art, it’s up for interpretation.

Now before you start condemning me for making somebody cry, let me just explain what happened: I was at the computer lab yesterday, where I’m well-known among the staff there. I’d told one of the people there about a week ago about my short story “Aasif” (if you haven’t already read it, then look below, the link to the website where it’s posted and the link to the story itself are there) and he said he’d read it. Not only did he read it, but he sent it around the lab and to the office that overseas the lab as well, which I was very grateful for when I found out.

Yesterday I was talking to my friend and he said one of the staff members from the overseeing office had emailed him saying she’d loved the story so much, and that by the end of it she’d been in tears. Now, as a writer I’m happy that I was able to get this sort of reaction from someone who read my work, but as a person I’m a little worried that I don’t feel bad I made someone cry. I know it’s silly, but it’s true.

Still, the fact that I was able to get such a reaction shows that I’m at least on the right track to becoming a writer. Hopefully I can keep it up, especially with “Ripple” coming out in a little less than two weeks.

Here are the links. Enjoy:

Mobius Magazine: http://mobiusmagazine.com/

“Aasif by Rami Ungar”: http://mobiusmagazine.com/fiction/aasif.html

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