My Six Year Journey of Weight-Loss and Improved Health

After six long years of trial, error, hard work, slacking off, pain, and joy, I'm proud to say that I'm finally back to a healthy body weight. I made a lot of mistakes along the way and learned a lot in the process, and while it certainly wasn't easy, I can easily say that it was all worth it.

Although my transformation may not be spectacular or dramatic, I think it's important to share here because those more incredible stories do not reflect most people's experiences trying to become healthier. By sharing my full story, I hope that I can help anyone who is looking to lose weight and become healthier avoid some of my pitfalls, gain some usable knowledge, and understand that it's okay to fail sometimes and totally miss your goal date several times over. Keep at it, because it's worth working for. Getting in shape and developing a healthier lifestyle has made me feel more confident, energetic, and in control of my life.

The Journey Begins

I was quite skinny in high school. This was largely thanks to me getting a part-time job as a cart-pusher at a local grocery store when I was 16 years old, which kept me outside and moving around all year long. I was also a picky eater, so I had a habit of not eating much of whatever my parents cooked for me. Here's a photo of me in 2008 for context—I'll be including photos of every major stage of my weight-loss journey in this post to help you get a clearer picture for how much my weight changed.

Fortunately, my sense of style has dramatically improved since this photo was taken.

Four years later, on 12/12/12 (honestly) I stepped on a scale for the first time in years and realized that I'd let myself get fat in college.

I found several reasons to blame my increased weight on. These included that (1) healthy food didn't taste good, (2) exercise was hard and not worth the time or pain, and (3) I now worked at an on-campus restaurant (4) which was attached to an all-you-can-eat buffet (5) which had ice cream. I was satisfied that I'd identified the cause of my weight gain until I got on the scale half a month later only to see the number climb two pounds higher.

It was then that I came to terms with the only real reason I had gotten fat: I had been incredibly careless (translation: stupid) about my diet, health, and appearance. In fact, I had been so oblivious as to what was going on with my own body that the only reason I stepped on the scale in the first place was that I noticed my large-sized tee shirts were becoming tight after years of comfortable looseness.

December 12, 2012: 172 lbs – Never Again

The unintentional "before" photo.

At 172 lbs, I was the heaviest I'd ever been in my life. Being only 5'6" tall, it also officially made me "overweight." I'd gone up two pant sizes at the waistline since high school, and yet I was beginning to notice that my bigger jeans were starting to feel tight. My face had become pudgy, and I hated to see photos taken of me from most angles. On top of it all, my fiancée—who is taller than me and has a very lean build—and I were set to get married in a year and a half. I couldn't bear the thought of looking the way I did in our future wedding photos. I needed to make a change.

I wanted to get down to 150 lbs, but I had no real plan on how to accomplish it and I didn't understand the amount of work it would take to get there by the wedding date. In an effort to make this plan a reality, I simply decided to go for half-hour long walks outdoors during my lunch breaks at work and to reduce my meal portions (and lay off the desserts—I can't stress enough how much I love ice cream). I also started checking my weight every now and then and tracked it in a spreadsheet, which is how I'm able to recall so many dates and weights to you in this blog post.

These changes were far from specific, measured, or aggressive, but they were easy enough for me to adapt to. A few weeks before the wedding, I went to get refitted for a tuxedo and was delighted to learn that my original order was now too big for me. I managed to get down to 159 lbs on the day of my wedding.

June 14, 2014: 159 lbs – Don't Get Cocky

I'm pretty sure that a fitted tuxedo subtracts the 10 lbs that a camera adds.

I felt great about myself, and confident that I'd discovered the super-easy secret to my weight loss that would carry me even further down into a healthier weight without subjecting me to the terrors of actual exercise.

My wife and I honeymooned at a Mexican all-inclusive resort, and we took full advantage of it. Without needing to ever exchange money while on the premises, we ate and drank until we were full while getting very little physical activity outside of the occasional walk during an excursion. It was paradise, and my body paid dearly for it. After spending almost every day eating heartily and basking in the sun with a constant buzz, I returned home feeling a vague sense of alcohol withdrawal, sun poisoning, and with an extra 6 lbs of body weight. I was back up to 165 lbs.

Not at all discouraged, I dutifully returned to limiting meal portions and using my break at work to go for a walk outside. I managed to keep the habit up even as I moved on to a different job, where I was fortunate enough to work in an office located very close to a beautiful nature trail that encouraged my healthy habit. However, by the end of 2014 I was still hovering around 160 lbs.

So, going into 2015, I continued to make small adjustments to what I was eating and went on regular walks. Through these small changes I managed to get myself down to 153 lbs in the summer. This milestone, however, was short-lived, and I ended the year just about where I started, at 159 lbs. The winter weather and holiday treats had apparently gotten the best of me. I was getting annoyed.

At the start of 2016, I set another goal for myself to get down to 149 lbs by the end of the year. I made subtle, semi-conscious changes in my diet and exercise. For example, I bought ice cream to keep in the house much less frequently that year, I started trying and enjoying healthier foods, and I was taking our dog (adopted the previous year) for more walks. I also happened to lose about 5 lbs in the weeks following my job termination—because stress is a real killer and I kept myself busy around the house while I looked for work—but while getting terminated helped, I would not suggest it.

Through these small changes, I managed to get down to 149 lbs in the final days of 2016.

December 23, 2016: 149 lbs – A Brief Victory

Looking and feeling good.

Again, I felt great about myself. I was the lightest I'd been in years, I seemed to have finally broke through the cycle of loss and gain that I'd been in for years, and I'd done all of it with small, easily-managed changes.

It didn't matter, though, because although I promised myself that I would continue the trend and get down to 145 lbs, and although I was still checking my weight about once or twice a month, and although I didn't consciously ease up on my healthier lifestyle, almost all of my progress since 2012 was undone in 2017.

You see, while my weight hovered around 150 lbs for the first half of 2017, I spent the second half of the year watching it slowly increase without understanding why, especially since I'd invested in a set of dumbbells that I was using regularly. In retrospect, I now see how the smallness—the almost complete imperceptibility—of the changes that I'd made to get me down to 149 lbs is what also made it hard to realize when I'd gone back on those changes. I'd stopped going for walks as frequently so that I could work on freelance projects during my lunch breaks instead, I'd started keeping ice cream in the house more often, and I'd stopped worrying so much about my meal portions. These changes were so small that I didn't think about just how much they'd all add up.

The final day of the year arrived after a very sugar-filled holiday season, and I dreaded stepping on the scale. It was getting hard to look at photos of myself again, and I knew what that meant. I took a deep breath, stepped onto the scale, looked down at the number, and my heart immediately sank. It read 167 lbs.

December 31, 2017: 167 lbs – Time to Get Serious

The second unintentional "before" photo.

Okay, just to be clear, while 167 lbs is what the scale read, there's a lot of factors to take into account, like time of day. The reason I mention this is that I stepped on the scale the next day and was relieved to see a slightly less terrifying readout of 164 lbs. That being said, 164 lbs was still a huge letdown, and I was terrified that perhaps my "true" weight was actually closer to or even higher than 167 lbs. I kept the higher number in my head rather than using the lower one for comfort. I needed that fear to fuel what was to come. I needed to finally get serious about my weight loss.

I made two healthy decisions in the next several weeks. The first was to weigh myself more consistently. Rather than once or twice every month or two when I felt like it, I vowed to weigh myself on every Monday morning of 2018. I set a recurring alarm on my phone to remind me of this promise and hold myself accountable. I hoped that, through this habit, I would be able to more closely monitor my weight trends, through which I hoped to better understand what in my life was affecting my weight.

The second healthy decision I made was to wholeheartedly embrace a birthday gift from my family—a Fitbit Charge 2. I'd had some fitness trackers before, but aside from basic features like a pedometer, sleep tracker, and timer, they didn't do much to inspire me to be more conscious about my health. In fact, my first fitness tracker was purchased solely to prevent our insurance rates from going up (on the condition that I got 50,000 steps a day, which was easy to get without even trying, considering I went on a half hour walk almost every day). However, unlike my previous fitness trackers, this one included features such as a heart rate tracker and GPS (via my phone). For the first time, I felt like I had a tool that could give me the information about myself that I needed to succeed.

Realizing that my dumbbells weren't getting me anywhere on their own (and, in retrospect, may have actually contributed to my weight gain by tricking me into thinking that a quick dumbbell workout was using more energy than it possibly could), I started doing some floor exercises in addition to continuing to go for walks, snacking less, and limiting my meal portions.

While I made steady progress for a while that resulted in my weight dropping to 158 lbs in the beginning of April, it slowly bounced back up to 164 lbs by the end of that same month. It is then that I made the two biggest and healthiest changes of my life: I started tracking calories eaten and burned every single day, and I took up running.

Calorie Counting

Data!

Calorie counting was a no-brainer decision for me, as I'd occasionally experimented with tracking calories eaten in the past. In these instances, I would log calories consumed for a week or a month at a time, during which I'd have small realizations (like that eating half a frozen pizza is a really big caloric investment), and then I'd use what I learned to try and make healthier decisions going forward. However, the idea at the time was always to eat normally while tracking, and then once I felt like I had a better grasp of things I would simultaneously stop tracking calories and change my eating habits. After all, counting calories was tedious, and I didn't want to do it forever.

However, this would always produce decent short-term results, but never helped me long-term. I decided that I was going to not only count calories consumed, but compare that to my Fitbit's more accurate readout of my calories burned (thanks to the heart rate monitor), and then I would continue to monitor all of that information while making adjustments to my lifestyle.

After following my Fitbit's calorie-counting guidance on how to lose one pound per week, I stepped on the scale two weeks later and was frustrated to see no such change. I assumed I was either burning fewer or eating more calories than my Fitbit app calculated, despite my best efforts to track every little thing consumed. I needed to be more aggressive, especially since my wife just found out she was pregnant, which made me more determined than ever to shed the weight. I needed to be a healthy, active father in my child's life.

Please note that evidence shows that your weight actually increases in the first week(s) after you start exercising, due to your body adjusting to the new lifestyle. I did not know this at the time.

Running

Running charts and graphs!

While a part of me always liked the idea of running around outside in the fresh air for exercise, my few attempts to practice it had always ended in me completely winded and hating myself for putting myself through such torture. Still, after a bit of research online, running seemed like the most convenient and effective way for me to burn more calories and shed my weight. I was starting to consider giving it another go, especially because my older brother had gotten into running in the previous year, through which he'd lost a significant amount of weight and was now looking better than ever. I was inspired by his success, but also, frankly, I was jealous.

One evening, he and I took our mom out to dinner at a place known for its excessive use of bacon. While I felt like a greasy fat mess after eating just half of my plate, he ate his entire plate easily and remarked that, because of how active he'd become, he could easily eat more if he wanted to. Upon hearing that, I was not only jealous of his weight loss success, but also of his ability to put fatty food away. I told him that I was thinking about getting into running, but that my prior attempts had gone terribly because I always wore myself out to the point of exhaustion and then hated myself for it. I asked him if he had any advice.

"There's this app, called C25K—it means 'couch to 5k'—that can help you pace yourself. The app guides you from being a couch potato to running a 5k in three months, a half hour at a time. You should try it out."

My interest piqued, I downloaded the app that night. Then, after work one afternoon, I put on the running shorts that I hadn't worn in years, stepped outside, and followed the audio instructions of the C25K app. It started with a five-minute warm-up walk, followed by alternating 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes, finishing with a 5-minute cool-down walk.

I won't say it was painless (I was really out of shape), but the app made running seem more doable than I had expected. Feeling confident, I continued to run every other day, following the app's instructions, which increased the difficulty/duration spent running every week (at least until it started increasing every single run). I did this all in secret at first, but after a few successes I felt bold enough to tell my wife and brother of my new hobby.

May 2, 2018: 161 lbs – Running the Fat Away

Funny how much better you feel when you're not living like a fat slug.

Shortly after completing my first week of C25K, I made the decision to check and log my weight daily instead of weekly. This was largely because I wanted to have a better idea of my actual weekly weight (averaging the whole week) rather than just taking whatever I happened to weigh a morning after a (often food-filled) weekend as representative of that week's number. Additionally, weighing myself daily would help me to better understand the more immediate effects that my food intake and activities had in my weight. In other words, I wasn't seeing the progress I wanted to see, so I needed to keep a closer eye on myself.

At first this led to frustration, as I naively believed I would see the results of a day of particularly light calorie intake and heavy calorie burn represented on the scale the very next day, when in fact I would not. Through this frustration, I learned much more about how the human body actually works, such as the concept of water weight, the different major sources of calories (fat, carbs, and protein) and how the body doesn't treat them all equally. This in turn helped me to adjust my diet so that I wasn't just eating fewer calories, but that I was eating healthier calories.

As the summer days got hotter, I switched from running after work to running in the early morning. I woke up at around 4:30 am for a jog every other day of the work week. No excuses.

I received a boost of motivation to continue my journey in late June, when I managed to run for a whole 17 minutes straight for the first time in my life. Additionally, by eating healthier, continuing to run every other day, and steadily increasing the length I was able to run, I had the pleasure of watching my average weight slowly decrease every single week.

Out for a run, and apparently approving of it.

Then, on August 22nd, a little over three months after I started using the C25K app, I ran a full 5 kilometers in 31 minutes, and that week I averaged 156 lbs—a number I hadn't seen  on my scale since approximately a year before. From that point forward I knew with absolute certainty that I could do this. I had achieved my running goal and was well on my way to achieving my weight-loss goal, which was to have a healthy BMI (a weight of 148, specifically) by the time of my wife's due date of November 10th.

Still, the journey wasn't easy. Some days I'd get on the scale and feel utterly defeated by the sight of a number I really didn't like, and other days I'd try my hardest to run 5 kilometers only to have to stop short due to rain, exhaustion, thirst, or a sudden pain in my side or ankle. In fact, I only completed a handful of actual 5K-length runs that summer for various reasons, including not waking up and getting outside with enough time to run for a whole 30 minutes in the morning, running at a slower pace, and the simple fact that the 5K route I mapped for myself in my neighborhood relied on me passing by my house near the end of the route, and the temptation to go home just shy of a full 5K often admittedly got the best of me.

Another frustration was the lack of the fabled "runner's high"—the rush of endorphins that comes from prolonged exercise often described by runners as being as addicting as a drug high. As the summer months faded away and the morning runs grew colder and darker, I couldn't help but be upset that I'd not yet experienced the runner's high, and worried that I'd close out the year without feeling one at all. After all, even after months of conditioning my body to run, running still often hurt physically and completely broke me down mentally. Even when distracting myself with podcasts or audiobooks, I'd often find that my mind was determined to be my greatest enemy. Anywhere from half to a quarter of the way toward the end of my run, my mind would begin to tell me to stop, walk home, and spend the morning relaxing instead of putting myself through such a physical and mental strain.

However, I persisted. On September 28th, after running every other day for about five months, I finally felt my first runner's high, and it was amazing. I remember it vividly. I was coming toward the end of my run, I had just turned a corner to see a fresh street stretched out ahead of me, and I suddenly felt invincible. All the pain in my muscles and lungs went away, and I felt like I could run forever. The feeling was so great that I ended up breaking out into a full-on sprint for a whole block. I felt like I was flying. Once the high faded and my aches caught back up to me, I returned to a jogging pace and finished the route.

September 28, 2018: 152 lbs – The Final Stretch

Getting healthy helped me climb new heights!

My goal date was fast approaching, and while my weight loss was on schedule, I still had to be careful not to let that get to my head, slip up, and undo my progress. I was also racing against the clock of my wife's bulging belly. With each passing day, the chances grew higher and higher that she could go into labor, and while labor would mean we'd get the greatest gift imaginable, it would also completely alter our lives and routines in the process. I was determined to work as hard as possible so that my daughter would have a father who could keep up with her, be in her life a long time, and be living proof that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

As the days passed by, my weight continued to fluctuate—emphasizing my need to ignore the daily readings on the scale and instead focus on the weekly averages—and my runs remained strenuous, especially as the mornings grew colder with the approaching winter. A month before the due date, I begrudgingly decided it was smartest to switch from running outside in the freezing temperatures to exercising on our elliptical indoors. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I burned a similar—albeit slightly lower—number of calories from the elliptical as I did from running outdoors.

Then came another important date—my annual physical, and with it, the only official record of my weight. I paid extra attention to my diet in the preceding days, wore some of the lightest clothes I owned, and removed everything from my pants pockets as I stepped onto the only scale that would matter in my doctor's eyes. To my delight, it read 149.6 lbs, and I got to tell my doctor about everything I'd done in the past year to live up to my promise from the last time I saw him. According to him, I was now just barely in the upper-region of the healthy weight range for my height. I couldn't have been happier.

Except I was about to be.

You see, my wife had an appointment with a neonatologist at the very same time, and that neonatologist would voice concerns that our baby wasn't getting the nutrients she needed from the umbilical cord, which would mean she'd have to be induced into labor soon rather than waiting the 10 days left until the due date. That night, after the neonatologist consulted with our OB-GYN, our OB-GYN called us to ask if we were available to induce labor that same night.

You can read exactly how the next 28.5 hours went in my blog post about the birth of our baby girl, but the short version is that my life got very, very exciting.

Priorities shift when you become a parent. Suddenly my entire life revolved around this tiny little baby, and I had to put everything else in my life on the back burner as I spent the next two weeks on paternity leave getting used to my new life as a father. While there wasn't time to exercise regularly anymore (and I wanted to spend time with my daughter, anyway), I made sure to keep close watch of what food I was eating and continued to weigh myself every day.

Then, nine days after she was born came her original due date—the date by which I promised myself I would weigh 148 lbs at most. I stepped on the scale that morning convinced that it would read something like 148.6 or even 149.2 again, since it was hard to guess what I'd weigh at any given morning considering the slight fluctuations that a body goes through every day. Yet, to my surprise, on that morning, I saw the lowest number of my entire weight loss journey. It read 147.8 lbs. I had reached my goal weight by my goal date with 0.2 lbs to spare (again to be totally fair, I averaged 148.6 lbs that week, though that was still my lowest weekly average to date).

November 8, 2018: 147.8 lbs – Mission Accomplished!

The very intentional "after" photo.

In the months following when I reached my goal weight, a combination of the winter weather and caring for a newborn meant that my regular running/elliptical use completely fell by the wayside. Still, I managed to maintain my healthy weight, typically averaging around 147 lbs. I tried to get exercise in whatever small ways I could, such as going for walks at work and taking the stairs instead of the elevator if given the option (and I had to shovel a lot of snow since my snow blower was busted). Through this, I'd still been able to indulge in some less-than-healthy foods I love from time to time, which I credit to my newfound discipline for portion and frequency control.

Oh yeah, and I bought a bunch of new clothes that fit me way better now. Can you believe I fit comfortably in small shirts now?

The Journey Continues

When my birthday arrived, I noticed something different. For the first time in years, I didn't feel the least bit upset about being a year older. In fact, I felt healthier and more alive than ever! I made a decision that day that my rest period was over, and that it was time to recommit myself to my weight loss. After all, although I was finally maintaining healthy body weight, I was technically still only a few pounds away from being overweight, and I wanted to have my feet planted firmly in the healthy weight range. I went into my Fitbit app and updated my weight goal, setting it for 138 lbs, and I signed up to use my new job's fitness room, where I committed to running on the treadmill at least twice a week until the eventual warmer weather would allow me to run outside again. As an additional goal, I promised myself to run a 5K event in the 2019 calendar year, and as luck would have it, my new job holds a charity 5K every year. I started training immediately, and found it relatively easy to get back into the swing of things.

Though the journey may have taken me much longer than I would have liked (six years was not exactly what I had in mind), I think it's only evidence that I'm human. I try things, I fail, and if I really desire the end result I will try again using the lessons I've learned from my failures. Eventually, if I fail enough times, I will succeed.

Graph of every time I weighed myself since 12/12/12. Click to enlarge.

I am not special. My weight loss story isn't particularly interesting or unique, but I wanted to share it not only because I think it's important to celebrate one's own accomplishments, but also because I now join the countless others who are living proof  to anyone who doubts themselves that anybody can change their life for the better, and it is absolutely worth trying.

If even one person reading this is thinking about starting their own weight loss/health journey, this is my only advice to you:

Go out there and kick some ass.

-Ryan

From 2015 into 2016

Firstly, concerning my 2015 resolution

So there's this novel I've been working on since my last semester of college when a bunch of girls in my writing workshop class told me that they loved one of my short stories and wanted more. At the end of last year, I made the resolution to finally finish the first draft of that novel in 2015.

Today is the last day of 2015, and while I did finish the first draft of a novel this year (for the first time), it was for a completely unrelated story that I started and finished during the month of November for NaNoWriMo.

While I admit it's a huge bummer to not have a draft done of that college story yet, I'm proud of what I have accomplished in writing this year. I've written a 50,000 word novel from beginning to end, gotten a freelance job writing for a video game that I truly believe in, and am so incredibly close to finishing that college story that I can taste it!

And now, everything else 2015

This year, I've also been making more friends of coworkers than I thought I would, purchased a house along with my lovely wife, adopted the most adorable and fun dog on the planet, and continued to try eating more vegetables.

As far as my hobbies go, I've read several books (The Girl on the Train, Orange is the New Black, The Black Echo, The Girl with All The Gifts, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Survivor, etc.), seen countless movies (Mad Max, Star Wars, Ex Machina, Nightcrawler, Inside Out, Brooklyn, It Follows, Whiplash, The Guest, John Wick, and so many more), listened to a hell of a lot of music (Halsey, Grimes, The Weeknd, Panic! At The Disco, Melody Gardot, Purity Ring, Nero, and holy crap so much more), but played mostly one video game (Xcom: Enemy Unknown).

So, what about next year?

More. More of everything. More novel drafts, more freelance opportunities, more fun at work, more projects on the house, more playtime with my dog, more books to read, more movies to watch, more music to thrive on, more Xcom (the sequel comes out soon), and - of course - much more time with my amazing, caring, fun, can't-survive-without-her wife!

Maybe not as many more vegetables, though. We're starting to get down to the really weird ones.

Oh yeah, and a million times more Tactical Laser Tag. It has seriously been too long since I did that.

-Ryan

NaNoWriMo 2015 - A Recap

You see that up there? That's the tentative cover for the first novel I've ever finished writing. Somehow, I did it. Somehow, I wrote over 50,000 words in thirty days. Somehow, I won NaNoWriMo 2015.

How difficult was it?

It's weird to think about, because on one hand, the entire process was incredibly hard for me, especially when I would have a moment (and there were many) where I knew in the marrow of my bones that the novel wasn't good enough, and that everything I had written so far just wasn't living up to my expectations. On the other hand, though, the entire month's worth of writing seemed to fly by at the speed of light; I'd be writing one day, then look back in the novel to clarify some previously-established information only to be amazed at how far back I had to go to find it because I'd written so much!

Again, I owe it all to my hour-long lunch break at work, the uncomfortable cold weather which encouraged me to stay inside and write rather than going out for some fresh air, and most importantly my own discipline. You can see on the official word count charts below that I kept a pretty steady pace to stay on target every day while always compensating for a missed goal due to a busy weekend.

Is it any good?

The easy question to be asked when telling people that I've finished writing a novel in thirty days is, "is the novel good?" but I stand firm in my answer that whether or not the novel is good isn't the point, the point is that I worked hard at something I love to do. By writing an average of 1,697 words per day, I was practicing and (hopefully) slowly improving at my beloved craft. Creative writing isn't something you just can or cannot do, like any other skill it takes practice and determination to improve. That all being true, I consider myself to be my harshest critic, and let's just say that there will be revisions.

What now?

So where do I go from here? Well, I've still got to finish my years-in-the-making novel about a college-aged girl who winds up in a scandalous romance. It was my last new years' resolution to finish my first draft of that novel by the end of 2015, so I suppose I'll take this discipline I've developed and point it in that direction while I let The Dream House sit in the back of my mind for a month until I'm ready to re-open it and get to the revisions.

For those interested, you can read the current synopsis for The Dream House and even take a peek at a small synopsis here, just bear in mind this is a rough first draft.
-Ryan

Check out these related blog posts:
My First NaNoWriMo - 2013
My NaNoWriMo 2014 Recap
Preparing for NaNoWriMo 2015
Final Preparations for NaNoWriMo 2015

Ten Years in the Blink of an Eye

Origin Story

Ten years ago in 2004 I had to write a short story for my English class, but I put off writing it until the night before it was due. That night I typed out a story that was nearly a page long (635 words long) influenced by the images I saw in a Stephen King pop-up adaptation of "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon". I loved writing it and my teacher praised me for its creativity and quality for my age. That was the moment I knew that I wanted to be a writer.

The stories that I wrote shortly after that were forgettable, uninspired, dark, stream-of-consciousness, emotional outlets of my early teenage years. (Years later a college professor would help me realize that dramatic, emotional exposition was the essence of my writing voice, so I suppose those early stories are fitting.) I never cared much about those stories that immediately followed, but the first one would prove to stick in my brain for years afterward despite how much I'd grown and changed as a person.

Revisiting the Past

In fact, that first story stuck with me so much that I rewrote it from scratch five years later in 2009. This second version benefited from a higher skill level, imagination, and vocabulary. I was able to take the essence of the original, then alter and stretch it to just over two pages (1,527 words long). It was really fun to write again, and sort of acted like a perfect reflection of the skills I had gained in the past five years. It's one thing to compare old and new stories to see how much I've grown as a writer, but it's another thing entirely to compare old and new versions of the same story. I quickly decided that I would rewrite my first story every five years to see how much I could improve on the same idea with each new iteration as well as use them as a sort of photograph of my exact skill level and style as a writer at that time.

So here we are, five years after the first rewrite and ten years after the original. I remembered the idea to rewrite the story early this year, but put it off in favor for working on my novel and other short stories. Just last week it occurred to me that I only had one week left in the year in which to keep the promise to myself, so I quickly made it my next immediate goal to rewrite the story that started it all ten years ago.

The Same Story, Ten Years Later

The third iteration of the story yet again breaks down the original plot to its bare bones, then adds some new flesh based on my current style and interests. The newest version stretches to four whole pages (2,784 words long), mixes up the twist ending, adds more personality to the unnamed narrator, explores a bit more of an internal struggle in place of the external one, and overall accurately represents where I am at this stage in my writing.

It's amazing to realize that it's been ten years since I wrote that first story. In that time I've been through high school and college, got a job, met a girl and got married, started this blog, and have written a lot more stories. I have no idea what the future might bring, but I'm excited to see what form my first story takes on when I rewrite it another five, and then ten years from now.

Here's to many more years of writing.
-Ryan

NaNoWriMo 2014

Last year was the first time I participated in National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo, and my efforts back then were less than successful. I've participated again this year to better results, which goes to show just how much a person can improve their writing during a single year.

NaNoWriMo takes place every November, during which time everyone with an interest in writing a novel is invited to partake in the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. Local meetups and seminars are organized, online forums are opened up for discussion and help, and statistics are tracked.

Last year I worked on a novel I had started months before, which was then called "An Offbeat Affair," a story which I described on the NaNoWriMo website as:

"A first-person account of what it's like to be 'the other woman.' Mandy is a college senior who is sleeping with a married man, and she's not exactly feeling bad about it. Through her experience she learns more about herself and what she believes in, and finds love in a very unexpected place, which leads to her getting tangled up in a complicated relationship that could only exist in literature in the 21st century."

Unfortunately I got bogged down with rewrites and revisions of my novel, which ultimately led to me completing the month with a measly 13,102 words to show for it (though I actually wrote much more, I didn't count my revisions into my final word count, only the actual length of the novel). My logged statistics were thus:

My stats for NaNoWriMo 2013

It's quite depressing to look at, but that novel had and has been quite difficult for me to write, since it involves me constantly pushing myself to write something above my average skill level.

When November 2014 rolled around I barely remembered about NaNoWriMo at all. I hadn't planned to participate, since, as with last year, I initially thought of the event as a gimmick that detracts from the actual writing itself. It wasn't until I was about two weeks into the month that I realized that I'd been writing a much higher volume of words per day than ever before, so I decided to utilize NaNoWriMo simply to keep track of my word count.

Though you're meant to start and finish your novel during November, it wasn't as much of a stretch in 2014 to write a novel I had already started on, since I had only started it a week before November (as opposed to months before in 2013). Furthermore I had already made a promise to myself to do as little revising as possible for this novel, which is tentatively called "Eternal Paradise," and I describe on the NaNoWriMo website as:

"A teenage boy's uncle, best friend, girlfriend, and mother all die within the same month, and just when his confusion and anger start to become unbearable he is whisked away by a mysterious stranger to a tropical paradise in another world where nothing is as it seems."

I can say with pride that I had not only surpassed my word count for last year's NaNoWriMo at 22,403 words, but that number also surpasses the entire current word count for last year's still-in-progress novel.

My stats for NaNoWriMo 2014

I was writing almost exclusively during the week for an hour a day, averaging just over 1,000 words per hour (the listed words-per-day obviously includes the days I didn't write at all). This is very much thanks to the hour-long lunch break that I get at my new job, the freezing cold temperatures that have kept me inside for the lunch break, and the thrill I get of feeling a story move from my head, through my fingertips, and onto the computer screen.

Perhaps next year I will take NaNoWriMo much more seriously, and really dedicate myself to meeting the 50,000 word goal. I can't help but feel incredibly accomplished and enthusiastic about the future, and I wonder what novel I might be working on next year.

I also really, really hope to be finished with a novel and published by then.
-Ryan

Lack of Apples, NaNoWriMo, and a Rename

Just when I was starting to think I was running out of things in my own life to tell you about, and was about to resort to mindless rantings, a whole bunch of interesting things happened.

Firstly, my plans to plant an apple tree have unfortunately been cancelled, on account of me accidentally killing the apple seeds that I was so excited to plant.
You see, the instructions I had found online (which I will not be linking you to) told me to germinate the seeds in my refrigerator for at least six weeks. Last week would have been five weeks, so I checked up on them only to find that not only had the seeds not sprouted at all, but there were spots of mold forming on the damp paper towel around the seeds. I promptly threw them out and consulted a real live person who told me that I should have put them somewhere warm and in the sun -- you know, the type of place that plants actually grow.

Secondly, I've officially decided to take part in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) for the first time. I've signed up on the site and have started tracking my word count. The unfortunate irony, of course, is that I cannot count the words written in my blog, making the time it takes to write this very post a bit wasteful when you consider the difficult goal of 50,000 words of a story in a month. I'd been aware of NaNoWriMo in the past, but this was the first year that I realized that it's an actual organized event and not just a title slapped onto a time of the year.

Lastly, and tied to NaNoWriMo, is news about the novel I'm writing. I've been writing the novel based on my short story titled "The Other Woman," and so I was tentatively using the same title as the short story for the title of the novel. I never wanted to use that title, as the novel is about much more than the main character being "the other woman" (dating a cuckold/married man). For the longest time I couldn't think of one, but didn't stress over it since I'd barely finished the first two chapters.

On the NaNoWriMo forums there is a place for people to get help with the titles of their works, and I was tempted to use this resource since part of NaNoWriMo is putting the title, description, and excerpt of the novel you're writing in your profile. It embarrassed me to have such a simple and inaccurate title.
Instead of using the resource, I started brainstorming while simultaneously using an online thesaurus. I wanted a title that couldn't be thought of in five seconds, and I'd always been fond of titles of classic literature (I had joked a few times of calling my novel "Having Once Been Normal" simply because it takes a simple phrase and makes it sound elegant).

Long story short (arguably), I've thought of a new title for my novel, which, henceforth, shall be called "An Offbeat Affair".

Wish me luck in reaching 50,000 words in a month!
-Ryan

The Fourth Wall + Padded Cell

You can finally read one of my short stories (and an accompanying flash fiction story) for free online!

It's called "The Fourth Wall" and I've actually been blogging about it for a while (click that link to see all of my blog posts labeled "The Fourth Wall"). The first draft was written ‎February ‎19, ‎2012 for a project for my fiction writing night class, wherein we were to write and share a short story with the class. The professor said that the stories didn't need to be edited or even complete, but I decided that I needed to get the most out of the class and be taken seriously in the process, so I made it my own personal quest to write the best short story out of the entire class. (In my opinion, it was a tie between myself and a friend I made in that very class)

I took an old idea I had about a main character who know's he's the main character, and decided to write a story that was one huge inside joke to English students and my class in particular (including a scene that took place in a night class). The story became about a man who admits himself into a mental health center (referred to as a "nut house") because he was convinced he was the main character of a story that was plot-driven, and he wanted to control his own destiny.

It's a short story with incredible depth to it. There are three or four levels to the story's reality, depending on your interpretation, and it's written to be comedic and lighthearted while still exploring themes such as fate, love, and the philosophy of solipsism (a word I only learned just now).

The accompanying flash fiction story (one page long) is a sequel/summary of The Fourth Wall called "Padded Cell" which I wrote for my college literary and arts magazine simply so I could guarantee that I got published in the magazine (yes I know that sounds egotistical, but it worked).

In the end, these are two stories that have been very well-received, and will only take a short moment of your time to read.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to my GoodReads collection of self-published work and read them for yourself! Please leave comments/reviews on GoodReads or in this post, and share with your bookworm friends! I'd love to hear what you think and it's a great help to spread the words!

Enjoy! And I'm sorry it took so long!
-Ryan

Getting The Women's Perspective

Ever since I took a class called "Psychology of Women" in my second year of college I've considered myself a feminist.
I know, that word can have some negative connotations. My thought on the matter are less in line with bra-burning and more in line with something that writer George R. R. Martin once said:

That class, although focusing on the female psyche, helped me to learn more about myself and the world around me more than any other class I'd taken before or since. I immediately decided that I would try to do my part to represent women as they actually are (people) in the form that I know best; writing.

It's no secret that women are underrepresented in entertainment/media unless it comes to something "feminine". We see this every day: most television shows and movies feature a male lead character regardless of the role. Women are typically only featured as main characters in chick flicks; and to top it off they're always looking to solve their problems by finding the right man.

My plan became twofold; to write more stories with females as the lead character, and to portray them as people and not simply as women.
The first step has been fairly simple. There are still times when I prefer to write with male lead characters, but even then I'm always sure to write any female characters as capable and well-rounded human beings instead of needy and codependent stereotypes.
The second step has taken some practice. It's one thing to make women capable and well-rounded, (which I've found also makes stories more interesting since it's so contrary to the stereotype), but it's another thing to get their perspective just right.

I may have finally done just that.

I recently had my writing class read over my latest short story about "the other woman" in an affair. The story is told in the first-person perspective from her point of view. Overall, the class praised my successful effort to make the reader empathize with the woman who could be viewed as a home wrecker (though there was one bigoted student who insisted she was a "whore") as well as my successful effort to make the character interesting (one student said "I wish I could meet her").
But there was one compliment that I wasn't expecting to hear.

Something I had written into the story simply as a character trait and stylistic choice really resonated with the female readers. It turned out I had accidentally stumbled upon something of a universal truth among most young women that one reader described saying (something along the lines of) "why can't all guys think like this?". Many more of the women in the classroom immediately felt the need to interject with their own excited claims that they, too, felt exactly the same way as the character in the story. You cannot imagine the feeling of hearing such praise for something I'd not intended to be so relatable!

I'm not saying that I've got it all figured out. But it's absolutely refreshing to know that I was able to, if only for this once, think like a woman and see the world from her perspective.

Oh, and they thought the story was hilarious! You'll have to read it sometime.
-Ryan

A Slightly Larger Victory Dance

It's time for yet another small victory dance!

Last year I got a little poem about zombies accepted into my college student literary and art magazine. While that was fun, it was a bit bittersweet since I'm no poet and I wrote the poem in high school. I decided, as a result, that I needed to get something accepted into the magazine again, but only a prose piece that represented my current quality of writing.

I had just written a fantastic short story called “The Fourth Wall” that I wanted to share with everybody, but unfortunately it was a few thousand words too long. I decided to try my hand at some flash fiction (very short fiction).

The trick to flash fiction is that you have a very limited area in which to tell a story. If a novel is a cake, and a short story is a slice of that cake, flash fiction is one small bite of the cake.

My idea was to write a series of moments.

Of course, if I can only give the readers a taste of the cake, that taste has to be rich and delicious and lousy with flavor (I’m using “lousy” in the traditional meaning here, which is “full of”. My prose stylistics teacher would be proud). Inspired by some very small ideas for stories that I’d been saving in my memory banks, I decided that the weight my flash fiction needed was an emotional tie that everyone understands; the loss of innocence.

I wrote six flash fiction stories about the moments that change us forever, titled each of them after songs by Death Cab For Cutie, and called the collection “Crooked Smiles”. I submitted only five of these six stories, not because one was too incomplete or personal (on the contrary, I felt they were all incomplete and made sure to submit the most personal ones), but because I felt one of them didn’t fit with the rest.

After submitting these five stories, I read them over and realized that they did not represent either my quality or style of writing and instantly regretted submitting each and every one. I tried to be artsy and poetic, when I’d rather be informal and direct.

With the deadline rapidly approaching, I went back to “The Fourth Wall” and quickly conceived of a story that I could write from the main character’s perspective recounting the events that led him to where he is and then contemplating his next move. It would be both a sequel and a summary of the story I originally wanted everyone to see. I wrote it out in one sitting, (titled it “Padded Cell”) looked over it once the next day for edits, and submitted it.

A few months later I heard back, the magazine had accepted two of my submissions! One of which, “Steadier Footing”, was from the collection and the other was “Padded Cell”. The irony was that I thought “Steadier Footing” was the least likely of all the stories to be accepted as it held the least personal significance.

I hope to release "Crooked Smiles" soon,

-Ryan

Last Proper Summer Ending

Well this is the end to my last summer vacation ever.
But it's also the beginning of my last school year ever, and since I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy, I choose to think of it that way.

Last summer I gave a brief summary of the books I had read over the summer, of which there was only one. This summer I am pleased to say that I passed my personal record of books read for pleasure in a short timespan (in this case, Summer) to four and a third ... and some other random pages.
But that doesn't really accurately portray how much more I actually read, considering the first three books were massive novels which together made up The Millennium Trilogy. Each of those novels had above 600 pages or so (depending on the cover and edition) and were an absolutely massive undertaking for me to read.

Easily three of the best books I've ever read.
(image from here)

I had always thought that I was more of a writer than a reader; that I just didn't like reading. Well it turns out instead I had just never found much that I actually loved reading until now (I raced through the second book of the trilogy very quickly).
I followed up The Millennium Trilogy with the latest book by Chuck Palahniuk: Damned, which was an excellent change of pace from the seriousness and drama of the trilogy. It's about a fat thirteen-year-old girl who has died and gone to hell. It was a quick and easy read which I started and finished in a weekend (yet another personal milestone).
Then I moved on to  reading a book that was very important to me at one time, but after getting a third of the way through it I stopped (you can read more about that in my previous post).
Finally I moved on to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but it's not as interesting as it sounds and the novelty wears off quite quickly, and I've since abandoned reading that as well.
It can also be noted that I actually picked up and read the first few chapters of Fifty Shades of Grey somewhere in between all of that, but once all the "does he actually like me?" tension wore off and it turned into erotica I lost interest (though I admit it was quite good up to that point).

So where do I go from here? Four finished books and three unfinished seems like quite the ratio, but the fact of the matter is that I'm still figuring exactly what it is that I like to read, since I'm somewhat new to this. My goal is to next read the classic novel by George Orwell: 1984, which I look forward to very much as I've wanted to read it for quite some time now.

And of course on the side I continue to write. As those who follow me on Twitter saw, I achieved a milestone in my novel a few days ago (which relates to this old post), I've been fiddling with some flash fiction, and I've been making slow but steady steps towards publication of a certain something.

So my "last summer vacation" turned out to be a pretty good one, overall.
-Ryan

A Small Victory Dance

Well it's about time I accomplished something significant, don't you think?
The good news is that I finally did!
Each year I submit a little something for consideration to be published in my college annual literary magazine, and every year I hear nothing back.
Finally that has changed.
This year I submitted about five of what I thought were my best poems, because despite poetry not being my main interest, I didn't have any short stories good enough to submit. After waiting longer than I was told I would have to wait to hear back, I found out that my poem "Aim for the Head" was accepted into the magazine (you can read it here)!

Don't worry, the poem is about zombies. Not real people.
(I drew this. Copyright Ryan Matejka)

The punchline is I actually submitted that poem last year and heard nothing back.
Also it was written during my junior year at high school.
Also I haven't cared to write a poem in about a year. So here's a haiku:

My poetry sucks
I would rather write fiction
But haikus are fun

So yeah, I'm getting published. Next year I guess I'll submit some stories and hope for the best.

Cool beans.
-Ryan

The First Year In Review

One year ago Today, this blog's first post went live.
In it I talked about the very first blog I started, and why I was starting this one. I expressed that I did not expect anyone to find it interesting to read when I said: "So maybe I have high hopes and low expectations, but isn't that what a lot of great achievers start out with? A dream with a lack of confidence?".
I am happy to report to my past-self that last month I had a record high of 161 views, compared to the 40 I had in my first month, I'd say that's progress.

My First Blog ("Yackemflaber" is my web name)

It was after that post that I immediately got into talking about my novella, which became somewhat of a long-running subject of my blog for the past year.

I also enjoyed scattering in some of my philosophies on certain subjects within writing. I even played around with talking about a childhood favorite video game. Sometimes I even confessed about something from my personal life.

Also in the past year, this blog has undergone some pretty notable changes, among them is that I changed the name, merged it with my website, and added twitter.

I believe this image is relevant yet again.

Believe it or not, with everything I've done, there are actually two blog posts that never saw the light of day. One was never written but was going to be a book review for one of my recent favorites, and one actually a pretty significant and mostly-finished post about how a particular idea of mine was drastically changing and taking shape before my very eyes.

So what's remained the same among all these changes? Well I still write in a personal journal as often as I can (though that's becoming less and less often it seems), I still have a passion for writing, I still have a passion for my fiancée, and I still love blogging.

So what do I see in the year to come? Well I hope my readers will be pleased to know I intend to do more of the same, and maybe try a few things I didn't get around to trying last year (like the book review, does anyone have an interest in reading that sort of stuff?). I also hope to upload even more content to the story, poem, and humor pages (though that all depends on dozens of factors). I'd even like to try doing something with videos in my blog, even if it's just linking to one of my recent YouTube videos and going on about it.

This photo is here for the sole purpose of keeping your eyes interested.

Lastly, I'd like to blog even more often in the next year. I currently average 2 blog posts a month, but would love to bring that up to three or four, which I think will be very possible because I typically have a lot to talk about, and maybe that means expanding this blog to talk about my other hobbies more (like video games, books, and movies), but we'll leave that up to time to tell.

Happy First Anniversary to this Blog! May there be millions more!
-Ryan

21 and Reaffirmed

Two days ago I turned 21 years old. One day ago I got to sit in class while my fellow students and professor critiqued a work of short fiction I wrote.

Let's start with the obvious. I live in America where the drinking age is 21 and the culture around alcohol encourages getting drunk and having a party. For the record I've never really drank before, aside from a sip or two of some things more recently to see if I would potentially enjoy the taste. Therefore I didn't feel the need to get drunk on my birthday because I've never seen the benefit of becoming less rational and in control of myself.
I spent the night before my birthday hanging out with some friends, playing pool and video games, and trying out a few drinks. A friend of mine offered to mix me a drink, but didn't tell me the alcoholic content of it and I didn't feel the need to ask. One minute I was fine and the next I was quite goofy to say the least.

Pictured: The drink in question ... glowing.

Yes there are videos. No you cannot see them.
While I still stand by my opinion that there's no rational reason to get drunk, I admit I see the appeal now.
But beyond that my birthday weekened was amazing. I had a total of three parties; one with my family, the one mentioned above, and one the day of my birthday which wasn't a party for me but it turned out everyone there knew about it. I had a different cake for each, the highlight easily being a professionally designed cake that looked exactly like an old book supposedly written by me that tasted like a chocolate peanut butter cup.

Pictured: A cake (courtesy of http://www.itzmyparty.com/).

Overall it was a fantastic birthday weekend, and I'd like to thank those of you reading this who were either a part of it or even simply who wished that I have a happy birthday.

The fun didn't stop there, however. As mentioned in my previous post I was scheduled to listen to my night class critique a short story I wrote last night. They saved mine for last, and so I was nervous but excited to say the least. I had heard positive feedback from some family members and friends I had shown the story to,  but to hear an entire classroom (and published professor) critique my story seemed like a whole other ballgame. I hoped it was so good that the class would end up analyzing the story instead of critiquing it, which has always been a dream of mine that my stories would be so deep that future students would study them. My expectation was that the classroom would instead do as it always did and critique the story, pointing out what they liked and didn't like about it whilst offering suggestions on how to improve it.

For the most part my dream came true.

Pictured: The stack of critiques I was given to look over.

While there were definitely things mentioned that I could do to improve the story, there were no real particular improvements to be made ... more like general suggestions for deeper meaning and clarity. Instead my story inspired the classroom to dissect the story as best they could and the professor to give a short lesson on postmodernism and meta-fiction. Even the most pessimistic guy I've ever known who sits in class and rips every other story we've read to shreds seemed to have very little to say about his distaste in the short story.
What I got from this experience (besides a 50-minute-long audio recording of the analysis itself) was much more than euphoria from excessive praise. I got some amazing feedback that has inspired me to make some tweaks to the story and the inspiration to push onward in my quest to become a published author.

This new year is looking up already.
-Ryan

Over 100 Monthly Views!

I have some fantastic news to share! As of this month, November 2011, I have surpassed 100 views in a single month!

Now I admit I have no idea if these are all unique views or not, but the fact of the matter is that this is still an achievement for my small blog. The exact number of views prior to this post is 115, here are the facts (click the image to enlarge):

As you can see, the last time we came close to touching the 100 view line was in April. The largest reason for April being so "successful" despite being only the second month of my blog is that in April I posted three major posts and one minor update. This makes November's success even greater because (until this post) I have half as many posts for the month, which is the number I've been trying to maintain for each month, but even more views than in April!

So I would of course like to thank all of you who read my blog's every update, and I would love to especially thank those who comment on my posts occasionally! As you can see the next major milestone will be to surpass over 1000 views total, so let's keep those views coming into the next month and all the way into my blog's future!

As a side-note I'll mention that I am officially done with the planned changes to my blog; I've brought over all the content from my website (and then some) and changed the name and URL of the blog so that everything makes sense and is all in one place. Of course I will always be trying to update the blog as much as possible to make it even better, but for now I have nothing major planned.

Thank you yet again.

-Ryan

Ten Thousand Words

Yesterday I achieved a personal milestone (is that the correct phrasing? I don't do this very often).

I deserve one of these filled with macaroni and cheese.

As I was writing my latest short story (which I have decided to describe from now on as a "Lifelong Tragic Love Epic" because that sounds cool) I glanced down at the bottom left corner of Microsoft Word to see that I had added a digit to the "Word Count" counter. I am in only the third section/chapter out of a planned five, but I've surpassed ten thousand words!




The statistics of this unfinished Lifelong Tragic Love Epic:

Pages: 16
Words: 10,133
Characters (no spaces): 44,027
Characters (with spaces): 53,858
Paragraphs: 304
Lines: 721

To put this into perspective, my longest story before this was a whopping 4,721 words total.

Speaking of that 4,721 word story, post below if you want me to comb through it once more quickly and then upload it to my website by the end of the month. I don't think I've currently got any stories on my site so it would be a great way to show you exactly whether or not I am as good as I think I am (although it was first written during my 8th year of school and was simply covered in a new coat of metaphorical paint several times over the next 4-5 years, so it doesn't exactly showcase my current skill level).

Writing has never felt so rewarding.
-Ryan