My Never-Ending Journey to Figure Out Who I Am As A Writer

I feel like this is a redundant statement on my blog at this point, but I've had a bit of an epiphany in my writing recently.

Perhaps that's what the story of a young writer is meant to be; a series of epiphanies that eventually lead to some profound work of art. If so, then my brilliant work of art is just around the corner, because I've been having an epiphany just about every month lately. Sorry I haven't taken the time to tell you about all of them. At this point I couldn't even tell you off the top of my head what they are, I'm just so epiphanous.

But enough tooting my own horn.

This Novel I've Been Writing For Three Years Doesn't Represent The Type Of Novels I'd Like To Write

Oh boy. I really shot myself in the foot three years ago and I didn't even notice the gaping hole until a month ago.

You see, although I started writing my current work-in-progress novel out of genuine interest and excitement, in retrospect I think I took my peers’ praise of the original short story a bit too literally. Rather than interpreting their praise and desire for more as “this was good, I want more of this story,” I wish I had heard it more like “you’ve got talent, keep it up.”

You (also) see, I distinctly remember going to my then-fiancée now-wife with this praise and struggling to make use of it. "They want more of this story," I said (verbatim - because nobody can prove otherwise). "The thing is that I don't know if I have any more to tell. Then again, I'd like to try writing a novel, so why not start with one that people already want to read?"

Yes, dear readers, I chose to write a story about a neurotic college girl in a casual sexual relationship with a married man as she begins to fall in love with his wife because I desperately wanted to be read, not because I felt the magnetic pull to get this story out of my head and onto the page. For this I am somewhat ashamed to admit, except not, because I'm an egotistical narcissist. Anyway, eventually I thought of more story to tell, so I set forth starting to write it despite it not exactly being in my wheelhouse.

The thing is that just about all of my short stories before that one were much darker in tone. They often featured emotionally-detached nihilists who were faced with an extreme and emotional situation, such as:

• An emotionally detached nihilist gets caught cheating on his fiancée with someone else's wife by that woman's husband, who's drunk and happens to be carrying a gun because he's a cop. People die.
• An emotionally detached nihilistic writer and his emotionally detached nihilistic female independent editor/publisher get locked in a hotel room by some supernatural force, are mildly tortured by the same unseen force, grow closer together, but then she finds evidence that he might be behind it all in some creepy effort to seduce her. She wakes up and it might have just been a nightmare, except it also might not have been.
• An emotionally detached nihilist gets a visit from the grim reaper who tells her she's got one week to live. She becomes depressed, angry, stops caring for herself, and at the last minute manages to trick the grim reaper into taking her innocent sister's life instead of hers. That bitch.
• An emotionally detached nihilist living in a safe zone in the post-zombie-apocalypse gets infected but retains most of her humanity. She eats a lot of people. This one's actually pretty funny.

And those are just a few of the ones I actually completed writing. I've got a huge document full of other ideas I never got around to. Can you believe none of those have been accepted into a literary magazine? Conspiracy!

Anyway, I think that darkness is a mood that I really thrive in either despite or because of my lighthearted carefree exterior. As a coworker recently told me, "sometimes you just have to have an outlet for darkness in your life."

So much darkness! He could explode at any minute!

Anyway, although the main character in Nothing But The Boots is still kind of an emotionally detached nihilist, she's pretty upbeat about it and nothing dark really happens.

What's more is that I've recently become obsessed with space. No, not the dimensions of height, depth, and width within which all things exist and move, but outer space. More specifically, I'm drawn to what I've recently learned is termed "hard science fiction," or science fiction stories that focus on scientifically plausible concepts, physics, and possibilities. This fascination started growing on me around the time that I realized that Interstellar may be one of my favorite movies of all time, and it led to me reading more science fiction and overall just being fascinated with the stuff.

The problem here is that Nothing But The Boots is an incomplete work that I've put years of work into and is not set in space. I really, really want to write something set in space. I've got about three relevant novel ideas already queued up and one of them has potential to be a series. Seriously guys, this might be my true calling.

Side-note; I used to think sci-fi was only a stupid genre for uber dorks who liked reading about green women with three boobs fighting space worms. Why didn't anybody tell me there was another way, or just sit me down and force me to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey?! I could have avoided years of self-discovery and aimless wandering!

So here's the plan. I’m still going to finish this draft of my novel, because it’s been three years and I need to prove that I can write a novel that makes sense and deliver on my promises to so many people. Then I'm going to send it out to as many publishers and agents as possible, get it published under a totally different name so as to not get anyone's hopes up when my next novel is about a group of people getting stranded on a derelict space ship and killing each other off instead of a whimsical sequel to Nothing But The Boots in which the main character finds herself in yet another wacky sexual conundrum.

Then again, this could all change in an instant, right? I'm having epiphanies on the regular now. Maybe tomorrow I'll realize that I prefer writing about emotionally-distant nihilistic sexually adventurous green women who get stranded on derelict space ships and are forced to literally eat their own parents, but until that day comes, that idea is free to anyone who wants it.

So yeah, I'm pretty much living in constant mental agony of being torn between what I feel obligated to write and what I know in my heart I need to write. It's fun.

Read some of my short stories based on writing prompts at https://www.reddit.com/r/Yackemflaber/

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

A Clearer Vision Means Throwing Out Hours of Work

I've written before about my devotion to writing to the best of my ability, and how that sometimes means throwing out hours of work for the greater good.

I went through a chunk of time in the middle (more like the beginning) of writing An Offbeat Affair where I didn't write anything. This was partially due to a lack of time, but it was also because I didn't feel comfortable moving forward until I had a better idea of where I was going.
You see, gentle reader, despite having planned out my novel from beginning to end, the process of writing is nothing like making a blueprint for a building. It's much more fluid and dynamic; nothing is set in stone. The story takes on a life of its own and you milk that life for every word its worth - initial planning be damned!

Sometimes, as was true in this case, the story was taking on a life of its own that was quite terrible. I fell into old habits of giving characters traits that were nothing more than gimmicks. It makes sense why I did - I'm used to writing short stories where a character's intentions and psychology don't go nearly as deep as they do in a novel. In a short story I can get away with a character having a gimmick, because the story won't go on long enough for you to realize how shallow a character trait it really is.

I didn't even realize this at first - what I realized was that my story was uninteresting and I had no idea what the characters were really like. I didn't even know what fueled my own main character. Luckily, all I had to do in her case was to go back to the short story I'm basing this novel on and examine her from a new perspective. Her actions could no longer be described simply as "interesting" or "funny," as they had been when all I was concerned with was a short story. I needed to understand why it was interesting or funny. I needed to get into her head and see where she was coming from.

The other characters weren't as easy. In the short story you barely get a glimpse of each one; they hadn't been fleshed out nearly as much as my main character. For her roommate (who actually only appeared in one of my other short stories), who suffered from the most from gimmicks and stereotypes, I had to re-imagine her mental state in a way that was different from her stereotype, and added to the story in a way that the main character did not. I ended up taking a bit of advice from Pixar (yes, the studio that made Toy Story); the best stories come out of forcing two complete opposites to interact with each other (for Toy Story - Buzz and Woody being the new vs. the old).

With a better understanding of who my characters were, I set off to edit what little I'd written of the novel, only to find that there were entire scenes that no longer made sense. As I said earlier, I'm not one to dwell on something I've spent hours working on if it doesn't end up adding to the overall story (a characteristic I surely hope an editor will someday love about me). I've thrown those scenes out, and am going to approach the story from the new understanding of what these characters are like and how they would interact with each other. Throughout this entire process, I've also begun to re-imagine what the ending might be like - again deviating from my initial plan,

So what do I hope you get out of all of this? After all, my blog shouldn't just be me shouting out my struggles and triumphs into a great empty abyss.
If you are a writer: I hope that this inspires you to look at your story with a more critical eye - to realize that parts of your story that you love just may be holding it back from greatness. Realize that your story can be better, but first you need to be willing to let go of what's holding it back.
If you're not a writer: take this example to your own life. Is what you're doing going to be worth it in the end? If you spend hours a day sitting in front of the computer or television, ask yourself if it's worth it. Realize that you can be better, but first you need to be willing to let go of what's holding you back.

If you're an editor: please give me money to write this story for you.
-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

Continuing the Women's Perspective

For those of you who've been following this blog for at least a month, you know that I wrote a short story from the perspective of a woman that my college class loved. For those of you who have just joined us, feel free to re-read the post in which I talk more about that (that big link I cleverly hid in the text of my blog).

One thing it seems I failed to mention is that some of the women in my class started suggesting, or even demanding, that I continue the story, if only for one more scene. Obviously I had struck a chord and written something these students not only identified with, but felt the need to be completely lost in.

I don't take this lightly. This is the highest compliment I've ever received regarding my writing.

I knew I'd have to get around to writing more eventually, but for the time being simply decided I would add only one more scene to the short story, and get around to planning a novel in the future when I felt more prepared for such a task.

A creative mind is rarely a patient one in this kind of situation.

At completely random times during the following days, an idea would form out of thin air that my brain latched on to and held tightly for use in the novel. They were not simply "ideas," though, they matched the tone and plot that I was going for perfectly. It was as if I was finding hidden pieces of a puzzle that I had long given up on, and I suddenly needed to complete the puzzle.

Having received the writing program Scrivener as a graduation present from my parents (thanks mom and dad!) I set out a bit of time for myself one day and plotted the outline for what I expected to be a three-part story. I've never really attempted to outline a whole novel before, but Scrivener made it so easy and fun that once I started I became completely consumed with the task! After an hour or so, I had a draft outline for a novel in four parts with potential for a sequel!

To put this into perspective, the last time I tried to write a novel I saw it as a challenge, and eventually lost interest in it, instead opting to write a collection of short stories. This time, I see it as something incredibly fun to do, feel more capable and ready to do it, and it happens to be based on one of those short stories! In short, I feel a bit better about this attempt at a novel than my last.

A usual, I'll keep you updated, and thanks for reading!
-Ryan

What I'm (Apparently) Up To

So I've been writing a novel for my class, and I must admit I'm not as interested in it as I originally was.
I'm not giving up on it completely, but I've admittedly been dragging my feet while writing it and will let it sit on the back burner; writing bits and pieces as I get the urge to do so. Luckily I've managed to keep writing other things on the side as well.
I absolutely love writing short stories, which is complimented by the fact that a lot of the ideas I have are simple and meant for short stories (or perhaps I simply don't attempt to flesh them into larger narratives since I'm so content with short story-writing). In the past few weeks I've finished two short stories (one of which is twice the length of the other), and while they're still drafts full of imperfections, I'm incredibly proud of them and enjoy reading them myself.

So apparently I'm writing a collection of short stories. In the back of my mind I'd always wanted to do this, but I didn't consciously decide to do so. Another interesting thing to note is that the short stories I've written are all connected by characters and a few themes.

Again, I didn't plan to do this. I started overlapping characters because it was easier than coming up with new character names and back stories, and because it's just fun to have the stories connect with each other. As for overlapping themes, this came about because, as I'm getting more and more into writing, I'm discovering what themes and topics are most important or impactful to me at this stage in my life.

This is especially fantastic because it means that putting the stories together into a collection would make even more sense and give them a sort of adhesiveness to each other. It's also great because my fiction stories act somewhat as a nonfiction biography of my mind; they're what I'm thinking of.

On that note, I've also been slacking on my project that biggest impacts you, dear readers; actually releasing something of mine for you to read.
I want you to be reassured that this is happening, but I'm procrastinating because I want it to be perfect (and I'm admittedly a bit scared). Sorry for the delay, but keep checking back here for updates!

It feels nice to have things accidentally fall into place.
-Ryan

A Novel Idea

Though I've always stuck to writing short stories, I've been slowly building up a catalog of ideas for novels in my head.

This semester of college (my last semester, for those counting) I've got an Advanced Writers' Studio class in which the students are to pick a personal writing project to work on through the semester and turn in about fifteen pages of at the end.

My first thought to this assignment was "wow, only fifteen pages? Sure that's going to take some time but given how much short story writing I've done recently, it shouldn't be too difficult". After all, I've got three "finished" short stories that I feel represent my current level of quality, and a fourth one (first draft) halfway done. If I wanted to, I could even turn those all in and have an easy semester.

Then I realized, that's not why I signed up for this class.

Advanced Writers' Studio is a capstone writing class meant for students majoring in writing, which I am not. It is not required for me to graduate in any way, I'm taking it as an elective. I signed up for Advanced Writers' Studio so I could take advantage of my last semester and improve my writing, maybe even challenge myself.

As much as I didn't want to start writing my first novel until I felt I was talented enough to make it publish-worthy, I realize that, aside from the normal struggles, there's not much challenge left for me in short story writing. That's not to say that I've perfected the craft and that there's no room for improvement, it's just that I've gotten too comfortable with writing short stories. I need to move on to the next level. I need to use this class to improve myself.

I've got a novel in mind that excites me to think about. It's a dystopian novel with social commentary, which means I get to invent an entire world and give it real meaning.

Maybe I'll surprise myself.

-Ryan

New Short Story Incoming!

Back in September I talked about how I was starting to realize that the more I wrote of my novel, the less sense it made. Then in October I talked about how I came to decide that I would start it over for the second time.

I can tell you that I've finished the first draft and have moved on to the second, and it's turned out pretty well so far. I have yet to get any feedback from anyone, but I'm confident it will be positive.

The novel which was previously tentatively titled "The Slightest Moment" and sometimes referred to here as the Megan and Danny Novel is now a short story called "Asshole Liar", which sounds a lot more interesting already.
Here's the synopsis:
A short story about a man in the middle of cheating on his fiancee, thinking back on what made him the way he is, and knowing that soon he'll have to pay for what he's done.

I wrote the story partially as a project for a writing class, in which I was to mimic the style of a contemporary author, so those of you who enjoy the style of Chuck Palahniuk should find it enjoyable.
I will be posting that short story on this blog/site so that everyone can read it for free once I'm confident that it's ready to be released to the public, and I'll make sure to let you know as soon as that is.

Maybe I'll have it out in time for the holidays?
Remember to follow me on Twitter if you're into that sort of thing!
-Ryan

Starting Anew ... Again

Wow, yeah. I hate to do this again so soon, but you should have seen this coming.

Yup, I started over. Again. What started off as a crappy novella, and was then restarted to become a badass novel, turned into a bland mediocre novel.
So now I'm restarting it to be a short story.
As was made obvious by my last post I wasn't happy with where my novel was going. I wasn't completely sure what to do until I let my amazing, smart, and insightful fiancée read the draft.

Boy am I glad I had her read it. She came back at me with the brutal honesty that a wannabe author needs to hear from the people that care. Two of the characters didn't make sense (and one came off as a bitch), the main character's motives didn't make any sense, and the plot was thin as a wafer (which I knew from the beginning, but I hoped depth would occur naturally -- it didn't).
So, like the last time this happened, I've gone back and started over with no regrets; I knew what had to be done.
I've thought of an angle that will make the story way more my style, way more fun to write, and I swear that if it doesn't work out this third time then I'll give up on it for good. However after already starting the rewrite I'm really feeling that the third time is the charm.

Yes, I liked the direction that the second draft was going, and I liked that I was trying my hand at a new style, but it feels so good going back to a style (and the short story format) that I'm familiar with.

I swear this is the last time I restart this story.
-Ryan

Certainly Uncertain

My future is certainly, like anyone else's, uncertain.

As of very recently my interest in writing has been pulling me in multiple directions that it previously never did before. I've been writing a novel and flash fiction stories, I've been pursuing the idea of self-publishing, I've been looking into freelancing for a particular website, and just today I had a great idea for another short story to write. I guess my transition from being a gamer is coming on stronger than even I thought.

With all of that coupled with this upcoming year being my last year at school, my future is headed towards me faster than ever before. It seems that the question of "what will I be when I grow up?" will soon be answered.

I've come a long way, and there's still so much to come.

I am frightened.

It's not that I've been thinking I'll be successfully rich and famous, but the thought of failure still lingers in my mind like a ghost under a bed, and often I'm afraid to set my foot on the ground. Just because I write for the fun of it (though I admit at this stage in life the idea of profiting from it is alluring as well) doesn't mean I won't be completely shattered if nobody wants to read a word I write, and I can't help but wonder if I'll even have the yearning to keep on trying if I miserably fail time after time.

You have no need to fear, of course. I know that the only direction to move is forward. I must set out to fail if I want to succeed. As scary as this is, this is what I love doing.

I'm so fortunate if only to know and be able to do what I love.

-Ryan

Flash Fiction and Publishing

A while ago I wrote about some experimentation that I wanted to get into. Among this was the idea that "I want to try some of the quicker things first, such as flash fiction, since I have dozens of simple scenarios or stories that I want to tell before I lose interest in them".

Well I'm finally getting around to that. I've written one story down that's a page long (single-spaced) and have plans for a few others to write in the near future. The idea is to use these micro-sized stories to give myself a break from the brain-gymnastics of writing and planning out my novel as well as to get some completed content out there into the world as soon and quickly as possible.

I plan on getting some form of new content up on the site before the summer ends, so right now the two likeliest possibilities are my finished short story or a collection of flash fiction stories. Of these two I really have no idea which has a better chance of being released by the end of the summer, as I need to talk to my editor regarding my short story, and I need to have enough completed works of flash fiction to justify a collection. I also hope to self-publish both of these on e-readers.

Wish me luck!
-Ryan

Finding My Genre

Think of your favorite author. Now think about what kind of books they write.
I venture to say that the majority of popular authors have a specific genre, or narrow set of relatable genres, that they primarily stick to writing. Even if they don't stick to the same genre they probably stick to the same tone or style because it's what they love to write most or it's what they're good at.
I'm at an age where, without the pressure of monetary gain or fans to please, I don't even know what my genre, style, or tone is.

Figuring out which direction to go can be hard.

When I first started writing as a serious enthusiast (around age twelve) I most enjoyed writing Stephen King-style horror short stories because that was all I could grasp having not read much and understanding that Stephen King was a popular author that I had heard of. I assumed it was the smartest person to mirror, but I also knew that I had no idea how to write anything longer than what was, in retrospect, flash fiction.

Now I've written a postmodernist meta-fiction short story with an ironic sense of humor, a romantic love-epic, and have plans to write a science-fiction trilogy, a dystopian future novel, and a drama or two. Not to mention that I have random little ideas to base short stories on weekly, some serious and some humorous. Besides the obvious fact that I have no idea what my style is or will be yet, if I become published for one or all of these ideas, how will people see me? I don't want to settle on one genre, and while that may change over time, right now I have too many fun ideas for all sorts of stories.

For now I guess I'll take things one step at a time.
-Ryan

You Can't Please Everybody

I read through that stack of critiques from my fellow students regarding my latest short story.

This stack.

I admit I didn't go through that entire stack because some of it is copies of my story with edits written in (instead I read all the critiques), and I'm still thoroughly going through my professor's edited copy which I hold to be more valuable than the other edits which I may not even read through unless a person's critique prompts me to.

I am happy to report that I got a lot of good suggestions and input. Some of it was said in class and some wasn't. I made a list of all the suggestions and problems I found most useful, and I even made a list of the names of people who loved the story beyond an average amount, calling it the  "Fan List". There are a total of six names on the Fan List.

I also made a list of the people who did not like the story at all. Calling it the "Hit List" (sarcastically, I assure you). There are two names on the Hit List.

The class is 25 students, counting myself. That means 24% of the class loved my story, 8% hated it, 64% enjoyed it a normal amount (or didn't specify their opinion), and 4% wrote it (that's me).

I'm going to take the time to explain what some people said, and rebuttal their claims if necessary.

THE LOVERS:

"As long as your story was, I read it fast because it kept my attention the whole time." 

 "Awesome story! The plot was really interesting, especially to me being a psychology major ... it's making my head spin, in a good way."

 "Wow. This story was awesome ... My favorite story of the class so far."

"All I can really say is wow. This is by far the best draft that I have read so far. I think that it is an extremely novel approach to writing."

"What did I like about it? A lot of things. I think this has great potential to be published."

"I kept reading because I wanted to figure it all out ... It almost seemed like an inside joke to the English world ... I am now questioning my own reality."

A special thank you to all the people who said these amazingly nice things. Others complimented my story, but you six praised it. It's hard to describe how it feels to read such wonderful comments from my intended audience. It reassures me that this is what I want to do with my life. Thank you all.
THE HATERS:

"Beyond page 2, I found it to be very uninteresting. I had to force myself to keep reading because it was an assignment, and I feel compelled to always complete assignments ... I had no vested interest in any of the characters, and the storyline was confusing."

"The punctuation in the entire story is horrible. Please take the time to learn how to punctuate [dialogue] properly. Without the proper punctuation the story becomes very difficult to read ... You have large chunks of exposition where a sentence or two would be more than enough ... I call it tedious because it doesn't add to the story ... By page 8 I was bored and wondering what the point was ... I was completely fed up with the story ... I was dreading having to read ten more pages of this. What was the point? ... plus do you have any idea what [rape] would be like for a girl?"

Hater #1, you were kind enough to give me constructive criticism, and I genuinely understand that the story can be hard to understand, especially when you lose interest after page two. It wasn't your cup of tea and I can respect that, and I thank you for giving it a fair shot by reading all the way through for the sake of your compulsion to complete assignments.
Hater #2, I can forgive you for not understanding the story because frankly you are not my demographic and you seemed to not read into the story beyond the face value of the printed words. I will reassure you though, that I do know what quotation marks are, and I'm sorry you spent so much time marking them around every line of dialogue in the story without realizing the significant reason they were missing. It would have helped if you were constructive with your criticism, and I wish you'd not been so harsh with your criticisms, but I still respect your opinion. Also I don't personally know how rape would feel, but I can imagine it would be intensely unpleasant, and I hope you realize that I did not intend to glorify it at all (hence why the victim in the story is traumatized by it). I'm very sorry if you felt I was somehow promoting rape.
VARIOUS OTHERS:
There are just a few other comments I would like to address from people that seemed to neither completely love nor completely hate the story (though most of them expressed liking it)

"If you have a rape scene in your piece, or anything resembling a rape scene, you must include a trigger warning so people can either a. chose not to read it or b. be prepared to read it"

I can see how you would think that, because this is such a sensitive topic with  many people, and I see given the tone of the rest of the story how you would not be expecting this and be more disturbed by it. I will rebuttal by simply saying; isn't that the point?

"While other writers might find it amusing, this kind of meta-humor doesn't really appeal to a very wide audience. If you're okay with that, it's fine, but you should keep that in mind."

 This goes back to my previous point of my targeted demographic. I was writing this story for a Fiction Writing class, and had that in mind 100% while writing it (why else would I have a story-within-a-story taking place in a night class?). The overall class seemed to genuinely like it, so I believe I was successful in that regard, and I've actually shared it with several non-writers who found it to be equally as fun to read even if they didn't get all the writer references. So I respectfully disagree.

The point is that nobody can please everybody all the time. This is something I always knew, but this is my first experience in which people had drastically different opinions from the majority of others about something I've done. The good news is that the majority in this case was in favor for my story.
I hope to have the final edit done shortly and upload it to the site for everyone to read eventually.

Also, March 19th seems to be the first Anniversary of this blog!
-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

Eyes on the Horizon

Well this has certainly been a busy past few weeks. My work shifts are a bit shorter but much more demanding, classes are in full swing and I've already had two tests (of which I finished first in my class, confidently), and my time off is spent catching up on homework and apartment chores.

Pictured: The horizon I have my metaphorical eyes on.
(photo by buck82; some rights reserved.)

If there's one thing I'm loving so far though, it's the mixture of classes I have this semester. I don't dislike any single class this semester so far, and more excitingly is that as opposed to last semester in which I had nothing but advertising-related classes (which are typically serious-focused and demanding classes), this semester I have a good mix of (more relaxing) advertising classes as well as some English classes which are a breath of fresh air to take.

Upon entering my first English class of the semester I was reminded why I used to enjoy school so much. The atmosphere is so much more relaxed and upbeat than at most advertising classes. I get to actually have fun applying my knowledge and discussing the area I'm most passionate about in English classes as opposed to simply declaring whether an ad is effective or not.

One English class in particular that I'm excited about and enjoying so far is my night "Fiction Writing" class in which the main long-term assignment is to write two short stories (one to be critiqued by the whole class), and the weekly assignments are to read and critique the short stories written by everybody in class (as well to read and discuss one published short story a week). It's so fun to be among people that, generally speaking, have the same interest in writing fiction as I do, and have fun reading and discussing everyone else's.

I had decided almost immediately that I would submit my unfinished novella for at least the teacher to read and critique, which meant that I had to think of and then begin writing a new idea for the class to read.

Pictured: The reaction I do not want from my readers.
(photo by Aidras; some rights reserved.)

My immediate goal was to do something different than what I expect the rest of the class to write. I want my story to stand out right away from everyone else's. It is no easy task to think of something you expect to be different than some 25 other stories without knowing what they are or even much about the people writing them. Luckily I had come up with an idea just unique enough that, to my recollection, it had only been done popularly once before. As I began to write out the ideas, though, it became apparent that while it was a good idea and it was certainly unique, there was something too typical about it; the tone. The originality of the tone is just as important as the originality of the story itself, and in this way my idea would be too similar to other people's because it was a serious and dramatic tone; much like most short stories seem to be.

So it was back to the drawing board, except with time running out until my deadline I decided to go back to my the drawing board on which I keep all of my old ideas I've yet to use. My eyes fixated on an idea I had summarized in one character quote: "You're not even the main character".
So I took this idea and am running with it. The story and tone are both unlike anything I expect to read from my classmates, and to ease my paranoia that if nobody likes it I'm a failure as an aspiring author I've recruited four of my closest friends to read it over before I submit it to class.

Expect to read it yourself in the "Stories" section of this site before the semester is over, and wish me luck!

PS: My birthday is this month.
-Ryan

Twitter, Death n Friends, and School

Hey everybody! I thought I'd squeeze in one more blog post this month in hopes that the "three posts a month" thing will catch on as a regular thing.

This post will have more to do with some technical updates rather than it being a rambling of my struggles and views on the craft of writing. Yes, I know I keep saying in my posts that there are little things that I'll "get to later" or something (last time I said my 'lifelong tragic love epic' was now a 'love story' and that I would get to that later), but don't worry as I really will be getting to it later. Later just isn't now quite yet.

Firstly as you probably already noticed, I have a little Twitter thingy on the right side of the page now that lets you see my latest "tweets". I admit that when I first heard of Twitter a few years ago (or was it one year ago? This internet thing moves too fast) I thought it was useless to me as I could simply say whatever short thing I wanted to say in a Facebook status instead of a "tweet". And honestly it was pretty useless to me, and the only reason I created an account was so I could get the quick little updates about my favorite band, Nine Inch Nails.
But now it seems it could actually be of more use. I am going to try using it in conjunction with this blog. Meaning that I will update it with little things that wouldn't fit a whole blog post or that I just don't have time to write about in a whole post yet, as well as announce via Twitter when I post something new on my blog, so feel free to follow me, "RyanMatejka", to get all those little updates.

An example of the quality you can
expect out of my comics.

Secondly if you like my sense of humor (who doesn't?) then you'll be happy to know that there are three new comics posted on the Humor page of this blog. They're honestly nothing to get too excited about, as I simply doodled them at various times in school (you may notice the first one is dated a few years ago, while the second two were written this past uear and are not dated) and there's not much depth or maturity to their humor. Nonetheless they're called "Death n Friends", (which makes as much sense as the strips themselves) there's three of them, and they're located in the Humor tab above. Enjoy!

Lastly it should be known that the second semester of my Junior year of college has begun, so for all I know you won't be hearing from me as often simply as a result of having too little time to write stories or blog about anything, though I vow to update the blog at least once a month. Also it helps that I am in a fiction writing class and plan to write a whole short story just for that class which I will inevitably post about on here.

So yeah, that pretty much sums everything up. "Twitter, Death n Friends, and School", as the title indicates. I hope to update you all on the progress of my love story in the coming weeks, as progress has been better and bigger than expected.

Stay classy interwebs.
-Ryan

Experimentation

Summer is coming to a close and as usual I've not finished anything I wanted to finish.

"Only after disaster can we be resurrected"

Wait, nevermind; I finished a book. It was Fight Club, and it was awesome.

Anyway one of the things I want to finish before summer is up is the second draft/typed draft of my unfinished Lifelong Tragic Love Epic which, if you recall, I made a small realization about and is basically the only thing I've ever mentioned working on writing all summer, and progress has been slow.

Wait, nevermind; I mentioned that one short story I said I would finish by the end of last month if someone simply posted a reply to that post. Well guess what?  Nobody did. I'm going to assume this is due to the Eyewitness Effect (or whatever it's called, I took that Psych class two years ago) and that nobody posted a response simply because they expected someone else to, and not that nobody posted because they were just too lazy or don't give a  hoot about my stories. So yeah, let's pretend it's the first one.

Anyway I've been thinking about experimenting with writing recently, specifically by penning some short stories, flash fiction, messing around with artistic points-of-view and how it can be used to enhance the quality of stories, trying out some alternate settings, tones, and themes etc.
As you can see by the list, this is going to basically be a lifelong thing. But the point is I want to try some of the quicker things first, such as flash fiction, since I have dozens of simple scenarios or stories that I want to tell before I lose interest in them (and I don't think they can be stretched out into novel-length stories at all).

What does this mean for you? This (hopefully) means you'll start being able to read more than just the poems on my website. I plan to release this miniature content relatively frequently (by my standards, at least) so I can start getting some feedback for my experimentation.

Now I would love to go back and look over this post for errors in grammar, continuity and flow (did I need to bring up summer? I don't think that was relevant at all) but I've got to be going now as I must pick up a certain special someone from work and then prepare for a weekend-long vacation to a secluded, undisclosed location up north with that special someone's family. I really just wanted to blog this before then so I can come back from my mini-vacation to see all your wonderful views and posts (if there are, in fact, any at all).

[end motivational and/or philosophical-sounding statement]
-Ryan

Short Story vs. Novel

I have many ideas for potential stories, but I have recently run into the problem of trying to decide which ideas will be short stories and which will be more novel-length stories.
This is difficult for several reasons, first is that I've never written a novel-length story before. Second is that it's difficult to figure out which ideas are even capable of being long, and which cannot be lengthened without becoming boring or redundant. Third is that it seems some ideas aren't even worthy of being long.

Here are two real examples of simple ideas I have in the works.

1. A person finds a way to never fatigue/gains the ability to never wear out.
2. A person begins having recurring dreams of killing someone close to them, the dreams may or may not eventually begin occurring while awake. The person must figure out how to end the visions/dreams.

They are both very simple ideas that both seriously need to be "fleshed out" in order to do anything at all with either of them. The first should be pretty easy to run with, after all the possibilities of what to do with such an ability are endless; from seeing how it affects mundane day-to-day activities, to how it helps in the event of some disaster.
The second idea I can see myself running into trouble with. It certainly sounds interesting enough to make novel-length, but I don't know if it's possible (for me) to do. It's a very specific problem, and the main character with the problem may therefore not be dealing with it all the time, so what keeps the story interesting while they aren't having the visions/dreams? Clearly this idea will take a lot more thinking out in order to make longer than a short story.
Then again, there's no shame in writing short stories. Maybe I shouldn't try to do something I'm not comfortable with simply out of fear of short stories being less popular or taken less serious.

Besides, short stories make better movies.
-Ryan