Ryan Matejka's Blog: update

Showing posts with label update. Show all posts

Friday, February 19, 2021

What I've Been Up To

You'll notice by checking the "archive" part of the sidebar here that it looks like I only blogged twice in 2020, and that in general that I've been blogging less each year since 2014. With that being the case, you're probably wondering what I've been up to.

Well firstly, I actually blogged more in 2020 than any previous year, it's just that 43 of those posts were over in my second blog, Ryan's COVID-19 Chronicles. In retrospect I kind of wish I'd just written those here instead of making a totally separate blog for them, but at least I got to play around with a different and more visual layout.

Secondly, I was and continue to be busy writing for Vertigo Gaming Inc. projects. If you haven't already checked it out, you should go ahead and buy Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!, which features a complete story written in part by yours truly, performed by a very talented voice cast.

Thirdly, I actually spent a decent chunk of last year planning, outlining, and drafting what I expected to be the feature blog post of the year—AKA the really long one that would be popular outside of my social circle. It was meant to be a follow-up to the My Experience Writing for Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!! post that would have gone in-depth in the development of the characters, setting, and plot of Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!.

In fact, I actually drafted most of the post, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong with it so I stalled in finishing it. In retrospect, it felt self-indulgent and unnecessary. Whereas my post about writing for CSD2 came from a genuine want to share a cool behind-the-scenes experience with people, the CSD3 version felt like I was writing it out of obligation rather than out of having any genuine must-share stories or experiences. Not that I don't have stories to tell or techniques to share, but writing a super long personal blog post about it just didn't feel right this time around.

Fortunately, I've been put in charge of writing the Vertigo Gaming Inc. newsletters this year and I've been encouraged by my team to write behind-the-scenes stuff. As such, instead of writing some extremely long and self-indulgent personal blog post, I'm able to write shorter, topical articles that are sent directly to our fans on a monthly basis. You can read them in the archive here, starting with the January 2021 newsletter.

Finally, I've also been working on some other writing projects that I can't talk about right now, but let's just say I'm still busy and always writing.

That all said, I'd like to write a bit more on this site in 2021. There are no guarantees, of course, but I've got some ideas I'm already itching to write.

Here's hoping 2021 is better than the dumpster fire of 2020!

PS: Interestingly, I haven't actually listened to Madonna at all since that extensive journey through her music that I blogged about in late 2019, in case you were wondering.

-Ryan

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

My Website is LIVE!

You can now read all of my short fiction stories and learn more about my work history at my new website, RyanMatejkaWrites.com!

Anyone who looks far enough back in the post history of this blog will know that I actually used to have a website a long time ago that this blog grew out of, but it was eventually deleted. As I grew up and began my professional career I realized the value of having a new and improved website, but I resisted creating one for many years because I felt like other services I used (such as LinkedIn) served my needs well enough. At one point I even used this blog to host some of my stories, but it turns out that Blogger isn't really built for that.

It wasn't until I started writing and posting stories on Reddit that I realized I really needed a better way to store and share my stories online – and that I should probably finally share the original short stories I'd been hiding on my hard drive all my life. This coincided with me wanting to send potential employers to a single page that I had 100% control over that would show them everything they'd need to know why they should hire me. It was admittedly tough to design a website that catered to both needs (despite how simple the end result looks) but in the end I think it's exactly what I needed.

In fact, here's some before and after screenshots to show you how much the site changed from my original concept:

A first draft of the home page.

The current/final home page.

Originally I was going to have a home page, a portfolio page, a résumé page, a stories page, and embed my blog into its own page, but in the end I realized it was better (and more fair to the importance of my fiction stories) to combine all the stuff an employer might want to see onto the home page and simply link to my blog.

I've still got more stuff I plan to add to the site in the future (such as one of the stories that is currently listed but not available on the site) but now that I'm done with the major features I'm happy to say I can shift gears and focus on other big projects going on in my life that had been put on the back burner in favor for this.

So check the website out and tell me what you think! I can't wait to see where it goes!

-Ryan

Friday, December 30, 2016

From 2016 to 2017 - Keeping the Momentum Going

Do you like this new graphic? I made it myself with a photo I took of my beautiful wife.

I felt like I should do some end-of-the-year blogging to get some closure on 2016 and publicly express my goals for 2017, especially after writing a lengthy post/essay titled "Spider-Man or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Reboot" that I then decided not to publish because it was basically just me telling the entire story of my love for Spider-Man and expressing my opinions (that nobody asked for) about the upcoming reboot film.

Concerning My 2016 Resolution

I don't actually remember my primary resolution for 2016, and looking back on last year's review, I didn't really state anything specific. Therefore I'm just going to assume my resolution was to complete the second draft of my novel, which I came very close but ultimately failed to do. I do remember, however, resolving to learn to meditate in 2016, which I did a little bit of throughout the year but not as much as I wanted to.

So what did I actually do this year, then? I read a lot more books (the entire Hitchiker's Guide series, several books in the Detective Bosch series, four books in the Series of Unfortunate Events, The Martian, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and Childhood's End), watched a bunch of good movies for the first time (La La Land, Sunshine, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Good Will Hunting, The Revenant, the "Before" trilogy, Spirited Away, High Rise, Begin Again, Deadpool, Ghost in the Shell, There Will Be Blood, Victoria, Carol, Room, Sixteen Candles, Straight Outta Compton, Steve Jobs, Brick, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Memento, Sicario, A Scanner Darkly, Snowpiercer, and more), watched some good TV shows (Westworld, Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul, Parks and Recreation, etc), discovered some new music and played the occasional video game (mostly on Android).

I also lost my job, found a better one, got a new phone that lets me play Xcom anywhere, put up a fence in my back yard for my dog, started using Instagram, redesigned the blog to actually look like a writer's blog, started writing short stories based on writing prompts (one of which has gained enough attention for two individuals to ask me if they could adapt it into a short film), made new friends, reconnected with old friends, did a lot of hiking, tried out a few different haircuts, and lost 10 lbs.

2017 Resolutions

First and foremost, I really want to get the second draft of my novel finished and start sending it out to publishers. I'm really close thanks to NaNoWriMo, and I really only need to write the ending, rewrite a secondary character's arc, and punch up the humor and charisma in some parts.

Secondly, I just want to keep writing more, especially those writing prompts, and eventually put a few up on the website for public consumption.

Thirdly, ever since experimenting with mixing music again a few weeks ago and seeing the amazing film La La Land in theaters a few days ago with my wife, it's starting to look like I might finally be learning to play an instrument or two. You see, she grew up playing the violin and guitar, but after seeing Ryan Gosling in La La Land and learning that he trained himself in only three months she's been wanting to learn piano (and her parents have a beautiful one in their home that rarely gets used), and I grew up owning a guitar but not knowing how to play it and always wanted to learn to play the keyboard so I could make some music on the computer without relying entirely on pre-recorded loops. So I'll say my tertiary big goal of 2017 is to learn to play piano and/or guitar, but this just came up recently so we'll see if it really sticks.

Fourthly, I should probably continue to lose weight and get in shape. I did some pilates this year, which proved to be quite enjoyable and challenging, tried to get into a routine of exercising (beyond taking my daily walks) at least once a week, and made an effort to eat healthier or smaller portions, so more of that would be good. Now that the wedding has long passed, my biggest motivation to be healthy and in shape is that I want to be able to keep up and play with my future kids as much as possible.

Lastly, I really just want to keep trying new things in my area. For years, I was stuck in a rut of eating at chain restaurants, shopping at chain stores, and going to the same places to do the same old things, but this year my wife and I made a solid attempt of eating and shopping more locally, as well as visiting parks we'd never been to before and just overall trying to attend more community events like concerts, movies in the park, and beer gardens. More of that is always good fun.

And I still want to do more Tactical Laser Tag. Seriously, I only went once this year.

-Ryan

Monday, August 15, 2016

Writing Prompts

I'm thinking about writing some flash fiction based on writing prompts. I figure it could be a good opportunity to flex my creative muscles and hone my writing skill in areas that I cannot in writing my novel.

I've already found a community with a plethora of creative prompts, gave one a shot, and got some nice reactions to it. If I keep this up and enjoy it enough I'll probably start sharing the stories on here or something.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Third Year in Review

Every year on the anniversary of the my first post on this blog I review how the year has been. This is slightly different than when I review the past calendar year, in that I focus more on a review of the blog rather than a review of my life.

Look how far I've come! - Original Layout & Content

As far as statistics go, I reached a record number of 460 views in one month this past October, however that was completely due to sites spamming my blog for hits, so that number is wildly inaccurate. I actually got between 110 and 180 views per month, and even some of those might have been spam hits. However, in total it looks like my blog has been viewed 4,328 times!

I've been posting at least twice a month (rarely more), and since last month I've been steering away from topical (yet personal) posts (such as my views on never settling for being just a statistic, or how it feels to know I'm getting married soon) and instead embraced posting in a journal-style about the my life. The change might be subtle, but it's been much more fun and easier on my end to just write about what's going on without having to try to make it mean something or revolve around a subject. After all, life doesn't work the same as a book does; there's no central theme or plot. Things just happen.

That's not to say that I want to just keep this as a public journal. I love writing about writing, I've kept my promise to myself to do a book review (though I'd also love to review movies, music, etc. whenever I'm inspired to do so), and have started cataloging my interesting dreams. I want this blog to explode outwards into uncharted territory and try out new things until I find what works for me and you. A lot has changed over the past three years, and this blog shouldn't remain the same until it grows stale.

Clearly it hasn't.

I don't know how long I'll keep up this blog, but I'd like to thank each and every one of you for reading it. Blogging has never really been about pulling in big view numbers, but instead I've enjoyed using it as a way to express myself, hone my writing ability, and document my life. It's cool to know that some people out there enjoy reading it.

Thanks!

-Ryan

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

2013 In Review

I did a review of my year last year, but the idea slipped my mind this past December, so I'm getting around to it now.

I suppose I'll start by seeing how I did on my list of hopes for 2013, which were as follows:

Firstly is that I graduate college and get a full-time job ASAP.

Well I graduated, and I got an internship pretty quickly which gives me 40 hours a week plus overtime, so I didn't do too shabby on that one.

Secondly is that I can continue to write at my current pace and release something substantial within the next two or three years (depending on the post-writing process).

I'd say I'm on track for writing at whatever pace I was referring to, since I make time to write several times a week, even if it's only for half an hour at a time. I don't know about releasing anything substantial in the next year or two, since my novel-writing is still a learning process, but I am working on releasing something shortly.

Thirdly is that I continue to get more and more readers on my blog, so show your friends!

Well I failed on this one, but I've also stopped caring about who reads my blog. I write it more for myself now as a sort of public journal and extension of my Facebook statuses.

Fourthly is that I read even more than this year!

I'd guess I've passed this one, but I don't exactly know the numbers to show it (aside from this post). Since getting a NOOK e-reader, I've done a LOT of reading, but I haven't really finished everything I've read. I'm in the middle of like five books right now, and I'll probably not return to one or two of them.

Oh yeah, and I want to lose weight by my next birthday. Progress has been admittedly slow in that area so far...

Good news, past Ryan! You may not have lost any weight by your 2013 birthday, but you certainly have for your 2014 birthday! You see, I'm proud to say that I lost 15 lbs in the span of a few months, and the funny thing is that the weight-loss was a side-effect of two unrelated motivating factors:

I started taking half sandwiches to work because whole ones took too long to eat and make. Time is money.
I started walking for half an hour a day (approximately 2 miles) because I needed to get out of the office, and some coworkers went on walks every day so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to meet people.

As far as my goals go, it was a good year. Obviously there are other things to consider, such as the stress of looking for a job, a place to live, and paying student loans. Overall I'd say that 2013 wasn't the best, because of a lot of personal issues and factors that I won't go into here so as to not depress you, but 2014 is looking up!

Most importantly, 2014 is the year I get married! It's been a long time coming, but the girl I met back in late 2007, started dating in early 2008, and got engaged to in 2011 is going to become my wife this coming June! It's nearly impossible that someone I met in high school still makes me fall in love with her over and over again, and still adores me as well, but we're still going strong after almost six years together! As much as each of us has grown and changed over the years, we've done it together!

Now that I'm officially in the "real world" as they say, I don't really know what else to expect from 2014, but here's a list of my goals and hopes for this new year:

Finally marry the love of my life
Continue to work on and hone my fiction writing, especially novel-writing. Perhaps finish "An Offbeat Affair"
Get hired full-time for real. With benefits, a salary, and all that other cool adult stuff
Continue to educate myself. College is over and I love learning!
Make time what I care about most; my fiancée, writing, friends, and the occasional video game

So cheers, and have a fantastic year!

-Ryan

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

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

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Directions My First(ish) Novel is Taking

For those of you who haven't been living under my rock, I'm writing a novel based on a short story I wrote for college.

It's still going pretty well, honestly. Despite some stressors and events in my personal life, my mind keeps coming back to the story with more ideas of how to expand it. I'm constantly adding layers to the plot and characters in my mind, and I've been puzzling together how they'll add to the overall story, and in some cases I'm realizing just how much potential this novel has to become something more.

At the risk of regretting it and not being able to live up to promises, I'm going to share details that are very subject to change regarding the direction of the novel right now, with you, my loyal readers.
Again, this is subject to change, and this is a really personal project to me. Pretend I'm naked while you read this so you feel as awkward about it as I do, since I'm exposing a bit of what goes on inside my noggin.

My Brain: It's not empty! It's full of potential!

For starters, I'm mixing genres. I've only drafted up a few chapters (and one is facing a pretty large rewrite), but right now the novel is heading in a sort of comedy-drama direction that feels completely natural to me, since I love dramas and thrillers but I'm a positive and humorous person. It's also a love story as could only be told in the 21st century that sheds light on a subculture that society has yet to acknowledge on a larger scale, and to top it all off, it only feels like the beginning of something bigger.

My primary influences are the Millennium trilogy and everything by Chuck Palahniuk, which should give you an odd idea of what to expect.

I don't expect success. That would be foolish of me. What I expect is to continue to surprise myself. I just happen to be checking off all the boxes that I've had in my head for what makes a good novel great, and I'm excited to see if I can pull it off.

If I don't pull it off, at least you'll have these lovely blogs to read over and over again until you rot away!
-Ryan

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Second Year In Review

Two years ago today, I made my first post on this blog. One year ago today, I reviewed my first year of blogging.
Sadly I don't have a record high number of views in a month again, and in fact it seems that recently my readership is on the decline. This could be partially due to the fact that I stopped posting links to my latest blog posts on Facebook twice and now only link to them once each. Ironic that a guy in advertising has not been advertising as much, right?
However, I can say that I've now got over two thousand total page-views since the beginning, which is pretty cool.

This time I don't think I'll give a summary of the past year the same way that I did last time where I link you to almost every single article I wrote, because that's difficult and boring.
All you need to know is that I tried posting three times a month but teetered off when school started, got really worried about my future, and kept on blogging and writing fiction.

So, about the future; if you can't tell, I'm taking the site in a new direction ... again.
Originally this blog was complimentary to my website "The World in My Mind" and was called "Further into My Mind". Don't remember this? Here, I have a picture to prove it:

The original look and title of the blog.

I then decided to merge the website with the blog and call it "Ryan Matejka's Blog", partially to make it easier to read all my literature, and partially because that's my name.
The blog was entirely focused on my life as an aspiring writer. The subhead of the blog title even said "inside the mind of an aspiring author" and just about everything was about my desire to be a successful fiction writer.

The look before the most recent change.

As you could probably tell, things have changed. As my future adult life rapidly approaches, I have things to talk about in regards to my search for a career in, as well as the world of, advertising. As more things happen, I expect I'll also want to do some talking about what it's like being let loose in the world, being engaged and eventually married at such a young age, and occasionally what my new favorite book/movie/album is (it's been very hard to keep myself from reviewing random things that I like or don't like, maybe I should let myself).

I also have to keep in mind that, as somebody looking for a job in advertising, potential employers will be looking me up on Google to get a better idea for who I am. I want to show them that writing and advertising consume my life, and that I'm a creative and interesting, yet professional, person.
The layout, content, and appearance had to be changed.

The new layout is sleeker and more professional, the content is going to become much more varied than I originally conceived, and the subhead now reads "a place for me to say things to you" (because that sounded honest as well as silly). I want to talk not just about writing, but my life.
I expect it will be difficult to balance this professional look with a more loose form, but I think it's going to be fun to try.

Here's hoping you stay interested,
-Ryan

Thursday, February 28, 2013

The College Forty: Part 2

Let me get straight to the point: I didn't meet my goal by my birthday.
But the good news is that I've been eating healthier in general (aside from the delicious homemade cake-type desserts that I'm obligated to consume every night to prevent spoilage) and have been consistently eating less and healthier for lunch than the dinner-sized portions of unhealthy crap that I used to.
Instead of my weight hovering around 173, it now hovers around 170. I wouldn't be so quick to say that I've lost three pounds since a person's weight can fluctuate around two pounds a day, but the way I'm looking at it is that I stopped gaining weight and perhaps lost a minimal amount as well.

What I haven't been doing is exercising. Let's face it, it's winter and I just want to stay warm inside all day (also I had a nasty cold for a week or so). It's just harder to convince myself to get out to the fitness room when it's freezing outside and the pathway to the fitness room is covered in snow and ice.
Yes I could be doing exercises inside as well. Unfortunately it turns out I'm quite lazy.

My plan for the future is simple: keep working at it and trying new things until I find what sticks and what works.

I take full responsibility for this, I really do. I just like to look on the bright side of things.
-Ryan

Thursday, December 27, 2012

2012 In Review

I apologize for the length of this post, but I've got to be brief.

This has been a pretty good year for me. I've done well in school, made some friends, read way more books for pleasure than previous years, and have been actively working on multiple writing projects.

Also I think I'm getting better at this Tweeting thing; I've been working in my humor and personality into what I Tweet rather than just random comments, which is something I have yet to figure out how to do here on my blog.

And yes, I apologize for not releasing anything as a Christmas present this year, but, similar to last year, my original plan as a gift fell through. This year I decided to not release anything rather than release something stupid and meaningless like last year.
Why did it fall through? I have bigger and better plans for it.

So what are my hopes for 2013?

Firstly is that I graduate college and get a full-time job ASAP.
Secondly is that I can continue to write at my current pace and release something substantial within the next two or three years (depending on the post-writing process).
Thirdly is that I continue to get more and more readers on my blog, so show your friends!
Fourthly is that I read even more than this year!
Oh yeah, and I want to lose weight by my next birthday. Progress has been admittedly slow in that area so far...

I hope everyone has a great 2013 and had a great 2012!

-Ryan

Friday, December 7, 2012

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

Monday, August 13, 2012

Knowing When To Stop Reading

Before I Begin:
I've gone back and added the label "[Megan and Danny Novel]" to (hopefully) all of the posts in which I blogged about my tentatively titled novel. Feel free to click on that tag to see all those posts, and perhaps get a better picture of what it's about overall. As usual you can select any of the other labels from the group of them displayed to the lower right of the page just above the list of followers of the blog (and you may notice a second new one if you look carefully).

Now Here We Go:
Last Monday I began reading a book that bears great significance on my origins as a writer for the first time. Unfortunately I found that I grew bored of the book very quickly, and put it down to resume later.
Awhile after resuming, I grew bored again and put it down, assuring myself that it will get much better soon enough and I only need to keep on trying.
This happened several more times, but it didn't take that long to begin questioning whether or not to continue reading the novel at all, and I found myself questioning at what point I would be able to best decide whether to continue reading or to forget it and start another.

I will not name the novel, however I assure you it was written by a very famous author and was a bestseller.

...also it had a lot of trees.

On one hand I have this burning passion to finally read the novel that accidentally inspired me to be a writer long before I'd read a single word of it.
On the other hand, it was incredibly dull and felt like a chore to get through.

A professor once told me that she decided if she was going to read a book based solely on the first sentence. If the first sentence didn't grab her complete attention and pull her in, she put the book back on the shelf and continued to browse. I was finding myself a fourth of the way through the novel and had absolutely no idea what I was going to do.
A friend of mine suggested I decide after reading a third of the book, and conveniently the first third of the book ended almost exactly at the end of the chapter I was reading. I took his advice and powered through the rest of the chapter.
Or at least that's what I intended to do. Somehow the book actually got more dull in the last six pages of the chapter and I ended up skimming through them annoyed. I then put the book down, removed the bookmark, and read the entire plot summary online.

Sometimes it can be very hard to figure out if it's worth reading a book once you've started it. In the back of your mind you may keep telling yourself that it's got to get better eventually, which may be true, but does that mean it's going to feel like any less of a chore? In this instance it was obvious to me especially after reading the plot summary that the book was definitely going to get much more interesting, but it was still obvious to me that there was more boring me about it than just the story itself.

In the end I'm glad I gave up, because now I can focus on reading something that interests me more.
-Ryan

Friday, June 29, 2012

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

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Starting Anew

Remember this post about the long story I was writing?
Well to keep you up-to-date, I finished it at just under twenty thousand words.
Remember this post about the nice things people said about my short story?
Well to bring you up-to-speed, I went through that same workshop process for the almost twenty thousand word story.

Which meant a lot more of these.

It's hard to explain exactly what I mean, but I guess the best way to say it is that the problems that people had with it this time had more to do with the fundamentals of the story itself. The issues people had with the story, even if they liked it overall, weren't the kind of issues that could be solved with an addition or deletion of a sentence or two like they were in my short story.The response, while still a good mix of positive and negative opinions, had a very different tone to it.
As this became clear to me while listening to the students in my class discuss their opinions of the story, I didn't hesitate to decide that the best solution would be to rewrite the entire story from the beginning. So while the classroom was still telling me what they liked or thought could fix the draft of the story in front of them, I was already planning out a brand new version of the story in my head. In the span of a week I went through several ideas that would drastically affect the original concept for the story.

Seasons just seemed like a cool motif. (source of photo)

Let me explain what I mean about the concept:
The story was to cycle through various different character's perspectives, one at a time, from a third-person perspective. The story was separated into five different parts/chapters, each of which took place in the season following that of the chapter before (winter, spring, summer, fall, winter), but the story did not span a single year, instead it spanned fourteen years (originally over sixty years). The distance in time between the chapters was to increase somewhat exponentially. I also wanted to emphasize certain aspects of a lifetime, such as that you don't bring all of your friends along with you through your entire life, which meant that several characters key to the first chapter or two were completely missing in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters.

What on Earth was I thinking?
I was so wrapped up in what I thought was the "poetic" structure of the story, that I didn't focus on the characters or the story itself. The result was that the writing was boring and the characters were mostly unlikable. I quickly began brainstorming remedies, including changing the perspective of the story, forgoing the seasonal chapter format and starting the story years before the original beginning, and, of course, figuring out ways to make the characters likable.

"This time I'll try not to waste dozens of
hours screwing up." (source of photo)

I went from breaking my personal word count record by several thousand, to scrapping it all and starting over at zero. And honestly it doesn't bother me at all. For one thing I've completely scrapped then rewrote an entire story before, so this isn't the first time, and for another thing I know it's for the best and that the new direction in which I'm going feels much better than the original concept. There were a few moments that I considered the story to be a lost cause that I should forget about and put behind me, but then I reminded myself how important this particular story is to me. Not just that it's my first full-length story, but that it's something unlike anything I've written before, and I feel some sort of attachment to the characters and plot that I can't just walk away from. This is a story that means something to me.

I'm debating making the process of rewriting this story more public, as in I would reference specific parts of the story directly in the blog to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, since I imagine it's hard to follow me at times when you know nothing about the story. I could even do some side-by-side comparisons of the original and new version.

By the way:

NEW CONTENT ADDED:

I uploaded a new comic strip of "Stupid Phrases" called "What's Up?" to the Humor tab.
I uploaded a new poem called "Bad Advice" to the Poems tab.

Now, if only I had a good quality story to upload...
-Ryan

Monday, March 19, 2012

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

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

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

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Name Changes

With the combining of my website and blog into one site, it doesn't make much sense to call the blog "Further Into My Mind" as it has been up to this point.

The name was originally conceived to indicate that my blog would be a place to learn more about my hobby and I than you could by simply reading my website (titled: "The World In My Mind"). Obviously it wouldn't make much sense to continue calling the blog "Further Into My Mind" without the title of the website present to indicate the meaning of it.
The other issue is that a spiffy title may seem like a neat idea at first, but in the long run it will potentially cause problems with convenience. For example if I encounter a person on the street and begin telling them my life story, and they ask where they can read more to get me to shut up, telling them that they can read my blog titled "Further Into My Mind" causes several problems, a good example being the simple fact that "further" could get mixed up with "farther".
Also a titled blog doesn't make conventional sense unless there's a team of writers behind it, or I only plan on sharing it with family and friends. Neither of those is true of this blog.
Therefore I am going to change the name, and subsequently the web address this blog is located at, to my name. You can expect to see this change shortly after this post goes up.

Once again I regret to inform you that my surprise has been delayed, and definitely won't be out for the new year as I hoped it would be. However I have been able to find more time recently to work on my untitled novelette (yes, apparently at its current word length the correct term is "Novelette") and as usual it is coming along quite nicely, and I can't wait to share it with you guys and the world!

Have a happy Thanksgiving!
-Ryan

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Bringing Things Together

I've been doing a bit more work behind the scenes lately, and if you cannot tell, the merger of the website and blog is complete!
I've simplified everything by merging the content of the website with the blog, and hopefully made everything easier to find that way.
I even added more content than what the website had, so feel free to check out what that is! I added a second short story in the "Stories" section, added a new poem called "Poetry is Hard" in the "Poems" section, added 9 full-color comics and a humorous short story to the "Humor" section.

Please leave a comment below telling me if any of the links do not work.

As a general update on progress on things, I'll admit progress has come to a halt over the past few weeks due to schoolwork and work, but that shouldn't last long with things like Thanksgiving and Christmas break coming up. Remember as always to check back here for updates on my latest projects!

Enjoy the content!
-Ryan

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Incoming Changes and Project

I've been pondering some blog-related things recently.
First and foremost is my blog's relation to my website. The reason they exist as separate sites is simply because at first I didn't have a blog, and didn't plan on having one. My website was supposed to simply be a place to digitally store and share my works of literature. As time went on I realized that having only a website wouldn't allow me to make updates as frequently as I wanted, and thus (among other reasons) my blog was born. Now that I've used Blogger for a few months I'm starting to see the potential for my blog to completely replace my website without losing any of the content, and it's also starting to seem ridiculous to not have my content accessible in the place that most people visit (Blogger tells me that there were 53 visits to my blog last month, whereas my website doesn't even have a way of telling me how many people visit it).
What exactly am I rambling on about? I want to merge the content of my website with my blog, essentially meaning that aside from being able to read my updates on this website, you will be able to read all my literature on it as well.

Somewhat related to this is the fact that I want to do something fun and new with my blog. I am not ready to shell out all the details yet (I will have an entire update dedicated just to that when I have it all sorted out) but what I will say is that anyone familiar or interested with my writing origins will be pleasantly surprised and enthused.

Too bad the title of this blog will make less sense without the website accompanying it.
-Ryan