I have always loved writing. Back in sixth grade, I tried writing my own version of Lord of the Rings with swashbuckling hobbits -- in high school, I switched to writing about colonists from Mars returning to invade Earth. It was very, very fun until I realized I was a terrible writer.
In college, my adviser in engineering recommended I take a creative writing workshop. I took more workshops, switched my major to English, and then graduated with a degree and no purpose in life. But my senior year of college began in 2001 -- watching on television as the Twin Towers fell left me with an emptiness inside. Rather, it gave a purpose to the emptiness I already felt. So I enlisted in the army as a linguist, and then shipped out in August 2002. I then served in the U.S. Army for five years, which included three years with the 82nd Airborne and a ten-month deployment to Afghanistan.
It would be nice if I could say I was a "good" soldier. Yes, I jumped from planes a few times - and I got hurt before ever going overseas. Yes, I've been shot at -- but only once. And I couldn't see the guy, so I never fired back. Instead, I sat mute in the passenger seat -- a belt-fed machine gun on my lap - as a crowd of children continued throwing rocks at our humvee. The vehicle in front of us had a window shot out -- the up-armored humvee behind us got a divot in the window. But the truck I rode in wasn't hit. And that's a good thing -- our truck had no armor. All we had was a shell of fiberglass and thin plastic windows. So, good times.
However, the army did teach me something fundamental about my writing: I realized that most of my stories had no real basis in reality. Before enlisting, I wrote about war without understanding anything about warfare. I didn't know the kick of a rifle against the shoulder, or the smell of diesel, or how it feels when you have to pop a squad in an empty field in sight of your buddies because there aren't no rest stops in the middle of Afghanistan. So although I wasn't a particularly skilled or brave soldier, I did meet a lot of people who were. And, more importantly, I learned to be more observant, to give more thought to what I don't know before writing about what I do know. I learned that I really do need to research in order to better write my fiction, and that there is no teacher like lived experience.
After the army, I still didn't know what to do with my life. So I tried bartending. That wasn't a great job -- but it did give me the will to apply to grad school. And yes, grad school had definitely made me a better writer -- but it hasn't guaranteed future employment. Not at all. So now I'm writing the stories I've always loved. These are the fantasy and science fiction stories that I largely put on hold as I worked my way through an MFA and a Ph.D. -- the stories that led me into writing to begin with.
Grad school forced me to reevaluate my writing once again. In my stories about a war between Earth and Mars, I came to realize that I excluded huge parts of human experience. My stories -- like many of the great stories I've read -- simply didn't address issues of race, gender, or orientation. I'm a straight white male -- I've never personally experienced the kind of discrimination that many people face every day. But I've been around it -- been surrounded by racism and sexism and homophobia my entire life. Grad school taught me how to finally see it rather than overlook it. Yes, there are people who view feminism with disdain or outright hostility -- I am not one of them. The first chapter in my dissertation relied on feminist standpoint theory to consider the ways in which my own status in society obscured my understanding of everything I've ever known. As I write, I do my best to be honest and accurate in my portrayals of characters - including the presence or absence of discrimination that shape a person's view of the world. However, my own vision has natural limitations, and I will of course welcome any feedback about areas where my writing has fallen short.
Thank you for taking the time to visit my page, and to read this far. I truly hope you find my writing interesting and engaging.
Ryan
In college, my adviser in engineering recommended I take a creative writing workshop. I took more workshops, switched my major to English, and then graduated with a degree and no purpose in life. But my senior year of college began in 2001 -- watching on television as the Twin Towers fell left me with an emptiness inside. Rather, it gave a purpose to the emptiness I already felt. So I enlisted in the army as a linguist, and then shipped out in August 2002. I then served in the U.S. Army for five years, which included three years with the 82nd Airborne and a ten-month deployment to Afghanistan.
It would be nice if I could say I was a "good" soldier. Yes, I jumped from planes a few times - and I got hurt before ever going overseas. Yes, I've been shot at -- but only once. And I couldn't see the guy, so I never fired back. Instead, I sat mute in the passenger seat -- a belt-fed machine gun on my lap - as a crowd of children continued throwing rocks at our humvee. The vehicle in front of us had a window shot out -- the up-armored humvee behind us got a divot in the window. But the truck I rode in wasn't hit. And that's a good thing -- our truck had no armor. All we had was a shell of fiberglass and thin plastic windows. So, good times.
However, the army did teach me something fundamental about my writing: I realized that most of my stories had no real basis in reality. Before enlisting, I wrote about war without understanding anything about warfare. I didn't know the kick of a rifle against the shoulder, or the smell of diesel, or how it feels when you have to pop a squad in an empty field in sight of your buddies because there aren't no rest stops in the middle of Afghanistan. So although I wasn't a particularly skilled or brave soldier, I did meet a lot of people who were. And, more importantly, I learned to be more observant, to give more thought to what I don't know before writing about what I do know. I learned that I really do need to research in order to better write my fiction, and that there is no teacher like lived experience.
After the army, I still didn't know what to do with my life. So I tried bartending. That wasn't a great job -- but it did give me the will to apply to grad school. And yes, grad school had definitely made me a better writer -- but it hasn't guaranteed future employment. Not at all. So now I'm writing the stories I've always loved. These are the fantasy and science fiction stories that I largely put on hold as I worked my way through an MFA and a Ph.D. -- the stories that led me into writing to begin with.
Grad school forced me to reevaluate my writing once again. In my stories about a war between Earth and Mars, I came to realize that I excluded huge parts of human experience. My stories -- like many of the great stories I've read -- simply didn't address issues of race, gender, or orientation. I'm a straight white male -- I've never personally experienced the kind of discrimination that many people face every day. But I've been around it -- been surrounded by racism and sexism and homophobia my entire life. Grad school taught me how to finally see it rather than overlook it. Yes, there are people who view feminism with disdain or outright hostility -- I am not one of them. The first chapter in my dissertation relied on feminist standpoint theory to consider the ways in which my own status in society obscured my understanding of everything I've ever known. As I write, I do my best to be honest and accurate in my portrayals of characters - including the presence or absence of discrimination that shape a person's view of the world. However, my own vision has natural limitations, and I will of course welcome any feedback about areas where my writing has fallen short.
Thank you for taking the time to visit my page, and to read this far. I truly hope you find my writing interesting and engaging.
Ryan
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