Ryan Spires

Whittling a first draft into something resembling a coherent story is tedious but ultimately an enjoyable process. It's easier to work with the words, transforming them into something better, than staring at the perfect vacuum of a blank page. One of my favorite little games is to find the silly, obvious, or unintended errors. Self depreciating one's work is a time honored tradition and the first draft offers up the most opportunity. Here are some of my recent gems I have come across. Hegge grabbed a rock in her hand. -Just in the case the reader would assume she grabbed it with the crook of her arm, I helped them out. Tell don't show! Or wait, was it show don't tell? “The university doesn’t teach that level of mathematics, my dear pip.” Trude stifled a song.   - Yawn. Song. Whatever! You know what I meant. Probably.   "No." She shook her heard. -Senses can be shaken right?    The Altum pursed her lisps -She was, uh, very self consciou...

Hello there! It's been awhile. I haven't had a burst of inspiration for a blog topic for some time, and I didn't want to dial it in. Hence the silence. I might pick up the pace a bit in a month or so. Until then here is a brief update on the writing. I had the opportunity to alpha/beta read a couple of novel length manuscripts for friends and provide feedback. That's a glorious experience, being among the first set of eyes on the finished draft, and to help shape, in a small way, the course it may take. Not to mention that it's also a beautiful way to encourage more art in the world and to sharpen my own skills. That provided me a brief and needed respite from editing Alchemist. As a recap I got that back from the editor with rewrite scribbled all over it early in 2016. I got about halfway through the rewrite and I was burned out on the book. It's standing near the back of the room, clearing its throat at me, but I'm going to keep ignoring it for now. A ...