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ryanschoon

rank: 5708

Last week's position: 5717

first registered 30.12.10

last online 119 days ago

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about me

Let me wear my heart on my sleeve a minute: I hope you like my book. I don't care too much about stars or bookshelves or backing, I just hope you read and enjoy my novel because some scenes are really my writing at its best.
In a fatalistic moment, I once told any introductory composition student, "We write because we will be dead soon. We write because most people will be remembered by a handful of words on a headstone. We want more than that, so we write."
That isn't, to me, about having a huge impact-- you don't need to rock the world to its foundation to have made a mark. In that same spirit, I'm not looking for a million readers or money or fame. If I disturb the water's surface, I've affected the current forever.
Currently employed as a volunteer writer (as no one has seen fit to pay me for it) and a literacy specialist (remedial teacher) at an intermediate school, I hold degrees in Anthropology (AA), Philosophy (BA), and Apocalyptic Literature (MA). In other words, I majored in unemployment... but landed a teaching job at the last minute.

favourite books

Literally, off the top of my head:

Post-modernist:
Vonnegut (all of it, as a whole)
Early Palahnuik (I wrote my graduate thesis on Fight Club, but he's fallen from my graces with his grotesque side... though Rant is more important than I see it receiving credit for)
Tim O'Brien (The Nuclear Age, Tomcat in Love)
Persig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

Modernists:
Hemingway (all of it)
My Antonnia
Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man)
Henry Miller
Frost
Forrester

Pre-modern:
Twain
Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
Shakespeare

my websites

www.wallsoftroy.wordpress.com    

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Self-publish with CreateSpace

my books

Walls of Troy

Ryan Schoon

"Walls of Troy" asks the question of what it means to be heroic in modern times. Complex stories within stories unravel the characters' internal lives.


Griffith, a student trapped deeply within himself, must come to terms with his misconceptions about his mentor, his lover, and his own misanthropic worldview. Renee, Griffith's lover and a single-mom, must dig deep into herself to come to terms with her ex-husband's, Scott's, manipulations and find a place for a man she hates in the life of their daughter. Sophia, pregnant with Scott's child, must probe the dark history of her long-estranged, deceased father to test the motivations behind a professor's strange offer to support her and her child if she will give up all connections to Troy, the university town of her birth, even as that professor, Eugene, sorts through his oldest, most damaging secrets of his life. In the final chapters, we meet the villain himself, Scott, and must challenge our own beliefs about what it means to be a father, lover, and spouse. Filled with gritting detail and humor, "Walls at Troy" creates a complex narrative that will captivate readers as they, and the author, explore the toll the walls we erect within ourselves will invariably exact.

 

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latest

KirkH wrote 192 days ago

Hi, I hope you can get a chance to read parts of my college caper cr....

ndayery wrote 197 days ago

(rafica_4ndaye@yahoo.com) My name is rafica i saw your profile toda....

EMDelaney wrote 226 days ago

Hi Ryan, I am writing to all of my past supporters to make you a....

ndaye wrote 228 days ago

(rafica_4ndaye@yahoo.com) My name is rafica i saw your profile toda....

Eponymous Rox wrote 273 days ago

Hullo there, Ryan. My manuscript's landed on the Ed's Desk this month....

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my comments

latest

I wrote 436 days ago

I have never recieved such a lyrical comment. And, I know, I write Victorian length chapters. Are they really dead? I get tired of authors assuming I can't sit through a few dozen pages without giving me fifteen breaks. Personal preference, I know, but read chapter five if you get the chance. It... view book

I wrote 436 days ago
I wrote 474 days ago

This is a really well-thought-out comment, and I'm going to have to process it a bit further before acting on it. It will spur revision (i'm sure of that) which is the mark of great commentary. Thanks. view book

I wrote 474 days ago

J.S.-- Thanks so much for the comment. I've gone through and edited for the mistakes you pointed out (an author who acts as his own editor has a fool for a client and an ass for an editor... or is that lawyers?). Either way, thanks for the help. I've taken a lot of flak for the opening of what... view book

I wrote 487 days ago

I've used Ross and Ellie's comments to rewrite my beginning. An entirely new chapter of back story will begin the book. Thanks so much for the feedback you two. view book

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