Ryan Speck's Blog: Ryan Speck Ruins The Internet For Everyone

Not that I update often (or ever) or use the site for much of anything these days, but apparently I spoke too soon on the matter of cleaning out the dreaded hackers that were fucking my site pretty hard with their .htaccess rewrites and fun php goodies hidden everywhere.

But, after sporadic and obviously not-very-permanent cleansings from November to April, things are finally in a state of hack-free equilibrium and the annoyance/excuse that had me end work on 2011's NaNoWriMo (that I wasn't doing so great at) is finally gone... I hope.

Though my brain is doing its best to atrophy away, constantly forgetting simple words, people's names, and other things that should come more or less naturally to me, I'm trying to get back into the writing habit and, perhaps, work out the grey matter a little before it falls apart for good. I'm starting by throwing some musings up over at the fairly pointless Tumblr that I've had for a while. I didn't see the point of cluttering up this little lark, not that anyone would even notice it over here.

Maybe someday soon I'll be back in mental shape to tackle some short stories or, non-existent deities forbid, another novel... I have a few that could use some work (or at least could use finishing before I die).

The third anniversary of The Big Rusty Lie's "publication" is close and, as no one particularly cares about the book, I figured I might as well go back to selling it as cheap as I can, reasonable royalty rates be damned.

Currently, those who got shiny new Kindles for Christmas can go and get my somewhat-formatted Kindle edition for the minimal price of $0.99. The digital copies on other stores (like the Nook store and iBooks store) should be dropping to somewhere around $1.25 very soon as well, not that anyone probably buys much in either of those areas.

So, if you have a hankering to try the book, now couldn't be a better time, especially if you want me to get virtually nothing for it. If you love it, perhaps you'll consider buying the still-the-same-price-as-always print edition.

Well, it seems that I ended up wiping my website for, more or less, nothing. But it's coming along and being reconstructed at a leisurely pace, so I guess it could be worse. And it will probably work slightly better now, not that anyone will probably notice except me.

Hopefully everything will be back and up and running reasonably soon and no one will be left wondering what the hell happened to my website.

Looks like I actually wrote something new that you can see! How about that?

Despite my general silence (and the fact that I'm talking to no one at all), I've worked on a few things. I wasn't feeling great about where the last half of The Black Smoking Gun Of Temptation was going, so I quit, mid-NaNoWriMo. But I did finally get my ideas and titled firmed up for a project I've been putting off so long I forgot all the ideas I had for it.

Rudderless is now available to be read online.

The idea, initially, was to write small parts of it and put it up daily. That seems incredibly silly and overconfident now, so I'm sticking to a "I'll try to update it every week" sort of ethos, not that anyone much will be reading it to notice whether or not it's updated. Still, it's a bit of effort I'm putting forward, so hopefully people will enjoy my humorous fantasy tale of shipwrecked adventurers looking for a boat. If not, it's free, so you can't really complain.

Ah, another place for me to spew crap onto your computer screen. Well, at least theoretically. In actual practice, no one will read this. Such is the nature of the internet: infinite monkeys screaming into the void or something. The more information that coalesces in these boxes full of metal shavings, the less we actually know. Or I think I read something to that effect in an in-flight magazine. It's hard to remember.

Perhaps from time to time I'll actually bother to write something here, much like how, from time to time, I actually bother to write something at all. But you know how it is; I have a busy schedule of brain-spewing to do on Facebook and Twitter. I couldn't actually spend time crafting stories for the enjoyment of me, Cathi Miller, and a horse that has my tales read to it by a text-parsing computer voice as part of a University Of Wisconsin experiment to test the effects of this thing on that other thing.

But, given the appropriate prodding, dressing-down, tears, gnashing of teeth, and purchase of copies of The Big Rusty Lie from an online retailer of your choosing, I might actually churn out a new story or, test horse forbid, another novel (of which I have parts of many completed). Enough prodding and I might actually start my satirical online fantasy novel to the delight of no one at all. Only time can tell. Or maybe Derren Brown, but he doesn't return my phone calls.

In the meantime, I have added a feed of the stupid, pointless shit I write on my website. You'll never be out of the loop of the boring crap I post. Also feel free to add me or fan me on Facebook or whatever you kids do these days. Perhaps next month I'll give away some copies of my book.

Guess I should note that I'm still alive, since I've maintained radio silence for so long. I'm willing to bet no one is reading this, though, and that it doesn't really matter.

November's work on The Black Smoking Gun Of Temptation went... But I'm not sure I can say much more. I did my 50,000 words, like an inmate doing his time in prison and, once finished, I was gone. After finishing, I felt the majority of what I'd written wasn't very exciting or impressive. I haven't looked back at it...

It's time once again for National Novel Writing Month and this time I swear I'm going to fucking write The Black Smoking Gun Of Temptation, the follow-up to The Big Rusty Lie (and also relates to "Boozed Up And Rioting", so check that out).

You can keep up on my progress at Twitter or come watch my progress at the NaNoWriMo site. I'm going to get this thing done this year or die trying...

So what is there in store for those of you who are actually interested (being no one at all)? A return...

Fresh onto the site are two new short story readables: Undersea Ballet, an older tale but a bit more mainstream than most, and On The Commission Chief's Covert Tactical Operation, a writing exercise more in the form of an excerpt from a non-existent sci-fi novel, apparently written by a lunatic. Hopefully the two will provide some entertainment.

There's a "new" short story from 1999 up now in the Writing section.

With my compliments, enjoy reading over the classic Blofly Sings The Blues.

Perhaps to the interest of someone, the first chapter of a Lynch-ian surreal novella I was writing on a lark, Somewhere In The Dark, is available for perusal in the Writing > Excerpts section, along with a chapter from The Big Rusty Lie.

Download and enjoy or read here on the site.