Ask the Author: Ryan Smithson
Answered Questions (14)
Ryan Smithson
Hi Julie, thanks for reading! I’d say the best part of my deployment were the people I met and the bonds formed through encountering that experience together. I do keep in touch with people from the platoon. Time and life has a way of creating some distance, but social media helps me stay up on what everyone is doing. I also get the occasional opportunity to get together with some of the soldiers I served with, and it’s always like we just picked up where we left off and we haven’t been apart for 16 years!.
Ryan Smithson
It was bad in the sense that no one thought we were that vulnerable. Terrorists had hijacked planes before, but they usually wanted something in return—prisoners released, money, political asylum, etc. Never in our lifetimes had people used planes as weapons, and never to attack civilian targets. And it wasn’t just one. It was the first tower, which people kind of assumed was an accident. Then the second, which made it obvious it was a coordinated attack. Then one hit the Pentagon. Then another went down before it reached its final target, wherever that was. So imagine as it’s all unfolding, no one knows when it’s going to end. Were there more planes? Was there going to be other forms of attacks—car bombs at rush hour, warheads falling on major cities? It was terrifying, which was the point. Besides the War on Terror, the other lasting effect of 9/11 has been a hyper-fear-driven media. The news has always been grim, but 9/11 taught news organizations that sensationalism can make them lots and lots of money. People became glued to the news after 9/11, because we wanted answers. And that quest has never quite left our society. It created a burgeoning 24/7 cable news industry, which created a “need” to know about everything bad happening all the time, the assumption being that the more we know the better we can prepare and predict—ironically, being scared all the time makes us feel safer. The opposite is true, of course, and unless we’re working in a field whose job it is to prepare and react to emergencies, then infotainment is probably doing us more psychological harm than good. Now this is excluding events like COVID, which really do require us to pay attention and stay informed, using whatever news source we prefer, but this is obviously the exception and not the norm. I think your generation is witnessing an even bigger change in history. Most people, while frightened, didn’t have to change their day-to-day life after 9/11.
Ryan Smithson
I’d love to! I sent you a direct message to coordinate a call.
Ryan Smithson
It's impossible to know for sure, but probably not. I didn't come from one of those families where everyone serves. I didn't even own GI Joes as a kid. It was a pretty spontaneous decision that was largely influenced by my wanting to do something for the cause.
Ryan Smithson
The World According to Garp. I would wrestle Garp... and probably lose.
Ryan Smithson
The Serpent King, Flying Lessons and Other Stories, Dear Martin, Mr. 60%, Goodbye Days, and My Near Death Adventures.
Ryan Smithson
What does the tooth fairy do with our teeth? Really.
Ryan Smithson
Tyler Durden and Marla Singer from "Fight Club." They're both so broken yet perfect for each other. And Marla is way more broken in the book version. They way they play off each other, their nihilism, they have so much to teach us about awareness and the self.
Ryan Smithson
The idea for the biography I'm currently working on is what a New Ager might call "stars aligning." I started working as a proposal writer for a technology company, and a fellow employee began telling me about his brother-in-law, an army lieutenant who was killed in Afghanistan in 2008. When his funeral announcement appeared in the paper, his family watched as people vilified the soldier on Internet message boards because he was Muslim. I knew I needed to help share his story and perspective, perhaps one of the most important in this new age of polarity and extremism.
Ryan Smithson
I wrote "Ghosts of War" because it helped to process trauma. It was therapy. Then it actually got published. Go figure.
Most of the other stuff I've published comes from various ideas I jot down in a journal (most of them stay there). Once in a while an idea hits, develops, lands on its feet, and then someone actually thinks people will want to read it, so they publish it. I wish I knew how it worked, because I'd bottle the formula and sell it on the black market.
Most of the other stuff I've published comes from various ideas I jot down in a journal (most of them stay there). Once in a while an idea hits, develops, lands on its feet, and then someone actually thinks people will want to read it, so they publish it. I wish I knew how it worked, because I'd bottle the formula and sell it on the black market.
Ryan Smithson
A biography of Mohsin Naqvi, an infantryman who served during the first wave into Iraq. He earned a degree, was promoted to lieutenant and later gave his life in Afghanistan. As a Muslim in the U.S. Army, Lieutenant Naqvi had a special grievance toward the extremists who give his religion a bad name. I am honored to share his story with the world.
Ryan Smithson
1) Find people you trust to give you honest feedback. Your mom will give you great praises, if that's what you need. But that's not all you need. Sometimes you just need a good buddy to tell you, "This sucks, man. Try again."
2) Don't be afraid to try again.
2) Don't be afraid to try again.
Ryan Smithson
There's a tipping point when a character's dialogue, the things she does, her thoughts, they start to break away from you. You put the character in a situation, and she just... does. She starts living. It's incredible, and probably the closest we get to being a god, besides actually giving birth, which I've never done. You know, the Y chromosome thing.
Ryan Smithson
The same way I dealt with basic training: just push through, baby! Sometimes, the writing sucks when you do that, but I'd rather have 10 pages of junk to try to rework than a stark white Word doc. It's usually in the reworking where you find the story anyway.
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