Ryan Sylander: Blog

Readers,
Hope you are enjoying Depth of Field. Part 2 is posted. Part 3: Red Herring will start posting tomorrow. Feedback is always appreciated. I always enjoy your comments and critiques.

Cheers
Ryan S

Ch 10 went up tonight, last chapter of Part 1: Initials. Part 2: Electric Counterpoint starts in a couple of days. Thanks to those who have sent feedback on the story so far, always appreciate your comments.

Cheers
RS

Chapter four has gone live. Hope you are enjoying Depth of Field. I appreciate the comments you've sent, including new readers of LTTL. Thanks!

As I've been reading through the whole story these past few weeks, I've noticed a bunch of common words used to describe an object are actually brand names that technically should be capitalized. Maybe it's coincidence, but a number of them have cropped up in DoF for some reason. Walkman, Ziploc, Post-it, are just a few that I can think of OTTOMH. I promise it's not some subliminal product placement thing!

Enjoy.

Cheers
Ryan

Dearest readers,

I am happy to announce that Depth of Field (the continuation of Looking Through the Lens) has started posting on SOL for your reading enjoyment. It picks up the tale one week after the end of LTTL, finding Matt and his half-sister Lara on a camping trip in the beautiful Catskill Mountains of New York State. New experiences and blurred boundaries make for an interesting weekend, and indeed, an interesting autumn. Matt and his girlfriend are often separated by distance during school, but he seems to be constantly trying to untangle her mischievous schemes. Throw in a few new sirens and some rock 'n' roll, and Matt will have his hands full as he tries to balance his life.

This book covers the story from the end of August until New Year's Day. The book is about 225K words in length, split into five parts containing a total of 39 chapters. The story is fully written, so chapters will post three times per week as we finish the final editing, polishing, and formatting. No eight month hiatus in the middle this time!

The story assumes that you have read LTTL (and remember it!). In other words, it jumps right in without any background, so have a read through of LTTL to refresh your memory if necessary. There are many references to characters, events, and themes from LTTL that won't make much sense if you start this one cold!

The story is much improved by the contributions and support from my editor, pcb, who is still making sure that the crappy stuff falls to the cutting room floor after all these years. (pcb also worked on the LTTL 2009 rewrite and Opus One back in the day.)

I always welcome critique, so please make use of the feedback page at the end of the story to tell me what you thought. In particular, what could have been better? What themes did you like? Or even better, tell me a little piece of your story and how it relates to what you read. More than a few thoughtful reader emails over the years have both kindled my muse and also affected my future writings.

As an aside, if you haven't checked out my SOL page since October, then you might not know that I entered a short story into the SOL Halloween contest. It started on a whim, an excuse to get out some rust and cobwebs before tackling the final stretch of DoF. Once I started typing, though, it grew into a character piece written to satisfy the dark muse that became roommates with my luminous muse some six years ago. The story is quite moody, intense at times, but perhaps some might find it a good read. At the very least, writing the story helped me keep Depth of Field on the lighter side of things, on balance. Feel free to have a look. 'Ritual J, Eternal K'. Luckily, I didn't place in the top three, which means it's not behind the premier pay wall. Bonus points to anyone who guesses the meaning of the title!

Well, I sincerely and humbly hope that you find enjoyment in Depth of Field. I realized recently that I'm posting it almost exactly eight years after the first chapter of LTTL went up. So thank you for reading, commenting, and joining me on the journey. Look for Book 3 in February of 2022! Just kidding. Well, hopefully kidding about the date, but I do have an outline for the third book roughed out and some scenes written. We shall see what the coming months and years bring. As always, I'll try to announce my future plans on my Yahoo group. And yes, perhaps it is time to return to Wexford for another Opus. Cheers!

With deep gratitude,
Ryan Sylander

Dearest readers,
I have been reminded by a kind reader that perhaps not everyone interested in the sequel to LTTL follows my postings at my Yahoo group (use the "Forum" link above to get there if you'd like). A quick update, then. Depth of Field is almost ready to start posting. It is fully written now, and my editor and I have been editing, proofing, and polishing up the early chapters. It's fairly long, at 225k words, split into 39 chapters. Once we have enough chapters finished for a bit of a cushion, I will start posting the story with regularity. Look for the first chapter to appear before the end of February for sure! I'll make another announcement when I finally hit the submit button.

Cheers
Ryan S