Look and Listen

Biography

I've been writing and reading for all the time I can find in my mind worth remembering. I have also been drawing for all my life as well, eventually becoming a graphic designer by daylight (designing my book covers and website www.ryansherwood.com) and by moonlight, an author and reader. I try to digest every bit of found art and action, working to blend them in my words and into one genre for all the others out there looking for stories that have that needed extra acumen and bite to satisfy. Many of my years and others books have been opened and closed, absorbed and enjoyed, all bringing me, sometimes dragging me closer in style and content to that pristine yet amorphous goal of success in my mind. An idea so vague that only hard work and time can mold it clearly. Once common sense and practicality beat down ego and I felt I was versed enough, I began my first novel and found that six years and two ebook publishers were just barely enough to finally complete it. Nothing like the first novel I must say. Quite a trial; and voluntary no less. Though I have no children, I see my first novel, Hold the Light, as my initial round of raising something so a part of me that once it came back from its first year of school at my first publisher crying from neglect, I nearly scolded anyone involved to shame for allowing such terrible things to happen under their professional noses. My thick skin and realism aside, it was time to protect the young. Then, as I’m told and imagine with children, the second novel, Revenants: Fallen Savior - the beginning of a series reinventing the vampire and the soul – was easier to raise. And with that came a story with greater acumen and harder bites. My feel of confidence rose in a realistic sense. Art and action did more than blend for me, it bloomed. And so I wrote and read further. The more great novels I held the more fodder I digested. Even the poor books I barely managed to swallow helped, in an almost greater way. If that crap could make it to the bestseller list, how long until my hopes can be realized? My hopeful delusions of being an author are deep and vast, as all with lofty goals should be, but it is not fame that drives me, oh no, not that troublesome sycophant, but just the chance to be read widely, liked or hated, is what publishing heartfelt words is to me. Every line, with its biographical vitamins may improve the health of another, as other have done for me, to revive or even create bits of humanity often lost in daily life. The novel, often more so than nonfiction, has a life to it and one day, if I’m lucky, mine will walk the lands to speak the now silent tales worth telling.

Inspiration

I grew up with a close group of friends that couldn't stop reading. We loved, nearly obsessed with stories, games and music, and lived in the pages and notes we read and heard. Nothing seemed more important than being inundated in the best book and proudly parading it to everyone. Once the stories became too tame and predicable, we began our own. Then puberty hit and adulthood followed and I found myself living life instead of trying to portray it. Many years passed. Experience built. Lives ended and began and all brought new ideas and old desires to create portraits of life. In short, my inspiration is the same as everyone else's, my life. To follow state my printed inspiration, comic books were the first to sink into my tongue and influence my taste. Mainly graphic novels - V for Vendetta, the Watchmen, the Preacher series and especially the Lone Wolf and Cub series have a solid home in my heart. These, as well as Stephen King, were my adolescent influences. The Shawshank and Green Mile films (and the books) had a profound impact. As of now, works that inspire me are written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ralph Ellison, Daniel Quinn, Phillip K. Dick, Stephen King and, I must admit, J.K. Rowling. Just to name a few.