Inspired Friday with Darlene Ryan

Darlene Ryan is the author of many fiction/ non fiction books for young adults, including her newest release, Five Minutes More.

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Five Minutes More is the book that wouldn’t go away. I could never get the story written the way that I wanted it to read, so I’d work on the manuscript, get stuck, get discouraged, and put it away. But I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. Finally I decided I would finish the book—no matter how awful it was. Well, the finished story wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t very good, either.

I knew something was wrong with the plotting, but I had been working on that book on and off for years and I’d lost my perspective. At first I thought of doing something melodramatic with the manuscript, like putting it through the shredder or having a bonfire in the driveway.

Well, the shredder sounds like a senior citizen with asthma if I try to feed more than two pages at a time through it, and the city frowns on bonfires in the driveway so close to the well water field. So, I asked my friend Susan, who is also a writer and an excellent editor, to read the whole thing.

She liked some parts, she found some dumb mistakes I’d made, and she said, “Could you _______.” I can’t tell you what goes in the blank because it’s a major story point.

It was an “aha” moment. I realized Susan was right. I rewrote like a maniac. When I was finished, Five Minutes More was finally the story I’d been trying to write for years. I hope everyone enjoys reading it.

Thank you Lauren for inviting me to be part of Inspired Fridays.

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Thanks so much, Darlene! :)