tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2473209041519764192024-03-13T19:37:39.581-07:00Ashley JefferyThe rambling thoughts of a daydreamer......Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-66623863747736403292023-04-20T07:53:00.001-07:002023-04-20T07:53:39.852-07:00Complicated <p>Life has been so strange lately. I find myself angry for no reason. Caught somewhere between denial and oppression. </p><p>Hoping that I’ll wake up and the loss of this last year will be erased or worse pretending it never happened. I’ll see a friend pregnant or that someone just had their baby and I’m so envious and angry I can’t see.</p><p>Why do they get their baby? Where’s mine?</p><p>And I hope that no one knows the awful things going on in my head. I hope God forgives me.</p><p>And I hate and hate and hate and don’t know how to get it out of my body. It’s starting to screw up my relationship. And I wonder how do people survive this. </p><p>How do their marriages get through the loss of a child. </p><p>How do I? </p><p>There’s so many things we aren’t saying. Like if we don’t say them they will go away. So I’ll say them here.</p><p>I’m sorry</p><p>Part of me hates you</p><p>I hate myself</p><p>I hate God</p><p>I still want my baby</p><p>I feel like you’ll never understand me</p><p>I don’t even understand myself</p><p>Please forgive me</p><p>Sometimes I don’t want to be with you </p><p>Because you will always remind me of what we lost together, of my worst day on this planet. And I hate that you’re associated with that pain. </p>Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-84943459751669682902023-02-22T07:47:00.002-08:002023-02-22T07:47:40.114-08:00Dreams<p> Here we are again. I’m sure a therapist would tell me I have unresolved feelings or some shit and that is why I dream about your annoying ass so often. No shit. The problem is I would like to Eternal Sunshine your ass out of my memory please and thank you. </p><p>It wasn’t epic. You did not love me while I the idiot absolutely loved you. Unrequited absolutely but not epic. Not epic at all. </p><p>So let’s Freud this shit and figure out why you continue to haunt me. Regrets…1 I didn’t tell you. But that was self preservation at its finest. I didn’t tell you because I knew you didn’t love me and saying it to you would have been too much and it would have fucked me up royally.</p><p>The love wasn’t bigger or more intense but there was something to it something with teeth. Something that could murder my soul if I wasn’t careful. I felt like I could see into you to a space that no one else could. It was different from the other loves Ive felt purely for that alone. </p><p>Did you see me back. No</p><p>Much to my horror and pain you did not. I’m not sure you could have really even if you’d tried. This was all me. All my complicated feelings. </p><p>So the dreams. I have a fulfilling life. I just spent an amazing weekend in Vegas. Come home and have sex dreams about you. Not just sex but babies this time. Children. Why? Because I know you have a daughter. </p><p>You’d think that me knowing Karma bit you on the ass would soothe some fucked up part of me but it doesn’t. </p><p>I want you out of my head. You Don’t deserve to be there. You didn’t sacrifice for me or take care of me or do anything kind or giving. You were my fucked up friend who sometimes fucked me but couldn’t date me because I had a kid. </p><p>Fuck you.</p><p>My husband should be the one in my dreams. He fucking earned that shit. Has cared loved and supported me in everything.</p><p>Fuck you and fuck Me. I hate these dreams because every single time it makes me think about you all damn day long. </p><p>So yeah fuck me.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-11668887300397452142022-04-16T19:53:00.003-07:002022-04-16T19:53:15.260-07:00How to Heal my Broken Heart<p>I don’t know what to do with myself. Some days are easier than others. I distract myself with walking and cooking and trying to keep myself from remembering how it happened, that it happened at all. Other times I can go on breathing and forget for a moment and that moment is far too short and not often enough. </p><p>I’ve lost loved ones. My grandparents that helped raise me years back and my father more recently. I lost an adoptive grandfather/father only a year or two ago and still nothing touches the deep grief that lives inside me now.</p><p>I’m so angry at God. I wanted another child so badly I had to let that dream go when years went by without any plus signs. I worked really hard to get to a place where I could accept that I couldn’t have more children. And then I got pregnant. </p><p>It felt like a miracle. It felt like God had finally given me my child…my daughter. </p><p>And then he took her back.</p><p>And I’m so angry.</p><p>And I want her back. </p><p>And I hate him for it. And I can’t find the reason in his taking her and all but killing me. What is the lesson in this loss? Where is my peace. I had it once and now those dams are broken and I’m lost without my shepherd.</p><p>How do I forgive myself and love God. </p><p>How do I get past this?</p><p>If only I had some explanation instead of more questions, more anger. I hate this body and this place and the love of my family isn’t helping keep me from the brink. The madness and anger just keeps eating all my joy. Ravenous it takes all that’s good and twists it into more pain. </p><p>I hate myself.</p><p>Why?</p><p>Why?</p><p>Why?</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-16328297346524811532022-04-15T18:40:00.002-07:002022-04-15T18:40:32.220-07:00To My Lost Baby<p> You were born only two weeks after we discovered your existence. Through the pain and agony I wished with everything inside me to keep you there you were too little just seven weeks and there was no way to save you. </p><p>But if I could reach out and rip you back from heaven I would, I’d give anything to still be pregnant with you. To still carry your tiny body within mine. To plan for a future with you in it. To pick your name and decorate your bedroom. To see your perfect face and hear your baby cries. I’m haunted by your absence. Why would God give me you for only a moment. </p><p><br /></p><p>I feel like I’m being punished. That I didn’t prove I wanted you enough or that my love was found lacking. I’ve dreamed of you for ten years waiting patiently for God to give me my next baby. Five years ago I accepted that babies were beyond me. That I had my two sweet boys and my daughter was never going to come. </p><p>I made jokes that I would be a terrible mom to a girl. That my boys made me unfit and harsh. But deep down I was breaking apart inside with longing. I love my husband so much all I ever wanted was more of him and more of me. I wanted tiny toes and fingers that heavenly scent of sweet baby. In the end to mend my broken heart my husband got me a puppy. A sweet grey Weimaraner pup we called scout. </p><p>Last year my sweet annoying girl bit my sons face and we had to put her down. I would not keep an animal that was dangerous. I would not pass on my problem to someone else. For years we fought against her emotional problems. Resource guarding, separation anxiety, food aggression. I read all the books to save her and in the end she defied my trust and hurt my son horribly. </p><p>I Said goodbye to the puppy I loved…and a new kind of pain came for me. My regret for loving her, for trusting her, for putting my son in harms way. Even now as the stitches have healed and the skin is smooth I can’t look at him without feeling a deep hurt inside myself for being a part of what happened to him. I wish so much I could erase that puppy from our lives. </p><p>She was never the child I wanted. She was never you the baby I wanted so badly. She was the bandaid on a dam crumbling. In the end I think she helped but then she didn’t. Nothing can take the place of a child you know you are missing. And here we are again I’m missing you. Wanting so badly to be pregnant still. To have that beautiful future with you in it. I know you were my daughter. And I want so badly to climb up and take you back. </p><p>I wonder if God will ever let me have another when all I want is you. </p>Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-24696927551945598662021-08-16T02:30:00.002-07:002021-08-16T02:30:29.267-07:00And suddenly..<p> I’ve been writing again!! Suddenly my boys are both big enough and now it’s like I have my life back. The first few books I wrote at night. I perilously typed away at the wee hours while they slept. It was the only time I had back then. So I pulled all nighters and existed on a very small amount of sleep. </p><p>Sometimes I wonder if all that late night writing messed up my sleep patterns for good. I still struggle with insomnia, but they don’t need me as much anymore they’re both teenagers. And now just like that simple snapping of fingers I have time. </p><p>It’s weird how quiet my house is now. The screaming and fights have calmed down. They don’t come running to me for everything under the sun and while I’m sad, a bigger part of me is grateful. Moms give so much of themselves to their kids that having a little piece back feels utterly amazing. </p><p>I’ve already written out a plot and have a few chapters typed out and even more written down in a notebook. I’m putting a big chunk of my single mom life into this story. It’s a romance and it’s something that’s brewed inside me for a long time. They say we work out old hurts with our writing. </p><p>I feel an old wound closing as we speak. The good and the bad finally on the paper. There’s this strange sense of relief. Like I’m exhaling that breath I’ve been holding for the first time. Also I should note all of my best single stories of the past were beyond crazy. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that I lived through some of the crap I did. </p><p>So I’ll go back to writing and hopefully finish all those stories I promised myself that I’d write. </p>Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-84431076009770815062021-08-05T13:25:00.000-07:002021-08-05T13:25:06.011-07:00You come to me in Dreams<p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px;">When all is dark and quiet, you come to me in dreams,</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px;">You pull me close and call my name as my body draws you in,</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px;">We climb that high off mountain, our bodies play the game,</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">We come apart and come together again, and again, and again, </span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">I wish I didn’t miss you, I don’t even know who you are, </span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">The years have flown and we’ve both grown further and further apart, </span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">It’s strange how things can be so different, </span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">Loves have come and gone, but deep inside the recesses of my mind you live for me in the dark,</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">I don’t want to miss you, my heart has clearly moved on,</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">But still I find myself resigned against the dreams you occupy until dawn.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">What is it about you that still has a hold of me,</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">The slip and slide, the groans and cries, the whimpers of passion and glee,</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">My husband still fulfills me takes and gives as I need,</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 28px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1">But somehow when the lights go out it’s you I find between my knees when the world and I are fast asleep. </span></p>Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-14894072357100216992021-08-01T03:40:00.003-07:002021-08-01T03:47:02.090-07:00Viscous <div>I wrote this way back and it was somehow never published. Read with caution I was pissed.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>A thousand voices,<br />
typing, the click clicking of the keys drowns out the morality, drowns out the inner voice that screams out STOP,<br />
a mob of ugly putrid opinions, pointing fingers, stones in hands ready to fling, but instead you use words,<br />
slut, whore, tease, bitch, slut, prostitute, you wanted to be raped, you changed your mind, tease, slut whore, bitch,<br />
you fling your stones with quiet abandon, you wrap your words with hate as you hide behind your screens,<br />
shame on you,<br />
shame on me, <br />
shame on us all for letting our daughters grow up in a world that believes that what makes them worthy is between their legs,<br />
that their voices, their words don't matter, that everything means yes, short skirt...yes, a smile yes, accepting a drink...yes, no...yes, NO...Yes...NO PLEASE STOP....YES ABSOLUTELY YES,<br />
because why would we ever say no to you wonderful, powerful men,<br />
we always mean yes because we are empty headed walking vaginas made exclusively for your pleasure,<br />
how dare we say NO, how dare we even think it when our short skirts, and flirty behavior, and drunk maybe blacked out faces scream yes even when we scream NO,<br />
protect our boys who take without asking from the worthless whores, from the teases who mean yes,<br />
protect our boys from the six years of prison for only "twenty minutes of action",<br />
protect our boys from the sluts and teases who change their minds,<br />
protect our boys from just being boys, from being unable to control themselves because she dared to wear a short skirt,<br />
she is an object,<br />
she is a thing,<br />
she is not a person,<br />
there is no equality,<br />
it is an illusion,<br />
we are still objects,<br />
and every time a boy gets a slap on the hand after raping a girl we prove once again that women, girls are still objects made strictly for your pleasure,<br />
that we are not worthy,<br />
that we are not worth the time it would take out of his life, that he is worth more because he has a penis.<br />
<br />
<br />
Lately, everywhere I look there is an injustice against women. Girls being hounded or called sluts or threatened with rape for having a voice. Girls who cry rape who are called liars. Who are called names that are so bad I can't believe grown men would actually say it let alone scream it from the streets. I'm thankful I have sons. I'm terrified they will grow up to be one of these men. Men that see hard evidence of an assault and because the boy is rich, good looking and has a future let them go with a slap on the hand.<br />
What about her future. What about the nightmares and years of therapy she will endure because of her pain.<br />
If she were a child, would you look away so easily.<br />
Pedophiles are the worst most deplorable human beings, but a college boy who rapes a girl only made a mistake or she was a tease.<br />
What if she were younger.<br />
You would not be so quick to look away, to call her names and pat him on the back. If she were younger you would grab your pickets and pitchforks, your torches and whips and walk the streets to hang the man that dare defile a child.<br />
If she were a virgin would it make a difference?<br />
Would you care more if that rape, was her first time?<br />
Would if matter what color her skin was?<br />
Would it matter if she were a boy?<br />
It shouldn't matter.<br />
He should pay.<br />
He should be the one hounded and called names.<br />
HE should be the one that is punished.<br />
<br />
<br />Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-37835102582184084222021-08-01T03:20:00.002-07:002021-08-01T03:37:21.313-07:00What Dreams?<p>I haven’t checked in here in years. I’m not sure why or how time gets away from us. You wake you blink and five damn years have gone by….</p><p>I’m not one for excuses but I guess life just happens. And somehow in that happening things that were oh so important fall away and you just keep living. </p><p>It’s strange and unnerving and beautiful in its own wild way. Life when you’re living it. </p><p>In the end I’m glad I found my way back here because even if not one soul reads the nonsense that occupies my brain I’ll have written it. Bled it all out on the pages like I’ve done and will do again when time and life let me. </p><p>Lately I’ve been having those insane dreams again. You know the ones…hot writhing bodies, connecting, separating, coming together in that awesome dance as old as time. Those dreams are very effective in making me hate sleep. Because it’s not always my dear husband staring in the sweaty tangled sheets no it seems to always be that one damn ex that you don’t want to remember. </p><p>What I find utterly annoying is this wasn’t even a proper ex. Not really anyway he is what I like to refer to as a fuck buddy. A friend with benefits and no strings except that I was the only person in his bed while we played our sweaty little games. I’m not sure if he ever followed that rule as closely as I did. God knows people lie. But I like to think he was honest and our on again off again time was unstained by all that is in human nature to lie.</p><p>So back to the problem…the damn dreams. They are not often, I wouldn’t even say monthly maybe a handful of times a year and dear reader they are always always always HIM. Now let’s not say my hubby is lacking in this department the man can make my legs shake in quite a wonderful way. We are highly compatible in the bedroom. </p><p>But HIM, the nameless albeit not faceless turquoise eyed asshole of my damn dreams was also very gifted. My mom recently told me about a show that she watched called Sex/Life. She shared because the sex was hot and women share things like shows movies or even books with hot sex.</p><p>Well that show rang a bell I didn’t want rung. Not my lack of a husband who was interested in getting busy. Or even the urge to find closure or good sex. It just reminded me of my Gosh Darn dreams about a man I haven’t talked to in a thousand years who still occupies my hottest dreams. </p><p>I wonder, if the show had a point though. We look back at the things we did when we were wild and untethered to the heavy burdens of adult life. Like say motherhood or being a wife.</p><p>I was a mother even then and he was so not interested in dating because of it. And somehow I put up with this bullshit behavior because of sex and friendship and something he had that I could never ever define even now.</p><p>I don’t know what it is I wanted in him or what I was so attracted to. I had men who I wanted and couldn’t have, that happened, I was not immune to rejection, and this wasn’t it. It wasn’t anything I can find words for, it was just there this yearning, this need, this crazy insane attraction. </p><p>Once while at work (we did work together for years) I remember rounding a corner and he was there. We’d already slept together quite a few times but he had moved away and there I was seeing him for the first time in a while. I followed his body with my gaze and wound up slamming into the side of a cubicle that’s how enamored I was. </p><p>Body slamming the side of a cubicle.</p><p>Witness to this utter embarrassment was another work colleague who laugh snorted all the way back to our own side of the office. </p><p>What is it about the past that’s so intoxicating. Does the memory grow warmer with time or does the ugly parts just fade away? I know why it never worked out in the end. I know what made me put a final stop to it, but damn if I didn’t keep talking to him and holding out and hoping he’d look up one day after we’d stopped fucking and see in me the same damn unnameable thing I saw in him. </p><p>That show seriously made me wonder. So I may have looked online at his profile (again) yes I creep on occasion and no I am not proud of it. I guess I hope he’ll get fat and ugly and start posting pictures of his wife and kids, except I don’t think he has any and that makes me both sad and mad at myself for creeping.</p><p>I love my husband. I love our family and the life we have together but dreams happen and while I’ll never talk to HIM ever again, he’s still in there somewhere floating around my subconscious like a stick of dynamite ready to blow my damn dreams up in a fit of fast hot naked fucking, and annoyingly with a vague half smile and eyes so damn intense it almost hurts to look at them…damn it </p><p>I can’t control my dreams but if I could would I cut him out or dream him more? My heart screams erase him but my dreams…who knows what the hell they’re fucking saying. </p>Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-52104402489834152042016-03-08T23:04:00.002-08:002016-03-08T23:04:33.980-08:00Functional albeit CrazyI've never been shy about admitting my short comings. I'll make fun of myself probably more than I should. I think everyone should have a healthy dose of self-deprecation, it makes for interesting conversations.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CFRFkMzH3vA/UeffubqlwOI/AAAAAAAAA3U/xRrhhASMtgw/s1600/lilith%2Breleased%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CFRFkMzH3vA/UeffubqlwOI/AAAAAAAAA3U/xRrhhASMtgw/s400/lilith%2Breleased%2B2.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
Over the years I'd like to think I've fine tuned this whole writing business. What once took four years I cut down to less than two. Occasionally a particularly hard finish might take me longer. Enter <i>Released. </i>Holy smelly crap Batman I started that SOB I don't know three years ago...maybe longer. Sad sad<br />
business. <br />
<br />
<----(Just call me Ahab, this bitch was my white whale.)<br />
<br />
Surprisingly, and without jinxing it, I have started the hopefully not near as long process of finishing the story. I can't exactly say what went wrong with it. Another book stole my interest. I didn't know how to fill in the story even though I knew how it would end. It's kind of a conundrum. Released just wouldn't give me a break. Yesterday I wrote something I feel is both fitting and awesome. Not to toot my own horn but after a book gives you the hell that it did, finally writing something good is the best damn high I've ever freaking had.<br />
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Strangely enough, this writing wasn't done in the wee hours of the evening. It wasn't written in the early hours of the morning. It was written in the middle of the day when a grown person should be working, and strangely enough without pushing super hard and finding the right pace. I've lost some bad habits, and that my friends is a beautiful thing.<br />
<br />
The Wild Hunt was almost entirely written at three in the morning. Every day for years. I used to have the absolute worst sleeping habits. It's still not fabulous, but I don't do that crap anymore thank God! So I guess what I'm trying to say is that finally, at the ripe middle young, not super old age of 33 I have learned to be functional albeit crazy.<br />
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Huuzaah!!Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-16032793731739997282016-03-02T11:50:00.001-08:002016-03-02T12:13:09.954-08:00You can never go home again..Slowly, like a small pitiful first bloom, the need to read and write is coming back to me. Idea's are plentiful, they usually are. I watch a movie, read a blob, anything really can find me and an idea is born. I'll think about zombies, usually around the time an episode of The Walking dead is on, and I'll want to write a story from their perspective. I'll think about the twisted way humans punish each other and themselves. The way hate breeds and love dies.<br />
<br />
Maybe it's spring, the changing of the seasons the fact that the sun continues to shine. I feel hopeful, like in the near future I'll actually write something good. Today I came across a story about a girl I went to High School with. Though it happened years ago, and I remember when it was a hot-topic, somehow today of all day's it resonated with me. I think of where I grew up with a mixture of bittersweet memories. I had friends I loved, churches, activities. There were many community programs, dinners at the elks, football games on Friday's. Fireworks, hot air balloons. Every season had it's activities. Homecoming floats downtown, the Christmas parade in the winter. Easter egg hunts, Prom. The Horned Toad Derby. Camp Yeager. I both love and hate where I come from.<br />
<br />
I think that's probably how it is for everyone. We love some things and hate the others. Parts are tainted by pain and hate, while others are filled with the colorful wonder of childhood. Though I have a common story, something smaller in comparison. I know where she was coming from. I felt that bitter sting of judgement and the sharp tongues of gossipmongers who had nothing better to do. So I get it. She was a year behind me. A sweet beautiful girl. Someone who struggled more than she should. I remember in particular that we had Lab Bio together. A subject I loved. A teacher I would never speak ill of, but teenager's however, can be assholes. The town I grew up in, or I should say we grew up in was small.<br />
<br />
Small towns make for hateful breeding grounds. Every dirty secret, every bad decision, every lie, every curse (mine a wild older sibling) follows you. There is no rebirth, no second chances. You make your decisions and that's it, if you're lucky you have friends. If you're exceptionally lucky you have more than one. I myself had many. Not all of them were close friends, I grazed, rotated daily, and was a free wanderer. I had a few close friends, but mostly I roamed. This was an acquired notion one that I learned because of my own bad experiences.<br />
<br />
When I was fifteen, I lost my virginity. My choices though not broadcasted in the very public way hers were, were still picked apart. Everyone knew what I had done. Not because people generally discuss the sexual escapades of a teenager, though it happens in small towns. Not because I became the statistical calamity that is teenage pregnancy. My escapades were broadcasted because my father, not altogether a sane man, decided to press charges.<br />
<br />
My boyfriend at the time was older. An eighteen year old senior to my fifteen year old freshman self. He wasn't a dirty old man, or some disgusting pedaphile. He was a teenage boy, dating a teenage girl. This is not uncommon. High school boys dating high school girls, in fact you could say that this particular scenario is as old as time. Boy meets girl, hormones explode, people get naked. I don't regret my decisions. I loved him, but what my father did, in a small town, was like throwing dynamite into my social life. <br />
<br />
He pressed charges. Statutory Rape.<br />
<br />
It didn't matter that I was a more than willing participant. It didn't matter that I a hormone raging female wanted to have sex with the ferocity of a starving animal. It didn't matter that I was the one who initiated the act. My father blew up this guys life. <br />
<br />
Needless to say the whole town was talking. People I didn't even know suddenly knew my name. I was instantly the town slut. A whore, it got so bad that the boy I had been dating, his older sister started stalking me. I had packs of girls following me home and chanting whore all the way there. I had girls standing outside my house yelling profanity's. Once, while at the local Dairy Queen, this boys sister yelled at me in the parking lot, told me I needed to learn to keep my legs shut, my older sister, laughed in her face. Said that I was just a kid, and she the older sister of this older boy should know better.<br />
<br />
I was heartbroken. Humiliated. What was supposed to be an act of love, became a circus. I had to undergo a rape kit.<br />
<br />
This in and of itself is demeaning. I stood buck naked in a room full of people and was made to spread myself and allow a black light to check my skin. I was fifteen. Barely familiar with sex, and raped for real that day, by the nurses, and police officers who thought they were doing the right thing. I don't think I was old enough to be having sex, but I don't think what they did was the answer. What they did to him....a trial, jail, probation. It wasn't right. Sure he was older, and legally an adult, but really when I look back he was just as much a kid as I was. He didn't deserve it.<br />
<br />
Years later, as I lost friends, and rebuilt my life. I found out why the other kids at school were so upset with me. Though the girls were just, as if not more sexually active as I was, I was being punished for one reason...I got caught. When I was a senior, my boyfriend at the time told me something truly disturbing. He was a college student, going to the local community college, and he told me that his Professor, a grown man, with a college education. A man that taught others for a living, told my boyfriend, that I was a slut.<br />
<br />
This was three years later. Three years. I had sex with one boy, and yet I was a slut. A grown man said this, a man I didn't even know. My boyfriend of course asked me about it, wondering why his college professor said that I wasn't worth the trouble.<br />
<br />
The reason I bring this up, the reason I'm even delving back into these memories is for her. She wrote a blog, not unlike this one, about our hometown. A place I left as fast as humanly possible. It is tainted. By idleness, by jealousy's and gossip. By people that are old enough to know better but don't care. They ignore their better judgement and continue on. It is small, ignorant, and I am ashamed. I don't return, just as I am sure she will never return.<br />
<br />
People in small towns aren't bad per say, but the smallness of it, makes everything to them seem big. So when she wrote her blog, and it circulated, and they behaved badly. Well all I can really say is that I'm not surprised. People will go on living small, and talking big, and other people will be hurt by it. The best thing I got from that town was my adaptability. Those hard few years of high school taught me how to live. I stopped caring what they thought and ignored the bullies, even the grown up ones, and learned to be myself.<br />
<br />
I learned to not take it all so seriously and just exist, in a moment, in a minute, in the future I would someday have. Getting out was beautiful, but staying, fighting, living through it, was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. So I thank the asshole professor who told my high school boyfriend I was a whore, I thank my first's older sister who told me to keep my legs shut, I thank the teachers who scowled and shook their heads, the girls who looked away when boys taunted me, and the friends who remained without judgement, I thank the police on campus who actually cared, and made me feel minimally safe on campus, but could do nothing once I had to walk home. I thank them, because without them I wouldn't be the thick skinned, bad ass that I am now. Pick on someone who gives a shit why don't you. I really hoped that once I left things would change.<br />
<br />
Oh Coalinga, you are still a freaking asshole, but for some reason I still love you. You could say its one of those ugly love-hate relationships. I wouldn't change it, but that doesn't mean it should stay the same.<br />
<br />
http://www.therampageonline.com/news/2010/11/17/myspace-blog-costs-former-fcc-student-dearly/<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-6522181204834063282016-02-04T14:03:00.000-08:002016-02-04T14:03:04.828-08:00Sabo-blockingI'm blocking myself.<br />
<br />
I haven't sat down and read a novel in months.<br />
<br />
I don't know what's wrong with me other than the usual health scare life altering changes going on in my life. I'm so focused on my health I'm forgetting everything else. I have tunnel vision. I see my goal, I watch the scale go down. See my body changing for the better. See my doctor smile with my progress and the level of my blood pressure, and it is the only thing that occupies my mind and time.<br />
<br />
I know I can multi task. I know I can read while I'm on the treadmill, listen to books on tape as I ride my bike. However, the desire to do these things is gone. I get on my treadmill and lose myself in the crazy wash of Netflix bingeing and old reruns. I focus on clean eating and squeezing in just a few more steps before my day is over.<br />
<br />
It's frustrating to be so consumed. But it's for the best, for a little while anyway. Sometimes I wonder if my life-altering moment changed more than just my outlook on health. Has my desire to write been stamped out as well. Has my life changed so drastically that my one true love of writing is gone?<br />
<br />
I wish I knew the answers...<br />
<br />
So I'll keep taking my steps, count my calories, eat my whole clean foods, and wait, for the desire to write, for the desire for anything other than my health to take over. If it doesn't, I might start looking in a new direction. Maybe I'll write healthy cookbooks. Write about the things I struggled to find, like eating with less sodium in a country that over salts everything. I can't even eat a normal meal out without going over my daily guidelines. A salad at Applebee's barely squeaks by with 1400 mg of sodium. That is over half of what I get for the entire day. In. A. Salad. <br />
<br />
I'm worried about us as a nation. All those extra calories, all the poisons inside the soft drinks that every restaurant supplies. What ever happened to just water. I can remember when the tiny town I grew up in didn't even have a fast food restaurant. Sad how things change and warp so quickly. How we kill ourselves in the name of convenience. Expanding waistlines, and God only knows what its doing to us chemically. The additives and growth hormones fucking with our brains ability to think, to maintain our biological clock.<br />
<br />
I wish I could feel the urge to write it all down. To make a story. But I feel nothing but the pull to take another walk. To bundle up in warm clothes and ride my bike with Ben Howard blaring through my ear buds. I need to create. I need to find that desire that burns so bright it doesn't allow to me sleep. Where are you muse? Find me, I need to write, I need it even if the desire to do it is gone. Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-85474852862532582362015-11-12T00:31:00.001-08:002015-11-18T19:57:04.256-08:00Another One Bites the Dust....Another Year....that is. It's gone. It packed up and is on its way out. The taxi is waiting. The plane ticket is in its greedy little hand. What a year.<br />
<br />
It has been EPIC. Crazy. Insane, fucked up and immeasurable. I have no idea how I survived. Seriously. I spent almost a week in the hospital. I am lucky to be alive. Life is a crazy twisted mess of more fucking crazy.<br />
<br />
I thought I was going to die.<br />
<br />
The pressure in my veins. The fear in my heart. The pain. The dizziness. I thought I was going to die.<br />
<br />
I didn't. FYI, no shit. I wouldn't be typing this otherwise. I'm alive. I never thought I'd have this little lesson so early in my life. I am thirty two years old. I am not old enough to die, though people have gone before me, younger, brighter, more full of the stuff that makes us burn out fast and in a blaze of glory.<br />
<br />
I am alive.<br />
<br />
I haven't written a word in months. I've been focusing on my health. Eating better, working out at least four days a week. Changing my life. De-stressing. Living in the moment. Thanking God and the powers that be that I'm still here in this moment. I've had some scary scrapes. Preeclampsia with my first son. Blood Pressure so high it's amazing I didn't have a stroke. I didn't think it would affect me long-term.<br />
<br />
I didn't think.<br />
<br />
I hate going to the doctor. Not only does it take time, and I hold time like a bandit with just hours to live...it takes money. Something of which I am even more obsessed and careful with. You have to be when you are living on scraps from writing and your wonderful husbands income. I have long thought of returning to the world of Health Insurance, but just the thought breaks me out in hives. I will make something of my writing or go back to school, I will not sludge through the horrible Insurance world ever again. Never.<br />
<br />
So I don't go to the Doctor on what you might call a regular basis. Every two years maybe. Less often probably. If I'm dying well then don't call the ambulance drive like the devil because if I live through this shit, I will not pay thousands for a car ride. I am stubborn to say the least. A towering wall of immovability if you ask my husband. I don't budge.<br />
<br />
I had a toothache. A bad, horrible, killing my face toothache. It had moved up my face and into my ear. I went to the Dentist, kicking and screaming, paid my copay begrudgingly. Waited...waited...and waited in the waiting room where every second made me twitchier and more annoyed. Fifty bucks to sit FOREVER...I hated every moment. By the time they called me back I was practically vibrating with anger. I didn't want to be there. I wanted to go home to die in agony in a place I loved.<br />
<br />
She took my blood pressure.<br />
<br />
Silence.<br />
<br />
You could have a heart attack!<br />
<br />
What?<br />
<br />
You could also have a stroke.<br />
<br />
What the fuck?<br />
<br />
I in an already frightened pain ridden state panicked. I might have jumped from the seat and needed to be peeled from the ceiling.<br />
<br />
It didn't make sense. My blood pressure was insanely high. Stroke possible high. So high that when in labor and pre-eclampsic I had an EMERGENCY C-section. <br />
<br />
Of course this high-blood pressure business meant my root-canal would be postponed, because the Dentist was uncomfortable working on someone with so high of blood pressure.<br />
<br />
I left in a cloud of denial...and pain...and extreme fear buried somewhere deep.<br />
<br />
I didn't tell my husband everything of course because it frightened me. The next day...I dragged myself to the Doctor, who suggested I go to the emergency room.<br />
<br />
Now I will say that when going to the ER, it is convenient, (terrifying), to have extremely high blood pressure. All these fancy machines start flashing and making noise and you are whisked away to a private room and covered with goopy sticky monitors that make sure you aren't having a heart attack. They draw your blood and bam you've been in the waiting room long enough to sit in a chair. It's fantastic, (albeit terrifying), service.<br />
<br />
Later they ask a thousand questions, and poke you everywhere. Have you take chest x-rays and start taking Nitro Glycerin. Until a doctor comes by to explain that you are not in fact having a heart attack or stroke but you have scary blood pressure and you should see your doctor tomorrow.<br />
<br />
Upon seeing said doctor, blood pressure is still scary high, and you go into the ER again later that night to do it all over again except this time you had a bad reaction to the diuretics and anti anxiety meds which surprisingly make you more fucking anxious so you spend five fucking days getting poked, prodded, stress tested, Cat Scanned, Angiogramed, and every other horrible damn test you can think of and go home so damn happy to be alive that working, writing, is the last freaking thing on your mind.<br />
<br />
So yeah....that happened. And I'm taking a sabbatical so to speak to concentrate on said health and blood pressure until I'm sure I'm going to be ok. <br />
<br />
I feel better just typing that all out. I still can't believe it. Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-63199336870355641812015-08-28T00:35:00.001-07:002015-08-28T00:35:52.888-07:00The Ultimate BLOCKI've hit a wall.<br />
<br />
It's been there for a while. Constructing slowly. Block after heavy block. It rises and I fall. Further from the dream...from the place where I want to be. I can't complain really. I have written and published five novels. I have ideas for countless more. But somewhere along the way I lost my passion. It grew dimmer slowly. Like all things time was the bandit. It crept by slowly. Whittling away. Tick tock. Second by Second. <br />
<br />
There was a time when I promised myself I'd be published by thirty. Here I am thirty two years old, and I am published, but selfly. It isn't the same for some reason. I tell my children I'm an author but I rarely feel it in the words as they spill from my lips. I feel like a liar as I say them. Yes I'm a writer, but I've yet to meet my success. I spent thousands on advertising. Even more on needless things. Bookmarks, swag packs, wasted money. Wasted opportunity. I'm not sure where I lost my way. Back in the beginning. After the numbers didn't rise.<br />
<br />
I've given away hundreds of books, a lot of which I paid for. Where has it gotten me? Do I have more reviews on Amazon? After a while I stopped caring. I bled myself dry and threw my work out into the huge space of the internet. Where it was lost. Where no one cared...and slowly that wall started growing. Where do I go from here?<br />
<br />
Do I give up...continue to tell the lie that I'm a writer. Many before me who were far more talented toiled without recognition. Plenty were unknown until they were gone. As any artist goes I may never be a great one. But in the beginning that isn't why I wrote down my stories. I wrote because my dreams and nightmares spilled across the pages. I couldn't stop typing. I was alive in my world of self constructed towers of words. I loved it. I loved every moment of creating my multi-faceted complicated heroin's. I loved the way words could build new worlds. Painting pictures with each push of the keyboard.<br />
<br />
Creating something from nothing. I lost that drive in the race for recognition and glory. And somehow from the ups and downs I've found my way back. It was in the writing of another author that I woke up and remembered why I'd started this all to begin with. It wasn't fame and fortune. I wrote because I could, because above anything else it was what I wanted to do. My dream job. <br />
<br />
I took it for granted...but I'm back bitches!!!<br />
<br />
I feel it coiling up inside me like a tidal wave long forgotten. It builds and boils up in frothy waves. I want to create, I want to bleed out upon the pages. I want to rip my heart to shreds and weave it into first sentences my fingers aren't fast enough to type. I want to weep my soul into my words until I'm left empty and spent, like a lover after a long marathon of crazy fucking sex. I want that wonderful release I can only get from writing. <br />
<br />
I was dead for a while. Stuck in the crypt I built for myself. It isn't about fame and glory. It's about the words. The world, the wonderful fucked up awesomeness that is writing. Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-35599911646417148442015-07-28T23:08:00.001-07:002015-07-28T23:08:14.752-07:00Being a grown up...We all want something...love, a home, a family and friends, a good job. The list goes on and on.<br />
<br />
I want my innocence back. I want that moment where I realized how fucked up the world is switched off like a light so I can go to sleep at night without thinking about the women in other countries who are being raped and murdered simply because they are female and weak. I want to enjoy this short time on Earth without seeing what everyone else pretends doesn't exist. I want to drive away from my kids school and not see some guy walking his dog and ultimately think...predator. I want to see the good again.<br />
<br />
I want back my rose colored glasses.<br />
<br />
All of us suffer from some pain at the loss of our innocence. Divorce, death, bullying, lost love, and the unrequited. We all have that moment where we realize our last shred of innocence has died.<br />
<br />
I remember mine. I was twenty one. In love with the man that eventually became my first husband. Not long into our relationship something significant happened...we moved in together...got engaged...ended up pregnant. Before my twenty second birthday I was married and a mother for the first time. I was a baby still. So foolish...so prideful. I didn't think anything bad could ever happen to me.<br />
<br />
While I was pregnant and he worked late...I didn't ultimately think he was screwing his co-worker in the break room. I didn't think those late night inventories were code for booty calls. I was a child having a child. I was inexperienced. A small town girl living in a much larger city. I was naïve...still so innocent. <br />
<br />
Later I found out the truth. Not only was he a cheater during my pregnancy...but it was worse. A family secret...inched it's way out sometime during the whirl wind of our relationship. That reason he had to go to the Police Department and register...wasn't for assault and running away. No one get's a felony for pushing down his sister.<br />
<br />
I was naïve.<br />
<br />
I should have known better. I can hit myself all day with the things I didn't see. I wish I were smarter....more world wise. Less ridiculous. I believed him when he told me why he had to register. I believed him when he told me he had to work late. I believed those lies because I wanted to see the best in him....the way I wanted to see the world through that beautiful pink colored hue.<br />
<br />
It was an accident that I found out the truth. I wasn't smart enough to dig for it on my own. I was not who I am now. It was fate really...or God trying to give me a heads up. If I'd only listened...<br />
<br />
It was not assault in the way I thought...but it was assault...he didn't lie completely. It was his mother who erroneously told me what was really happening. She asked me if I knew about why he had to register in California. I told her that yes he had told me the truth. She tried to lighten the blow by saying that she thinks it started as a misunderstanding...that his sister had lied about it being unconsensual...it was that word that made me realize that something wasn't right. I wish I could slap the girl of then with the reality of her situation.<br />
<br />
His mother thought it was initially consensual. A massage that got out of hand. Two horny teenagers who didn't quite realize what they were doing. Self-exploration. Whatever. All I could do was run the word assault around in my mind. Redefine it. I thought assault meant injury. A punch, a push, a broken nose. Violence of the angry kind. Not sex. Not Incest. Never in my mind had the thought of him fucking his sister entered into my idea of what assault meant.<br />
<br />
I didn't see the ugly in the explanation. I saw what I wanted to see...him loving me. Him being beautiful...him being good. Him being honest. Him being a person who wouldn't lie, wouldn't cheat and certainly wouldn't rape his own biological sister.<br />
<br />
I didn't see it.<br />
<br />
Even after...I didn't want to. I lived in a bubble of numbness well into my third trimester. After my sons birth. It all aligned in an insane way. The world burst open. I was no longer walking in a black and white world. There was color everywhere. Green for envy...red for lust....black for sorrow...and an ugly grey yellow was the color of his lies...and they covered everything.<br />
<br />
His explanation for his past...his reason for registering in the state of California. The late night inventory. The lies...the deceit. The truth covered everything in a puke tinged brown. My life fell off it's axis. The world was changed. I couldn't raise a child with a man I didn't know. He was a figment of my imagination. A phantom. <br />
<br />
We divorced.<br />
<br />
It was ugly. I caught him fucking his now wife while I was at work. I came home early you see. To a house with a whore in it's bedroom. Now I have to smile while she hugs my son. I have to pretend like it's okay for his benefit...not hers. I want to scream at every teacher meeting where his lies and fake personality win over every red blooded female that he's a sick sack of shit who raped his sister. I want to spew the ugly hatred from my body. I want to tell my son where his fathers money was going when I was raising him without financial support from his father and barely making ends meet while his dad paid for hotel rooms so he could screw his mistress. I want to tell him that she his step mother doesn't respect me because she knows that I know the deep ugly heart that beats inside her fucking chest.<br />
<br />
But I say nothing.<br />
<br />
Because it will only hurt him. But someday. Someday I'll be so knocked down by fake smiles and laughter at my back and teaching my son to disrespect me that I'll spew the brown vomitus truth all over their ugly yellow lies and the world will see what they really are. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-64956136746957308662015-04-22T12:09:00.000-07:002015-04-22T12:10:41.606-07:00Mourning...a voiceI am in a constant state of mourning. Waiting for that last shoe to drop. In seven years I've lost two crucial people in my life. Two beautiful souls called home. They were both over eighty, had lived long lives, and made a better world for their children as they left it. Though I miss them and mourn them, it is not their loss that cuts me at this point in time.<br />
<br />
My father is dying.<br />
<br />
Physically he is healthy. His heart is strong and his body able. It is his mind that suffers and decays. At first a few small pieces shriveled and died. The disease mutilating what once may not have been a perfect man but a good one. He is no longer recognizable. Every day, week, month he slips further and further away. How can a man, a law abiding man, one with principals and a pure belief in God suffer so at the end of his life. How can God allow him to become this shell...this aggressive angry stranger I no longer know.<br />
<br />
He has been kicked from the home that my brother so painstakingly chose, to a drab, sterile, institutionalized hell. It isn't right. It isn't humble. <em>Do not go quietly into that night</em>...there is no quiet...there is no struggle...there is only suffering. <em>Night...</em>would be a mercy. We don't know how long we'll have to watch him suffer. Losing him while we wait for him to die. It's macabre and morbid. I don't usually wish for someones death...but my father if he knew himself...would hate this.<br />
<br />
He punched a women in the face. A women! The man that raised me...though stubborn...though the fool when it came to women....never hit them. Never. He wouldn't. He saved my mother from a violent relationship. He didn't believe in violence. Though he would rise if called, it was never his solution to problems. He was more prone to yell than hit. I hate watching this. I hate feeling this anger towards my God.<br />
<br />
I believe in things happening for a reason...What is this reason? Pain. Suffering. Am I to be made stronger...does my father really deserve this? I quiet my mind and wait for clarity. I am in a constant state of mourning...though he isn't dead...though I sometimes wish it. Death will claim all of us. I know this. I fight the fear and the reality everyday. I know my time is coming. It comes for us all. I concentrate on the living. I want to see my sons grow, marry, have children.<br />
<br />
My father no longer recognizes his children. I am someone he knows. Someone he sees as family.<br />
<br />
I am nameless.<br />
<br />
God, what I would give to hear him call my name. I replay my grandmothers voice as she calls for me. Remember her smell. I no longer remember my father's voice as he called my name. He hasn't said it...in over a year.<br />
<br />
The things we miss without realizing they are gone. A burst of smoke that evaporates too quickly. We can't hold onto it. One moment it is there...and in another...it's gone. Only the memory remains...or the emptiness of a memory. I wish I'd played his voice saying my name in my mind. I wish I could find it there hidden in the depths.<br />
<br />
Fear follows. Will I succumb to the same disease that's claimed him? Will my children also miss the sound of my voice as I say their names...and worse of all...will this horrible moment happen....while I'm still alive?Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-34067094375293024912015-04-04T03:18:00.000-07:002015-04-04T03:18:34.347-07:00Feeling Bitchy?Writing is hard.<br />
<br />
Harder than anything I've ever done...including birth. Now, I may have been the lucky recipient of two C-sections, so my view is a little skewed. There were no long hours of labor or pushing out watermelons. I had nice drugs and little pain, even with the emergency C-section. It was...not terrible.<br />
<br />
Writing is hard.<br />
<br />
For reasons I can't even list sometimes. Self-publishing...is even harder. Not only do you have to write the book, characters, story, create a world, edit, re-edit, and hope to God your thoughts and voice comes across the page in some semblance of understandable, you have to do everything else as well.<br />
<br />
Advertising...<br />
<br />
Holy shit is there not a more annoying word in the dictionary. I am not good at advertising. In fact, even when I have paid for it, I still manage to suck at it.<br />
<br />
Book Covers...<br />
<br />
Not nearly as terrifying...but ultimately time consuming. Hours...days have gone by to needless flicks of the mouse in Photoshop. I could write novels in the time I've spent doing the self-publishing side of writing. The hours of tweaking my blog, or formatting for Kindle. <br />
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I hate self-publishing. It is the most thankless job I've ever done. Worse than cleaning bathrooms with three boys in the house. Worse than the vomit, diarrhea and spit up involved with infants. My God do I hate it...but I also love the control. There are no deadlines (this is both good/bad really) I am my own worst enemy. I procrastinate...waste time. Stare at Facebook, Goodreads, blogger...etc.<br />
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I have no Boss. I am the Boss. I should fire myself. I am not good a self promotion. I hate talking about my writing. Not because I think it's bad, but because it's awkward. I don't want to stroke my own back, or toot my own horn. I know what I am. Flawed...human...a perfectionist.<br />
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I am good at details. At painting with words...sometimes too much. Sometimes not enough. I, like Hemingway, read a book that is popular and set out to do it better. I never thought I'd be competitive. I'm not popular enough to even try. But I can finish a book and say...hmm that's pretty good. Better in my opinion. Shit probably in someone else's.<br />
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I publish and hope that somehow a reader stumbles across my book. But I don't harp in chat rooms, or post everywhere. I feel a little dirty when I self-promote. Whiny. It's not good. So where do I go from here? Do I take that giant leap towards tradition. Find a publisher. Hand over my control for a little less time-consuming processes that aren't writing. Trade in my creative freedom for some monetary relief.<br />
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I don't know what to do...and that's the rub...the problem. I don't know what's more important anymore. I hate self-publishing, but I don't. I hate doing it all myself, but like the control. I hate being so fucking indecisive...and yet my choice has not become any easier while whining in written form. Sometimes I wish life had a magic 8-ball. Shake, ask your question...reply.<br />
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A solid answer...yes or no.Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-45708410462150841252015-03-02T03:29:00.002-08:002015-03-02T03:29:40.016-08:00Seven Deadly KingsI came up with the idea for this book not long after I started The Wild Hunt. Chronologically I can't really start it until after Released Lilith:Part 2, and Soul Eater are written. It's been waiting to be tinkered with for years.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-diLFJht_jCc/VPJBz6L5ztI/AAAAAAAABRM/xH7aXAbDsac/s1600/king%2Bof%2Blust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-diLFJht_jCc/VPJBz6L5ztI/AAAAAAAABRM/xH7aXAbDsac/s1600/king%2Bof%2Blust.jpg" height="640" width="425" /></a>Like anything else, I never intended to get as side tracked as I have by other projects. By this time I was supposed to have written three more Wild Hunt Novella's, finished Released and started...you guessed it...this son of a bitch.<br />
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I know that someday I'll get to it. Just as I want to write a book about Wanton (demon name for Las Vegas), I also want to write about these demon kings. They like the other monsters in my books interest me. Just as Lilith does. I wish I had some clue why Released is being such a little bitch to write. I got side-tracked by Mean Bitch, and now another idea has come to fruition.<br />
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I won't go too far into details only to say it is a YA with new monsters. I wish I had more hours in the freaking day. At the rate I'm going the ideas will be many and the books few. Let's hold out hope that my fingers don't fall off and I never go blind.<br />
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Anywho....this is the new evolving cover for the first book in The Seven Deadly Kings series. The name is workable, but I actually really enjoy the Charlie with sugar skull picture. I think I'll have a Halloween party or something involved. <br />
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Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-70330609265758542782015-03-02T03:18:00.002-08:002015-03-02T03:18:30.172-08:00DreamsIt's no secret that I use my dreams for inspiration. Sometimes it's scary dreams that garner my attention. The terrifying revolving faces of demons that taunt and chase me. Sometimes its the sweet ache of a new or unrequited love. Dreams are full of inspiration. <br />
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Lately I've been having this reoccurring dream that slips away not long after I wake up. I'm left only with the distant impression that I have dreamed it before and that I am somehow connected to these creatures that are stalking me.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BkCD5Ap-VkI/UB2z5jSlrEI/AAAAAAAAAUI/ngEyc7bxRAA/s1600/MP900439466.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BkCD5Ap-VkI/UB2z5jSlrEI/AAAAAAAAAUI/ngEyc7bxRAA/s1600/MP900439466.JPG" height="242" width="320" /></a>The point of this post is that dreams are full of crafty little bits of ideas but if you don't write them down then they aren't worth anything. <br />
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When I was in College I took this English course called Dreams and Interpretations. It was an excellent class. I absolutely loved it. One of the lessons, was especially exciting to me. It was a lesson written by or guest written by Stephen King. In the book Mr. King used examples from his novels about parts of them that were actually from his own dreams. Salem's Lot for instance was full of ripe terrifying descriptions straight from his subconscious imagination. He tweaked them of course but he said that to him the best writing happened when you were in a state of <em>between</em>. That cusp in-between awake and slumber, where dreams reside. It is in this foggy state that you can find or tap into a fountain of inspiration.<br />
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I think the best writing comes from this place. So many people ask me where my idea's come and most of the time I can't answer. Other books sometimes inspire, movies, music, real life horrors, trends, tweets, the truth is the idea comes from somewhere unknown. An unfathomable bottomless pit that is dark and murky and nameless.<br />
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Keep a dream journal. Keep it near you so you can write everything you remember down before it is gone. This morning I had a wonderful dream that I didn't write down. It's just wispy smoke now. The faint glimmer of shapes and feelings.<br />
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Write it down! The moment it hits you, the moment the synapses snap and meet and that fathomless pit spits up something substantial.<br />
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Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-35054774210452220332015-02-15T03:10:00.000-08:002015-02-15T03:10:17.045-08:00Calling all Fellow Bitches!!!<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uXlomBO5s28/VOB61VG9qHI/AAAAAAAABOU/3RJ7H6o4odQ/s1600/Cas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uXlomBO5s28/VOB61VG9qHI/AAAAAAAABOU/3RJ7H6o4odQ/s1600/Cas.jpg" height="640" width="425" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">It's that wonderful time...that natural high from an almost finished manuscript.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><em>Mean Bitch is coming!!</em> </span><span style="font-size: small;">(ignore the pun)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have some treats...first some words from our badass bitch herself...Cassandra.</span><br />
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<em><span style="font-size: large;">"I am bound and kneeling before him...twisted nylon cord wrapped neatly around my wrists and torso. Usually, I enjoy the process. It's like letting go. Each knot is a decision I no longer have to make."</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And the <em>biggest present</em> (again ignore the pun) The Book Trailer!!</span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Mean Bitch Book Trailer</strong></span></u></div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/NPVnl5L2L8g/0.jpg" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NPVnl5L2L8g?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F-uXlomBO5s28%2FVOB61VG9qHI%2FAAAAAAAABOU%2F3RJ7H6o4odQ%2Fs1600%2FCas.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uXlomBO5s28/VOB61VG9qHI/AAAAAAAABOU/3RJ7H6o4odQ/s1600/Cas.jpg" -->Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-8971364028476694492014-12-13T03:05:00.000-08:002014-12-13T03:05:59.671-08:00Christmas, reading...and other random sh*tChristmas is different every year. Some years, I plan out my course of action. I have the kiddies make lists. I layaway items in October/November so that a chunk of my shopping is taken care of, and paid off in a general make my life easier mindset.<br />
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In past years I did none of these things. I waited until after Thanksgiving, and then, suddenly, as if spontaneously flying by, not unlike a dip in an Otherside river, December 1st is here and I had nothing done.<br />
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Luckily, this year, I planned ahead. And a good thing at that.<br />
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This is my rant. <br />
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I didn't pay our Direct T.V. bill.<br />
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Let me be more specific...two months ago.<br />
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Not because I'm an asshole, though admittedly I am, so is everyone. I didn't pay it because they signed us up for NFL ticket, another year of services I didn't want etc. We canceled our services, and left the rest to be...interpreted. We didn't receive a bill, we received calls. Dozens of them. Everyday for weeks. We told them, we wouldn't pay for services we didn't sign up for. We were done. Send us the boxes, bills, and so on.<br />
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They sent the boxes a week ago. <br />
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It is December 13th. <br />
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Right before Thanksgiving my father went into a Home for patients with Dementia/Alzheimers. It has been a shitty couple of weeks. He is not adjusting well. Wants to come home. Blames my brother...starts riots...gets agitated...hates life.<br />
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I hate it too sometimes...especially when my dad is so upset and all I want is for him to be safe, well fed, healthy, happy, and no longer lonely.<br />
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My dad used to live in the mountains. In a large house on five acres close to Yosemite. It was a beautiful house, and then his memory started slipping. It hurt to watch. To see him disappear a little at a time. He has Vascualar Dementia, which means it moves faster than normal Alzheimers. It's like a forest fire. We breath, and a little more burns away.<br />
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He can't read anymore...and I'm a writer. My father never got to sit down and read my stories. This breaks my heart. He always believed in my writing...even when I didn't know I was a writer.<br />
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Needless to say...with my dad's declining health, the holidays, just life in fucking general we didn't send the fucking Direct T.V. shit back.<br />
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Oh to have that moment when I didn't send it back.<br />
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Today, unbeknownst and without my approval, knowledge or okay, Direct T.V. debited my account. An account they were told not to debit months ago, when we stopped automatic payment. I am a moron.<br />
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My account is 475 dollars less today.<br />
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I called my bank.<br />
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They couldn't stop it.<br />
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The world can be major assholes at times. This is one of them. My kids Christmas just got raped. I feel violated. Angry. Sad and mean. I want to rip out spines. I want to breathe fire and burn buildings. Mostly I want for people to do what's right, when we live in a world full of wrong.<br />
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Fuck you Direct T.V.<br />
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Fuck you for your bullshit fee's, contracts and automatic payments. Fuck you for taking money, that may or may not belong to you on the eve of freaking Christmas. <br />
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FUCK YOU.<br />
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In the long run, that money is never coming back. I could hear it in the poor bank woman's voice. I am screwed. But, there is a lovely silver lining. That 475 dollars will not break me. I can rise above. We are lucky. We have enough. Even if my kids get nothing else, they are okay. God will provide.<br />
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Now to the better part. I owe Direct T.V. nothing now. I changed my bank account information, and I get to tell people how much they suck.<br />
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Mostly, I feel sad. Not for me who is out five hundred bucks...but for the family that isn't as well off as mine, that got roped into Direct T.V.'s gimic and is now fucked in a way that I am not. They won't get presents this year, while my spoiled brats will. They may not have electricity or heat. They may not have a nice new car in the driveway or a beautiful Victorian roof over their head. I am an asshole in this instance. There are people out there with real legitimate problems. Going hungry, going without, the real people in need.<br />
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So I want to give back somehow. I want to walk into Kmart and pay off some stranger's layaway. I want to give the bum in the rain a shiny crisp hundred dollar bill. Because he needs it more than I do.<br />
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That's the whole point of this season anyway...to give back. To celebrate Jesus in all his glory. Sure he'd see the injustice of my situation but he also teaches to turn the other cheek. I usually try to avoid a whole lot of religious beliefs in my posts. I don't like to alienate anyone. Though I believe in God, and Jesus Christ my heart does not allow me to believe in a God that thinks my religion is better than yours.<br />
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I refuse to live in that world.<br />
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Merry Christmas...and if you feel the need to give back, give to someone who really needs it this season. Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-16885559035874149682014-11-18T00:08:00.002-08:002014-11-18T00:08:41.571-08:00Dear Readers.....I suck.So....it's pretty much there in the title. I had to pull Released...again because it still isn't finished. I don't know what's happening but it certainly isn't writing. I can't seem to get a grip on how to finish it. I know what I want to happen, where the story is supposed to go...and yet, every time I sit down to write the crickets freaking chirp. I've added multiple POV I have a million ideas several different endings and still....nothing. NOTTA. Zip.<br />
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Amazon has suspended me. I can not pre-order sale books for one year. Did this happen to Karen Marie Moning when she delayed the Burned release but TWO years? No....nor am I in a caliber similar with Miss Moning but...I can still whine. Write...not so much...but my whining abilities are loud and clear. <br />
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So I got suspended. Which means I had to seriously consider it before such a thing occurred but here's the good news. I will not put out a half-assed crap version of a book that doesn't want to be written. I will not pander some icky story to you in the hopes of making cash.<br />
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But even with my suspension...and probable alienation and loss of friends, family, and my valuable all important readers, I still suck more than Kristen Stewart in Twilight. I suck more than a naked Miley licking a sledge hammer and swinging on a metal ball. I suck more than Beiber in his ultimate suck of Beiberhood. I suck more than that shitty off-shot episode on Supernatural for that shitty new show that never was and never should be. And that right there is the ultimate in suckage. Because nothing except that episode sucks more than the Beib's. Nothing.<br />
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In other news...I am not writing anything else so this stalemate is all encompassing. YEAH....<em>not.</em> In the words of Garth. Holy crap I forgot how funny that movie is. I know I show my age but whateve's I can like Wayne's World, Supernatural, good non-pop music that hardly ever gets played on the radio and yes...I can quote Finn and Jake because even though I suck...I don't suck that badly. Take that Beibs.<br />
Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-92066924904726404562014-07-09T05:12:00.000-07:002014-07-09T05:12:41.651-07:00Embarking on the unknownBack before I decided to finally write...I still wrote. I wrote down idea's, dreams, everything I cared about or ever wanted to do. I think I was born to write. I took a class when I moved to the town I now call home. It was an English course at the local Junior College I was still a baby. Nineteen years old. The class was a higher course, thank you very much test scores, and it was about Dreams and Interpretations and how to use them in creative writing. It is the only College course I have taken on creative writing.<br />
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I have no desire to sully that great experience. I loved my class. There was even a lovely section in the book written by Stephen King about his use of dreams in his writing. This made a monumental impact on me as a person and a writer. Now back to the ideas I used to write down. When I was in high school I had one big idea. This idea of course was terrible...as most first attempts are. I wrote down notes, and pages and pages of written dialogue and scenes.<br />
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When my grandma passed away, I found this huge pile of writings and cried as I went through them. Only God knows why she kept them, but I am forever grateful that she did. My first ideas, and the others that I wrote down when I worked at Cigna, were all thrillers. I love thrillers, I happen to enjoy them quite a bit. But I don't love them the way I love Harry Potter, The Hollows, and Stephen King, pretty much anything paranormal or with shape shifters...mostly werewolves.<br />
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Recently I finished The Otherside (queue obnoxious loud howling for myself by myself, yes I am that pathetic) I am supposed to be working on Lilith 2...it's not exactly happening. I tinker with Soul Eater, I open and close Lilith, and then for some reason a few months ago I thought, I'm jumping on the stupid Fifty Shades of Grey bandwagon and writing something smutty!<br />
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Why would I do this?<br />
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I read Fifty...and though terrible and cringe worthy at times I salivated. That damn pair of warn jeans with one button undone makes me hot...No shit. I like me a good erotic novel. Megan Hart is queen of the orgasm. Holy Crap if you want to read something smutty and amazing read Collision, or Deeper. They are so hot you'll sweat.<br />
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Back to my point...I am writing something smutty. Something that terrifies me, challenges me, and freaks me the fuck out. I don't normally do horribly graphic sex scenes. I don't by choice because even though I enjoy reading it, writing it is a whole nother ballgame. I hate cheese, like not the dairy product, but the heaving bosom, quivering womanhood fucking cheese. Dude there is nothing more annoying than a female that says her lady bits, her who-haa, her vayjayjay, fucking hell, call it a pussy, call it a cock and lets be done with this shit.<br />
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I've read some atrocious romance and I have to skip some of these horrifyingly juvenile parts. Sex doesn't have to be graphic, but lets not baby talk it either I mean my God, who-haa. Hit me, seriously just slap me, it'll annoy me less.<br />
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Back to the point I keep falling from, I'm doing something I haven't done before. Is it because of the trend...a little...its mostly out of curiosity. I read enough of the dirty hot smut to wonder if I can pull it off...guess we'll find out.<br />
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Oh YEAH...the book, or books...if it works out are the MEAN STREAK series, and the first book is named...drum roll please....MEAN BITCH<br />
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I happen to be pretty fucking proud of this cover. It is AWESOME. I did it myself. Queue another round of obnoxious clapping!<br />
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Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-13952557771076672452014-06-30T01:18:00.001-07:002014-06-30T01:18:39.433-07:00The Otherside of writing book #4Every new book is a journey. I learn something about myself and the world around me. It's an adventure. Sometimes, that adventure leaves me jaded. It's like I am embarking into a huge cavernous world without a flashlight. I stumble, I fall, I make mistakes.<br />
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Except, every book gives me a little more night vision. During the first I was blind. No light was there to help guide me. I had no idea what I was doing. I read books on writing and read even more books studying other authors craft and I surged ahead. Reading about something and doing it are two very different things. You can prepare for the hurdles others have warned you about, you can ready your mind for the skull splitting amount of space a story will occupy.<br />
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I don't know how I can hold a novel in my head and not die of an aneurism. I don't know how Stephen King in his crown of superior Authorhood isn't a twitching vegetable. He has created so many stories. And though after you have written them that laser like focus dissipates, you don't forget them. They are parts of you. Each character carries some attribute that you can relate to. The protagonist that had issues with abandonment. The hero who fights the demon voices that tell him he is not good enough.<br />
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People are shards of broken pieces. They are jagged and sharp. They can cut you and harm you. They do not always fit together. These are the characters I love. The walking contradictions. The sweet face and petite frame of the cussing protagonist with so much personality its a wonder it can fit inside her small body. I love her. She is a small fraction of the person I am. A pebble out of the brook.<br />
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This is my fourth novel. Two of which were not nearly as long as this puppy. This is the biggest novel I have written so far. 127,000 + words. I didn't know I had that many words inside me. It's always a surprise to watch the numbers tick higher on the word count. It amazes me. I hope that feeling never goes away.<br />
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Writing has become a sort of therapy. That stumbling in the dark reveals so much about human nature, my nature. The nature of the imperfect creatures we are born. This fourth novel has made my vision in that cave a little sharper. A lighter in my hand to find the way. Someday I'd like to think I'll hold a flashlight, then maybe a spotlight, and eventually maybe even a whole room in that cave will be engulfed by light.<br />
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Write what you know...my father once told me.<br />
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It's a shame that his disease makes him incapable of seeing what I've done. I'll continue writing my stories. I hope you will continue to read them.Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-13205358455919667242014-05-25T04:39:00.002-07:002014-06-05T12:57:11.294-07:00The Otherside<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It has happened again! That long awaited moment when a book is finished. (Not Edited for that in itself is a feat of its own.) But that moment, the one where you get to the end of a story/book. The one where the last sentence of that book is written. There is an ending. A stopping point.<br />
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It always feels like it's never going to happen. Like that moment doesn't really exist. It's a pipe dream, a fantasy, an unreachable destination. Like trying to peer into the future and see yourself there. Old and wrinkled. Worn by time and circumstances. Someone who has earned the right to be old. I can never see myself there.<br />
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I feel the same way about my children. I see them grow and move forward everyday but imagining them as men, men who are fully grown and not my babies is impossible. That future doesn't exist yet, sure we're walking towards it everyday but I just can't see it.<br />
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This is probably a terrible thing to confess. I'm a writer and I spend 99 percent of my time in my head. I live in fantasy worlds where anything is possible...but my boys being men, finishing a novel, growing old. Those are three things I'll never be quite able to fantasize about. It's just too important for daydreams.<br />
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Pfft, I did it again. I went off on a tangent of words and sentences when I was supposed to be making this short.<br />
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The Otherside is NOT short. It is in fact longer than The Wild Hunt, but for some reason reads shorter. I like to think it's because I'm getting better at this writing business. Of course, I'm sure every writer also has this same shared delusion. I get better every time I write a word upon the page. But is it really a tangible thing. That level of perfection, and improvement.<br />
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On a side note, I have started two other projects that are not Lilith. I'm not sure what's holding me back from finishing that story but I can't touch it...not yet. Maybe I like delayed gratification...as a puzzle even to myself who fucking knows.<br />
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So the two new projects:<br />
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Bad Witch, a prequel to The Wild Hunt about how Pillar meets Gideon.<br />
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Bite Camp, a sequel to The Wild Hunt that takes place when Jen is away during the summer at a camp to learn to control her shifts. Greene is also involved, really its about their budding forbidden romance.<br />
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The Otherside is finished!!!<br />
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It's still so unbelievable. Who would have known that almost seven years ago that I would meet the love of my life, have the balls to start writing, be a mother for a second time, and actually write four novels? I sure as hell didn't but here I am. I'd pat myself on the back if it wasn't so ridiculous. I am a writer. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Otherside</span></div>
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<br />Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-247320904151976419.post-28447471586489507052014-04-17T16:43:00.000-07:002014-04-17T16:43:47.072-07:00Character Profile: Sutter Casgrove<span style="font-size: large;">Sutter</span> is a character that was introduced in The Wild Hunt. As the town of Concords Beta and former Alpha, he is tied to the Hunt like any Cwn Annwn, but while most Cwn Annwn males have an alpha gene that helps distinguish their strength within the pack, Sutter has two.<br />
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He is related to Arley Dufrey the Scent Hound. They share the same dead-beat father. Another dozen half-siblings are out there but none as close as Sutter and Arley.<br />
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He is getting a larger character profile this time around for The Otherside. His character is very present in this second installment. Sometimes characters surprise you, Sutter is definitely one that snuck up on me. I never saw him coming.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>Sutter Casgrove</u></span><br />
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1. Name: Sutter Birmingham Casgrove<br />
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2. Age: 31</div>
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3. Hair: Short Brown</div>
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4. Eyes: Buttery Brown</div>
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5. Build: Stocky</div>
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6. Height: 5'10</div>
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7. Personality: Southern gentleman, teaser, fierce.</div>
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8. Likes: Hard work, animals, loyal people, gambling, and teasing.</div>
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9. Dislikes: Rule breakers, earth-bound spirits, needless killing.</div>
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10. Music: Rock, Three Days Grace, Puddle of Mudd, NIN, Tool.<br />
11. Movies: Anything action, (chic flicks but you didn't hear that from me.)</div>
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12. Actor whom my character most resembles: A shorter, stockier Anson Mount</div>
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13. Clothes: Jeans, boots, my hat and shirts are optional.</div>
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14. Job: Big Animal vet. Beta to Concord pack</div>
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15. Song: "Between Us"-Peter Bradley Adams</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Sutter's Family Farmhouse</u></span></div>
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The farmhouse is located in the mountains below Yosemite on the outskirts of the town of Concord. Sutter is a big animal vet, spending a majority of his time on the road to other farms to inoculate new foals and calves, and to provide the general care of the animals.<br />
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The Barn is located farther down from the house. It is very large and the traditional red. Inside it has many nice horse stalls, his office, a surgical room, and exam rooms. He treats Othersider's who are in need of emergency care. He sets a lot of broken bones and performs various stiches. In town the Othersider's go to Pillar who is a nurse and the local Doctor for more immediate and serious injuries. </div>
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He cares about people and animals alike. He is sarcastic by nature but genuninly wants the best for those around him. He will do anything he can to help those that are weak and need his help. When he was Alpha Concord ran smoothly. He is remembered well. It was his choice to step aside.</div>
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<u>THE WILD HUNT</u></div>
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"Who might you be?" The deep voice came from the shorter of the two. He had dark hair and yellow eyes. His demeanor said gentle but his body screamed deadly. His muscles were bulky and cut sharp on his stocky frame.</div>
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"Uhh...." I gurgled before choking. "My name is...Lo." I sputtered.</div>
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Recognition crossed his features. "Duncan's Lo." He said.</div>
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I was getting really sick of being called that.</div>
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I slid away from Sutter, and placed my hands on the counter to lift myself up. He ran a hand across his face and glanced down my bare legs.</div>
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"No wonder they're fighting." He said.</div>
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His chair squeaked as he shifted. "I asked him about the earth bound spirits, the ones that rot instead of shine. He didn't see tem around here much so he didn't know anything about them. I told him bout the ones in <em>'Bama'. </em>He didn't know how to get rid of them, and the more people I asked the more I wanted to know. I spent hours going through old books Gideon had left behind. While Duncan was busy babysitting Fin, I researched earth bound spirits and The Wild Hunt."</div>
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"In some way or another we are all connected to the Hunt, to the Otherside, like a great circle."</div>
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<u>THE OTHERSIDE</u></div>
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Sutter laughed. "You were just being honest. Maybe needed is the wrong word. Wanted. I want to be wanted. I want to be someone's air. I want to feel like my presence makes their life better. Just by simply existing."</div>
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"See you think I mean all of that in a bad way, but I understand. You need that wall there because it doesn't keep them out, it keeps you in. It protects from them ever hurting you, because sweetheart, if there is one thing I know for sure about you. You've been hurt, and bad."</div>
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"No truly. I am. You have Lyle and that's great, it's wonderful...but I know what it's like to have parents that don't give a shit about you. The good doesn't erase the bad. It makes it tolerable, but it never takes it away."</div>
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<u>NAN'S SAYINGS</u></div>
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Sutter's smile fell. "I'm serious. You little girl are what my Nan says is trouble. You like to play with fire. You like all the bright shiny colors that come along with it. I am old, and too smart to play with either the trouble or the fire. So, I will keep my hands to myself for the most part. Mornings and drinking too much will not be included in those statements. Both are outside of my control."</div>
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"Nan says you should never turn down an invitation to dinner or a fight."</div>
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I smiled. "Why the fight?"</div>
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Sutter grinned. "You gotta eat, and you don't need more chicken."</div>
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"You know what Nan says about tears?"</div>
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I was afraid to ask.</div>
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"They're just extra seasoning."</div>
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"You'll get over it. Nan says that you should do one thing every day that scares you."</div>
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"We can leave you know. Nan says the worlds hard enough without torturing yourself."</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Aunt Nan</u></span></div>
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Another new character in The Otherside is Sutter's Aunt Nan. Not only is she full of great words of wisdom and comic relief, but her part in the story is one of my favorites. She is a salt of the earth no-nonsense elder, which is something that has been missing from the series. Lyle while involved, is not a part of the Otherside world. He is only human. Nan is the voice of reason in the middle of a bloody world full of monsters. </div>
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1. Name: Nannette </div>
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2. Age: 64</div>
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3. Hair: Medium length Grey</div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> 4. Eyes: Brown</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> 5. Build: Proud, broad shouldered, tough,</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> 6. Height: 5'1</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> 7. Personality: Bold, strong, virtuous, no-nonsense, full of sayings</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> 8. Likes: Strength, honor, vengeance </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> 9. Dislikes: Evil, murder, hate</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10. Music: Old Rock</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">11. Movies: Old Musicals</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">13. Clothes: Jeans nice blouses, long skirts, dresses, always apron</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">14. Job: Helps with Sutter's Veterinary Clinic</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">15. Song: "Like A Rolling Stone"-Bob Dylan</span></div>
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Ashley Jefferyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091216110543576612noreply@blogger.com0