Ashlyn Daube

Wiping off the dust

Well I haven’t been very active in this blog, but I have a good reason I swear! I was finishing my Master’s degree and now that that is done I can look forward to a regular 9-5 with no homework so that I can have more time to write. Hey I can dream.

I wanted to write a Christmas short about Gabriel, but that didn’t happen. Writing when visiting family is impossible. That said I am so happy I participated in the Love is Always Write event. Having a story out there that people could read became more than just a daydream. The Ivory Prison is included now in volume five of the Love is Always Write anthologies.

Multitasking writing

I have to say I am the slowest writer ever. I think about my stories every day, I write in my head every day. I just don’t actually sit down and write every day. It is an absolute fact that I can’t go ten minutes of straight writing before my brain goes ‘something shiny on the other side of the screen! Look at it now!’ /sigh

So I’ve become a multitasker in writing just like I am in pretty much everything else I do *glances at currently reading list*. I want to sit down and just concentrate on one story. Sit my ass down until I finish it, but I just haven’t found that place in my brain yet. Or my motor functions. So for now I will keep the three files I have open right now, which used to be four by the way. At least after weeks of being exclusively obsessed with Zamiel and Gale, my muse went back to Lukas and Gabriel working on both part 2 and 3 at the same time. Have you ever finished something, done a victory dance, set it down for a couple of days then return to reread it just to find out what you finished is a very very rough draft? That’s IP2 (<- codename). Why are you doing this to me, Gabriel?

Warning for M/M content?

So it finally happened. I was actually expecting it. Not a surprise. I got a bad review at Amazon and one of the complaints was that I did not ‘warn’ that Ivory Prison has M/M content. To be honest I didn’t put it on purpose for two reasons:

1. The book is young adult. There is no sexual content. I can’t even say there is kissing. And while Gabriel and Lukas’s relationship is very important, the story is mostly about Gabriel.
2. I don’t believe LGBT content is something to be warned about. Adult content. Yes. Two boys that are genetic experiments and have no one to relate to but each other. No.

That maybe I could reference that the other person is also male in the blurb? Yes. I’m considering doing that, but evil teaser blurbs are so much fun.

As for the rest they can say it’s short/incomplete (that’s the main complain I see). It is short. It is incomplete. I was under a deadline with a story I was just starting to organize in my head. I’m super happy with the way it came out considering all the bumps I had. They can say they hated it. They can say it sucks. For something I wrote to stir such strong emotions of distaste that you need to leave a review? Not many people can do that :P But please do not accuse my story of being bad if a kid happens to read it just because the main relationship is two boys.

Am I going to reply to this review on Amazon? Hell no. One thing I learned is that authors can secretly read reviews, but it is generally not a good idea to reply to reviews. Specially bad ones. But this is my personal blog and I got free reign :P I wouldn’t even bother with mentioning it if the reviewer hadn’t said that there should be a gay warning as if it were harmful for children. And just in case the issue is because it appears in Amazon under Children’s Fiction. Blame Amazon for having no young adult category to sort books in.

In other news. I haven’t been able to write in days. I started my full time internship and really, deciding to try and be an author at the same time I’m about to get my Master’s Degree wasn’t the greatest idea I had. I’ve been slowly refurbishing Demon’s Test and plan to send it to a publisher. As for Ivory Prison. Rough draft of part 2 is finished, but I haven’t even reread it once and there’s already a few parts I want to expand.

My initial discovery of writing something and distributing it publicly has been a blast so far. Over 1,600 downloads for Ivory Prison, which is more than I dreamed :)

Writing with your brain on spaz

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have ADD so I could write more efficiently, but I don’t think I’d be as imaginative without it.