WesternMarylandWritersGroup – Ashley Crookham's Writing

Birthing a Stub

Did you know you can get “Born to Stub” without ordering the whole anthology?

Click here to read today!

LoShWriMo

No, it’s not national.

No, we’re not writing a whole novel.

We are writing every day.

For the month of November.

My writing friend and I choose this month to get back into the daily habit of writing. Each of us prepared in October and checked in daily with each other to talk about how our commitment was going. Some things I learned:

writing every day conflicts with exercising before work, using my lunch break to work on family matters, or going to bed on time. each day is a choice of which of those to sacrifice
writing without a word goal makes me hesitate to write as much, and do too much editing as I am writing. this is benefit of NaNoWriMo where the goal is quantity over quality
writing is difficult and requires continual improvement. it doesn’t happen by accident
writing is the thing that makes me feel like my life is complete and I’m doing something for me

I now have 15000 words for book one of my series. Who knows what December could bring.

Co-Authoring

One day a member of my writers group shared a sad story about a beloved pet. The symptoms she experienced, shared by many humans and for unknown reasons, seemed like an intriguing story idea to me.

My fellow writer and I began to flesh it out. “What ifs” sprung up, setting molded around it, and we each envisioned a character from which to view our fictional world. We decided to co-write a story. This is what I have learned about the process so far:

You must agree on how quickly you want the story to come together. In our case, we are not rushing each other in any way. We both have other projects going on and this story is one we can come back to only when we choose to.
You must agree on how much of the story each writer contributes. In our case, we are taking turns with chapters.
You must be flexible. One new idea can mean a lot of work to edit what has already been written. When we agree to go a different way with the story, we must both go back to keep the information consistent.

I’ve enjoyed seeing our story come together from two writers with very different styles and ideas. This might be a long-term work but we will both be proud when it is complete.

What have your experiences been with co-authoring?

Coffee & Tea

Now that the Western Maryland Writers Group 2016 Anthology is out, I have returned to editing Gender Chasm.

When I’m working I like to have a beverage at the desk with me so I thought I’d spend one post discussing my favorite ways to brew and steep.

Hot Coffee. Even when I’m not restricted in my caffeine consumption, I tend to use a few scoops of decaf in with my flavored grounds. My favorites are chocolate, hazelnut, and Scottish grog.

Old Coffee. I tend to make a pot of coffee, but only drink one cup. The rest I put in a reusable mug and stick it in the fridge for the next day(s).

Cold Brewed Coffee. Overnight in coffee sock. So worth the wait. Any flavor is clarified and crisp.

Author Ashley Crookham coffee sock Hot Tea. I pour water into the mug, then dump that amount into my stove kettle. I use tea bags or loose leaf tea in my hanging tea man. My favorites are Celestial’s tension tamer and Yogi’s bedtime.

Cold Brewed Tea. Insert into filter, screw onto a mason jar, and you get tea to take to work the next day.

Author Ashley Crookham tea drawers I drink all of these black. (Well, as long as I’m not meeting old friends at an English tea shop where milk and outstretched pinkies are required.) Coffee first thing in the mornings, tea is for when I get home from work.

What do you like for coffee and tea? Is anyone out there able to live without both?

Divorce

Note: The Western Maryland Writers Group Fairy Tale Anthology with the “Elaty Riaf” short story is out. Get it in print, or on your kindle.

Author Ashley Crookham sunray

We began dating 11/23/2005. I was still a teenage. We got married, got separated. Our divorce came through exactly 11 years later.

Since my short story “Elaty Riaf” dealt with this subject, I thought I’d write a brief post about my experience.

Divorce is the abortion of marriage. It’s a choice and will cause you to doubt yourself. There is power in the choice you may wish you didn’t have.

For us the cause was that he needed to be on his own, and, afterwards, I needed to not take him back. We both could have tried harder to find another way. But we failed. Together.

There are few comparable situations in which you have the chance to discover so much about you. The uncertainty of the future, the depth of pain from the past, what you are capable of, what you don’t want to endure.

What I’ve learned is that you should not be with someone who comes to you looking for something, but instead commit yourself to someone who found something in you.

Hey, you’re a Goodreads Author now!

One of the most exciting e-mails I’ve ever received had the subject line: “Hey, you’re a Goodreads Author now!”

Feel free to check out my page there, if you haven’t already. Then, vote on the best line from my short story “Born to Stub”.

P.S. Are we goodreads friends yet?

Alphasmart

author ashley crookham alphasmart library

To write the rough draft of “Elaty Riaf”, I used my Neo by Alphasmart. This was the first time I have done this. Here are my observations:

Positives:

not very expensive ($28 used on Amazon)
comfortable to type on
the battery lasts for a long time
this is a word processor only, and therefore I am not distracted by the Internet while writing

Negatives:

the screen only shows a few lines at a time, which makes it difficult to refer back to character traits and names
no thesaurus
when I was in public, people interrupted me to ask about the “weird keyboard”
once I transfer the file to my computer, I no longer feel like using the Alphasmart
I must re-format for publication after transfer, rather than setting up formatting at the beginning of writing

Author Ashley Crookham alphasmart home

Overall, I would use this again, especially during times where I am on a strict schedule for writing. However it did not change my life enough to insist on use.

Have you used this before? Something similar? What did you think?

Elaty Riaf interview

Dr. Dale A Grove took time from writing his latest novel Outlier Revolutions to interview Ashley about her soon-to-be-published short story.

Here is a little more information about Dale:

“Dr. Dale A. Grove is a product developer by day and a writer by night. He has worked for such firms as Owens Corning, Johns Manville, LNP Engineering Plastics, Tekni-Plex, and US Silica. He possesses a vivid imagination in creating new stories and new products with over ten US patents.

In his spare time, Dr. Grove has written four books in the science fiction genre entitled, Gray Maneuvers, Gray Extraction, ELIZA, and most recently Loose Strings. His next book entitled Outlier Revolutions will be coming out in 2017. It’s the story of a mentally deranged, yet gifted female transporter that battles for evolutionary dominance on a frigid ice world.

For further information on these and other short stories check out his website, or go to Amazon.com or Goodreads.com and search for books by Dr. Dale A. Grove.”

Interview 11/27/16

Dale: What inspired you to write the story Elaty Riaf?

Ashley: One day, as I navigated the oceans of online dating, I thought about how much easier it would be if fairy godmothers were real. Then I had a pessimistic thought about the usefulness of magical godparents. That became the crux of this story.

Dale: How did you come up with the name Elaty Riaf?

Ashley: Read her name from end to beginning.

Dale: Why did you choose the occupation that Elaty Riaf has? Did you do research on it or have you personally experienced it?

Ashley: I have personally experienced the role of activities director and saw no reason Elaty couldn’t be in the same position. My passion for this story comes from the life lessons taught to me by the elderly people I’ve worked for.

Dale: The dating conversations were particularly humorous, especially how they tied into the rest of the Fairy Tale. How did you come up with those lines?

Ashley: That was the most fun part of writing this. Some of the lines were straight out of my dating inbox. I just altered them with fairy tale references. A good use for some of those negative experiences. One I couldn’t fit in was “I want to sniff your glass slipper”.

Dale: I understand that the author of Elaty Riaf is working on a full length novel. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Ashley: I took time from editing Gender Chasm to write “Elaty Riaf”. My novel is a new adult fiction about a girl named Frieda who tries to save her brother. The theme is Men’s Rights. In their world, the nation has been divided into two sides: one ruled by Men, and one ruled by Women.

Dale: Do you believe in the happily ever after ending?

Ashley: Yes. You can live ever happily if you find someone who loves you for you. You both need to want to be besotted. If you have those things, and the same life goals, I believe all dragons can be defeated.

Ashley Crookham in a castle

A Smile Among Wrinkles

Author Ashley Crookham at work

Most of my writing time since April has gone into work and my activities blog. You can catch up with my life as an activities director here: http://ashleyflashley.blogspot.com/

My fairy tale short story is coming along though. If I don’t finish editing before the anthology gets submitted, I will post it for free.

Lost Man Interview

Taken from the blog of Dr. Dale Grove

Lost Man Interview

7/4/2016

This is an interview about an upcoming short story entitled Lost Man that that will be included of the upcoming Western Maryland Writers Anthology that focuses on fairy tales. Ashley Crookham will also be publishing a short fairy tale, and she took on the role of one of her characters, Elaty Riaf, in the interview that follows.

ELATY: How excited were you about this anthology’s fairy tale theme?
DALE: I wasn’t excited about the theme at all, but that theme won the popular vote, so I made the most of it serving as Sharon’s main henchman in the Western Maryland Writers Meetup group.

ELATY: Your main character’s name is Winston. How did he get his name and did anyone in particular inspire him?
DALE: I looked up the Etymology of Peter from Peter Pan. Peter means stone, so I looked around at other stone names and Winston came up as a hit.

ELATY: Why did you choose Peter Pan as the fairy tale on which to base your short story?
DALE: Peter Pan is an innocent story that many people are familiar with. I did not want to get too close to that story, so I kept some distancing to make sure no one would come after me from a copyright perspective, particularly Walt Disney. I may have to distance it some more. The reason I picked it is because no one ages in Neverland, and it would be quite jarring for someone who has spent many years in that environment to come back to our world. In Neverland no one faces the prospect of adolescence and growing up which most of the humor is based upon. I also felt it would be fun to bring up pirates later on in the story.

ELATY: Why did you add so much humor in your story and how did you think it up?
DALE: It was my way of dealing or putting up with the main theme. I probably would have difficulty writing a classical fairy tale, but by adding humor and by creating a fractured fairy tale, I was able to come up with something unique.

ELATY: Tell us about when/where you mostly spent your time writing this story? Did you do anything different from your using writing practices?
DALE: I gradually puttered along with this one in between Outlier Revolution editing. I don’t think I did anything different than usual. The first concept of it actually took place at an airport as I waited for a flight which led me to thinking about flying and viola a story was born.

ELATY: Last question then I’ll let you get back to counting all of your patents. Do you believe in fairy tale endings?
DALE: Part of me says yes. I think we all want to have the perfect outcome to our various endeavors in life whether it is work, a hobby, a sporting match, or romance. We all want to have and strive for the happily ever after ending, but life or God pushes us in a different direction than we initially set as our course, and sometimes our sacrifices either serve the world better or define our character more. Looking back at my life, I realize that there has been some times where everything fell to bits and looked bleak; it’s really those bad times that shape character in the long run, and you may end up with an alternative ending that is much more satisfying.