Carter Ashby's Blog

There are so many heavy needs right now. Sometimes I get so bogged down in where to donate that I end up talking myself out of doing it altogether.

I’m at the end of a 3-month leadership training and our team project is to raise money for Delivering With Dignity. It’s an organization that was born out of pandemic in the wake of an overwhelming need for food provisions.

The usual non-profits got overwhelmed and were unable to keep up with the rampant hunger in the Las Vegas community. So DWD came along, partnered with restaurants, and now creates full, fresh, nutritious meals at $6 per meal.

It’s the first program of its kind, and I’m hoping it will have so much success that other cities take up the model.

I already believe everyone has the right to eat. I love taking it a step further and declaring that everyone has the right to eat with dignity--meaning all the food groups, fresh made…everyone eating from the same table no matter what their social status.

Announcement:



All profits from the sales of my books from now through June 12 go to Delivering With Dignity!

I’m excited about the possibility of using my creative career to make a difference in the world.

It was nice having this project chosen for me by my leadership group, and I look forward to giving to other organizations in the future.

So if you want to escape into a love story AND know your money is going to feed hungry families…



Go here to check out my books!

I am a few weeks from FINALLY releasing another novel!

I know I owe my lovely readers some sequels, and they’re totally coming.

But first I have this beautiful love story I’m dying to put into the world. So in honor of the preorder going live…here’s a little teaser for you all!

*disclaimer: this is pre-editing, so small changes may be made in the final book. But no major changes because I really like this scene

One day my video taking and editing skills will be better, but for now, I’m focusing on writing. So you get this. It’s a testament to how excited I was that I bothered to record it at all.

There will be giveaways, so be sure and subscribe either to my reader newsletter (newsy with updates and giveaways), my reviewer newsletter (mostly business with some giveaways), or both.

I’m going to try and sell my books through my website, soon, but that’s a back burner project for the near future. I’ll be sure to send out updates when I get it all figured out.

In the meantime, have you preordered About Last Night on Kindle? It’s $.99 for less than a month. On release day it goes up to full price.

So this is the meme I saw a couple years ago that got me started thinking about Tessa and Cooper.

Back up–Tessa and Cooper are the two main characters in my upcoming novel AboutLast Night. The cover just came out today (May 7th), and there is a special preorder-only price of $.99. Go ahead and one-click, I can wait.

Okay, back to the meme.

Typically I like older men. I think my underlying assumption is that an older man equals an emotionally mature man. Not hardly ever the case in reality, but I have an easier time fantasizing up an emotionally mature male when he’s in the form of a late thirty-something or older guy.

However, sometime during the fall-apart of my marriage, I saw this meme and it lingered with me a while. I got to thinking about those powerful women and how they didn’t need a man at all, so why not have fun with someone younger and more capable of keeping up with them? Also what an ego boost to have an attractive younger man find you, an older, more past-her-prime woman, attractive.

It took a couple of years for me, personally, to come around fully to the idea that if I ever enter into another relationship I would like to do it from a financially dominant position. I would like to not need someone. But Tessa was birthed on the day I saw that meme.

I thought about Cooper and what a slob he appears to be at the beginning of the story and what could make a fairly stable, steady woman like Tessa fall into his arms. She’s not that much older than Cooper, but divorce can make you feel used up and ugly and old. And the thrill of being hit on by a gorgeous younger man would, I think, appeal to anyone in her situation.

So that’s where she came from, and it’s lucky I remembered. I hardly ever remember character origins. Their evolution usually happens at a murky, semi-conscious level. But Tessa emerged fully formed out of my own newly found empathy for women who date younger men.

Okay, back to work for me.

P.S. If you’re a reviewer and interested in an ARC, you can fill out this form and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Today’s the day at long last. Here is the cover and blurb for my upcoming novel, About Last Night.

But listen, this is important. The book releases on June 4th, which means the price also goes up. If you want to get in on this at the $.99 price, go click now.

And hey, thank you. If you’ve read me before, thank you. If you’re taking a chance on me now, thank you. If you’re thinking about it but want to hold off a while, thank you and maybe sign up for my newsletter so I can work on persuading you to read my stories.

Newly divorced Tessa Hunt is determined that last night’s bad decision is the last of its kind. Unfortunately, that bad decision wears a cowboy hat, has a killer smile, and somehow managed to undo years of damage to her ego in just one night.

Cooper Dean’s night with Tessa was a wake-up call. And while he wants to see more of her, he knows he has to get his life together first. That means coming to terms with his grief over the loss of his wife and rising to the challenge of single-fatherhood.

Now, the two neighbors are finding common ground in their concern for Cooper’s children and their attraction to each other. But can Tessa open herself to trust again? Can this cowboy widower let go of his past and embrace the future with a new love?

I’m making a comeback. I wasn’t particularly “here” in the first place. That is to say, I hadn’t exactly “arrived.” But several years ago I embarked on a self-publishing experiment. I published seven of my novels. People read them. It blew my mind. I had readers and readers messaged me and wrote to me. It was quite a rush.

But life happened. I recently wrote in my newsletter about my divorce. I suppose I didn’t really write about it so much as mention its occurrence as an explanation for my disappearance to those who might have wondered. There was the divorce and the archaeological diggings into my past decisions and my entire personality. Who was I? What had gone wrong? It’s a lot to go through, even in the most ideal of circumstances.

Anyhow, there was self-loathing. If you hate yourself, it’s really not the best place to try and create from. Though I do believe I did some good creating. It’s definitely not the best place to try and promote yourself from. I consider the past two years a sort of forced hibernation. The divorce was like moulting season for me. Then I had to figure out who I was with these fresh feathers and how to love myself again.

Still working on it. But I’m ready to jump back in the saddle–write and publish some books. All that to say…I’m making a comeback. And with it, a new website. I always wanted to blog. I couldn’t figure out how to do it consistently. So I’m messing with semantics and calling this a journal instead. Just words, for the most part. If I feel I have to create compelling, Pinterest-worthy graphics with each post, I know I’ll never be consistent. And I figure anyone reading this is here for my words anyway. If I’m wrong, I’m sure someone will let me know.

If you’re not a writer seeking publication, you won’t know how this feels. But I’ve begun querying a new project. This is my third time doing this in six years of writing and self-publishing. Fourteen days ago I received four requests for manuscripts from various agents. For the first time ever, my queries produced movement toward the next step. Fourteen days ago I leapt for joy. For about five minutes. And then the waiting began.

This. Is my story.

I check my inbox every fifteen minutes or so. I don’t mean to. I tell myself that I must accept that which I cannot control, and that I should move forward with other projects. But still, I gaze in despair at the never ending flow of crap I don’t care about coming through my inbox. Because the one thing I do care about…it never comes. It never, ever comes.

 

 

I try to write. They say to keep writing. To send out your queries and then forget about them and power forward. I’ve written eight novels so far, I can write another. Right?

 

 

I struggle to remember the last time I showered. Or ate a salad. My diet seems to be mostly liquid, lately. This is probably contributing to the vicious cycle of me not producing anymore work. But how can I possibly overcome this despair when my fate isn’t even in my own hands?

 

 

To my children, friends, and family, I just want to say I’m sorry. Mommy isn’t really a depressed alcoholic. This too shall pass. And I know it’s hard to accept and hard to forigive, but I have to just ask of you…beg of you…please…just love me anyway. Please.

 

 

I hope when I report back it will be with definitive news, one way or the other. I’ll never stop trying. I’ll never give up. If these requests come back as rejections, I will survive and I will come back even stronger. Until then…

 

Okay, so it’s not really my first New Year’s resolution. Usually I don’t spend much time focusing on this holiday, or any holiday really. Birthdays, anniversaries…that’s all stuff that causes you to have to stop and take a broad look at your overall timeline, and I much prefer to live in the here and now (see Instagram post below).

 

A gift from a kind friend to help me on my #spiritualjourney. I’ve been seeking to live in the present for many years. I can’t believe how true and validating these words are. #spiritual #spiritualgrowth #livefornow #thepowerofnow #eckharttolle #audiobook #bookstagram #bookworm #booklover #inthemoment #findyourjoy #innerpeace

A photo posted by Carter Ashby (@carterashby30) on Dec 22, 2015 at 10:09am PST

 

But this year I decided to indulge in a little of the energy that surrounds the shift from one year to the next, that generally meaningless and arbitrary moment that society has made such a symbol out of…I decided to make a symbol out of it, too.

I’m a person who has led a generally easy and blessed life, and I don’t take that for granted. I’m grateful to the universe, God, my family, and everyone around me for how blessed my life is, and I don’t like to complain. So it shocked me when, for the first time ever, I took a look back and said to myself, “2015 really sucked.” I made myself evaluate the words. Were they true? Had it really been that bad? On the surface and from an outside-looking-in perspective, it wasn’t bad at all. But from inside my head and heart and soul…yeah, this was easily the worst year of my life. The absolute worst.

As the year ended, I took stock of everything I’d gone through. I let the negative drop off of me like dead weight and I inhaled and I started making decisions about where to focus my energy. I came to the conclusion that my energy should always go to my children, without question. Being a mother is the best part of my identity, that’s a given. But I haven’t really allowed myself to put my identity as a writer front and center. Bad relationships and the negative opinions of others had been sucking too much of my energy away (although it’s actually more complex than that, that’s the gist of it).

So that’s my New Year’s Resolution: to pour my heart and soul into myself; to let dead weight fall away instead of trying to revive it and make it better; to write my heart out and revel in the thrill of it; to spend as much time as possible in that place of contentment where I am truly myself.

Writing is my obsession and I’ve come to realize that instead of trying to temper that obsession with moderation and self-discipline, I need to give into it–feed it, feed off of it, become it. This is who I am, and if it causes relationships to fall away, I can accept that, because even as I’ve experienced this loss, I’ve also experienced the gain of friendships that make more sense and more impact because of it.

What about you? I’d love to hear about your New Year’s resolutions or just general life ephiphanies…I can’t be the only person taking herself too seriously this year

As the year winds down, I’m already getting motivated to fill 2016 with a wide array of achievements. I hope to publish two more Fidelity books as well as a stand-alone romantic comedy. The standalone is what I’m working on now, actually, except that I took a break to blog a bit.

I’m super excited about this one. You know you’ve got something good when you’re fully entertained while writing it. The story centers around Ivy, this standup rancher’s daughter who suddenly finds herself the center of a scandalous piece of gossip. Ivy and her father live next door to a rival ranch owned by Gideon Deathridge, who happens to have four very strapping young sons. Word is, Ivy’s sleeping with one of them in order to get her hands on the family business.

Now, everyone’s asking, “Which Deathridge brother did Ivy sleep with?”

That’s all I’m giving up at the moment, but stay tuned, as I will be introducing you to each of these four men soon. Then you can decide which, if any, you think Ivy’s hooking up with.

One of my favorite things to do that fills some kind of creative need in my soul that I don’t get anywhere else…is baking bread. I don’t know what there is about it. I think just the time it takes and the fact that you’re up to your elbows in it. It’s this messy, labor-intensive work that results in something ancient yet still relevant today. And then you feed your family with it.

I don’t know, it’s a beautiful thing. Anyhow, here’s my latest. Just a whole meal sourdough. Took about thirty-six hours. Smells amazing, kind of tangy-sweet. Slathered with butter from local cream and blueberry jam from the local blueberry farm, this makes a warm, comforting locavore snack.

What I do when not writing #breadporn #dailybread #breadofinstagram

A photo posted by Carter Ashby (@carterashby30) on Jul 8, 2015 at 2:13pm PDT

I was thinking about Sullivan Fletcher, as I built this. He’s the main character in my current work-in-progress. He’s a bit of a mystery. The only thing anybody knows about him is that he makes the bread and pizza crust at The Brick Oven, a restaurant he co-owns with his sister.

I love that I get to describe my feelings about bread making through his narrative. It’s something he finds meditative. And being a private person, it allows him to hide away in the kitchen with his imagination.

Here’s my Pinspiration Board for that novel. There are a couple of bread-inspired photos on there, as well as some other hints as to what the story is about. If you’re interested in more updates on my writing, be sure to sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of this page.

 

Follow Carter Ashby’s board Play It Again on Pinterest.