So, on twitter today, my new friend, fellow author, and weird western enthusiast, S.A. Hunt decided to toss my name out in his Follow Friday post. He included the phrase “great writers.” Well shit, now I need to try to live up to that, right? So I spent the afternoon adding old shorts and a flash fiction piece to the Works section. Also reformatted the Chapter 1 excerpt for Demon as it didn’t hold any of the formatting from open office. I’m still working on making the place look less fucking boring, but until I can upgrade (and figure out what I want in the header section), that’s all I have for now.
News
Back in the saddle
Got back to writing again last night. It felt like a year since I’d last done it but while I didn’t write a whole lot, what I did write came out without too much prodding. That felt good. Starting the new year right. That said, a few things extra to try and get my little one man empire running. Throwback Thursdays and Follow Fridays are fairly popular thing around the net. And why not, they’re fun little memes that help people connect with each other more. You probably know that already though, so what I’m gonna do is use them for my own purposes.
For TBT’s, I was thinking of doing a mini-review/recommendation of an older piece of media. Something that had an influence on me or pop culture at large. Simple enough.
For FF’s, well, this one’s not really gonna change, except that I’ll focus on just one or two people at a time. This will mostly be fellow writers or artists. We’re a community and we gotta stick together.
I’ll probably stagger them too. TBT one week, FF the next. That’s really all I got to say today.
Grand Opening and a 2014 Review
This will be the first official post of this site. I can use it to cross-post across social media and keep things nice and easy. So hello from the new site. It’s still being worked on but it’s functional and ready to go.
Which brings me to my next point, a review of 2014.
Last year (saying that on Jan 1 is always strange) was a busy year for me and, considering this post even exists, an important year. While getting myself to write regularly technically began the previous December, January saw me pushing forward more. February saw the start of A Demon in the Desert. The whole thing spun out after talking with a friend one night about an idea I was debating. Originally, I had tried to start a swashbuckling story about an Orc. But then I started thinking about a gunslinger Orc and the discussion lead to ideas and I started immediately. It was shaky at first but it got going.
The summer was spent in a weird stasis but things picked up again in September when I set up the kickstarter. I probably should’ve waited a while yet but hey, ya live ya learn. It still brought some good as I joined goodreads and started meeting fellow weird west writers. Then meeting some new folks who backed the book, including another writer. It seemed like my professional life just slid right into place. I now know a slew of authors and have a little group of colleagues. And that’s pretty fuckin cool. The kickstarter also cemented relationships with a few people I already knew but not well yet. Everyone has been awesome and it’s been amazing having professional support, personal support, and feeling like I’ve come into my own.
Now that we’ve gotten the big move finished (some of you may recall I was in Oklahoma and now I’m in Alabama), and things mostly set up, I’ll be able to get back to writing again. I’m going to do my best to hold to the June release. I don’t think I’ll have to push it back again, but no matter what, I want to make the story the best it can be and get everyone nice and hooked for future books. So, I hope you had a good holiday and that your new year will be great and that you’ll achieve whatever it is you set out to achieve.
Let’s kick some ass.
Ashe Armstrong 