The Ups and Downs of My Writing Career

Hi, I’m Judith Ashley, author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, soul nourishing romantic women’s fiction with light paranormal elements. My stories show you what life could be like if you had a place like The Circle where you are unconditionally accepted, supported and loved. And where, with this support, you make choices to overcome the darkest nights and choose love and light.

I can summarize the “Downs” of my writing career in a couple of sentences. I’ve not written much of anything beyond blog posts since December 2019. And while I have 30K+ words written on Visions of Ireland. I’m not sure I will ever finish it.

Now some of you will say “Oh, the Pandemic!” However, so much more was going on in my personal life that affected my writing life than the pandemic.

Those of you who are writers know that we categorize ourselves as plotters or pantsers and some are hybrid meaning they are a bit of both. I’ve categorized myself as a pantser because I do not plot nor do I do character studies, etc. What I’ve come to see about my writing, at least my fiction, is that I’m a dream/vision writer.

My eight novels, The Sacred Women’s Circle series and Visions of Happiness, a spin off from TSWC series were written from dreams and visions I had. Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night, the picture of the scene, the dialogue so clear in my mind that all I did was type it onto the computer before going back to bed.

I will admit that there were times, early on in my process, that I wondered about my sanity. And, once the story was written out, the visions and dreams ceased, at least for that story <smile>.

At one point I would have said that my process for writing non-fiction was different except that, as I share in the opening of Staying Sane in a Crazy World, a vision flashed before me as I was driving on the freeway (and yes, I do keep my guardian angels busy).

So when my personal health faltered, those visions and dreams took a break. For the most part. I have written over 30 blog posts for Romancing The Genres and Windtree Press, a have a story (2200 words so very short) about how I dealt with CoVid in Covidology: Sharing Stories From Behind The Mask and the beginning of a short story popped into my head for several nights – well, until I got up and wrote it down.

What’s interesting is that while I know scientist say we all dream, I seldom remember a dream. What fascinates me and I pay close attention to especially after having written eight fiction novels and one non-fiction is that those that stick with me upon waking have more to say.

How does that happen? I get a flash of that dream in visions during the day or I’ll hear the voices of the characters as they go forth with their story. It can be unnerving although since a decade or two has passed since the first dream, I pay attention to the details in the vision and listen to the dialogue. Then I check with some internal something inside me that says “Now, go write it down Now!”

I’m grateful the dreams and visions have begun again although nothing coherent. Or perhaps more accurately nothing I can yet make sense of. And that internal something? Still quiet.

What is my plan going forward? One is to self-narrate the audio book for Staying Sane in a Crazy World. I’ve a few bits and pieces of that process to work out. I’ve done a five minute test and it went well so I think I can do the rest.

And I’ve a You Tube Channel that has been silent since 2015ish. At a live event for the Covidology Anthology, I read parts of that story to the audience. I’m considering doing that as a video and putting it up on the You Tube Channel.

Of course, that all comes under the heading of “it depends on” and that list has several entries. The main one is health as that affects my energy level and all of the above takes a chunk. When a successful day is getting up, getting dressed and feeding myself, there is nothing left for audio books or You Tube Channels.

And that, I expect, is why the internal something is quiet when it comes to writing things down. It knows it’s not quite time…almost but not quite.

You can find all of my books at your favorite e-book vendor. Be sure to ask your local library if you’d prefer to read my books through that resource.

Learn more about Judith's The Sacred Women’s Circle series at JudithAshley.net

Check out Judith’s Windtree Press author page.

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