Next up in the spotlight is Julia V Ashley, a fantasy author living among foxes, armadillos, and alligators in the Natchez Trace region of Mississippi. Julia has a lively imagination, and loves blending healthy doses of imagination into her life’s experiences. She also loves stories: her stories, your stories, everyone’s stories. Read below to learn more about her, then head over to her website at https://juliaashley.com
Morgan: You recently had a story published in 4th and Starlight: A Fantasy & Science Fiction Anthology, alongside some other amazing authors. You’re also working on a novella, a novel, and you have two other novels out on submission, plus your submissions for the quarterly Writers of the Future contest. Also, you’re an architect, and you have a family and pets! When in the world do you find time to write, and what does your writing routine look like?
Julia: Wow! That makes me sound impressive, but you’re condensing a decade into one question. My children are young adults who can tend to themselves and prefer to do so. Poor kiddos, I’m a mom, and can’t help but insert myself occasionally. Our pets are old and tired, so the house is much quieter than it was at the beginning of this writing journey. And architecture has taken a back seat; I’ve left the bulk of that world to my husband, so I can enjoy it once-removed.
I normally spend the first half of the day on non-writing work, most of which happens on autopilot before my brain wakes up. I try to prioritize sitting at the keyboard by 1:00pm, which gives me a good stretch of writing before the house gets lively again.
M: What analogies can you draw between architecture and writing? Does one inform the other for you?
J: That’s an interesting question. I’ve found the creative process and learning curve equally exciting and daunting for both. You begin designing buildings by constructing sandcastles on the beach, or stories by conjuring them from clouds. But one washes away with the tide and the other scatters on the wind. So you learn rules and systems with which to construct a structure to hold them together. While you are learning those rules and practicing them, trying to get it “right,” the wonder and creativity can seem to wane. It returns. With enough practice, the systems and structure sink into the back part of your brain to be accessed when necessary and you can again focus on the wonder of the built space or a magical tale. Both are necessary — wonder and craft — but it takes time, or it did for me, to let the two find an equilibrium.
It is then that you introduce dragons.
M: You’ve mentioned an alligator roving through your neighborhood. Does it belong to anyone, or it is just a local attraction, kind of like Pennywise?
J: Poor critter. It spends most of its day sunning itself on an old sunken pier. It, or they, there is a rotation of them ranging in ages and sizes, wandered over from the Natchez Trace Parkway which is teaming with wildlife — one of the reasons we moved here. Herds of deer sneak into the yard at dusk to eat the acorns the squirrels spent the day hiding. A mother fox keeps a den nearby and trots her pups across the yard on a sunny day. And the birds are simply raucous. The alligator is too big and too lazy to pull a Pennywise act. It would rather be left alone and rarely lures unsuspecting writers to their doom. Or so I hear.
M: Many of your weekly micro-fiction stories are set in the world of Buford & the Mayfly. How did that world come about? Did the novel come first and then the shorter stories, or did the shorts lead you into the novel?
J: Buford & the Mayfly was born when my first writing group challenged one another to write a story in 24 hours. The first short story version came from that all-nighter and taught me I am too old to pull all-nighters anymore. A year or so later, I expanded the story into what I hope to be the first of many novels in that universe. Now the characters have become a part of the family. We discuss what they are up to over dinner. Early on, one of our children asked if I was referring to real people or my characters. I simply answered, “Yes.”
When writing the micro-fiction each week, the characters keep emerging, because I have lived with them for so long and they are brash enough to inset themselves into scenarios whether they are invited or not.
M: What inspired you to start writing, and what motivates you to keep going?
J: I’ve always been a story teller, but had to learn to be a story writer.
For as long as I can remember, I have navigated the real world while recreating it in my head. Storytelling is me in my natural state. I love hearing your story and sharing mine with you. Even as an architect, I use story. The clients and I work together to compose the story of the life they want to live in the building, then we design the space to encompass those dreams.
I have also always loved reading. So, learning to transcribe those imagined stories into the written words in order to share them more widely seemed like the highest and best use of my time. There is really nothing better to me than sharing stories with one another. Happy ones, sad ones, deranged ones, all the stories. It is how we make meaning of life.
M: What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever heard?
J: First, take what advice works and leave the rest. We all work differently and how we work will change over time.
For me, I have to write the story out to the end — whatever it takes to get there — before I start editing. That’s what works best for me. It doesn’t need to be pretty, either the process or the results. Get the story down without criticism, without self-editing. Let it meander. Try different routes. I can reorganize and clean up after the fact, but I need to separate the editor brain from the creative brain. Protect the creative process. It holds the heart of the story.
M: What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever heard?
J: Any advice that says this is the only, or best, way to write.
Believing there’s one correct way to write can kill the creative process dead. Listen to the advice, even those touting “the one true way,” but edit out the “have-to” and “only” and “best” descriptors while keeping the parts that are useful for you. Sometimes my filter works better than other times, and I’m tricked into believing there is a right way to write, or that one process will fit me forever. Then I have to shed that notion in order to move forward and grow.
Don’t fall for it.
M: What qualities make for a great story, a story you’re willing to sacrifice food and sleep and bathroom breaks for (either reading or writing)?
J: Character. I would follow interesting characters off a cliff or into battle or just down the street to a coffee shop to listen to them debate dark roast versus tea, then deciding to skip it all and go for pizza. Even a rote story is fun with fun characters. Early on, I worried over story structure, plot, etc. without giving my characters their due. Buford and the Mayfly were some of the first characters to assert themselves, and I have yet to shake them.
M: Everyone writes for different reasons. What does writing do for you?
J: Should I give my more noble reason, or the other one?
It goes back to that desire, that need, to share story — for us to know one another in a way that can only be found through sharing our stories. But it doesn’t hurt that it makes more productive use of my daydreaming time.
In addition to all her other work, Julia is also a regular contributor in the quarterly L Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest, where her stories have earned semi-finalist certifications. For more about Julia, and to catch free micro-fiction stories that she posts weekly, check out her website!
