New Things On My Blog

I don't know if you noticed but I added pages at the top of my blog.

There's an About Me page, which pretty much speaks for itself. It's a little bit more about myself so that if you're just visiting my blog for the first time, you're not completely confused by me and my randomness.

There's also a page I called My Other Blogs.

I share two blogs with my best friend, Kylie. We have Ashen Sky Books and then we also have Beautiful in Christ.

Ashen Sky Books is where you can keep tabs on current writing projects that Kylie and I are working on.

Beautiful in Christ is a blog where we encourage teenage girls to stand up and follow Christ. We remind them how beautiful and valued they are by their Savior, the Lord, Jesus Christ.

The last page is called My Writing Projects.

I just redid this page this evening so if you have already checked it out, be sure to go back because I added a lot more and it's more detailed than it was earlier.

I have been a writer since I was about 10 years old but my writing has become more and more frequent in the last couple of years. I'm not great author but I do love to write as much as I possibly can.

Be sure to check out my new pages and let me know what you think of them! :)

~Ashley

Becoming Bekah

Becoming Bekah is a story that my friend, Sky, and I are writing together. Well, actually, we're finished with it. It came in at 82,000 words, which is the most in any story I've ever written before. The one coming in second is Love Anyway coming in at 73,000, which was also a big accomplishment for me.

Anyways, here are a couple of facts about Becoming Bekah.

• We started the story on January 8th, 2011.
• We finished on April 15th, 2011
• We wrote super fast! :)
• The story kind-of took a hold of itself and wasn't truly written by us.
• It's the first story where the characters were truly in-tune with the Lord.
• It was one of the easiest stories to ever write!
• There is a sequel in the works
  
• You can read all about our stories and writing projects at Ashen Sky Books.

And last but not least, here is the trailer for our story. Sky made this and I thought that it was completely amazing! Be sure to check it out! :)

Lazyness

I've been so lazy with my writing so much lately. I can't find myself writing a story that I actually have ENJOYED writing. I have started book after book, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I'll find one that I can actually keep writing, without getting sick of it.
I finished a story - my first story I've ever actually finished that was over 50,000 words - (this was a couple of months ago that I finished it) and I haven't written a good, long story since then. I have so many story ideas and plots running through my head but I can't seem to actually sit down and write them.
I haven't been this lazy with my writing in such a long time and it's actually more tiring than writing a full-length story. I don't know what's wrong with me.
Like, shouldn't I just be able to sit down and write, without feeling like I don't want to? I have to write, it's such a big part of me. I can't stop just because my body is telling me to.


My newest story is kinda fun though. I started this one a couple of days ago and am really enjoying writing this one. It's one of those stories that is so easy to write because it's about the friendship between me and my best friend (Sky.) It's actually only loosely based on it, but the characteristics are the same, so it's so easy in that way. Coming up with the whole plot for the thing was the easy part. Writing it is the hard part. It has to be quirky, cause she and I have a quirky friendship.
(pic to the right: my new characters, Ashlyn and Skylar from my story about my friend and me. If you can't read it - it says: Ashlyn Saige McKinley, Skylar Kendall Williams, Cole Isaiah Barlow, Xaviar Tate Johnston, Trey Matthew McNevan - Oh my! - When friends get together, you never know what might happen.)
Although, my friend, Sky, and I have been writing our story like crazy again. We had gone on a lull and hadn't been writing much but now we're back into the swing of things and we're writing our next novel (when this one's finished, it'll be our third finished), Becoming Bekah. We're really excited about this one. It's our first book that's in third person. I hadn't written in third person before this story and was excited to start something new. It's actually the best we've written together and we're thrilled about this one. You can read all about Becoming Bekah on our writing blog here.
Be sure to read over the Ashen Sky Life Typecasts when you go to our blog. It's a lot of random ramblings but it's also a lot of fun. We just did a Questions and Answer about our stories, writings and our lives. It's quite interesting to say the least.
Sky and I have like 12 plots that need to get written! It's crazy. We've got so many ideas and aren't writing fast enough for our stories likings. But of course, they will wait until we're finished with Becoming Bekah. Which is slowly getting finished. We have about 17-18K more to go, but it probably won't take us too much longer if we keep writing at the pace we are going.
Our first story we ever wrote together was Love Anyway, which took us only 51 days to write and it was 73,000 words. We were pretty proud of that. Of course, that story needs a lot of work before it ever gets shown to anybody, lots of mistakes that need fixed, but it's a good plot.
Although, Becoming Bekah is taking us a little longer - we've been writing it for 72 days - and we have about 64-65K. I think it's because we're both super busy and haven't really had time to write a lot lately. It's kind-of discouraging, but the book is turning out better than we even anticipated.
Anyways, what was the point of writing this blog post?
Oh. Right.
To tell you that I haven't been writing much on my own lately.
I will get back into writing. I will. I will. I will.
'Cause writing is such a huge part of my life. I've been doing it since I was ten. I can't stop now. :P
~Ashley

Ashen Sky {Life}

Day 22: A Website

There are so many websites that I could suggest to my blogger friends that I go to constantly! But of course, there is not enough room for all of that.

1. Ashen Sky {Books}
   This is a blog that Sky and I started together, to write about our authoring and what's going on in our stories. If you haven't visited the blog, please do so!
2. Orli Online Magazine
   This is an online magazine that my friend Ali started and asked me to write for right off the bat. The first issue is going to be coming out this Spring and I can't wait for it to come out and see how everything's going to work! I'm enjoying my writing for this magazine!
3. Kids of Faith Online
   This is another online magazine that I write for. I've been writing for this one for a couple of years now and really enjoy it! Sky started this one and I write both music article and an article about {Shining Stars} - Christian music artists who are shining their lives for Jesus.
4. Facebook
   
5. Twitter
   

Those are the websites that I go to the most, spend most of my time on.