Category: writing
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There Is Purpose in This Paint
“I can give you something productive to paint,” my husband says. “Like the walls of our house.” I’m showing him my new hobbies: coloring and painting. I’m also reviewing the fact that I spent about $40 on colored pencils, a coloring book, composition notebooks, and a watercolor paint set. “Productive is the opposite of what…
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A Story: One Winter Day in the Life of a Writer
In our house, taking out the trash involves scooping cat litter and adding a week’s worth of poop to our trash. This is usually my husband’s chore. Today, I decide to help my stressed-out husband who is in back-to-back meetings at the office. He says he doesn’t have enough time to take sips of water…
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For the Ones With a Unique Voice
My husband replies, “What?” like a reflex after 98% of what I say. This isn’t something new for me. My entire life, my mom would read warnings from my teachers on slips of paper tucked inside our take-home folders, “Ashley is very sweet, but she really needs to speak up or her grade will drop.”…
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Want to Know How I Wrote for Oprah? Everything You Need to Know
The rumors are true… I was recently published in O, The Oprah Magazine! (If you haven’t read my published story yet, you can check it out here.) When I shared the news, several people have messaged me asking, “How did you land that writing gig?” So, I thought I would break it down for you…
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The Writing Life
Two months into calling myself a full-time writer (in a season filled with swapping what-do-you-dos over turkey and egg nog and pecan pies) and I’m here to report that I’ve done a lot of laundry. I’ve tried some new recipes, like the coffee-rubbed pot roast simmering all day in the slow cooker. I’ve walked to the…
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The Things I Keep Forgetting to Remember
For Us. Milk (I don’t drink milk.) Bread (I tell myself I don’t eat bread Mondays-Fridays.) Toilet paper (Where does it go?) Stop using the word “thing(s)” in blog post titles (Writing 101, Ashley.) Of course, there are more substantial things on this list, but every time I have a moment of remembering the important…
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Sorry I Ate All the Cookies
She skipped town for the weekend and left a Tupperware container on the counter filled with chocolate chip cookies. She had stayed up late one night baking them, clanging baking sheet after clanging baking sheet I heard downstairs at an unusual hour, said it was really only a recipe from the back of the chocolate…
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The End of a Winter Journal
I wonder if it’s worth counting how many mornings over the last four months I scribbled about watching the pink sunrise while listening to the coffee drip from the kitchen just behind me. Each time, I wrote it as if it was a new thought, a new sight, a new sound. And yet, there’s nothing…
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You’ve gotta write like there’s no such thing as a broken heart
Yesterday, I taught a writing class. We flipped through dogeared pages of Bird by Bird together on a screened-in back porch that overlooked a wooded lot with trees changing colors on me. We waited for the french press to brew our Starbucks medium roast, then wrapped cold fingers around steaming mugs as the temperature dropped.…
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Should I really publish my book?
Welcome to my little writing home, Scott Cyre! I hope you’ll enjoy this insightful guest post from my talented friend. Scott and I go way back… to 2014 when we met in a small creative writing class that felt like a boot camp. We put our hearts on the page, and then shot up some prayers for that…
Ashley Fenker 