Because You're Never Too Old to Have Imaginary Friends

By this point, you've probably noticed that I spelled ash wrong. Either that, or I was trying to be unnecessarily artistic by adding an e to it. I suppose that both of those statements are, to a point, true. I did spell "ash" wrong, and I was being kind of unnecessary about it, but because this blog's title and description are so obscure sounding anyways, I suppose I'd better explain.

Ashe does not refer to the powdery residue left after the burning of a substance, nor does it refer to a tennis player who won the the U.S. Open in 1968. Ashe is one of my three imaginary friends. (Yes, I have imaginary friends. And proud of it.) Allow me to elaborate.

My three friends all live inside my head. First, there's Keith, my internal editor. We actually have a fairly healthy relationship; he points out my grammar mistakes without being too overbearing, and is sensitive enough to know when he's not wanted. (See: NaNoWriMo.) Keith is a good guy.

And then there's Dominic. (Where do I even start with Dominic?) He's my muse, and he's quite thorough about it. I imagine him wearing bermuda shorts underneath his toga, smiling a evilly mischievous smile (with a good dash of punk thrown in), and holding a box of toothpicks rather threateningly. You see, Dom and I usually get along, when I can use all that rambunctious energy he's got for something good. However, he's got this annoying tendency to poke me in the back with those stupid toothpicks when he wants me to be creative. The only problem is he never tells me what he wants me to do, only that he wants me to do something. I couldn't live without him, but living with him is hard enough.

Finally, Ashe. She's the one that tells me what she thinks of my writing. My critic, I guess. I can't publish or show anyone my writing unless it goes through her first. So this blog, Ashe, is a collection of things that Ashe has approved; in other words, things that I want to share. Writings, thoughts, musings, stories, or whatever, they've all got a place here, on Ashe.

But wait; there's more! Ash is what's left after the flame dies away. If that flame is the imagination, then the ash it leaves behind is the things the imagination drives us to do; it's the works we create and the thoughts we think. Nothing anyone does is ever totally original, but that's okay, because imaginations need something to fuel them. They take that fuel and turn it into something else: ash. It's not a perfect metaphor (because ash is kinda worthless outside of metaphors and Mistborn), but it works for me.