Author: Ashlee Scheuerman

Artist, writer, dreamer.

Exploration

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

Easter was not meant to be spent holed up in a writing cave. After two excellent days hanging out with our best buddies, I was dragged out of the house once again by the father and the husband to go trekking around the bush. We went to one of the many National Parks in Western Australia, surrounded by gorgeous forest, and scrambling up to the top of a granite mountain. Mountain, in this instance, is a relative term.

The part I love most about climbing up the granite in WA is how the alien lichens, mosses, and odd little rock plants sprout up and fill the depressions in the stone with a miniature forest of its own.

All throughout the bush and forest were giant orb weaver spiders. Their webs spanned several feet in some instances! We were graced by the company of an echidna, though he must’ve been pretty weirded out by us walking through his land, because he stuffed his snout under a rock and wouldn’t move.

Here’s an artistic rendition of the video the husband took, largely featuring me walking as we came down from the top of the mount.

~A

Look at me, I do stuff!

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Crafting, The Damning Moths, Writing

Wow, okay. Another week of forgetting to blog. I’m sorry! I don’t mean to get so caught up in irresponsibility!

I have been hard at work, several types of work no less. I had to submit final edits on “Harvest”, which went rather well (at least, in my mind!). The only thing I have to show for much of my time spent (aside from, you know, a pay check and food in my fridge, that sort of thing) is a great new bio and a very, very slick header for The Damning Moths. The Husband took my concept work and made it AWESOME. Yes!


Clicky-click for full size!

So, this is used on the Facebook Page for The Damning Moths, found here: The Damning Moths | Facebook
And the official website, found here: The Damning Moths
The bio is also on the website, right there under “The Author”. Fancy.

Oh yeah. Did I mention at any point the books have an official website? Haha. See above. I’ve been gloriously lazy about getting the description finalised and put on the site, so you’ll have to forgive the lack of content.

Beside that, it’s all pretty slow going. Whenever I think I’m on a roll, I look at the overall progress and am hit with a “WHAAAAT?” moment. Because things like, I’ll have been editing for hours, and added over 2,000 words to the book, but only progressed through a third of the chapter I had intended on finishing. Don’t get me wrong, everything’s awesome, but the one thing I stuggle most with when editing is guaging progress.

There’s no definitive word count to judge yourself on. Editing isn’t all equal value. Working through a really tough scene might take twice as long as just whipping through a perfectly acceptable section of the manuscript. Man, final edits are trouble. Worth it, but trouble all the same.

~A

Previewing the portrait

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Crafting, Writing

There are a number of you who have already seen this picture through Facebook! But of course, for the rest, I’m happy to blog and show you the preview of my most excellent photo shoot last Friday. And yes, sate your curiosity about the hair colour I chose! What do you think?

This is, officially, me being an author. Here’s a larger version, too.

My photographer was simply amazing. Kylie showed what she wanted from me with clear direction and has a wonderful eye for location and setting. We tried a few places in the historical and scenic port town of Fremantle, though the best shots ended up down a random little alley in front of this awesome wooden loading door, complete with flaking paint and worn bricks behind me. I love the colours, texture, and lighting. We had so much fun!

If anyone is looking for a photographer in Perth, I give the highest recommendation for Kylie. You can find her through her website, Photography by Kylie, or the Facebook Page for her business.

~A

Dudes

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

Greetings my dear internet buddies. Today has been a very long day. Between having my super awesome photo shoot this morning, and covering extra shifts at work tonight, I’m feeling like sleeping a whole lot is a solid plan. But I’m also at a really exciting point in my writing, so I’m pretty drawn to working on that, even though I might blather pretty badly being this spacey. That isn’t always a bad thing, funny enough. There have been occasions where my subconscious has been 100% in control and poured out great work.

I missed blogging on the appropriate days, and this is just a short one, today. I’m sorry if I haven’t been seen around your respective blogospaces. I have honestly, really, truly been flighty and distracted, and even if I’ve read your posts and updates, I haven’t known what to say most of the time. I will make the effort to catch up soon.

Aside from not blogging quite on time and not commenting as I normally would, I have probably avoided doing a whole lot of other things I might normally find myself enveloped with. The good news to come from that, though, is I’ve been chipping away at various writing projects and other important related goodness. Making accounts and updating websites for writing-related ventures, certainly. I’ve also been subjected to candid video recordings by the husband, who proceeds to make the weirdest things he can with the footage. Somehow, I am not concerned by this. It’s actually pretty awesome.

I’m going to set a countdown timer for half an hour or something. Then I shall sit and klackity away, then get myself some reading in before sleep finds me. I hope you lovely people have been busy with all your favourite things.

~A

Tasting desserts, for science!

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

There’s a new brand of pre-packaged desserts available around these parts with one of those names which just challenges you to try them. Can they really be so delicious as to live up to their claims? Since they were on sale, and I have a sweet tooth today, I bought four different treats to try.

First up, I’ve got a berry cheesecake. The berry sauce over the top doesn’t even taste like berries, but there are seeds in it to prove at least once, this contained a blackberry or something similar. The cheesy part of this cheesecake proves to be pretty good. Nice lemony zest flavour going on, and a smooth texture. The cake crumbles for the base are pretty standard and boring, which is a shame because when the cake crumbles on a cheesecake are good, man, then they are my favourite part.

Conclusion: this cheesecake is acceptable, but does not live up to my expectations.

Now onto a tiramisu. I’m already biased here, because we have the best recipe for a homemade tiramisu, and I have only tasted one or two professionally made desserts which can match our own. This one seems to have a lump of chocolate cake, with the coffee cream cheese around it. The creamy mix is, in my opinion, too sweet and doesn’t have nearly enough coffee flavour. The cake is very dark, but doesn’t really taste like much at all.

Conclusion: it’s barely worth finishing this tiramisu, and I would avoid it next time.

Next, I’m getting into the profiteroles in a chocolate sauce. The sauce is super chocolatey and smooth, though not quite meeting the pure melted chocolate consistency you really want. The pastry from the profiterole is surprisingly dry. I’m having a hard time getting at the custard inside without having chocolate sauce all over it, but as near as I can tell, it’s a bland, vaguely vanilla custard. Taken all together, the elements don’t exactly work. Huh.

Conclusion: I’ve had far better profiteroles, but the sauce could be tasty on icecream.

And saving my favourite for last, a crème caramel. I think it’s fair to be a little afraid, considering the previous disappointments. It tastes decent, though the custard is a bit too firm and the caramel sauce is too thin. Nevertheless, the flavour is mostly right. And I’m picky about my crème caramels.

Conclusion: There are two other brands of premade crème caramel I can buy which are better.

Overall, it’s safe to say, there’s absolutely nothing omg! about these desserts, except that they are sad and not super tasty like one is led to believe. Maybe other people would like them plenty; I am particularly fussy about desserts (I’ll eat most, but it has to be something special for me to love it).

Science is disappointed. But I ate a lot of dessert!

~A

The face of an author

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

Are you sitting down? Alright. Take a deep breath. I have to admit something.
I have bright purple hair. Like, proper bright purple.
I know. Shocking. It’s okay.

I’ve been rather consistently dyeing my hair for the better part of the last five years, usually leaning into the bright purple territory, with occasional deviations into autumnal red and orange combinations, blonde with hot pink, and the odd mix of those if I’m feeling feisty. This suits me just fine, and almost everyone who interacts with me on a very regular basis has commented at one time or another that I wouldn’t seem like “me” without the purple hair. When I’ve left my hair to its natural proclivities (a dark brown), plenty of folks have expressed that I was “back to normal” when I finally re-dyed to, yes, purple.

Needless to say, I have no problems with being myself. And yet…

In a week, I am scheduled to have nice professional portraits taken to use in all official authorly situations. Facebook and Twitter currently display one of my wedding photos, which, I will add, was before I cut off my three feet of natural brown hair. While I do love that photo, it doesn’t represent an accurate “me”, at least as far as current appearance goes. My short hair is just growing out of another pixie cut which is really bright purple.

Again, I’m very comfortable with myself. I’m certain you’ve all figured that one out by now! But the buffer between online-me, and offline-me is about to be blurred further. Of all people, I am well aware of what the instant visual judgement of a person can be like. That’s not to say anyone’s ever been particularly rude or mean about my hair colour, but some people need time to get used to it – and will they take that time to get to know me if it’s through an online medium when they see my photo? It’s all very fast. Click, click, click. Eyes dart to the photo, run over one sentence descriptions, make an assessment of this person in less time than it takes to have another sip of coffee.

What does the real me, the offline-me with purple hair, end up meaning to these nice folks online? I’m curious if offline-me and author-me can occupy the same space, or if they are better off having distinct portrayals. Either way, I have a week to decide if I need to freshen the purple, go over the colour with something more natural, or head straight for black and white photographs and invalidate this consideration entirely.

~A