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Week two of writing again is done. I’m still just working on writing The Death Bureau, which I’m making good progress on, while also going over one last edit for The Data Job.

Editing is by far my least favorite part of writing, I’m sure my first couple of books show this more than the newer ones. I’ve enhanced and refined my editing process as I’ve gone along. The only downside is that it can cause a backlog of books to edit. Right now I have three Wonderful World books in various stages of editing, two stand-alone novels I haven’t even started editing, a short story that is almost novella length I completely forgot about and did nothing with yet, and the previously mentioned Data Job to finish editing… like I said a backlog. 

I’m sure every writer has a backlog of books they’ve finished first drafts of but haven’t released yet, but to me, it feels like a to-do list I’m behind on.

Speaking of things I’m behind on, I don’t even have real titles yet for the two stand-alone novels. I have working titles that I have them saved as, but I’m very unconvinced of what to really call them. I think I’ve mentioned the titles before… The Blue and Control. Neither title grabs you by the dick and gives you the I need to read this tingle. 

Speaking of things not finished… that Space Book Thief book, I said I’d give you a sample of. Well… here it is, but keep in mind this is a very rough, first draft with no edits yet… like me, it has issues.



The thick dusty air billowed around Pargin. Even through the thick dense, oxygen-light air, he could still breathe. One of the many perks of dying and being brought back in a new body. Inconceivable technologies, that he had no idea how they worked, had taken massive steps forward. The last time he woke up after another failed run-in with a former acquaintance he swore it would be his last, he deactivated all his backups and said this would be his last chance. In doing so he took a few upgrades he normally passed on. Aftermarket add-ons, deep black market shit. Some like the ones he’s gotten were cheap because t

hey were experimental. One of which was being able to breathe pretty much anything. Though it still had to be something, and space was full of a fair amount of nothing. Though this planet and its dust-filled air seemed to have ample amounts of pretty much everything except oxygen, but it didn’t matter, he could still breathe it. Which you know was a plus with the whole last life not dying thing. 

Pargin’s suit jacket rippled around him as the wind tore at him. His tie snapped him in the face. He’d been offered many a so-called better battle armors over the decades he’d been doing this. He even had a prime armor offered once, it had belonged to that woman Miko who flew the axe ship for a while. There had been many books written about her, not that anyone could read or find a copy. But that didn’t stop people from writing about it. The truth will always be written, it just might not be read. Anyway, he liked his brown suit just fine, it suited him. Reminded him of a time before his time, which he found fitting and all.

A beep came from his wrist, Pargin glanced down at his watch without having to raise it to read it. He knew what it said without needing the augmented reality so many people now lived their day-to-day lives with. He was in the right place. His watch, just like the matching watches on his entire team, didn’t come off much. He knew the beeps, vibrations, everything about it. While he did look at it a lot he didn’t have to. He and the watch were one, just like the rest of his team. 

The dust and dirt around him temporarily changed direction giving him a quick glance at what he was standing in the middle of. A long-dead mansion, the governor, king, ruler, dick-tator, dick head leader, take your pick, had built it for one of his wives to hide her from the other wives. Apparently, he had quite a few that didn’t know about each other. Needless to say, it all ended badly for him. But the wife whose long-dead mansion this was loved to read, much to the displeasure of her husband. He hated reading and hated her for reading. It was what had led to the great book purge on the planet. His wife, who had long started disapproving of her arrogant stupid husband, had made some attractions to the mansion. Which was why they were there today. 

The mansion was the shape of a crescent moon, with a long removed gate completing the circle. The mansion at its tallest was five stories high. It reminded him of those villa’s that people used to live in back on earth. Earth, he laughed. For a place he’d never been he sure knew so much about it well. But that was everyone really. They all knew about it, it was the origin of their species, and the setting of so many books he’d read.

Pargin pulled a small capsule-looking device from his pocket. It was a 3D holographic replicator. A small chip no bigger than a few millimeters sat in the middle of it. It was like those old 3D printers that ships used to use back in the day when they’d first left Earth. Before it became a conservation site, before The Event. 

He spun the capsule in his fingers, it was a replica of the one they’d teased Peg about pulling out of her. “Violating a political official’s back door,” he laughed to himself. 

The dust picked back up as he reached the center of the mansion’s courtyard. A giant statue of what he assumed were the dick-tator’s wife’s breasts stood ample and waiting in the very center of the courtyard, no more than a few feet ahead of Pargin. They seemed to be fairing significantly better than the rest of the property. Likely made of something more durable, a true monument to the bosoms they embodied. He stared up at them in wonder. Many people before him had stood in this very spot and not found the fabled book vault of the busty wife. He used to think as his book-stealing compadres as colleagues. Now, after so much experience he just thought of most of them as idiots. Sure youth and excitement helped, but he’d witnessed so many of them fail for not looking at the work that had been laid out before them. Even the so-called seasoned experts spew vomit-coated garbage. He’d never say it out loud, but he and his team were the best for a reason. Which to them seemed rather simple, but no one else ever did it. Research, test, review the results, cycle, cycle, cycle until you reach what you want. It wasn’t gravity-driven science. He’d found footage of hundreds of fellow book retrievers who’d failed at this very job. They searched in the mansion, under it, some even over it. They’d dredged the oceans and mined the mountains. Not a single soul had found anything. 

Pargin adjusted his tie, as the 3D holographic capsule device in his other hand activated. Politicians with Peg’s level of clout within The Circle were granted access to certain perks. One of which was using The Circles ability to override any system and activate it. Mostly it was in case of the need for an emergency exit, but more often it was used for impromptu political donor orgy parties. The capsule that was now connected with his watch, buzzed in his hand. He imaged where they’d pulled it from, and laughed at the thought of Peg getting a little buzz every time it activated. 

The red neon outline of a square about a foot off the ground drew itself into existence from the bottom up. It was no more than a few feet tall. Pargin tucked the capsule into his suit jacket pocket and ducked through the neon square. 
“Stepping into The Vault now, buddy,” Pargin replied. See you on the other side.”

The dim static that let him know his radio was working cut off as he dipped his head through the square. The static had long been cleaned up from radio channels, he’d added it back in as a way to know when he’d lost comms. Plus he felt like it fit the whole aesthetic of what he and his suit were going for. 

Like a switch had been toggled, the world around him filled with various information that now floated him and the mansion. He waved away the red neon display that welcomed him to the Circle’s Reality Appropriate Practice. He laughed at the thought that Peg was constantly bombarded by crap like this. He scanned the mansion. Large paintings of the dick-tator’s wife in various sexual positions floated where the walls of the mansion should have been. She was with an assortment of different men, in each, she smiled and seemed to be staring exactly where he was standing. Pargin laughed again. The Mrs seemed to get up to some fun she didn’t want the dick-tator knowing about. Then he laughed a third time as he realized that the Circle’s Reality Appropriate Practice was short for CRAP and that it was basically just a way to hack any network they wanted. 

Pargin’s watch buzzed, and he remembered why he was there in the first place. He tended to drift into thought the older he got. Sometimes he was trapped in memories, other times it was observations. His watch kept him focused when it needed to, an upgrade he’d purchased. He spun in a circle as he quickly looked for what he wanted, which didn’t take long. As he turned to face the giant statue of the dick-tator’s wife’s breasts, a giant flashing arrow pointed directly to them. He laughed and approached them. 
It couldn’t be that simple, could it? How could so many people miss it?

As the dust and dirt swirled around him and the augmented reality of The Circle’s crap hack, Pargin placed his hand on the right breast of the dick-tator’s wife’s bust statue. His watch beeped again. He’d found the vault door. A keypad appeared on the gigantic breast. Pargin typed in the password they’d deduced from Peg’s password hint, ‘FuCkM3m30W’. She really shouldn’t use almost her actual password in her password hint. The augmented reality of the Circle’s CRAP processed, then forced its way into the wife’s bust security system. 

The augmented reality glitched and jittered as the giant breasts statue split open down the middle of its cleavage. Each breast slid to the side, revealing a small passageway. A neon red border around it. 

Without hesitation, Pargin inched between the breasts and climbed into the newly revealed passageway. Just as it was when he stepped through the first neon square, the world again changed as he climbed through the other. The mansion and the dust storm that was encompassing vanished, instead he was left with a damp wet basement smell. Everything was black, the CRAP system must not have access to the system down here. Likely a self-contained system off the grid.

That’s probably good enough for now. What do you think? 

 

Mr and Mrs Smith

On Amazon

I want to admit something… I own a TV. Sometimes, I even watch movies and TV shows on it. I know, that makes me a monster, but it’s true. I think my love for writing actually more comes from watching so many movies and TV shows when I was younger. Like I told you last week, Stephen King was the 
writer who hooked me on reading, but it was movies and TV shows that really taught me about stories. 

Flashback to young Vaughn…

Sometimes I like to imagine that at the end of my life, I’m going to gain access to a bunch of stats about things I did while I was alive. Kind of like a video game. I don’t even care about the obvious stats, what I do care about is the amount of time I spent when I was younger looking for movies to watch at the video store. I’m sure the number is painfully high, but will measured in hours? Weeks? Or Months?

…End of Flashback by the way.


I bring this up because I feel like I have a radar built in now for really good movies or TV shows. Sometimes it’s super obvious, like who doesn’t love The Matrix or Inception, other times less so. I like good content no matter what genre it’s in. Sometimes when I’m watching it, I can’t even say why it’s so good, other than that I know it is. I had it happen with The Queen’s Gambit and Chernobyl. Recently I had it happen again, this time it was with the new TV show Mr and Mrs Smith.

After watching the first episode I knew right away there was something special about this show. Yes, I liked the original movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but who didn’t? The new show had something that had me thinking about it over and over again, excitedly waiting for the next opportunity to watch an episode. After watching completing, I think it’s the fourth episode, which ends with the two main leads laughing and talking in bed, it hit me, it’s them, the two main characters, portrayed by Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, they are what is making this show amazing. It’s a combination of really good writing and really good acting. The secret for both? They feel real. They talk like normal people but in this crazy situation, and it works… really well. 

So go watch it, trust me, you’ll love it.

That’s it… the end of the third whatever these things are.
What did you think of the sample?
Are you going to rush out to watch Mr and Mrs Smith?
Do you have a backlog of something clogging your colon… wait don’t tell me, I don’t think I want to know.
Thanks for reading, this and the books, truly I mean it.

Love Uncle Vaughn

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Week one of writing is done. I focused just on the one single writing project… The Death Bureau. I managed to squeak out around 8000 words in the week. Which is pretty decent. Normally I’d do about 10000 a week, but that would include an entire second project. So overall, I’d call it a success. 

It sounds stupid and cliché, but it feels good to be writing again. I think for myself there are certain things in life I need to be doing frequently in order to feel balanced as a human. Writing is definitely one of them for me. I knew this before, I know it better now. I just feel extra… I’m not sure what the word is, but extra me? Extra Ashby? I’m not certain that is a good thing for the world… so please hold tight while the world balances itself, and brace yourself.

So, those space strippers I mentioned before. I figure you’ve waited long enough, it’s time to tell you about them…

The book I was working on that triggered my recent writing stoppage or writer’s block, whatever you want to call it, the book that caused me to question if I should be doing this at all, I was calling “Space Book Thief” as a working title. If I ever finished it, I was rolling “The Books Your Mom Used to Read Before Bed” as the actual title in my head. I’m still not certain about the title… or the book itself. So I figured why not tell you about it?









The book centers around a man named Pargin, who is as the working title suggests a Book Thief who just so happens to live and work in space. The book is set in the future, after the events of The Axe. Pargin and his crew, who go by my old author’s names as covers, get hired by various groups to steal books, which are outlawed by the future governments, The Circle.

Not to go too far into the whole backstory, Pargin who once had a family but lost them in dramatic fashion, stumbles across one of the books he used to hear his wife read to his kids each night. Finding the book triggers a desire to find the other books, which leads him to take a job that he’d normally not take, and well… galaxy-wide shenanigans and consequences ensueOh, and there are space strippers, the chapter I stopped writing was set there. So, there you go my writing career almost died mid-chapter at the futuristically enhanced space strippers.

I’ve been noodling with the idea of just trying to finish the damn thing, it was going to be a trilogy. What do you think? Move on? Or dive back into the sweet deep cleavage of the space strippers scene? Maybe next week I’ll give you a sample of the book 🙂









Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by Gabrielle Zevin

I assume since you’re here on my mailing list (Thank you by the way) you must like to read, can’t imagine you’re here for the mediocre beard. I’ve had a long up-and-down relationship with reading.

Flashback to young Vaughn… When I was really young I hated it. Pretty sure I had an undiagnosed reading something. Even now I feel like I’ve just memorized all of the words (boobs) I care to repeat. When I was a teenager I stumbled across Desperation by Stephen King, the book hooked me on reading and King. I remember walking home from school reading Desperation as I walked excitedly to see where the story was going to go. 

From there I dove into the rest of King’s library. Eventually, my love of reading faded, I’d hit the end of King and didn’t know there were other writers like him out there… I know… I was young and stupid and the internet wasn’t really a thing back then, yes I should have just gone to a library and asked but… I’m going to need you to get to the shutting up about that.

Eventually, I found audiobooks and Goodreads and since then I haven’t looked back. Some people don’t count audiobooks as reading… those people are terrible humans and should be removed from your life as soon as possible, they are nothing but demons who aren’t from this Notch, please consider buying them a one-way ticket to an uncomfortable place of your choosing wishing the Aurora Wasteland…End of Flashback by the way.

One of my favorites so far this year has been Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I’m not sure I’ve read a book like it before. I don’t want to spoil much, but the story follows two young people who connect over video games, from there it progresses to telling the story of their lives, in which they aren’t really romantically connected, but partners in video game creation. They develop a few video games over the span of their lives as their worlds change around them. I really liked it a lot, can’t recommend it enough. If you haven’t read it you really should, if you what did you think?

Link to the GoodReads for the book…
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58784475-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow

While you’re there you might as well follow me too. GoodReads…
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19117585.Vaughn_Ashby


That’s it… the end of the second whatever these things are.

I’m getting a better idea of how this is going to work. 
Oh, I almost forgot about The Giant Space Spider… well, that’s for another day, don’t worry we’ll get to it.
Thanks for reading, this and the books, truly I mean it.

Love Uncle Vaughn 

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These are the first words I’ve written in almost three months.
I did the thing writers aren’t supposed to do… I stopped writing a book mid first draft because I didn’t think it was good enough.

The first rule of writers club is finish your first draft no matter how bad you think it is. First drafts are supposed to be shit. Finish it, then polish that turd up in later drafts. 

I stopped, didn’t think it was good enough, which just so happened to be bad timing. I’d finished another writing project at the same time I stopped the previously mentioned. 

I normally like to have two things I’m writing at the same time. I try to offset the start and end of each to not coincide with each other. That way I never get stuck outlining two things at once. I love outlining, for me it requires more mental bandwidth than actually writing. I did two at the same time once, the world nearly ceased existing, but I pulled through and the world continued to turn… you’re welcome. 

Only this time things didn’t go well… I finished one and quit the other. Then started questioning all my future planned books. Were they good enough? Was my writing getting worse? Did I even want to do this anymore? I asked those questions over and over again in my stupid writer brain… I know not the best idea. 

Now here we are, my first words in months… so, now what? Now I move on… dragging you behind me alive or dead… to the next stage of my writing adventure? Career? Phase?. Yes, I’m going to continue, not sure who I thought I was kidding about quitting? I know it wasn’t really ever an option.

What does that look like? Well first off… I start writing again. First up, a new book called The Death Bureau… which might lead into a series. I have it outlined to about five books. Which is probably a good manageable length. Second, like I said I like to write two at a time… do I go back and finish what I was working on before? Or do I start new? Or do I work on the next Wonderful World or Zombie Job books? So many choices…. I’ll have to get back to you on that. A week on just writing anything is a good start. 

And then there is this… which is new. A blog slash writing journal slash place to work on other writing ideas slash a place for you and me to connect. Writer to reader. A place to reach out to touch each others… we should move on. I’m planning on doing this weekly for now. We’ll see how much work it ends up being.

There we have it, the end of post one. I can already feel the motivation building. The need to write throbbing? Pulsing? Bulging? Not sure about that word choice but I’m going to roll with it. Uncle Ash is back… feel free to take your pants off and say hello 🙂



So… I sort of forgot I didn’t put the fourth Zombie Job book out yet. In all the not writing-ness that I recently went through I totally lost track of it. So… sorry 🙂

I’m going to put the preorder out soon, but first I need a blurb. Which I always find painful to write, as is the case with most marketing stuff. What do you write for a fourth book in a series blurb??? “You read the first three… you know you’re going to read this one too… come on don’t be a dick!”


Complete the job, save the world… if only it was that simple.
With Angie’s head anything but stable, the team attempts to pull off their biggest job to date… The Data Job.
The Rubicon building sits in the middle of The Hoard… capital T capital H, both capitalized for a reason.
The job is simple…
     Get into the building surrounded by a million or so zombies,
     Turn the Power to the building on without getting noticed by said zombies,
     Gain access to the databases, they don’t have access to, on a floor way too high to just climb up to,
     Survive whatever is waiting for them in the building,
     Trust that Gillian… or is it Olivia… no it’s Gillian, has everyone’s best interests at heart,
     Get out… preferably alive,
     Did I mention the zombies? The taint-tightening number of zombies?
     Simple… if only.
To cap it all off the team learns more about The Event than they could ever have imagined… well most of them anyway.
Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland and the zombie-filled end of the world that it occupies.


Thoughts? What do you think? I’m not totally sold on it yet. But so far it’s the best I could come up with. Toss me your feedback, I’d love to hear it.


That’s it… the end of the first whatever these things are.
I think it went ok, and if not… whatever it will get better.
Oh, I almost forgot about the space strippers. well… that’s for another day, don’t worry we’ll get to it.
Thanks for reading, this and the books, truly I mean it.

Love Uncle Vaughn 

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