The Worlds of Ashley Stangl

Hello, everyone! Remember me? Yes, I'm still alive. I've just been too busy to blog or to write much. But my schedule has cleared up for a while, giving me more time to blog...and to write. I've seen The Writer's Tag on plenty of blogs, and most recently saw it on Hamlette's blog . I want this blog to be more than tags, but I've been meaning to make some posts about writing, so this seems like a good way to start.  Without further ado... 1. What genres, styles, and topics do you write about? I write science fiction and fantasy, especially fairy tale retellings. I would like to write in other genres, but I find that a story idea has to have a fun worldbuilding element in order to maintain my interest. Even my contemporary ideas have a fairy tale connection for my imagination to seize upon. I write mostly in past-tense third-person-limited, but I’ve also done past-tense first-person, first-person epistolary, and a fragment of second-person future-tens...

One of my New Year's resolutions was to blog more. Since I'm making my first post of 2017 in the latter half of February, you can see how well that's going. However, Elisabeth Grace Foley is hosting a Pinterest storyboard party that invites authors to share their visual inspiration for stories they've written or hope to write. That sounds like fun, and seems like a good way to ease myself back into blogging, so I've joined in! I tend to gather images as inspiration fairly early in my writing process. (Actually, I've started saving them to my computer, rather than Pinterest--less chance of distraction that way). My storyboards are a hodge-podge of images and ideas to draw from as I plan the story, not necessarily a strictly accurate picture of the story that springs from it. That said, here are my storyboards! The first is from a high fantasy novel with the working title Star of the Sea. It revolves around an arranged marriage between a woman...

This has been an interesting reading year. I read over 90 books (most of them short, as I struggled to keep up with my Goodreads Challenge), but I was in a bit of a reading slump for a good portion of the year, and had trouble finding books that really kept my interest. I'm linking up with the Broke and the Bookish for this week's topic of "Top Ten Books Read in 2016" . I was a bit afraid that 2016's lack of reading enthusiasm meant I wouldn't find ten books that rose above the others. Instead, I had the opposite problem, and couldn't narrow it down to only ten. So instead, you get my Top 12 books of 2016. Listed roughly in the order I read them: Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery One of L.M Montgomery's lesser-known works, and in my opinion, one of her best. After Jane's parents separated, she went to live on the Canadian mainland with her mother in her grandmother's dreary house. When Jane is invited to spend the summe...

Halloween's ended, Thanksgiving has passed, and now we're well into December and its Christmas preparations. I've got my Christmas shopping done, and I hope to find a little bit of time in the next few weeks to curl up by the tree with some Christmas-themed books. I've already finished a few of them, but I still have a decent-sized list that should carry me through to Epiphany. The Grift of the Magi: A Heist Society Novella by Ally Carter I've aged out of the target audience for these books, but I was still excited to stumble unexpectedly upon a new Heist Society novella, showcasing a new adventure for Ally Carter's team of teenage thieves in which they try to steal back a Faberge egg that's been stolen from a charity right before their Christmas auction. The story's frothy and unrealistic and would probably work better as a TV episode than as a book, but it was still nice to get back in with the characters. Some Christmas Stories by Charles Dic...

A few weeks ago, Jenelle Schmidt announced a Spooky Story Challenge for Halloween. I am the world's biggest wimp when it comes to scary stories, but I thought this sounded like a fun way to stretch some new writing muscles. I've delayed (I wrote one story and hated it, and waited a while for a better idea to come to me), but now, in the last few hours before the deadline, I've come up with this little thing. This story was partially inspired by Jenelle's prompt of It was under the bed/in the closet. Now that I've written it, part of me thinks it's too silly, and part of me thinks it's too dark, but I'm going to be brave and post it anyway. It's definitely different from anything else I've written. Enjoy! And be sure to follow the link to read the other spooky stories!                                    ...

I've decided to take the plunge and join in on Top 10 Tuesday. Top 10 Tuesday was started by The Broke and the Bookish , and today's topic is to list books that you read because of book blogs, hype or recommendations from friends. I have lots of books that fit this category, because I'm much more likely to read a book if I hear someone else praise it first--and this method has helped me find most of my favorite books.  Little House on the Prairie- This was the book recommendation that shaped my childhood. My mother had loved the TV show when she was growing up, and encouraged me to read the books. I started with Little House on the Prairie , since that was the one the TV show was named after, and I read the entire series multiple times through my childhood. Ella Enchanted- For a time, this was the cool book for every girl at my elementary school. It was my first encounter with fantasy world-building, and the book stuck in my imagination. Several years later, it serv...

So....a month ago, I reviewed the other two books of this series, and indicated that this review was coming soon. Unfortunately, a complication known as Real Life interfered with my plans, and took away my blogging time. Today, I've decided to ignore Real Life long enough to get this review written. It'll be short and sweet, just like this book. Goldheart is a retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin" starring Elaine, an off-screen character mentioned in Traitor's Masque. Elaine is a quiet, timid girl who would like to ignore the rest of the world and paint in solitude. Unfortunately, her father's death leaves her in financial difficulties and forces her to work as a portrait painter. A wealthy, demanding businessman commissions Elaine to paint a portrait of his wife, and locks her in his mansion until she creates the perfect masterpiece. Soon, Will, a friend of the businessman's son, learns about Elaine's plight, and helps her to overcome the difficulties of...