About the Author
Meet Holland Ashby
Serious Books by day. Fun Stories for sanity. Fueled by caffeine and theoretical good intentions.
In real life, Holland Ashby writes Serious Books that are Not Funny. They take her a Very Long Time to write. This can be quite challenging.
To save her (theoretical) sanity, Holland has always written Fun Stories, because the act of Creating Something is known to be psychologically therapeutic, and Holland needs all the therapy she can get (see: theoretical sanity).
The Fun Stories started as the literary equivalent of doodling in the margins. A hockey romance here, a baking competition there, a football player with inconveniently good bone structure over in that corner. They piled up. They gathered dust. They occasionally staged small rebellions from inside desk drawers.
And so you find her, Dear Reader, in the midst of the Dusting. On a semi-regular basis (she has a schedule!...but also, alas, ADHD), she will reach into the Depths, grab a wriggling Story, and knock it around a bit. You know -- polish it up and stuff. Slap a cover on it. Release it into the wild and hope for the best.
The Dusting is an ongoing project, because Holland has written a truly unreasonable number of Fun Stories over the years, and also because her ADHD means she's always starting new ones. The pipeline is robust. The organizational system is... aspirational.
When she's not writing (Serious or Fun), Holland can be found consuming alarming quantities of coffee, arguing with her characters about their life choices, and maintaining a complex spreadsheet that she swears is a writing schedule but looks suspiciously like a color-coded procrastination system.
Bon appetit.
Getting Personal
The Basics
Favorite Tropes
If two people can be forced into an awkward situation that slowly becomes a genuinely tender one, Holland is interested. Bonus points if someone is emotionally repressed and then has a Moment.
Coffee Order
Oat milk latte, extra shot. Iced in summer. Hot in winter. Lukewarm and forgotten on the desk the other 90% of the time. She has been known to reheat the same cup three times before giving up and making a new one.
Writing Snack
Dark chocolate with sea salt (for "thinking"), followed by whatever cheese is in the fridge (for "sustained thinking"), followed by ordering takeout (for "giving up on thinking and just typing"). The creative process is fueled by carbohydrates.
Currently Reading
At least four books simultaneously, because starting books is a hobby and finishing them is a different hobby, and Holland has only one of those hobbies. Her nightstand has layers, like a literary archaeological dig.
Writing Playlist
A meticulously curated Spotify playlist for each book that she spends more time organizing than actually writing to. Heavy on moody instrumentals, Taylor Swift deep cuts, and whatever song her current hero would hate to admit he likes.
ADHD Superpower
Hyperfocusing on a manuscript for fourteen hours straight and emerging with 12,000 words, zero meals consumed, and absolutely no memory of what day it is. The crash is spectacular. The word count is worth it. (Usually.)