I believe if you have good things to say about someone, they should never go unspoken. I admire Ashley for all of the roles she successfully achieve. She wears many hats: wife, mother, manager, and author. She's definitely hiding a "S" on her chest somewhere under her shirt lol. She represents the term "Girl power" . So because of these things Ashley is my V.I.P (very inspirational person). ~What moved you to write and publish your book?
I grew up with my aunt Krissie, who's only 2 years older than me, like sisters. Every weekend I stayed at my grandparents house and we would come up with so many things to do. Now we're older and have our own children, who are similar in age, and get to watch them experience the kind of fun we had together with each other. So about 6 years ago, I came up with the idea to write stories about different things we either did or experienced as kids. I used my daughter Carmin and Krissie's daughter Nia, who are only 3 months apart, to play me and Krissie. Although majority of the books are fictional, something from each story actually did happen. Like in "April Fools ... The BIG Prank" for instance, Carmin and Nia try to make it their goal to prank Carmin's older brother Cameron, (who is also my son and who plays my uncle Will in the stories.) Growing up my uncle Will use to prank us ALL the time, so I decided to switch it up and have the girls do all the pranking. I guess you can say it was like my revenge on my uncle 20 years later. Lol Just kidding. ~Being a mother already comes with its challenges, how do you balance being a manager, wife, and author? Having a supportive husband makes me being all those titles easier. My husband always tells me I'm the strongest woman he knows. Even when I face downfall I always seem to find my way out. My mindset is that I'm a wife and mother first, always, before I'm anything thing else. Because I could lose my creativity tomorrow, but I'm still someone's wife and someone's mother. I've been a writer for the last 6 years but I've been a published author for about a year and 7 months. It's easy for me right now, because I actually have 5 stories that have been written since 2010. So, for the past year it's just been me revising the stories sending them over to my other 2 pair of eyes for editing and letting me know of any mistakes, then sitting down with my illustrator and going over how I want my pictures to come out. I do still write though. But only while my children are at school, or at night when everyone's asleep. When it comes to managing my children, that is probably the most complicated at times. I've been managing my sons acting career for about a year. I love the agency I got him signed with. We are always in communication and they care about what I think when it comes to roles I will and will not allow Cameron to audition for. My daughter is represented by 2 agencies but I've been working diligently on getting her signed to the best modeling agency for her. The difficulty in them being in school as well as their careers is having to take them out early or getting them to school late because of auditions. Cameron's agency is pretty understanding in that I would rather his times for auditions be after school. I've had difficulties with my daughter being sent on auditions in the middle of the day, which I've opt out quite a few auditions because of it. Over all I think in the last year I've managed to accomplish being wife, mom, manager and author because I am a woman. I think women are strong, independent and dependent when need be, and are able to adapt to any situations whether it be by accident or by choice. ~Why did you choose to be your children manager and not hire someone? Wow, I've never even thought about that. I guess I feel that I know my children best. I know when Cameron is coming to me as his mom and when he's coming to me as his manager. I've never pressured him into doing anything he wasn't comfortable doing and I wouldn't want someone else trying to convince him of going out for roles that he doesn't want to do. Plus, my kids wouldn't be comfortable with anyone else. Lol They'd be like "uuuhhhh, naw bruh. Where's my momma?" LOL ~What advice would you give to aspiring writers? Never let anyone steer you from what you want to write about. You never know who you may inspire. ~What are some difficulties you had to encounter? And how did you overcome it? The biggest difficulty I had was finding the right illustrator. Like I said I wrote these stories in 2010 I didn't find the perfect illustrator till 2014. I had people that started on my book and then disappeared on me. I've even had people not wanting to work with me because I wasn't already established or well known as I am now. The craziest thing is my illustrator and I went to elementary school together. I had been following him on Instagram for months before I finally asked him if he was the artist that drew the pictures he was posting. Of course he was so we met up, he sent me examples and within 3 or 4 months later I had my first book published! Not only that, shortly after, some of those same people that didn't want to work with me started hitting me up asking if they could get in on the next book. LOL It has definitely been an amazing and exciting journey for me as well as my family. I can't wait to see what's next!
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What makes a V.I.P?Very Inspirational People are your everyday person that has a valuable story to share. We usually don't get to hear these stories, So I find them, and this is their platform. ArchivesCategories |