About Me

 An Introduction to Aspen Mars Mitchell (That's Me!)

Hi! I'm so glad you found me! My name is Aspen Mars, and I'm an aspiring author. I'm twenty and was born and raised in East Tennessee. When I'm not writing, I'm probably reading. If neither are the case, you can find me participating in a variety of different arts and crafts, or consuming the same movies and T.V. shows over and over again. 

I often find myself wanting to share so much of my work with others. I also often find myself locking it away behind thick chains, in the darkest corners of my brain and heart, in hopes that nobody will ever see it. Both of those things led me here, to this blog, writing this post in the late evening hours. I write this in the company of my dog, my irreplaceable fiancé, and a somewhat warm cup of coffee. Then, of course, the wildly comforting mess of notebooks, sticky notes and pens - that seem to have some form of consciousness due to the words I have strewn across them.

One thing I value, above anything else, is transparency. Especially with any kind of audience. So let me be transparent, in case even just one person reads this. 

Writing is horribly hard! And I believe that is because it is one of the most vulnerable things someone can do. No matter your genre. And that's why I love it so much. If writing was easy, everyone would have bestselling novels and the printers would never have enough ink cartridges. 

I've been asked before, "But Aspen, you have a natural talent for this! You love writing! All you ever do is write! Why haven't you published anything yet?"

For a while, I didn't really have a response. To understand the struggles of an art, you must first be an artist. And the people who ask me this aren't artists. They either don't entirely understand the art of writing, the process of writing, or they don't understand me. So my options were to explain these things to them until I was blue in the face, or laugh and shrug it off.

Let's start with this: writing is not a natural talent. Some people just have a natural drive to do it. Like me! And maybe you, too. 

Writing takes skill, literacy, knowledge, countless hours of research, a thick skin, passion, fire, drive, want, need, materials, resources, resilience, and in most cases, a chronic caffeine addiction! Nobody is born just knowing how to tell their story. However, some people are lucky enough to be born with a story to tell, and a desire to do it.

Most of my younger years were spent gripping pencils and filling notebooks, then shoving them underneath my bed or burying them away in school lockers in hopes no one would ever find them. Because I was criticized, and not constructively, for my passion.

The first time I felt compelled to write a story, I was in the fourth grade. And though the work was heavily plagiarized, I found my desire. So I kept writing. Until the sixth grade, at which point I was told my writing would never be worth anything because it just wasn't good enough. One of my teachers around this point in time even told me that nobody in their right mind would publish my work. To just give up my dream. Because I filled pages with words spelled the way everyone around me spoke. With thick, southern accents and slang.

So, what did I do?

Well... 

I quit.

I quit writing for about two years. I stopped writing until I started surrounding myself with people who drove me to tell my stories again. People like my fiancé, who I began speaking with our eighth grade year of school. I failed every English class I took after that, until my high school years. Then when I finally started passing and practicing and building my skills, I was mocked for lack of knowledge. Until I found my desire to start learning again. And even after all of that, I still hated everything I wrote down! Writing felt less like a hobby and more like a burden.

Now, today, it feels nothing a burden and everything like a potential career. I even write about characters with thick accents. One of my current projects is set in Corbin, Kentucky! Because now I write for me, with less attention devoted to what other people think about it. Credit to my fiancé again here, and my amazing writing coach.

And credit to me, for not letting a few really bad experiences get in my way.

Am I rambling? Yes. Though there is something I want you to take away from all this, besides the shorthand of my life story.

If you've ever felt like giving up, that's okay. That doesn't mean you're a quitter. If you can relate to or resonate with anything I have put on this page so far, then I think you're in the right the place.

My goal is to be published. I want my books to fly off of shelves and into hands that will annotate them and fold their pages. But beyond that, my goal is inspire. To inspire and push and encourage you, no matter what it is, do what you love. Until you have perfected. Until you feel like it can be perceived in the eyes of others.