Archive - Ashavan Doyon

Published on: April 20, 2019

So I stepped on the scale this morning...

... which was obviously my first mistake.

I'm a big guy. I wasn't always. As a kid, I was big for my age but small for the larger kids I tended to be around, always a bit of a squirt. I love my brother, but he could be a bit of a bully as a kid, though the kind that would still protect a younger brother from everyone else.

He wasn't always around though, and when he wasn't, I didn't have a good time. A lot of that was my weight, which resulted in my closest friends forming a "pull down pants" committee to jokingly show off my overly robust and naked ass to the school. This lasted for weeks until my parents finally got wind of it and confronted the other parents.

I was in 4th grade and not even particularly heavy at the time, but it stuck with me. I was fortunate that for most of my youth my frame—both tall and broad shouldered—did the work of minimizing my weight.

The words no-no-no! 400 lbs. over an image of a man measuring his waist.

Mental health or healthy weight

In college I did the usual college things, and my weight went up. But I still had the remarkable frame, and it held up well. Until I got my diagnosis. I went through cocktail after cocktail of meds to stabilize my moods. I don't blame the doctors, really. I was in crisis and that's what I needed at the time.

But when you jump 80 pounds in two months right after getting put on a new medication, I don't think you can chalk that up to laziness. I had gone up over 100 pounds by the time the doctor pulled me off the medication. Now I wasn't in the mid 200s anymore. I was well over 300. Sure, I kept from gaining more, mostly, but the weight wouldn't come off, and eventually a sedentary lifestyle and a deskjob took a toll. I crept up, year after painful year.

Now hold on! Yes, I dieted. I tried expanding my food options, unsuccessfully. I tried the Atkins diet, among others. Over and over I tried and failed until I maxed out my scale and destroyed my body losing the weight.

Over the last 15 years that weight has slowly crept back up, until this morning I stared at 398 pounds on the scale.

I tortured my body losing that weight. I'm not sure I can do it again. Since I started creeping back up, my body has resisted all the old strategies that worked.

I'm heartbroken.

Published on: February 25, 2019

Winds of Change

Obviously, the website is changing a bit. Most of the changes are minor and meant to move to a responsive template that better reflects the reality that many of us no longer consume the internet on a desktop computer anymore. The old template was okay, but some of the screens struggled, and it was beginning to look dated. So, we have a new template. I hope folks like it, because these redesigns are a PITA. And not the good kind.

Old mutterings haunting...

I've been mulling lately whether to return to an old story that I started a couple of times some years ago. Like most of my attempts at fantasy romance it went nowhere, and yet still stirs something when I read it. I never got a great response from The One That Feels, and I'll admit that makes me hesitant, both for this story and another--Lost—that is nearly complete. But there's that stirring thing, and that's not to be let go of lightly. Here's a snippet. Interested? Let me know in the comments.

Lost in an ocean of feeling that wasn't touch and vision, that wasn't sight and hearing, that was felt more than heard, Allen slept, and dreamed and screamed. Yes, of that he was certain, the screaming. And slowly, gradually, the vision became something seen, and the touch was of a hand in his and of the touch of his skin against an other, and he could hear voices and music and the thump thump of the heart that was not his and the fierce growl of something inhuman. Of a creature.

Allen gulped, and he knew when he opened his eyes what he would see. He screwed his eyes closed even tighter and banged his head backwards into a mass of something soft that he wished was harder. He'd been noticed. He'd been careless. And now he was...

"I am Allen Douglas!" he hissed through clenched teeth, too aware of how feeble the soft croak of his voice must be. He couldn't even hear his own words.

There was a low groan, as of wood taking on a great load all at once and straining not to break. "Shush," said the creature. The voice was even more inhuman than before, and yet Allen knew, somehow, that it was the same one.

"I am—"

"You are home," said the voice. "I have fulfilled my vow."

Published on: February 5, 2019

Thinking About First Dates

My husband and I ventured out to some old stomping grounds tonight. It's not that they're far away, though it seems it sometimes. I went to both high school and college near where we live, but off the beaten path enough that we seldom end up there.

But tonight we happened by The Pub. For both of us this is a place with special meaning. Twice over, really. Twenty-four years ago I went on my first date with my husband at The Pub. And when, after a long gap in our relationship, we got back together, this time for good, it was a date at The Pub that got us going again.

I'd love to say that was the only reason. But The Pub is actually the closest decent restaurant to my old campus, so I had several first dates there. Not all of them were good. As a gay man growing up in the 80s and 90s, though, those dates were important. They represented a bit of normalcy for me, in a world that didn't feel very normal. I often write about a first date with my characters. It's often a dinner.

I'm usually thinking about The Pub when I write those scenes, and of a time when I was feeling very nervous meeting a man for dinner before going to a movie. Sometimes I wonder if I missed out on dating as a teen. Sometimes I wonder if it was different for teens, if it's really different now.

Don't miss Ashavan's story Gerry's Lion, on sale in paperback at Dreamspinner Press until noon on Feb 7.

Published on: July 11, 2018

July 11th, 2018

It's not hard to tell that the College Rose Romances are my baby. College stories that draw deeply from my personal experience as a gay student, gay leader, and a part of a student college gay community for over a decade. When Torquere closed, it hit me hard.

I was lucky. I got my rights back. But now I had four books with no home.

Over the past year, with the creation of Purple Horn Press, each of those books has gone back online as an ebook available for purchase. From Loving Aidan—my first accepted piece of gay romance fiction, to Becoming Rory, the last of a series of romances that I hope has stirred the hearts of readers, the books are available again at last.

Now that all four are out, Purple Horn Press has started to release paperback versions. I'm over the moon, of course. The delays in the Becoming Rory paperback were my first personal sign that Torquere was failing. I spent much of the following two years certain that it would never come out in paperback. Now, I'm pleased to say, those fears have been quashed.

Why Becoming Rory first? Part of it is exactly that... my own fears about the paperback. But there are also many readers who invested in paperbacks from Torquere for the series and were never able to get that final book. This is for them. Even though I favor cream paper and matte covers, the paperback for Becoming Rory is a glossy 5 x 8 book that matches the size of the original Torquere paperbacks.

Get the Paperback

So What's Next?

Now that Becoming Rory is out and available, Purple Horn Press will be releasing the original three books in paperback releases. Loving Aidan in July, Steven's Heart in August, Andrew's Prayer in September.

By offering the books exclusively through Amazon, we're going to keep the price down to about ten bucks for each of those three books. Obviously most books we can't do that with, but this is a special case, with books that were previously released in paperback. By making the early books available at a very low cost, I hope some folks may be willing to get paperbacks who previously had not, some may complete their collection, and others may find the story an entry point to gay romance.

If all goes well, shortly after that we'll see the release of Forgiving James, College Rose Romances Book 5. I love redemption stories, so I'm really pleased to bring you that complicated story of love, faith, and conflict.

Published on: June 27, 2018

Celebrate Pride, Celebrate Love

Pride month is hard. It's a good month in some ways. Several of my books were released in June: The King's Mate, The Byte of Betrayal, Becoming Rory. But it's also a time of struggle. Two years ago Orlando happened. While I'm heartened that the Parkland students have been able to affect change, it's sobering what that means... 49 lives meant very little when they were gay lives, minority lives—less than lives. I knew someone in Pulse that night. Someone who didn't walk out. And having grown up in an era when clubs like Pulse were everything, our very sense of community, it still strikes me hard in my soul.

So Pride month is hard.

But it's worth celebrating. So I'm celebrating love, and I'm celebrating PRIDE and I'm showcasing some of my favorite novellas that I wrote and published with Dreamspinner Press. I'd love to say there's a sale, but there's not—just good solid short fiction of the gay boy gets gay boy variety. Take a look.

Celebrate PRIDE. Celebrate love.

Published on: May 13, 2018

Mother's Day

I get some flack sometimes for portraying parents harshly. Sometimes it's both parents, sometimes just one, but usually a character has someone in their family who just is not that supportive person that we all hope to have;; coming out.

Romances are fantasy, but when we write about a community there's a responsibility to be true to the heart. And part of that is that the relationship with parents, especially with coming out, is complex. There's a whole range of reactions, and that should be represented.

But on Mother's Day, really I want to look at a story where the mothers are front and center—which means looking at Andrew's Prayer.

I love this story because the women who shape Drew are really incredible examples of how important the relationship with a mom can be. It's curious, I think, that Andrew's Prayer starts with an outed Drew returning home, knowing his mom has found out that he's gay. The second paragraph of the story says this:

Coming home hadn’t been a difficult choice. Sure, it was over a thousand miles. Sure, it was going to be hot, sticky, and miserable. It was still home. His mom was the only person in his life who’d said “I love you” that he had believed. She’d even said it after she found out. She’d been in tears, she’d screamed. But she’d still said “I love you,” and Drew never doubted for a moment that she’d meant it.

Throughout the book, the relationship with his mom is so important, but Drew is established as a character who doesn't really believe in love. Except that he knows his mom loves him. He knows it so much that he goes home, knowing, expecting that she won't accept him.

But she's the one who immediately confronts him with what's important.

“What about love? Andy, my precious baby, what about finding someone to love you?”

Drew doesn't believe in love, but throughout the book it is his mom who is there to help him recognize it, to help him find it, and to push him, when he needs it.

Pick up Andrew's Prayer at Purple Horn Press or get it for kindle at Amazon.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there, and also to all gestational parents, whether they identify as mothers or not.

Looking for a great book but not in the mood for the mom dynamic? May 13 is the last day of Dreamspinner's In and Out of This World Sale... lots of great paranormal and contemporaries on sale. Which includes all of my books with them.

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