Ash in Our Minds

Someone decided to comment (in real life) on the title of my blog and I figured I might as well write out an explanation in a post. 

First thing, Ash In Our Minds was just something I came up with. I am absolutely terrible with naming anything it could be the title of a book, name of a class in my fantasy novels, or the title of a blog. Despite this fact about myself, I still like trying to come up with creative/cool titles or names or classifications. It’s grueling work on my part, so when I do find something I like I stick to it like glue. As in I will not change the name of this blog until I achieve my dream of being published (I have another title waiting for that day.) 

Second, I love birds. Not living, breathing, chirping birds that wake you up in the morning, but like dark silhouettes of birds (which I have on my bedroom wall). 

 The idea of birds fascinate me. Furthermore, I’ve always been a fan of fantasy and what’s the first fantasy bird most people think of? A phoenix. (I swear this will all make sense at the end of this post, so just bear with me.)

Third, I’m the type of person to find beauty in sadness. I have a penchant for darker, more negative things—don’t you ever just wonder what makes something so…dark. I like to consider it a residual part of my “moody years” which amounted to me wearing a black t-shirt now and then and refusing to believe anyone outside of my family and friends really understood me at all—oh how I don’t miss middle school (before I started writing at least).

So now to bring it all together. As subtitle for my blog so kindly puts: “After we exhaust the fire and passion in our minds, all that’s left is ash”, the title of my blog revolves around passion. I have a passion for writing and while passion is usually associated with the heart, I figured it would adept to correlate my passion with my mind because of all the story ideas that form in my head. Also sometimes the passion is so intense, so hot, and so bright that I can’t do anything but write it all down and get it all out there leaving only ash. The moment when you’re completely lost to writing that you can’t hear a thing around you is the moment I live for. The time when I can just forget everything else in my life and just focus on my writing, my story, and my passion.

It’s not as morbid as it seems. I swear it. My title’s not about burning out. It’s not literally about the ash that fire leaves. It’s my way of expressing how much writing consumes me. It takes over every square inch of my mind and when I’ve finally written all of it down. I’m left with the residual, the ash, in my mind. That’s the only way I know how to handle this. The only way I know how to deal with writing. It’s about how a phoenix has to rise from the ashes to be born again. With the exhaustion of our passion by transferring it onto paper only breathes more life into more ideas and more stories. 

That’s why I named it Ash In Our Minds. 

Comment below if you have any thoughts you want to share. I would love to hear them!