Thoughts about Aser

It was the Piker Press Senior Editor (and owner) of the Piker Press who coined the phrase "the half-crazed hedge shaman," thereby almost certainly defining the character of my fantasy stories.

Where she came up with the idea, I have no idea. None of the stories had even been written yet; Ase Ur-Jennan was still an amorphous hooded character who had been lurking in my mind, uncalled-upon for many years ... except as a username to sign on to a website. But once labelled as a crazy hedge shaman, she took shape rapidly and proved to be quite the story-teller.

I still use the name "Aser" when I sign up for new boards. Aser is a character I'm comfortable with; she's big enough to hide behind, and not neurotic enough to worry about sharing a name.

We're toying with the idea of running all the Aser stories again in sequence, in the Press, because at the beginning we had like, four readers. And some of the archived stories have corrupted text symbols, and as far as I know, none of the original illustrations survived various server changes or the massive exodus to the new webhost. A couple of the stories were even re-written when they made their way to the anthology.

The stories were never meant to be a story arc, but they became a number of arcs in a linear line. NaNoWriMo 2006 saw the very first Aser Novelette -- I haven't decided yet if it's worth publishing or not.

What is worth keeping is my right hand; the scorching tendinitis in my thumb is easing, bit by bit, thank God. In another two weeks, I ought to be able to recognize my own signature again.