Hallmark movie, but make it gay and fantasy!

Aspen Fahey is a non-binary aspiring community witch and failed witchfluencer living in downtown Toronto. When their aunt dies and leaves them her house and witching practice on beautiful, idyllic Vancouver Island, their life unexpectedly turns into a Lifetime movie: early thirties enby leaves the big city (including their toxic partner and the job they hate) to move to a beautiful small town, has meet cute with beautiful stranger before running into The One That Got Away. 

But can they navigate the hard work of building healthy relationships while juggling their responsibilities as town witch? Or will the trauma of their ex’s emotional abuse ruin the best thing that’s ever happened to them?

Community Witch is now available pretty much anywhere you can get eBooks!

Buying in eBook? Itch will give me the most money. Plus, for every multiple of $9 over the purchase price, I’ll make a community copy available for people who can’t afford to buy. (IE, pay $17.99, add one community copy. $26.99, add two, etc.)

Buying print? DriveThru fiction is both cheapest and gives me the best print royalties.

Please take the time to share, and consider leaving a review after purchasing. (You can also leave reviews on StoryGraph or Goodreads)

Want to buy community copies directly? Don’t want to buy the book, but want to help make it available to others? You can tip $9 on Ko-Fi.

Community Witch Book 2 is in the works!

I’m currently working on third draft revisions to Community Witch Book 2 (not-quite-final title: Witch Unmasked). In mid-April, I'll start releasing a chapter per week to paid subscribers on Patreon, with a planned release of the finished book in Late September / early October.

Community Witch is currently planned to be a 4 book series, with the possibility of expanding into more works. The first draft of book 3 is about 75% written, and I’ve got 10K words of notes for book 4.

Also: I accidentally wrote a novella?

Because I’m apparently leaning into a creative philosophy of: “if the Nazis wouldn’t burn it, it’s not worth writing”, I had an idea for a fun little Odo/Quark-inspired romp about a shapeshifter being very confused by human bodies. And then because it's me it's turned into a. Uh. Why-choose enemies-to-enemies/ friends-to-friends erotic anti romance with a big side of me making everything trans?

The second draft of Enemies to Enemies (current working title) is done, and clocking in at 25K words. My plan is to give it a medium level of polish (three drafts instead of five, no outside copy-editing) and post it for sale in April on Smashwords, Itch, and Ko-Fi without the sort of coordinated marketing effort I'm making for Community Witch

From my current WIP - Enemies to Enemies:

"Fuck," Tano groaned. "That was..." The words that immediately sprang to mind were 'life-changing'. But he discarded the thought as soon as he'd had it. His p-- his cock was already softening, and clarity was returning, which was such a fucking relief that Tano barely kept himself from laughing. "Is it always this messy?"

Karchak did laugh. "Not a whit of sentiment," he wheezed. "Never change." He sat up and pulled a cloth out of his pocket, which he used to clean himself up before handing it to Tano. "Yes. It usually is."

There was silence as they both put themselves back in order.

Finally, Tano couldn't stand it anymore. "So. This doesn't mean..."

"Of course not," Karchak snapped. "I can't fucking stand you."

"Believe me, the feeling is mutual!"

Karchak's jaw clenched and unclenched. "This changes nothing." And there it was - the first lie. But a lie to himself, just as much as it was a lie to Tano.

Tano leaned forward, grabbed Karchak's beard, and tugged lightly. "I wouldn't say that," he said softly. When Karchak's lips parted with undeniable interest, Tano smirked and let him go.

"It doesn't change anything emotionally," Karchak spat, green eyes blazing. "You're still the fucking worst."

"High praise coming from you," Tano replied, smiling sweetly.

Karchak smiled right back. "You know, hate fucking is even more intense."

Tano blushed right up to his hairline. "Come back when you've gotten tired of your hand, and I might deign to show you," the dwarf said with a triumphant smirk before turning to unlock the door. "You can see yourself out."

I started writing queer/trans romance in 2023 because I needed to imagine a world in which trans joy was possible, and where trauma and neurodivergence weren't barriers to happy relationships.

It's a scary time to be getting into publishing, but I firmly believe that stories like Community Which that show trans people building community and finding happiness are more important than ever. In times like these, art has the power to nourish our souls and to remind us that a better world is possible.

Pre-order info: https://ashkreider.com/community-witch/

Zapping my stupid brain with ✨magnets✨ for treatment resistant anxiety

I'm currently starting day 4 of 5 of a procedure for treatment-resistant anxiety that sounds fake but is very real, where they zap my stupid brain with m a g n e t s to get it to stop being so shit. (It feels very Homer Simpson threatening to stab his brain with a pencil, tbh.)

Because a lot of folks have been curious, I thought I'd write up my experiences so far now that I'm past the mid-point.

The procedure itself

Each treatment lasts for three minutes. They sit you in a giant chair, put a fabric cap on your head, and then position a large metal plate on a swivel-arm against your skull. You get a series of rapid zaps every fifteen seconds for three minutes.

The zaps feel like someone snapping an industrial-strength rubber-band against your skull, which isn't so bad. What's more uncomfortable is the way the zaps make your scalp muscles jump. They can also make your jaw muscles twitch, so I've learned to keep my teeth closed. And after the very first session, my TEETH started to hurt, which I guess can be a thing? The tech angled it away from my jaw after that, though, and it hasn't been an issue again.

The normal "protocol" is once a day for 5/6 weeks. However, as rTMS is only available in Toronto, which is a minimum of 1.5 hours from where I live, I'm doing an "accelerated protocol" where I get zapped once an hour, 7 times a day, for five days.

Logistics

It's A LOOOOTTTTT of waiting around. Outpatient mental health is on the seventeenth floor, and with 55 minutes between treatments I don't really have time to leave the hospital in between.

Initially I was taking the train back and forth because even at $38 a day, that was cheaper than getting a hotel. (I was NOT about to tangle with rush-hour traffic in and out of Toronto every day for a week!) However, getting up at 5:45 to catch a 1hr40 minute train and then walking 20 minutes, being at the hospital all day, and not getting home until 630 or 7 in the evening really took a toll, so I broke down Weds and booked a hotel for the last two nights. I miss my family, but it was a really good decision, honestly.

Effects

Three days in, I honestly can't say what the effects have been. I've had to turn my entire life upside down to do this, which is tiring! And I miss my family, and my stuff, and there's definitely a feeling of unreality to it all that makes it hard to judge the effect on my mood. Especially as I've had to learn the hard way not to base my perception of my mood on one particular point in time, because my brain is an asshole.

This makes the daily check-ins with the the psychiatrist a bit frustrating, as they tend to go something like:

Psychiatrist: Any changes?

Me: Idk.

Psychiatrist: Okay. How about any changes?

Me: Maybe? Hard to say. Probably I guess.

Psychiatrist: Right. But are there any changes?

Me: Nothing's gotten any worse. It might be better.

[Repeat for fifteen minutes]

But. Like. Given that they're zapping my fucking brain, and given that rTMS is apparently strongly counter-indicated for people with psychosis, I can get why they're so persistent.

Funny side note about tinnitus

When they were doing the screening, initially they were concerned about my tinnitus. Apparently one of the side effects of rTMS can be increased severity of tinnitus for people that have it.

The amusing thing about this is that rTMS is apparently also used to treat tinnitus?

In my case, my tinnitus isn't something I'm worried about. People in my family lose their hearing prematurely, and most of us have the frequencies we lose get replaced with ringing, which is why my tinnitus has been getting steadily louder since I was 29. And with my ADHD, the fact that my tinnitus is a steady constant noise means that I can tune it out 90% of the time.

Anyway. That's where things are at for now.

I'll update this post in a few weeks when I have more data points about how it's affected my mood and symptoms

Okay, so rewatching ds9 with friends, and we watched the one where Odo became human last week. And originally I was just going to write a fun little Odo/Quark inspired romp about. Like. I'm sorry but you can't fucking tell me that Odo knew what to do with having a SKELETON and BITS and MORNING WOOD.

And then because it's me it's turned into a. Uh. Why-choose enemies-to-enemies/ friends-to-friends erotic anti romance with a big side of me making everything trans? And because I'm on day 3 of 5 of being stuck in hospital waiting rooms all day for the whole week it's up to 16K words and will be a first draft novella by the end of the week?

ADHD is W I L D.

My current WIP has an artist who accidentally falls into "bespoke monster porn".

Beta reader friend just messaged like 'holy shit, monstersexual is a real thing', like, they thought I was just making it up I guess???

My immediate reaction: oh okay, you don't do Tumblr at all do you lol

(They do not)

Tbh it's not a subculture I'm super familiar with because body horror is something I can't tolerate AT ALL

But I'm very "godspeed, perverts" whenever I encounter it. As a mentally ill transmasc nb, it sparks joy seeing people take joy in openly being freaks

Almost finished binding off the moth shawl I'm making my kid! Still needs to be blocked and have a million ends tucked in...

(pattern here for the curious, though I will advise this project was a bit sanity destroying, and I say that as someone who routinely does 600+ row double knit scarves)