Today we’d like to introduce you to Joshua Ashburn.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m a Texas boy, and I’ve always been a writer at heart. I met my wife in High School and we’ve been traveling through life together ever since then. We have four awesome kids and all the craziness that comes with being parents. I’ve been writing and publishing my own material since 2014. I have a wide array of content and storylines that I work on as often as I can. Since 2016 I’ve been managing my own blog and with every new year I try to set a large goal and just in general reach as high as I can with everything I do. My wife and I are dreamers and we aim to never let that change.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
At almost every step of the way, I’ve found myself thinking ‘Man this is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, but then I always look back and know that God has blessed me with a challenging, purposeful life.
I try not to see struggles as a negative thing. When you see this thing you are tackling as something that God has tasked you with, say it’s your calling, or it’s the goal you have to achieve to pursue your purpose, you can then have faith that He will also see you through it. As long as you align your methods with His will. Meaning that you can’t lie and cheat your way to God’s purpose for your life. It goes back to the verse “abide in me and I will abide in you”.
Now I know that my stories aren’t gospel filled, but I do believe it is my calling. I want to tell stories that have meaning and content beyond what’s become the cookie cutter page turner mold. I’ve read a lot of books in my life, but I can only name a few key books that completely changed my life. Those are the kinds of stories I want to tell.
Nowadays I plan on everything to be challenging and I feel like it has built my endurance. I try to be adaptive enough to keep moving forward even through hardship.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Okay, so I write under the name Joshua David. I’m a fiction author who mainly delves into Science Fiction, but who has stories in all genres floating in my head. My first published short story is called “The Survivors”, I’d categorize it as more of a sci-fi/horror story. It was published in 2014 and is still to this day my best selling work, although I personally like my other published work better.
My first novel came out in 2016. It’s called “Nowhere” and is a psychological thriller verging on dark comedy. It really depends on ‘how’ you read the book and which version of the story you tend to believe. I purposefully wrote it to leave two different possibilities open in the end. It’s about a paranoid schizophrenic named Richard who believes that aliens are taking over the world. You as the reader have to determine whether you agree.
Last year I coupled The Survivors into a compilation of other stories simply called “The Survivors and Other Stories.” 🙂 It includes one of my favorite short stories “The Pygmies” about a day that billions of squatty, emotionless little aliens just suddenly appear in our world. How would humanity deal with such a burden?
This year I felt the draw to change it up a bit and I spent all spring writing a screenplay. It is in the process of being promoted and judged in several major screenplay contests right now. I’m hoping it does well and that one day it’ll be a major motion picture. Look for it, it’s called “A Brief Word on Hypersleep Studies: Chiliagon”. If you follow my blog I’ll def. keep everyone posted on what happens with this one.
My current project is another screenplay entitled “Horntooth’s Farm” it’s going to be a big deal one day, I’m sure of it. If Hypersleep Studies is my 2001 Space Odyssey, then Horntooth is my Shawshank Redemption. I’m hoping that one day if anything can be said of my writing it’s that I wrote stories with meaning and purpose that impacted readers to do good in the world. Remember, we live in a world where the Good Guy wins.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
So far, I’m most proud of completing the screenplay for Hypersleep Studies. As I said before, I’m a husband and father of four. I work full-time and volunteer for several other programs. Hypersleep Studies was a hard fought 30,000 words to achieve. Essentially the bulk of it was written during my lunch breaks at work. I conditioned myself to eat fast and then kick out between 600 and 800 words every weekday.
It took all spring, but I finished and I really stand by this story. I just need to connect this story with the person in the film industry who reads it for what it really is and not just for what it’s worth to them.
It’s a finalist in a contest as we speak and there are six others that I’ll find out the standing on in the fall.
Pricing:
- Most of my ebooks range from $0.99 to $4.99 on Amazon
- Nowhere $8.99 paperback
- The Survivors and Other Stories $8.99 paperback
Contact Info:
- Website: joshuadavidblog.wordpress.com
- Email: joshuadavidauthor@gmail.com
- Other: www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/author?_encoding=UTF8&asin=BOOKROBQA6
Image Credit:
Zachary Ashburn, and Milo Abrams
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
