As those of you who’ve been following me for awhile have seen, I’ve slowed down a lot since having a baby in terms of production. Some of this has been the simple fact of postpartum depression–a truly nasty thing no one should experience. But the clouds are lifting and I’m mostly on the other side. […]
Exhaustion & Updates
So I’m coming up on the halfway mark for this whole gestating-a-human-being thing, and I’m learning (slowly and painfully) that I can’t do quite as much creative work as I would like to do at any given time. Pregnancy is exhausting, for one. Bone-crushingly exhausting. I literally spent ten minutes this afternoon fantasizing about taking […]
The Trouble With the Back…
So I hurt my back this week. You know, the normal way, lifting something unusually heavy several times this weekend followed by toting an insanely heavy bag all over the coworking facility in high heels. Twice. Then lifting said bag at lunch, from the floor, twisting. #ouch #andtherewenttheback The trouble with the back is that […]
Too Many Choices
There are two great truths in any life: Given enough time, resources, and energy, you can do anything. There will never be enough time, resources, and energy to do everything. I am running up against the second rule like crazy right now. I have literally a pile of “Someday/Maybe” work and an even bigger pile of […]
Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Or, the Mindset of the Writer of Fiction
To be a writer of fiction, you must believe in several impossible things before breakfast. You must believe in people who never lived, places that never existed, and series of events that never happened. This is the easy part. What is harder is seeing these made-up things clearly, so clearly that you can describe them […]
A Dream Realized – Two Book Deal
Well, the announcement came out yesterday, so I can finally talk about my big news! Here’s the quote from Publisher’s Lunch, which covers the latest sales of books to publishers: Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semi-finalist Alex Hughes’s first two books in a dystopian thriller series featuring a telepath forced to assist a hostile Atlanta police […]
Update & Happiness
I’ve been holding off on updating the blog since I’ve gotten to Odyssey, partly because of the intense workload, and party because I’ve been waiting to share the details of the happy phone call I got on the first day. Still waiting for some of the details on that to work out (more details later) […]
A Dilemma Solved
As most of you know already, the last few weeks I’ve been facing an interesting dilemma: namely, the possibility that I would have to choose between the Odyssey Writing Workshop (who already has my money) and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards finalist trip. A small possibility, for certain – perhaps 6% statistically – but a […]
Happy Dance!
I found out Tuesday that I made the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards SemiFinalists! For those that don’t know, that’s top 50 out of 5,000. It’s a miracle, and a dream, and only one cut away from a trip to New York. I’ve said since January that this was going to be the year – and […]
Wrestling with the Dragon: Taming Insecurities
Most highly creative people struggle with self-doubt. Am I good enough? Is the work good enough? The difficulty of “breaking in” to most any creative field makes it that much harder. You’re inundated with rejection notes. Passes at auditions. People criticizing you at every turn. But far worse is the Inner Critic – you know […]
