Alex Hughes contacted me about his debut book, Clean, and I asked him to be a guest. I will admit I was a little sceptical about the book. Clean is a futurustic paranormal but to my relief it is not the over the top 'everyone has a robot' kind. It is actually a thrilling mystery which involves telepathy, addiction, a lack of computers and some flying cars. I loved it!
Clean, the first in the Mindspace Investigations series and my review will be coming soon. Until then there is a nice blog post from the author which I hope you all will enjoy. Then make sure you enter the contest for your chance to win a copy of the debut!
How I Got Into Writing
A blog post by Alex Hughes
I actually wrote my first novel when I was very young – too young to know better I was reading a book one day and decided I wanted to write one. I went to my mom and said, “I want to write a novel.” God bless her, she didn’t even blink. Instead, she said, “Then you should write a novel. Let’s get you a document on the computer.” I think she was surprised when she came back to several scenes a few hours later. After that, one of her answers to me complaining about being bored was, “why don’t you go work on your novel?” My parents never made a big deal about it, but they always made it very clear they thought it was completely within my capabilities.
Meanwhile my favorite grandfather handed me a copy of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight. I was hooked and read everything she wrote - a whole new world opened up for me, with dragons and heros and heroines, with death that rained from the sky and harpers who changed the world. Then I found The Ship Who Searched at the library, and the book touched me so deeply and brought me such joy that I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life – this novel thing. I decided then and there I wanted to be a writer.
Of course learning how to be a writer, how to write good books complete strangers would want to read, takes a very long time. For me, it took fifteen years, multiple teachers, hundreds of rejections, and more than one crisis of faith. But I stuck with it, and I didn’t give up. I kept getting better, and after many years, my hard work paid off. The Call from the editor arrived.
I went to the bookstore this last week and saw my name – my name! – on the shelf next to big name authors. My childhood self – and my grandfather – would be so, so proud.
This one’s for you, grandpa.
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25 comments:
I'd like to be able to selectively read minds. I wouldn't want to not be able to turn it off, but there are certainly times when I'd like to know what someone was thinking. :D
Barbed1951@
I'd like to be able to read minds when I wanted to but not hear what everyone is thinking all of the time.
I know it would be weird and wrong at first but I am a pretty insecure person so I think it would help me if I would be able to read minds.
I can see an upside & downside to reading minds. If I could control it, I would love to.
marypres(AT)gmail(DOT)com
It's one of those things...damned if you do, damned if you dont. but yes, would love to read the other sexs mind.
off 2 europe at yahoo dot com
Ha, that was the first thing I learned to do when my son was a teenager. LOL.
I would like to do it only when I want to.
No, it would be awful.
newsletter subscriber Spamscape
I always thought it would be cool to read minds, but after reading the Sookie Stackhouse books, I changed my mind and now I don't want to be able to - it doesn't sound like fun at all.
Absolutely. I have always wanted to read minds. I am very bad at reading people and this would help.
magic5905 at embarqmail dot com
I agree with you guys. I'd love to be able to read minds but definitely not all the time.
I'm not sure I would want to read minds unless there was a way of selecting which minds I read. Too much information otherwise.
ilona
felinewyvern at googlemail dot com
No, because I'm not sure I'd like what I'd hear.
skk25@aol.com
I think I'd like to be able to read minds, though I'd also like to be able to block people too
I love when a debut author is excite to see her/his name up on the shelves. It's cool, isn't it? congratulations!
**just noticed the question to answer**
I think I would like to be able to read minds if I could control it. pick and choose when I want to listen in - it'd be awful to hear all the little mean comments we all can't help thinking. :)
no! absolutely no. it'll be such a burden and makes life so much more complicated.
No, I really do not want to know what other people think. Of course sometimes it would be handy, but my own thoughts are jumbled enough already ;)
Yes I would, but only if I could also filter stuff out, or shut things out.. or I might go crazy.
I guess yes. But only if I can stop it if it get's too much or I don't want to listen to the thoughts of a specific person.
Yes I would love to know what people are really thinking
It could be fun to read minds.
As long as there was a way to pick & choose the time and place of reading the mind, it might be very useful. However, if it was completely uncontrollable it would be miserable!
cgclynsg0 @ gmail dot com
No, I really don't think I would, because I think I would hear things I'd rather not know!
No, I think I'm better off not knowing what other people think.
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