Dear Writers--Encouragement needed

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HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: 

   Dear darling adorable Aimee Hix:

    Welcome to Jungle Red. We have shoulders to cry on, we have laps to cuddle on, we have been-there-done-that stories.  Every single solitary person reading these words has had a gasping, surprising, unexpected disappointing thing happen.

   Every single one.

    And every single one of us will tell you about the good thing that happened ONLY because of the bad thing.

    We know that doesn’t help now. But, dearest and most talented Aimee, we cannot wait for you to come back for WE TOLD YOU SO day.

    As you read this, Reds and readers, you might notice that our beloved Aimee has left one rather BIG THING out of this blog. But I will tell you when she’s done.

   

Aimee’s Story

    By Aimee Hix

2018 was not the year I’d envisioned.

Just putting that out there in case this guest post is a bit of a bummer.

(It’s likely going to be a bummer.)

My very first book, WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU, was published January 8 2018. I was ‘nervicited’ (a term my daughter came up with when she was little) about how it would all go. Sure, I had my wild fantasies that Ellen and Oprah and Beyoncé would be calling wanting to interview me or have me on Soul Sessions or option the book to turn it into a blockbuster starring herself. But wild fantasies are called wild because everyone knows they’re unpredictably impossible.

I’m sure you will all be unsurprised to find exactly none of those things happened. You’re a little relieved now. This was the bummer. Okay, she’s not very realistic but I get it. Sorry. That’s not it.

The book came out. I was more than ‘nervicited’ I was in full on Put The Oxygen Mask on Yourself First mode. It was weathering so my daughter’s school had a snow day. That helped. My friends were reaching out behind the scenes. That helped. It was getting good reviews from people I respected. That helped. But there was still this static-y sense of dread that fizzled and popped.

I didn’t know what it was then.

I prepared for my launch and party. I was more excited than nervous. My good friend Sherry Harris would be by my side doing a joint launch of our books, that was the plan. Then we’d adjoin to her house with all our friends and eat and toast.

(Bummer alert)

Then my writing assistant had to be escorted to the Rainbow Bridge the Sunday before the event.

I soldiered on. Two of my oldest and dearest friends flew in to surprise me. The event went off very well and I enjoyed myself so much I didn’t even notice the gorgeous boots I’d picked specially for the launch were murdering my feet. (They were worth it, in case you were wondering.)

But something was missing. My sweet girl Karma? Maybe. My call from EllenOprahBeyonce? Very much not. I filled it with new puppies. Twins. Who’d been horded. They were needy, so very needy. And that filled my attention enough to forget that something felt off, a hole.

I resisted it. I pretended it wasn’t there. I pretended what wasn’t there, wasn’t there. Impressive, no?

And it dragged on. I could not finish book three. It had a premise that intrigued me (else, why would I choose it) and I had a grasp on what should happen. It just wouldn’t come. I asked for an extension and got it. 

The very next day Llewellyn Worldwide announced they were shuttering the Midnight Ink imprint.

I was, and am, sad. I was also relieved. The pressure was off.

My subconscious played its part, as well, finding much food, twenty pounds worth, to try to fill the empty space I studiously ignored.

It took me until just recently, this week, while writing this to realize what was missing and why.

Impostor Syndrome. I guess I had just assumed that feeling would go away and that I would feel like a Real Writer once my first book, WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU, was released. But I didn’t feel like a Real Writer. I don’t feel like a Real Writer. And that’s okay.

Now that I know; now that I realize feeling like an impostor is an ongoing entity with a life of its own. It ebbs and flows like a river and also like a river it twists and turns and occasionally rages, overflowing its banks and flood the surrounding land.

I had been flooded. So now I’m lamenting not having sandbags ready while I sweep the mud out of the cellar. But I know now. I know. And I needed you need to know too. Because we all feel Impostor Syndrome. I’m not alone in it. You’re not alone in it. We’re a community. We have each other.

So maybe this turned out to not be so much of a bummer after all.

HANK: SO, Reds and readers, two things.

One, what Aimee LEFT OUT:

Her brand new book, Dark Streets, 

Cold Suburbs  was published this 

week! YAY!

Sometimes home is the most dangerous place of all.

People move to the suburbs for a better life—nice houses, good schools, safe communities. But there's no place you can go that's completely safe from danger. Willa Pennington knows this all too well after her first PI case almost got her killed. Helping her old mentor review a decades-old cold case seems much safer. 

Then she reaches out to a teenager in trouble, and suddenly a new case rips into Willa's life in a way she could never have predicted. It seems menace is always lying in wait behind someone's door. Especially on the dark streets of the cold suburbs.

 And two: let’s fill these comments with words of encouragement, JUST FOR AIMEE!  

Has anyone noticed her first book is titled What Doesn't Kill You?  

And a copy of  Dark Streets, Cold Suburbs  to one lucky commenter!

 

 AIMEE HIX

 Aimee spent twenty years working as a federal contractor, so she spent a lot of time contemplating murder. It made total sense that once she retired she would devote her whole life to it. Fictional murder, of course.

She is a native of Northern Virginia and so she truly understands the trials and tribulations of her main character, Willa Pennington, an apprentice PI starting her new career in the Starbucks-laden, decidedly non-gritty streets of Fairfax County.

Aimee lives in Virginia her family, three dogs, and all her killer thoughts. You can visit her at www.aimeehix.com.