Hi. My name is

A strange thing occurred to me a few months ago, and since then I've been flummoxed. I'm turning to you, the People of the Internet, for advice.

I am a writer, and I hope to be a published writer someday. Maybe even a well-known writer. Or at least a writer with an ongoing career in the business. The problem is my name. You see, there are at least two other writers I've heard of with the name Laura Hughes. *cue panic attack*

 

How can I stand out in the world of publishing if I'm constantly being mixed up with those other Laura Hughes writers? Not to mention the artist, the physician, the web developer, the actress, and the several dozen other Laura Hughes-who-are-not-me who turn up in a google search. I can't even stand out in a FREAKING GOOGLE SEARCH?! Yikes!

Well, I thought innocently, I can always publish under my maiden name. It's certainly not a common name. Herbenick. You likely don't know anyone by that name, unless you maybe heard of my sister, Debby Herbenick. It's not entirely unlikely. She has a Wikipedia entry AND an Amazon page. And no one would EVER mistake her books for mine. She writes nonfiction, and her alter-ego is The Sex Professor. So.

So I googled Laura Herbenick. I found a few references to myself, and a gajillion entries for Debby. At least there were no other Laura Herbenicks to confuse me with. But who knows me by that name? I've been Laura Hughes for more than 15 years!

I must have been a little slap-happy, because for a whole three minutes I considered publishing under the name Mittens Morgul. Ahem. I don't think so.

This is actually Mittens Morgul. No, kitty doesn't write.

And now on to the Reader Interaction Portion of today's post: (no, you don't actually have to do anything if you don't want to. But you made it this far, and I want to love you, so please share if you have any advice.)

I hope to someday have an agent, and I'm sure this is the kind of thing that they will help me decide. In the mean time, is your "real" name so common that you're considering publishing under a different name? Or have you already done that? Did you choose a pseudonym for another unrelated reason? Why? What would you do in my shoes?

A. Keep your real name. It's my name, and I don't care who else uses it.

B. Use the maiden name. No, I swear we aren't getting divorced, sweetie.

C. Pick another name entirely. Yes, that really is me. See? That's my picture on the back cover! No, I don't look that good today because I don't pay a professional hair and makeup artist to spruce me up every day. YES FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME, I SWEAR THAT'S REALLY ME!

Not how I like to wake up.

I was up late last night. I watched TV until I finally fell asleep around 1:30 in the morning. I had a blissful three hours of sleep, or so, when for no apparent reason, my cat went all ninja on my right foot. I guess the lump under the blanket looked particularly menacing, or something. I can't explain cats, but I know for sure his ninja assassin skills are up to snuff. Thank the heavens I managed to get back to sleep for an hour or so.

When I did finally wake up for the day, I put on my little slipper socks. The tile floor in my room is cold, even in summer, so I often put them on before I get out of bed. Today, though, I yelped in pain. The little bugger managed to draw blood, and I have several large gashes in the inside instep of my right foot. Shoes haven't been fun today.

Unfortunately, I've had to wear shoes. I couldn't get away with barefootedness. I had to go to a training meeting for Lulu's chorus and girl scout troop. Both groups are manning a concession stand at the local minor league baseball stadium this season. We're working 81 games. I think I could cry. Luckily, we have about 15 parents who took the training course, and we each only need to work about 10 games. It's a huge lot of work, but it will raise a ton of money, way more than they make from Girl Scout cookies. Anything we can do to help our girls meet their goals, and then exceed them, I'm willing to do. Plus, hey, free baseball games!

I managed to get about 15 pages in book 2 edited today, despite feeling like a headless chicken in a lot of other ways. I got another very encouraging request for pages yesterday, and I've gone into that tailspin of research and paranoia that accompanies submissions. I tend to obsess when an agent expresses an interest in my writing. I guess that's to be expected. We all like validation that something we've done is worthy of further perusal. This kind of thing also comes with a lot of palpitations, nervous twitches, and obsessive email checking. None of these things are particularly healthy. I try to avoid them at all costs, but sometimes I can't help myself.

I still take breaks from editing, and I still check Twitter. When I see the delightful agent who wanted to read more of my story, I feel compelled to see what she has to say, and the obsess over whether it might give me some insight into whether or not she'll like or hate my story. Like I said, not particularly healthy.

So here I am writing this, hoping to avoid checking anything for the next few minutes, at least. After this, I think I'm going to watch something on TV, far from the computer. Maybe I'll leave my cell phone in another room, too.

I'm sure this won't take too long. I'll be all better as soon as I hear back, either way. Granted, I'll be better sooner if I get a positive response than a negative one. Again, human nature.

That three hours of sleep is starting to catch up with me. I think I'll just skip to the tv watching and vegetating right now.

Good night!