Kameron Hurley's Blog, page 2

When the World’s on Fire, Dig a Well

This was an exceptionally stressful week at work, and I am here to remind everyone (and myself!), once again, to give everyone a little grace in our everyday lives this year of all years. Stress and uncertainty are endemic across personal and professional lives. People’s houses are literally on fire.

My job has an office in Florida, and we had colleagues who went through two back to back hurricanes. We’ve had a year and a half of rolling layoffs. The job market is a battlefield. And yes, I we...

Embracing What We Can Control

This weekend is seed organizing and inventorying weekend. I had been pining for a card catalog for this effort, but of course those are financially out of reach. So instead spouse bought these modular knockoffs and assembled them into a tower. You do have to fold the seed packets, but same energy.

This was also a great way to use this awkward space in the dining room. The dining room has become a dining room/spouse’s gaming room/painting room/seed room and making it work for those purpose...

Use Your Difficulties (to Make Great Art)

Woke this morning thinking of my team at work and how the last six months has made us feel like a squad of soldiers trying to survive the AI wars. My next thought slotted a missing chunk of the new book into place. I have a protag with a squad, and now I have starting personalities to work from.

One of the squad members betrays team. Now I know who that is ?. Most importantly, I have the angry, cynical protag’s emotional starting point as a bitter conscript and her end point as a hopeful real...

Why the Productivity Craze is Making You Less Productive (And More Miserable)

Back when I was pandemic drinking, it didn’t click that alcohol was causing significant sleep disruptions, and it was the sleep disruption that was making me feel stupider and made it harder to concentrate. This is also a big part of why new parents feel stupider, btw. It’s the sleep deprivation.

My paternal grandfather’s only and best piece of advice passed to my mom and then to me was that when faced with whether to keep working/studying or sleep, choose sleep. Feeling stupid? Studying or t...

Choosing to Be Grimly Optimistic

I am back at the day job today. I work in advertising, and it’s been… An exciting time to be in advertising, let me tell you. On the upside, it’s comforting to know that literally no one has any idea what is happening or what’s going on or what to do next. If they say they do, they are a grifter.

This is an exceptional time to be a grifter, as we’ve seen. I’ve learned to simply state things boldly and confidently; what people want right now is CONFIDENCE. Even if that confidence is false or m...

We Don’t Need to Monetize Everything that Gives Us Joy

Had fun with composition in this one.

This composition idea came from watching a lecture on composition and how to use light/shadow and framing to draw the eye around and around in a painting. So your eye moves around that lit circle that’s made out of the trees and the water.

This Caravaggio does it by lighting the guy’s sleeve. So your eye goes there, then follows direction of his arm down to table and then up to lit hand and cards in it, follows that up to the faces; the guy’s finge...

The Best PR and Personal Brand Advice You’ll Get This Year (Maybe Ever)

As a PR pro, we used to tell people to get ahead of various online controversies by making statements that refute them. It turns out this is the absolute worst way to respond to criticism or correct errors of any kind. Social media has made this worse. When you respond, it kick-starts issues again.

24/7 news cycles NEED constant statements and counter statements. Every. Single. Tweet. And. Post. Can then become a “story.” And every response to every post another “story”! It’s a banger of a wi...

Finding Great Art Teachers in the Dreck of Online Sewage

Taking online painting class today w/this artist, who I’ve found one of best oil painting TEACHERS – not just painters – on YouTube so far. Teaching is totally diff’t skill: you need to be able to explain WHY and HOW you are doing something. Tougher than it sounds.

Having taught copywriting and fiction classes, I know firsthand how much work this is. But I found it super valuable to me as a WRITER to break down my process so it could be communicated to someone else. It engages a totally...

GET TO WORK HURLEY: Episode 33. With Special Guest S.B. Divya!

The GET TO WORK HURLEY podcast is a monthly rant about the hustle of making a living as a writer of All of the Things. You can support this podcast each month as a Patron or make a one-time donation.

EPISODE THIRTY-THREE: S.B. Divya joins the podcast to talk about her new book LOKA, her writing process, dealing with long Covid as a writer, and much more. Listen below or Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, or iHeart. (NOTE: Patreon subscribers get access to the unedited video version of the podc...

GET TO WORK HURLEY: Episode 32. With Special Guest Chuck Wendig!

The GET TO WORK HURLEY podcast is a monthly rant about the hustle of making a living as a writer of All of the Things. You can support this podcast each month as a Patron or make a one-time donation.

EPISODE THIRTY-TWO: Chuck Wendig stops by to talk about choosing projects, managing time, and much more. Listen below or Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, or iHeart. (NOTE: Patreon subscribers get access to the video version of the podcast).

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