Author Archives: Tom Harold

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Sixteen

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Wow, it’s been a while since I updated! Ten days worth! This month’s schedule is apparently just as full and harried as I had thought it would be. If I’m not writing, then I’m sculpting, and if I’m not doing either of those I’m attending to something like the regular job, or sleeping. Occasionally I eat. Oh, and I have been doing drawings with Jem! So, yeah, been busy.

I’m feeling a little run ragged at this point, and I honestly feel like NaNo was actually kind of easy the last two years! I mean, heck, I pretty much dropped everything to write those years, and this year I’m still trying to pile other stuff on top. I must be a sucker for stress.

The sculpture is continuing to progress, however, which is awesome and kind of amazing. I hope to do some significant construction with it this weekend, start actually sticking one piece to another, add the frame, that sort of thing.

The novel is, well, I don’t know what it is. It’s…coming along? I’m struggling a bit. I’ve had some parts where I feel like I literally Scotch-taped some scenes together to make them work. It’s clunky, but I’m forging on. Tonight I wrote a scene that I like. Well, I didn’t so much like the way I wrote it, ’cause it was a bit rushed, but I like the scene itself. I will enjoy rewriting it. (Did I just say I was going to rewrite this thing…!)

So the novel moves ahead. I should compare notes with last year. I wonder if I felt like my novel was just starting to gain momentum at this point last year as well. Oh, and I’m at 30,258 words – and NOW I feel like it’s picking up? Geez!

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Six

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I am officially at 12,600 words, which puts me ahead from the daily average of 10,002 for today. That’s not bad, but I would like to be further ahead than that. I hope to possibly write again a bit this evening before going to bed. If not, there will be much more writing tomorrow.

I worked on sculpture this afternoon, and was pleased with the amount of work I got done. I put in something like three hours on it. It didn’t seem like I got much done until the end, and it still sort of seems that way, but as I often say, “Well, I had to sit there for X hours to do it, so it doesn’t matter if it seems like a lot or not, it was going to take me X hours regardless.”

These are the major elements of the most recent sculpture.

Tomorrow, more sculpting, more writing. So far I believe I’m on track for both, or closely so. Sculpting is a littler harder to guess, but if I break it up into four-week estimates, I guess it looks like I’ve gotten a fair amount done for one week. Similar progress over the next three weeks should (hopefully!) result in a finished product at the end of the month…I think?

Continued good luck to all my WriMo friends! Keep at it! We’re one-fifth of the way through!

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Four

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Day Three got me zip in the word count, but I was pretty much planning on that. I drew that night with Jem instead of writing, and it paid off, because we actually, finally finished a piece! Not sure what we’re going to do with that, but it’s done now. I’ll get pics up later.

For Day Four I planned to get more writing done, kind of bulk up on some writing, but it didn’t quite work out that way. I wanted to get around 3000 words down. I got almost exactly two thousand, 1,990, actually. Not bad. Good for a day, and a bit past the 1,667-word minimum. I’m up to 9,444 words now, which still has me ahead of the curve. I’m very close to being one fifth of the way done, and that feels good.

This weekend there’s a break in band activity, and I plan on bearing down on both sculpture work and writing. I hope to make my word count literally soar into the realms of the ridiculous and to have some sculpture progress worth showing to you. I hope to have pics. DOn’t hold your breath on that one, though, because I seem to have become terrible at actually posting photos even though I’ve taken thousands over the last few months.

More to report on Day Five later. Write on, WriMos!

NaNoWriMo, Day Two

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Today ends at 7,454 words. That’s well past the necessary 3,334 to keep on pace for a 30-day win, but I’m padding. There are going to be some days where I’m sure I’ll not get to write much. I have a sculpture commission that is due in mid-December, so I have to make sure that I am more than on track with NaNo. Today, in fact, I even started on the sculpture as a “break” from writing. The irony! I didn’t get much done on it, but it is a start, and that’s important. I also managed to squeeze in getting some laundry done and getting some shaving cream picked up at the store. These are the little things that suddenly seem monumental during NaNo. You go, “I’ll just go to the store – wait! That’s…that’s going to take 23 minutes out of my day! I could write 500 words in 23 minutes! I…I don’t know if I can make that sacrifice! Maybe I’ll just shave with bar soap tomorrow…”

Shaving will commence as normal tomorrow. And I’m not even close to feeling like I need to give up time for showering. Not yet, anyway.

Best of luck to all you fellow WriMos out there!

NaNoWriMo, Day 1

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All right, kids, it’s that time of year again. I’m starting it dog-tired, because I was at Steak & Shake last night at midnight kicking off this insanity with about a dozen other writers. This post is short, because I’m really exhausted. I’m about a thousand words into my story. I’m not sure what it’s about yet, except an electric ray figures into it, and so does a boy in his teens. We’ll discover it together, then, eh? Come along and let’s see what we find in the insanity that is National Novel Writing Month. Only 49,000 words to go!

Published…AGAIN!

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I could have hardly expected success again so soon, but it has been given to me! Last night I got an email from Library of Horror Press that they will be publishing my story titled “Infestation” in their upcoming collection “Fearology 2: Beware All Animals Great and Small.”

I’m pretty stoked about this whole affair. Not only am I getting published again, but I found out that on this occasion my story is one out of only 23 that were picked for the anthology, and that was out of over 140 submissions! That’s about fifteen percent! And, on top of all that, I’m actually going to get paid for this one! Paid! Someone is giving me money for a story that I wrote! Can you believe that? I’m being compensated for the work I put into a story. In this economy, that’s slightly staggering to the mind that there’s a place out there giving writers money for words. I have to say I’m pretty dang pleased to be one of those people!

As soon as I have more information on the issue – when it is coming out, where it can be purchased, all that jazz – I will update here.

I celebrated last night by having some cake and ice cream (with whipped cream!) with a friend. She asked me how I planned to celebrate further, and I said, “I’m going to write more and send out more stuff.” It seems to me that a pretty good way to celebrate something that you’re good at doing is by continuing to do that thing, and so I shall. I hope to have further publication news for you as time passes. It’s obviously possible for me to get some work out there, now I just need to work harder at it and see what the results will be from that work!

I AM FREAKING PUBLISHED!!!!

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Check it out, dudes!!!! The August 2010 issue of Skive Magazine – the vampire issue! http://www.skivemagazine.com/ The story is titled “Luna,” and I’ll not really go into what it’s about, save that it’s obviously about fanged people.

I’ve been published before, but never for fiction. This is a first! Sweet! This is the beginning of my published fiction history!

A friend of mine commented on my announcement, and our friendship goes back a few years, with an initial shared interest in writing. She said we were discussing writing while she was in her old apartment, which she moved out of in 2006, “so it’s been a while.” I guess I’m seeing the payoff of persistence here, and it’s good to know that rather than sitting around and worrying about what the outcome might be, I just went ahead and wrote!

Okay, now I think I’ll celebrate by writing and submitting more stuff!

Salvo number three fired!

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It seems I’m building up a bit of a head of steam here. Today I managed to get another short story sent out to another publisher, Library of Horror Press! This is the third story I’ve sent out in three months, which makes it a record for me in the number of submissions I’ve submitted within one year. I realize that three per year isn’t exactly anything to write home about, but it is something to blog about. After all, it was only a few short years ago that I wasn’t even writing anything, and then I was writing and not submitting. Then there was writing and submitting one piece. Now we’re up to three pieces. Progress, kids, progress. That’s what we strive for here. Maybe one day I’ll be celebrating getting my 20th submission in six months. Or maybe a single novel? It’s impossible to say, but the facts remain that I’m doing more writing work now than I used to, and that’s nothing but good.

The latest submission is a piece I have sent out before, but I did some editing before I sent it out again. None of the changes were really large. I feel they tightened things up a bit, hopefully added a few bits for clarity, and overall made it a better read. The previous editor’s personal rejection told me that he really enjoyed the piece, but that he was short on space by the time I submitted it. I’m getting this one in over three weeks prior to the deadline, so maybe I’ve given myself a better chance of seeing it in print. One can hope.

The story I submitted early this July has not been responded to yet. I’m concerned, as it states on the site that acknowledgment of reception is usually given within 24 hours. I’m primarily concerned, because I’ve already identified another market for this same story, should it be rejected. I don’t want it to be stuck in limbo and only find out after this other deadline has passed that they somehow never got mine. As this second submission deadline closes in I may have to write and inquire. It’s too bad if they didn’t receive it, as I understand that they personally respond to ever single submission, and feedback from publishers is always nice. When you’re not getting paid, feedback is currency.

We shall see how all this pans out. In the meantime, I’ve come across another market I’d like to submit for, but this one has the caveat that the deadline is in three days, and I literally have to write the entire story from nothing in that time. I’m excited about the story idea, but not sure if I can make it happen. I think I’m going to give it a shot, though. It sounds like a fun story – creepy things in the depths of the ocean! Who can resist?!

Back in the game

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It’s been hard to keep up with posting pics, partly because I don’t seem to be turning out any notable pics lately, at least not ones that I find to be particularly moving or exciting from my own perspective. That, and, well, it’s just really hard to keep up! The effect that has had on the blog related to other postings is that I…haven’t posted. I’m trying to change that a little, and since I have news today, I’m not going to wait until I’ve gotten caught up on a month’s worth of photo postings to do it.

Yesterday was a pretty friggin’ awesome day in the world of personal accomplishments. For one, I FINALLY put the R90S up on Ebay after having posted some internet ads and gotten little interest. Ebay was kind of the final choice, and it’s a little scary having that thing up there and knowing that in seven days (hopefully) it will be sold. It’s been a big responsbility owning that bike, and it feels like a big responsibility selling it. I’ll be glad to let it go and move on to other pursuits, not to mention using the cash to pay some bills. That’ll feel good, freeing.

In news directly related to creativity, yesterday I made another story submission! Woohoo! Rock! *bows to self in admiration*
I was writing in my journal yesterday morning things like, “I really haven’t done anything creative related to sculpture or writing in at least two months, and this is the stuff I REALLY want to do! I need to do it!” Somehow that got me all revved up, and that afternoon I took a look at Duotrope’s Digest and realized that there was a deadline for a vampire anthology coming up in 1.5 days. Lucky me, I had just such a story in my files (Ah, the benefits of finishing things! Now I have files of completed stories!)

I checked the submission guidelines and realized that my story was going to need some serious editing if it was going to make the requirements. The word limit was 2,500, and mine was at 3,700. Ack – just a little on the high side! However, I was determined, plus I thought the story couldn’t hurt from some editing, and I wanted to see what would happen if I grabbed a machete and started hacking.

It took a while, but a few hours later I found myself sitting in front of my screen looking at the word counter which read 2,456 words. Sweet! I put together a quick email, added some probably unnecessary biographical info, and shot it off into the etherwebz. There’s no pay for this thing, even if it does get accepted, but at least it got me off my butt and got me writing/rewriting. Now I’ve sent in yet another submission for this year. I may be at a record of TWO whole stories submitted within a year. Woah! Yeah, I think I’ll try and shatter that record with an additional submission. I’ve found another that looks likely, and I think I’ll try my luck there. That one even pays. Payment for writing – what a concept! We’ll see. For now I’m happy to be back in the process. Good times.

Beale Street

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Sadly, my trip had to come to an end. I was on my way back from New Orleans to Indianapolis today, and I stopped for the night in Memphis. The easy way to do it put me right near Beale Street, so I went down there and hung out for a bit. I’m pretty picky about music, and I didn’t really see anyone that particularly sparked my interest, so I grabbed some dinner at one of the fine establishments and called it a night.