New sculpture video!

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Tom Harold

I am very pleased to announce that I have completed a video of my latest sculpture, Triangle Twist. This is the first all-steel piece that I have completed and the first to have a decent quality video made of it as well. It is all stainless steel with 1/8″ rod for the main track plus some stouter rod for the pyramid frame. I also threw in some perforated sheet stainless for some fun visual variety. Take a look below, and feel free to comment and let me know what you think. If you care to purchase this piece, you may find further information on my main site here: http://tomharold.com/works/948091/triangle-twist

You may also subscribe to my Youtube channel for future video updates, and I have a Facebook page that you can “like” for other info as well.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy the video.

Making Changes, Moving Forward

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Tom Harold

It has been long coming that I made some changes in my web presence. To that end I have put together a site dedicated solely to representing finished pieces of my art, both past and those awaiting homes. It is currently located here. The new site will enable those who want to purchase my art a simple way to access it, make inquiries and purchases. You, my wonderful readers, will still be able to come here and read about my musings on creativity and overcoming obstacles in the creation of art. For clarity, I’ll state: the blog is not going away! It will continue as it always has, but with the added feature of being a communication arm of my art site. I will be making some changes to the appearance of the blog as well, but that will not affect the content or my delivery of it in any way.

In other news, I am working hard on completing another piece of sculpture. It’s smaller in size and easily fits on a desktop. I have plenty of pics and will post a write up and photos as soon as I am able. This one was not commissioned and will be available for sale to the general public, so check back in to see what I’ve cooked up!

Getting things done

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Tom Harold

Doing this kind of work, lots of times there just isn’t “the way that it’s done.” Sure, there might be “a” way that it’s done, but not “the” way. And lots of times a way that worked before won’t work again, because something else is different, like now you’re against a wall whereas before you had plenty of space behind the thing, or before you had plenty of running room following the thing you want to do, but this time you only have, say, three inches, and the ball will be going much to fast to make that happen, whatever “that” or anything else may be.

I’m sure you get my point. Lots of times I take photos for my own remembrance of things…although cataloging them would probably be an excellent idea. Well, never mind that for now, at least many of them are showing up here. Matthew Gaulden and Vic Chaney both mentioned specifically that it’s important to write down how you figured out a way to solve a problem, because lots of times you come across that same problem again, but you can’t remember how you solved it the first time!

Here’s a common problem: holding a couple things together so they can be welded. I solved it in a rather unstupendous but quick and easily repeatable way. I used a bunch of my steel blocks (again I say “YES” to my wonderful habit of picking these things up on instinct whenever I run across one) and just stacked them all up so they would hold these two pieces of solid bent rod in alignment long enough for me to tack weld them.

It’s really hard to see (I congratulate myself on making a very close joint!), but look at the small stretch of rod that is closest to the table’s surface and positioned between the two sets of blocks. If you look closely you can see the parting line where those two pieces have yet to be welded. It turned realllllly nicely, I am very happy to say. That doesn’t always happen. It worked, though, and this thing now holds up a couple of different pieces of the sculpture, including two loops from the loop-the-loop section. It holds up some neater stuff that I’ll show a bit later. Until then, best of luck in your creative pursuits.

First paid publication! Huzzah!

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Tom Harold

In the midst of some not-so-great stuff happening (more on that in another post – totally going to ignore it for now), I have had one definitely awesome thing happen. As of today I am a physically verifiable paid and published fiction author! Sweet!

Now, this has all been in the works for quite some time, but I never mentioned much of it. I sent my story “Scratch” out in early July to an Indiana horror authors anthology. No dice, as it needed to be more toward the R- or NC-17-rated end of the scale. I sent it to another publisher shortly thereafter, RuneWright, to their “Best Served Cold” anthology, which was focusing on the idea of vengeance, which my story seemed to fit. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to get an acceptance in August. I was very happy about that, but as acceptance by no means guarantees publication (and I’ve had the personal experience of a deal falling through in the past), I didn’t think it was quite time to start celebrating just yet.

On November 17th I got paid real money (five dollah!) for the story. I thought this was pretty awesome, not for the amount, but for the intent shown by the publisher and editor. Still, I remain overly cautious about these things. I’ve heard to many tales of disappointment. So even while I was rolling in cash and buying all the gumballs I could get with my five dollars, I was still hesitant to say anything. Part of this was due to the fact that the anthology had been scheduled to be released in August, and November is clearly not August. I was afraid I’d just keep hanging it out there for you guys, and then having to pull it back, and that’s only entertaining for about maybe one second, two tops. I do understand that small presses are often understaffed (to the tune of a single person handling all duties), making setbacks the norm. I just didn’t want to drag things out on the ol’ blog here.

I was further encouraged when I received an email at the end of November telling me my contributor copy was on its way. (Note: It’s a nice deal to get both payment and the contributor copy, as if you don’t, you pretty much wind up spending your little payment on your own copy of the book, which sort of means you didn’t really get paid, because the book usually costs as much or more than your payment, but I digress.) Still being incredibly wary (I’d waited a year for an accepted piece to be published whereupon the anthology wound up being canceled. I have my reasons for wariness!) I kept my mouth shut and waited. Today was a day of days, however, and it was with much glee that I went to my front door this afternoon, peeked through the blinds, and saw a book-shaped cardboard box sitting on my porch. I hurried out there, swiped it off the porch, brought it inside, ripped the tape off it, and here’s what I have:

And so, kids, it has come to pass that I, Tom Harold, can now honestly say that I am a paid, published fiction author. After a year of putting the word “pending” near those other words, it’s nice to be able to lay that to rest. Awesome!

Naturally, I am going to offer you the ability to purchase this sweet affirmation of my efforts. Follow the nifty link above or right here to navigate over to RuneWright and order a copy in either digital or traditional print format. I have not had a chance yet to read the other stories, but I am looking forward to seeing what else is in store.

Update: More writing, more submitting, more rejections

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Tom Harold

I got, I think, three rejections this past week. I’m not sure. Maybe it was one the week before, and two this past week. I guess it doesn’t matter. Anyway, the good thing is that people are reading my work, even if they don’t like it or at least don’t want it. The thing is that it’s getting out there. I told a friend of mine today, “If you don’t submit, you a zero percent chance of getting published. Therefor, if you do submit, your odds of being published immediately increase, even if you’re up against three hundred other people.”

I was reading a great interview with novelist James Lee Burke today in Writer’s Digest. He said, “Never let a manuscript stay at home longer than 36 hours. It’s that simple. You keep it in the mail, and if you do not you are ensured to fail…because you’re not a player. The manuscript’s sitting in your desk drawer. It’s never going to be published. And that’s how you do it. And you’re always a player. In other words, you write it as well as you can, you let God be the judge of it, don’t worry about critics and rejection.”

I suppose I’m not super jazzed about getting rejections, but Burke received 111 rejections on ONE SINGLE MANUSCRIPT before it was published. It took nine years for “The Lost Get-Back Boogie” to find a publisher, but once it did it was nominated for a Pulitzer.

I don’t know if I have Pulitzer material in me, but I’m taking Lee’s points to heart all the same. My odds of getting published are far worse if I’m not putting my work out there, and I need the odds in my favor as much as possible. Even better, the more I write, the more I’ll improve, and those odds will rise even more. Not a bad deal if you think about it.

My stats at Duotrope’s Digest say that I now have written 14 pieces since June of this year, and that I’ve submitted 36 times (which leaves out one submission that Duotrope doesn’t have listed). This weekend I sent out two rejected stories to two new markets, plus I finished a story this evening, found a market, and sent that one out as well. Tomorrow begins work on another story. After all, I only have a week to write it. And who knows, maybe this next one will turn into something special, or maybe I’ll at least learn a bit more about perseverance and patience – both good qualities to foster when writing.

More writing, more submitting, more rejections

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Tom Harold

Since my last post, the writing has continued at a steady pace. It takes up a huge chunk of my free time, but I’m pretty positive I’m still at an average of one new story per week. I really need to compile a…wait…gimme a sec…okay, twelve. I’ve written twelve new short stories since I started, and I’ve sent out eleven of those. One is a little special, and I need to rework it and get it in proper shape. It’s hard to find time for rewrites. I have rewritten a few of them, however. Tonight I did a rewrite of a very old story that I’ve been sending out maybe three times in as many years. I think this time around I added a little bit of something to it that will make it more than a simple account of a scary monster attack. We’ll see. If it gets accepted, I’ll let you know.

On the subject of acceptance, if anything at all happens I’ll let you know. Actually, at this point I’ll just let you know if something gets accepted and goes into print. I had two stories accepted last year, and one of those is still “in process.” It’s been over a year, and the story still hasn’t printed, so in fear that I’ll be paving a road with “It’s coming! No, really! Really!!!” I have just decided to let news of acceptances go until something really happens.

That said, the rejections are coming in fast and furious! I just got three within the past eight or nine days. I have found it is true what people say, that it is easier to take rejection if you have multiple pieces in the mail, since your hopes aren’t pinned on a single piece. Plus, I found it very strange but cool to note that I felt much better about being rejected when I sent another brand new piece out.

Tonight I stayed up late and tended to submissions. I really do wish I had someone to take care of that end of business for me. Once things get rejected it’s a bit of a task to comb the markets over and find somewhere to send off the old stuff. Then, as tonight, there is the occasional task of doing a rewrite to try and help out something that seems like it needs it. However, I’m happy to say that I got one piece printed and packaged up for a postal submission, and I found two markets to send of email submissions to after that. This includes the rewrite on the one piece. Oh, and earlier, when this (very early morning) as yesterday evening, I put in a couple more hours on another new short story. I hope to finish that one up later today (after I’ve taken an eight-hour nap). Then that one will go out to…somewhere. Hmmm…I thought I had an idea for a place to send it, but I guess not, that was last week’s story I suppose.

I have ten pieces out for consideration right now. Two of them are to publishers who take five or six months to respond, so I guess I won’t have any less than two out through most of the rest of this challenge I’ve set for myself. The most I’ve had out so far at once is eleven. I could very well have eleven out again by tomorrow if I wrap up this new one tomorrow (and I hope to).

Oh, there’s also been an update to my writing plan. It was going to be a story a week through the end of 2010. This has been extended. I was watching my Charles Beaumont documentary, and in it Ray Bradbury says he told both William F. Nolan and Beaumont, “Write a story a week for a year, you can’t go wrong. You begin to write quality.” Well, I want to write quality, and I’m not a man of half-measures when goals arise, so I’ll be writing an average of one story a week through I guess it’ll be June of 2011.

That’s enough for now. I’m tired, and there’s more writing and hopefully some sculpture work to be done tomorrow.

Bring on the progress!

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Tom Harold

Back in June I looked at the calendar and had a horrible and depressing realization. The year was half over and I’d written not one single new story yet. I was pretty displeased, because writing is one of the big things I’ve been focusing on in my life over the past couple of years. Although, up until June of 2011, it seemed clearly that writing was only one of the things I’d been talking about focusing on, because there sure wasn’t any writing going on!

I was bereft, or at least rather put out about the whole state of affairs. Something had to be done. Here I’ve been wanting to write fiction so much, been talking about it, been reading it, and yet I hadn’t been DOING it! What can be done in such a situation? Let’s think that over for about two seconds. Oh, I know! How about, you know, writing!

Once I made that gigantic mental leap it was just a matter of getting the work done, sitting down and moving my fingers and making something happen on the screen/page. Right about this time I was reading the blog of Alex J. Kane, a burgeoning science fiction writer who has been making an honest and concrete effort to get his work out into the market. Alex made note of a web site by a writer named Dean Wesley Smith, and some of the thoughts he related of Smith’s seemed very positive and progress-oriented, so I went there and read some of Smith’s writing on the subject.

To cut things short, Smith was very energizing. He basically just said, “Write, then submit it! That’s it!” There was obviously a little bit more to it than that, but really not much, and when you get right down to it, those are the two steps needed for getting published: write story, submit story.

In view of this I decided that what I wanted was to have a bunch of finished short stories to my credit, and by a bunch, I mean something farther up there in the double digits. I already have a handful, maybe ten or so, but I wanted to add greatly to that number. I wanted to prove, I wanted to make it plainly, ridiculously obvious, that not only do I want to write fiction as a large part of my life, but that I’m not hesitant at all about doing the work to make that happen.

Beginning around the middle of July I started writing, just as Smith instructed. I didn’t sit around and worry over each sentence, each paragraph, each period, adjective, verb, and on and on until I worried myself to a halt. What I started doing was writing. Writing whole sentences, paragraphs, beginnings, endings, whole stories! And then I sent them out. I didn’t worry about having sixteen of my most perceptive writer friends pick them apart so that they shone brighter than polished stainless steel. I just made sure they didn’t have any horrible spelling or grammar errors and the like, made them look the best I figured I could make them at that point, and fired them off.

The goal is to write one new short story per week for the remainder of this year. I want to be able to say that I have at least 25 new short stories to my name by the end of the year. (I’ll fit in an extra somewhere to bring the total up.) So far it has been, well, work! But it’s fun work. I’m really enjoying it. It’s not always easy, but somehow I’m learning something, someTHINGS. I may not be known or admired or even have much of anything published by the time this effort is done (wouldn’t feel bad to have a sale or two, though), but I will have gotten better at writing, and maybe my December something will change, maybe I’ll sell to a pro market, or maybe I’ll just be writing stuff that’s still not so publishable, but is a lot closer to being publishable.

They say it takes a million written words for a writer to sharpen their instrument, hone themselves into a writer’s writer. I want that million words. I’ve written three novels in NaNoWriMo over the past three years. That’s far more than the 150K words that each year’s 50K minimum would put me at. I’m probably around 200K from that alone, maybe even 225K. Then we have the other short stories I’ve written since 2007. That gets me closer, maybe to 240K. That’s nearly halfway to 500K, and Smith said he started seeing some positive results at 500K. I’m nearly halfway there, and if we figure I’m writing stories that average about 4K each week, then by December I’ll have something like 340K (the last story actually went to 8K, so I may well go over).

So here we go, kids. It’s time to stop fooling around just talking about writing and make the writing happen. It is going to be fascinating to see how this all plays out, don’t you think?

Just a quick update and a few chords

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Tom Harold

I have started reading from the site “The Art of Nonconformity,” written by Chris Guillebeau. It’s giving me lots of exhilirating and terrifying thoughts and feelings. Chris is all about the “can.” I so dig that, man, and it’s scary to think that whatever you dream of doing you can accomplish if you put your mind to it. At least it’s scary for me, because I have some big dreams, and they may very well require me to make some big changes in my life and do some things that are not exactly the most comfortable for me. More on this later.

As a quick note (for realz, yo!), two days ago on 4/6/11 I played eight chords on the guitar without looking at any sort of tablature while doing so. I also was able to identify each chord in my head as I played it, so I know how to play them and what they are as well. This is good stuff. I’ll doubtless be as good as Steve Vai within a week, for sure.

Actually, while there is some question as to the attainment of my Vai/Hendrix/Vaughan/insert-name-of-your-insanely-good-guitar-hero-here status, I can say that it is a leap for me. It proves I CAN learn to play some guitar if I put my mind to it, which is something I used to flat out deny when I was in college, and something that I questioned for many years following college. Seems I was wrong about me. How about that? Maybe there are some other things in life I thought I couldn’t do about which I may have been wrong. Just what in the heck might possibly happen if I stop believing that I’m incapable of things?

What would happen to you if you stopped thinking you were incapable of things? Career change? Taking up pottery? Learning to dance? Forming a great relationship with someone special? Getting out of debt? Running a marathon?

Feel free to list some positive thoughts on achievement in the comments section. I’d love to hear from you.

I made another thing

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Tom Harold

Man, since January I’ve not posted? Wow. I guess I’ve had a lot of other things going on, many of them either not blog-worthy, or things I just can’t share (but hope to before long).

At any rate, I can share this sculpture piece. I completed it a little while back, but I’ve had to do some vetting of photos on Flickr, because I’m nearing my limit for the free account, and I’m having a hard time justifying spending cash on the paid account. Sure wish I could find some money lying around. Oh, I did try the lottery twice in desperation, probably around January, but the winds did not blow in my favor, so I just picked up additional work. More on the additional work in a moment.

Sculpture:

Nifty, huh? I kind of love it, although it was a ridiculous pain to build. It fought me at several points. There were odd little things to square away to keep marbles from rolling all over the floor, and then I went and got really crazy and built that seemingly simply brass piece at the end. I was under a tight deadline, and the “steps” seemed like such a simple idea. It was brilliant!

Brilliant, yes. Simple, no. I figured it would take me, well, I don’t know how long, but not long. Maybe I was thinking an hour or two. I believe it was closer to six or eight, and with the schedule I was on at the time, that was like adding another week to it. It did underscore my need for some metal-bending tools, like a brake or a small press. With a press and an appropriate die I would have had that thing made in half the time.

However, it all turned out very nicely. The steps are of brass, and since they are suspended rather freely on the copper they have a fair bit of ring to them when hit by the marbles. It’s a nice affect, and precisely what I was going after.

I did learn a lesson from this, and that was on the practical side of time investment and pricing. I think I priced this appropriately at the time I was commissioned for it, but in the future my prices will have to change. I simply cannot produce work like this in a short time span. I tracked the hours on this one, and it overshot my estimate by fifty to seventy-five percent.

I am quite pleased with this one, though, and with all the help I received on it in various forms from other people. It sapped a lot of my time at some rather crucial points, and the understanding I received at those times was pretty wonderful.

Results!

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Tom Harold

I’ve been away so long that I thought I’d pulled up an incorrect enry at the home page! I went, “No, I’ve posted since NaNo. Where is that post on sculpture… Uh… It’s… Not…here…anywhere!”

Man, it has been too long! I guess the day after NaNo ended I pretty much jumped right back into sculpture work. That didn’t let up for over two weeks, as it was a piece for a client. Following that, well, you get the holidays and all that craziness, and here we are, January, and not a post to show for over a month! Honestly, though, I was sure that about a week ago I’d posted something. I’ll just have to take care of that right this minute.

The following piece is one I worked on all through 2010. There were a lot of “off” periods where I just had many other things going on and wasn’t able to sit down at the work bench and put time into it. However, I did manage to complete this one for a client in California. Sadly, it was not until some weeks after I mailed it off that I realized I didn’t take one single decent picture of it once it was completed. These are a couple that give you a nice idea of the finished product, if in a rather informal setting.

In the above photo I was doing some testing before I finally mounted the sculpture to the base. I thought this one turned out nicely. I have to thank my dad for the gorgeous wood base he created for it. It all came together quite nicely.

Here’s something of a “before” shot. I was cleaning up the sculpture, getting all the flux residue off of it and prepping for the final cleaning. It had just been scrubbed down in the sink, which is why it has water droplets all over it.

I was very happy with this one, and pleased to say that the client enjoyed it too. I have another for you coming up before much longer. It was an extremely busy holiday season, but I managed to squeeze another one in with lots of late nights and a little extra coffee.