Tag Archives: Writing

Invitation and Publication

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Tom Harold Rolling Ball Sculpture gues post.

The Metal Store published my guest blog post, a brief history of my career with photos and video.

Several weeks back on one of my Facebook groups a post popped up about guest blogging. The writer of the post was looking to create content for a metal supply company’s blog and called for offers from artists. I jumped at the chance. It was a fun way to share a little more about my work and make sure my message was going out to the right crowd.

I wrote an article about my piece Tillander, as I’d just completed it. I sent it off, and the blog manager wrote back and said, “We like it, but do you think you could write more of an introductory piece about yourself, and then we’ll run the other a bit later?” Two articles? Yes!

Today the first article was published. It’s a nice little piece that details my general background from youth up until present day, an examination of the somewhat meandering path that got me to where I am now. It’s all original writing, so you’ll see nothing else like it anywhere on my web site. You can click here for my art career post on The Metal Store’s blog.

I hope you enjoy the post, and thanks for supporting my art!

First paid publication! Huzzah!

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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:

Best Served Cold

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.

NaNoWriMo 2010, Day Nineteen

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Man, I’m wiped out. Thought I’d get a lot more writing done tonight, but at least I got in something over a thousand words. I’m stunned to see that I’m actually still on schedule. No frakking way! I was sure I was at least three thousand behind by now. Man, I guess I wrote a lot earlier in the week. I’m at 32,543 now. Not bad, not bad.

So busy this week. I’ve been applying for all kinds of freelance writing work, which is quite a switch for me. I haven’t done this sort of application-heavy stuff ever in my life. I guess it was just time for that to happen. I have some leads, and a few of them might even pay money that you can count! We’ll see. I’ll update here when something of note comes down the pipeline. I might be doing something related to motorcycles. That would be fun.

In the meantime, more writing for NaNo, and I gotta get back on track with some of this sculpture work. I might be falling behind a little, darn it!

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!

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.