Monthly Archives: October 2014
Why I like The Flash
I’ve decided that I’m going to do a Freedom Squad novel for Nanowrimo. I’m still working out the details, but it got me thinking about superheroes and my current favorite superhero tv show, The Flash, on CW.
Long ago, I discovered that I was apocalyptically slow when it came to running. As a kid, being one of the slowest was pretty terrible for playing tag or well, just about anything. So, when I first learned about the Flash while watching Superfriends, I thought, “So he can run…is that a real superpower? What if someone trips him?”
Little did I know that he was going to be one of my all-time favorites. So, here’s the evolution of my opinion of the Flash. Read the rest of this entry
Nanowrimo 2014 – What to write?
So, we have only a few days before Nanowrimo, and I feel like I’m a kid who doesn’t know what costume to wear for Halloween. One of the most important things to do before getting started on National Novel Writing Month is to have a good idea on what you want to write. You don’t want to lose momentum on writer’s block with only 30 days to do 50,000 words.
As each day ticks down, I find myself still uncertain. Here’s my logic so far:
- I’ll need to work on Book 3 of the Charming Tales as Jack Heckel, but John Peck, my co-author, agrees that Nanowrimo has been good to me and that I should participate.
- Whatever I write should be something that I already know and love so I don’t have to spend a lot of thought energy on it.
- Therefore, I should do my superhero team that I did last year, or the Crimson Hawks or Krueger.
- I think the mood of Krueger and the Hawks will take away from my ability to focus on Charming.
- In conclusion, I should write Freedom Squad.
- Finally, I can’t think of a plot for Freedom Squad. ACK!
LOL! Having g
one through all of that, I’ll probably write Freedom Squad. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to comment. I don’t mind suggestions. Also, if anyone else is going through a similar issue with decisions, let me know.
Nanowrimo is coming!
Price Drop!
Price Cuts on some of my books from Blue Oranda.
Happy October! We have a treat for everyone. We’ve dropped the Kindle price of In the Service of the King, the first Crimson Hawks Adventure, to $1.99. The eBook price will be falling in other channels as well over the next few weeks. The story of James Markson and the Crimson Hawks is a fun swash and buckle adventure, with several twists and turns along the way.
Author Harry Heckel has been focused on his other projects this year, including work with Harper Voyager under his pen name of Jack Heckel (with his co-author John Peck). If you enjoyed Once Upon a Rhyme from Harper (on sale currently at 99 cents!), you may enjoy the drier humor of the Crimson Hawks. We’re in discussions with Harry on the second book in the Crimson Hawks series. Check in for excerpts.
Additionally, we’ve also reduced the price on Harry’s black powder dark…
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New York Comic Con 2014 Recap
Hi everyone,
I made it to New York Comic Con last weekend and did a panel on Not Your Mother’s Fairy Tales. It was an amazing time, and now, I’m going to try and give a good recap.
As I have a day job (and a new one at that), I wound up driving Friday evening to get close to Delaware from Virginia and then made my way into New York on Saturday. Bishop O’Connell, author of The Stolen (which I’m happy to say I’ve started and am enjoying), sent me a text before I reached the convention. It was good to have someone expecting me. I got out of my cab which was stuck in rainy New York traffic and tried to figure out where the entrance was to the Javits Center. There was a woman on the sidewalk in front of me in a Black Widow costume. An Avenger had to be going in the right direction, so I followed her and found the entrance.
Words don’t do the place justice. Just heading inside, there were SO many people, dressed in SO many costumes from anime to sci-fi to horror to superheroes. I had Jedi Knights on one side of me, the Doctor and Amy Pond on the other side and lots of Deadpools in front of me. Everywhere I looked, there was a spaceship or a dragon or a poster of something spectacular. I found the whole experience overwhelming. I texted Bishop to find out where I should go, but he replied that he was about to do a radio interview and that I should head to the Harper booth.
Nanowrimo is Coming!
It’s early October and I’m suddenly struck with that feeling. It’s coming. November, aka…
National Novel Writing Month.
50,000 words of total writing madness in 30 days, all the while dealing with everything that life throws at you. Plus, this year, I have an extra challenge or two – new book proposals and writing on Book 3 of the Charming Tales.
Part of me, the sane part of me, says “Don’t do it this year. You don’t have time. You can’t. Would you risk Charming for National Novel Writing Month?”
The crazy part of me, says “AHA! What a great story it would make if you succeeded!”
I’ve done it every year successfully since 2009. I certainly don’t want to stop now. I always tell people who want to try that whether you succeed in writing 50,000 words in a month or not, you will certainly have more words than you started. I believe that. When I first tried Nanowrimo, I failed utterly and ended with only 8,000 words or so. That failure eventually turned into Souls of the Everwood, my first Krueger novel.
Juggling Identities
As a writer, I’ve gone by three different names, Harry Heckel (my real name), Lee Lightner (when I collaborate with Jeff Smith) and most recently, Jack Heckel (when collaborating with John Peck). I’ve also considered writing in other genres and I have a few novels that if I ever sell, I may publish under yet more names. At the Baltimore Book Festival, I was asked how I keep track of my different selves, and I gave a short answer about being organized and branding, but I’m going to elaborate more here.
Today, writers have to do a lot of marketing. From writing blog posts like this one to keeping Twitter feeds going, to doing appearances and writing articles, it’s a lot of work. I keep recalling that fellow Harper Voyager author Bishop O’Connell told me (and I’m paraphrasing), “You’ve been published. Now the real work begins.” Read the rest of this entry
Happy October!
I can’t believe it’s October. September has flown by. I’ve changed companies in my day job, had lots of excitement with the release of Once Upon a Rhyme, and had to finish copyedits for Happily Never After. I also appeared at the SFWA tent at the Baltimore Book Festival. It was a great time and I really enjoyed talking to a number of great people, readers and writers alike. If anyone has found this blog as a result of reading Once Upon a Rhyme, thanks for checking it out.
October always makes me think of Halloween, so I thought I’d start the month by sharing some old writing. This was a short story that I wrote in my teenage years. For all the teenagers out there, keep writing, because you never know what might happen.
Harry Heckel 