Category Archives: Writing
Free E-Books Through March 9th
February went by in a blur. My apologies for not blogging, but I’ve been busy with work and rewrites. I keep having ideas on what to blog at all the wrong times.
Anyway, there is a promotion on Smashwords that runs through March 9 (this Saturday) which includes two of my books, In the Service of the King and Souls of the Everwood. If you create an account and enter RW100 on checkout, you can get them for FREE. I’ve linked them above and you should be able to search by title or author’s name. Free is good, especially for people who check my blog. These are only e-books and for a very limited time.
Additionally, a friend of mine, Brad A. White, has one of his books, Servant of the Muses, entered in the same promotion, and my good friend Wayland Smith has one of his books, In My Brother’s Name, about a terrorist attack on DC, on a 50% off promotion at the same site.
Everyone dealing with winter weather be careful out there.
All the best,
Harrry
Working on Charming
Hi everyone,
I had a great time at the Baltimore Book Festival. I hope to get to a full wrap up blog post, but there’s been a lot going on. First and foremost, I’ve been working on Charming which I’m planning to submit to Harper-Collins this weekend. There’s an excerpt in one of my earlier blogs. That’s pretty much what’s been happening in writing for me.
I’d like to give a shout out to my friend Phil Brucato who is attending Howl-Con, a con dedicated to all things werewolfish. If I were anywhere near Portland, OR, I’d love to go between Werewolf: The Apocalypse and my Space Wolves. Arrroooo!!!
As far as supporting Werewolf goes, I highly recommend anyone interested to check out Kickstarter for the 20th anniversary edition of Werewolf.
All the best,
Harry
More Baltimore Book Festival
Hi everyone,
A few more details about the Baltimore Book Festival. I’ll be at a panel on E-Publishing at noon on Saturday, then taking a break at 1pm before being on a panel on Crossing Genres at 2pm. Between 3pm and 4pm, I’ll be doing a reading for part of the time, probably from In the Service of the King, then at 4:30-5:30pm, I’ll be signing at one of the book sales tents. It’s a huge event, so I hope that maybe some old friends from Games Workshop, Other Realms or Dream Wizards might be able to come out.
Meanwhile, I’ve been juggling this week, working on Charming and Ashes and Cinders (Book 2 of the Crimson Hawks) while remembering that I have a superhero anthology I should be finalizing and feeling guilty about several fellow authors who deserve some feedback from me. I’m also getting more accustomed to writing on my laptop as my primary story creation tool, since my desktop is in desperate need of IT tech love.
Oh, and I’ve been writing a touch on my epic fantasy novel, The Lantern, because I’ve felt inspired. A friend of mine, fellow author Wayland Smith, once told me to write whatever I felt inspired to write. He’s a smart man who did a book on terrorists attacking Washington DC titled In My Brother’s Name. I’m going to have to dedicate a post to him before too long because I wouldn’t be an author without his direct intervention.
I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Harry
One of my favorite writers – Brad A. White
Hi everyone,
I’ve come across a number of authors getting started, and ages ago, I promised some people in the industry that I’d do my best to help promote other authors. So, I’m going to recommend the site of Brad A. White. He’s a fantastic new author who has started writing mythological noir.
That’s right, mythological noir. I didn’t make it up. He’s very good and has a second book that should come out before the end of the year. Here’s a link to his blog: Brad A. White.
While he prefers to work under a pseudonym, I have seen numerous examples of his work over the years in informal channels and if he can find the time to do more writing, I believe he’ll be very successful.
On a slightly related note, I’ve decided to start collecting a mythological Greek miniature army. I’m hoping it will be inspiration for another project. It seems that the Greeks may be coming my way.
Thanks,
Harry
Souls of the Everwood available in print!
Hi everyone,
I know it’s been a while. What happened to August?
Souls of the Everwood is now available in print on Amazon. Here’s the link. I really would love to see a review, so if anyone out there would like to do a review on Smashwords or Amazon, let me know. I might even be able to find a free copy. 🙂
In other news, I have a new day job starting in September. I’ve spent the last seven years with the same company, so it’s a pretty big deal to me. I think it’s a good time to make a change, but I’m going to miss everyone at my current job.
Additionally, a friend of mine, Wayland Smith, has also had his book about terrorists attacking the nation’s capital reach print. Congrats, Wayland! It’s a little out of genre for me, but I’m rather proud of him. His link is here.
Okay, back to work on Charming. I’m going to speak to my co-author about posting an excerpt soon.
All the best,
Harry
Camp Nanowrimo
So, as if I didn’t have enough to do with working on In the Service of the King and Souls of the Everwood, I’ve decided to participate in Camp Nanowrimo.
Nanowrimo is short for National Novel Writing Month which occurs every November. Participants are asked to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. I’ve participated since 2008 and both of my upcoming e-books were born there. Not only do they promote a more literary world, but they help support writing programs and educational programs for kids. Here’s their site: http://www.nanowrimo.org.
Camp Nanowrimo is basically the same thing, but set in June and August. I’m looking to jump start some of my fiction output, so I thought it would be a good challenge. That site is: http://www.campnanowrimo.org. I haven’t completely decided what to write, but I may finish my epic fantasy novel, The Lantern, or work on another in the Crimson Hawks series. I have my doubts about finishing, but it should be fun to try.
Please feel free to join me.
Thinking about Wolves
As I’m taking a break on working on In the Service of the King, I decided to do another blog post.
Looking up on my desk, there is a squad of Warhammer 40K Wolf Guard Terminators peering down at me (for those who don’t know, these are plastic one inch tall miniatures of the most heavily armored Space Marines the far future can muster.) Jeff Smith, my co-author when I’m writing as Lee Lightner, once said that there wasn’t a single scene that couldn’t be improved by adding a squad of Wolf Guard Terminators. I’m mostly sure he was joking, but they provide me a spark when I get stuck writing. I don’t want to let them down. After all, they could come off the shelf and shred me pretty easily.
I also have a small statue of a white wolf which my sister brought me from Alaska. He has his head back howling at the moon. He’s been with me since the beginning of my published career. I began my writing freelancing for White Wolf Game Studio, and I owe Bill Bridges and Andrew Greenberg for giving me a chance. My debt to Andrew’s brother Daniel, who mentored me, is far greater, but I’ll cover that story in a later post. Bill really took me under his wing in the early days of Werewolf: the Apocalypse. He sent a wonderful amount of work my way, and I did my best not to disappoint.
Although I wrote DC by Night for Vampire: the Masquerade and worked on several projects later on for Mage: the Ascension, I think most people at White Wolf identified me as a werewolf author. I had an online presence as SilvrFang on aol in those days, and several people knew me better as Silver than as Harry. I’m so thankful for those early morning hours that I spent wondering how a Garou would react to the modern world or what kind of spirits I might find lurking in city streets. It was only natural that when I started playing Warhammer 40K that I’d identify with Space Wolves.
Through a series of strange twists and turns, I found myself working at Games Workshop at age 29. That’s when I met Jeff Smith. He and I were on a sales team named the Blood Angels, another of the chapters of Space Marines that inhabit the 40K universe. Jeff was a senior salesman, something of a sergeant at arms. He was the best of the best, the highest grossing salesman in the world at the time. When our team leader sent him to ask me who my favorite Space Marines were (the expected answer was Blood Angels), I failed to show the proper loyalty and identified myself as a Space Wolf. Now, for anyone who has met Jeff or seen him pretend to be angry, this was an act that took some amount of courage. Of course, I suspect that our old team leader knew what I was going to say, and that answer started a bond between Jeff and myself, because well, Jeff Smith is a Space Wolf through and through.
Within a year, Jeff had his own team – the Space Wolves. There are still friends of mine from those days who refer to me as a Wolf Priest. I never believed Jeff when he told me that one day we might write a Space Wolf novel. I was wrong about that (well done, Jeff).
I can’t help but wonder if there’s a wolf totem from my werewolf days that helped guide me down that path. If nothing else, wolves have certainly inspired me and sparked my imagination. Now, I’m going to get back to writing. Something about those Terminators…
In the Service of the King
By the time mid-June comes around, I’m hopeful that In the Service of the King will be published, so I thought I’d take some time to write about it.
First of all, it’s a short book, around 50,000 words, originally created for National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) 2009. Since most traditional publishers prefer longer works of fantasy or science fiction, say a minimum of 80,000 words and up to even 200,000, it’s not a good fit for sending out to agents. I thought about trying to add words to it, but the story is complete as it is. I felt adding more would only dilute the pacing of the tale.
The size of the book reminds me of the old fantasy novels of my father’s which I discovered in our attic as a kid around ten years old. I remember reading Conan stories, along with Elric and a bevy of others all during the time I was discovering Dungeons & Dragons. Those were great books, and most of them weren’t more than 65,000 words. So, in some ways, I’m reaching back to my youth and a lot of my original inspiration.
In the Service of the King is the first novel about the Crimson Hawks, a mercenary company led by Captain James Markson, the narrator of the tale. I don’t normally write in first person, but I wanted to experiment for Nanowrimo, and something magical happened. I feel like I didn’t write the book as much as let Markson dictate it to me. Basically, he inherited a tidy sum of money from his father, a highwayman, and chose to invest it first in a bar, then in a mercenary company. What else could a young man want? Anyway, his company, the Crimson Hawks, is made up of the leftovers and unwanted of mercenary society. Fortunately, James has a gift for making people trust him.
Unfortunately, mercenary companies need contracts and money. So, when James receives a lucrative offer to help a king put down a rebellion, he can’t refuse it. Even if he knows that there’s something terribly wrong with it. Things get even worse when he stares into the gorgeous eyes of the leader of the uprising. Sometimes, mercenaries aren’t on the right side, but they still have to honor their contracts.
I think it’s a fun read (but I wrote it, so I’m biased) which one of my beta-readers called “unpredictably predictable.” As he said, you feel like you know what’s going to happen, but you never really know how it’s going to happen. So, please, if you have the chance, watch this space for the release of In the Service of the King, the first Crimson Hawks novel. I think you’ll enjoy it, and the second book isn’t far away.
Harry Heckel 