Harry Heckel's Blog

I can’t remember when I last did a blog here, which is a little sad, because I think the world could use a few more things to read. Okay, it looks like it was August 4, 2018. That’s a while.

I’m starting to get started once more. Hopefully, this is a good step in the right direction. I’ll start with a writing update.

First, I owe The Darkest Lord an apology. It is the final book in the Mysterium trilogy, and I did it a tremendous disservice on launch. Avery’s journey which began in The Dark Lord, and continued in The Darker Lord, finally came to its conclusion. In addition, it was the last Jack Heckel book from Harper Collins, so John Peck and I are currently looking at new publishing options.

The good news is that the reason we are looking at new publishing options has to do with the third book in the Charming series which we are working on tentatively titled, The Dragon and the Beanstalk. We’ve wanted to do a third Charming book for years, and we are both very happy to be working on it. We’ve also talked about putting out a collection of short stories based on the characters in the series.

There are a number of other half-finished and half-started projects as well, but it’s looking more and more like I’m finally turning my attention to Freedom Squad. I have four or five novels in various states for my superhero team, and I’m hopeful that the first may come out as early as Christmas 2021. More updates to come. Oh, and I’ve still been finishing nanowrimo each year, so there are three more novels that haven’t seen this blog in draft form.

As far as gaming goes, I have some possible news on the wargaming front, but I need to check on what I’m allowed to say.

I’m working on way too many miniature projects, which is why I can never get anything finished. I’ll try to highlight a few in the next couple of weeks and do some sharing. Painting has definitely helped over the last few years.

If you are still following this blog, thank you for your patience. I appreciate it immensely, and I’m going to try to write some fun and entertaining stuff in the next year. If you are new, welcome. I hope you find something that intrigues you.

A special thanks to everyone at the Virginia Writers Club. The Symposium helped get me to dust off my blogging keyboard.

Wishing everyone well in these challenging times and hoping the best is yet to come. Take care!

[image error]On July 24, the sequel to The Dark Lord, The Darker Lord, came out in ebook format, and on September 4, the paperback is released! I’ll be a guest at RavenCon 13.5 in Richmond, VA on September 21-23, and I’ll be doing a reading at one of my favorite places, Fountain Bookstore! Please come out and see me if you can!

If The Dark Lord was about our love of fantasy, science-fiction, roleplaying games, The Darker Lord delves a little more into fantasy and sci-fi literature. Like the first book, it contains lots of references, and at some point, we’ll have to do a complete list. It pokes fun at university life, but also deals with some more serious issues about how the sub-worlders are treated. There’s lots of humor, and Avery’s life doesn’t get any better. The Qwillery said that it was “darker” than The Dark Lord, but still lots of fun. 

Speaking of the Qwillery, they interviewed Jack Heckel (John and myself) on Twitter. We were using the Harper Voyager US account, and if you search for #darkerlordchat, you can find the whole interview. They did one for the first book #darklordchat, if you want to go back to the start of the series. They may be putting up the whole interview on their site in the next few days.

Writing the book was difficult because we went through an editor change (we loved both editors), and it has a touch of the middle book syndrome. When we return to Avery, he’s at a coffee shop in New York City reading The Dark Lord and failing to recall the end of the book. With Eldrin and Dawn’s encouragement, he tries to get himself together and teach his first class at Mysterium University, only to have Sam and Ariella from Trelari walk into class. Oh, and have the Mysterium send enforcers to question their admissions. What results is a chase that goes through the dread Student Records building and across dimensions, where a few old friends show up and a few old problems return. The end is a little bit of a cliffhanger, in the vein of Empire Strikes Back, we’ll answer them in The Darkest Lord out this winter.

I wanted to share a little text from The Darker Lord that we had to cut due to editing (in the words of Avery):

Take oil. What makes more sense, that millions of years ago gigantic lizard creatures died, got buried, and then over the millennia turned into a liquid that you could refine and burn as a fuel? Or, that a couple hundred years ago wizards from Mysterium found a way to tap into the magical flow lines of Terra, and to extract, purify, and embody that magical energy in liquid form?

And a bonus part:

People will often use the expression, “I jumped out of my skin” when they’ve been surprised by something. Taken literally, this expression is both ridiculous and impossible. Unless you’re a lizard-man or a poorly constructed zombie, most people simply don’t come detached from their skins that easily. Other than the chunk Harold’s claws nearly dug out my shoulder, my skin remained solidly attached to my body.

While those two didn’t make the novel, there’s lots of other fun insights in that vein.

Thank you for reading the books and following the blog! Please comment if you have any thoughts or questions. All the best!

 

 

 

 

 

Here we are at the end of 2017. Looking back, it’s been a long and strange journey, and while that is true of most years, this one had some transcendent moments and a lot of challenges.

When I started the year, I hoped to publish Freedom Squad, because way back in 1990, when I ran Champions adventures at American University, I set the world of Freedom Squad in the near future, 2017, to be exact. My friends and I had a wonderful year of superheroic gaming, and it seemed appropriate that Freedom Squad would enter the world of literature this year, but it wasn’t meant to be. That’s okay, because when the three and a half plus Freedom Squad novels are ready, I want to make sure they release the right way.

In 2017, I’ve struggled with blood sugar issues, and I’m feeling the impacts of my lack of exercise and the extra pounds I carry. It’s definitely impacted the writing, basically because I’ve been tired all year. For 2018, I encourage everyone to take little steps (or big ones) toward taking care of themselves. We live in a stressful world, and it’s easy to stop taking care of yourself.

[image error]Enough about the challenges, time for some positives about the year. First, beyond any of the writing, the highlight of the year was the eclipse. Viewing the total eclipse in Grand Island, Nebraska was worth every hour that I spent driving from Virginia to see it, and even the multiple hours of the return trip that day to Iowa City, which was probably the worst driving day of my life with standstill traffic and multiple accidents. I posted about it on Jack Heckel’s blog here. It was the closest that I believe I will ever come to feeling like I was on another planet. It reminded me that there is a vast and wonderful cosmos out there with forces at work far greater that we can conceive. I found it remarkably peaceful, and I enjoyed sharing the sense of wonder with everyone around us. There will be another total eclipse in the United States in 2024, and I strongly encourage everyone to see a total eclipse if they have the opportunity.

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Made it to #1!

On to writing, this was the year of The Darker Lord, the sequel to the The Dark Lord. John Peck and I received a contract for that book and the third in the trilogy, The Darkest Lord. We spent the first half of the year writing it and are currently working on editing. Reflecting back over the year, I realize that we should have spent more time promoting The Dark Lord, but we were fortunate enough to have the book made an Amazon Deal of the Day on Kindle. On May 26, The Dark Lord hit # 1 in Epic Fantasy on the Kindle store, so as Jack Heckel, I can legitimately say I’m a bestselling author.

[image error]I did some work in the world of miniatures as well, working for CMON on their Dark Age Miniatures Skarrd book. Unlike my PG-rated Jack Heckel stuff, this was decidedly darker, as I was writing about cybernetic cannibalistic mutants and their horrible practices. It brought me back to my White Wolf personal horror roleplaying writing.  I had fun writing about the Skarrd, and even had extra work added where I was able to write about a group in the game called the Blood Cult. They ended up being some of my favorites, and CMON liked my works, so I should be doing more work for them next year. The game has an extremely passionate fan base, and some of the best game mechanics for any game I’ve played. Dark Age is worth a look for anyone who is interested in a brutal sci-fi universe with solid skirmish plus battles. The book was released at GenCon 50, so although I wasn’t able to attend, I felt that I had a presence at the convention. GenCon has always has a special place in my heart as a roleplayer. One of my goals is to return in the next few years.

[image error]In the category of the totally unexpected, I was invited via Bishop O’Connell to participate in a faerie romance anthology. Although I was concerned about the impending edits for The Darker Lord, John and I agreed to write a novella. Invoking the power of Jack Heckel, we wrote The Holly and the Ivy for A Very Faerie Christmas. I was extremely pleased with how it came out as both of us stretched our writing muscles. It was similar to writing a novel, but in a couple of weeks instead of months. We survived our clashes of ideas, found our synergies and created something magical. In the anthology, we are joined by Bishop and five other amazing authors, all of who wrote PG-rated, Christmas romance stories with faeries and uplifting endings. The sum of the stories surpassed my expectations and reached many readers, achieving #1 on Kindle in Fantasy Anthologies. Two best-sellers in a year! It is now available in print as well as being an ebook and it should stay on sale until February. A beautiful and fun collection, it has made people laugh and cry and has enough variety to appeal to many different tastes. I’m hoping that its print run gets extended.

[image error]November marked my tenth year of trying to complete National Novel Writing Month. It started out miserably, and I had barely any words after the first week. I had tried to add to a previous project, Son of Helios, but despite wanting to write about the ancient world, I couldn’t find my muse. Events at work were stressful, and I had my fatigue issues, so I considered giving up. At some point, I thought I had accepted that this year wasn’t going to happen. However, I hadn’t counted on a team of real life superheroes. A good friend of mine at work talked to me about my situation. I explained to him that I couldn’t figure out what to write. He simply told me to write Freedom Squad and stop agonizing. He knew that at any day, at any time, I could always write about superheroes. (Thank you, Terry!) Another friend started texting to check up on me, and let me know that she believed in me. My daughter and my wife also agreed that I would succeed, especially since Nano had a superhero theme. In the end, Freedom Squad: Uprising reached 50,000 words. Rigel, you deserved it, and thank you, my friends and family. Next year I’ll attempt ten years in a row of success completing Nano. I’m going to try and plan in advance so I don’t have to play catch-up. And Freedom Squad, I’ll do my best to get you into print this year.

[image error]My last project of this year also caught me from out of the blue. One of my all-time favorite miniature games is Wargods of Aegyptus. I love the world, I love the miniatures, the game mechanics are great, and the owner of the company is a fantastic guy. It hits my love of pulp fantasy, my history degree with a specialization in ancient studies and my love of painting miniatures. When I was asked to write for Wargods of Olympus, I wasn’t sure how I would find the time with my other commitments, but for me, this was a necessity, a dream come true. I’m glad to say that I was able to add to the Antediluvian Age, and I hope to get some chances to do more in the future. My Beloved of Sobek sat on my computer to inspire me, and I’m very happy about the results. If you love ancient miniatures and fantasy, please check out Crocodile games.

I have some great memories on the writing front from 2017. At RavenCon 2017, I met one of my heroes, the incomparable author of the Valdemar series (and so much more), Mercedes Lackey and her husband, fantasy artist and author, Larry Dixon. They were both remarkable people, and I only regret that a mix of promises and social anxiety prevented me from spending more time with them. I participated in a James River Writers Writing Show. They are an amazingly supportive group, and I hope to do more with them next year. My first ConCarolinas was amazing. I had such a fantastic time, and I definitely want to go back. Finally, Richmond Young Writers invited me to teach a number of aspiring authors about fairy tales in July. I found the experience absolutely wonderful. There were so many talented young people in that room. I’m looking forward to reading all of your novels in the future. I also met another young aspiring author at a work gathering this year, and if she’s reading this, keep writing.

As for today, I’m back to working on The Darker Lord. Hopefully, John and I can guide Avery Stewart through the dangers of Mysterium University and introduce a new villain or two to the series. I’m planning on revisiting the Hawks, Krueger, and Freedom Squad this year, and I haven’t forgotten Charming or my epic fantasy, The Lantern. Perhaps 2018 will be the year that I finally find an agent. I’ll be giving a seminar on fantasy at the Agile Writer’s Conference on January 27th, and I’m looking forward to the Hanover Book Festival in April. I’m sure there will be so much more.

Happy New Year to everyone! And thank you, 2017!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I write this, midnight approaches on the East Coast of the United States, bringing with it the month of November, or for me, National Novel Writing Month. During this month, also known as Nanowrimo, I will attempt to write 50,000 words along with several thousand other people. I’ve successfully managed the task every year since 2009, but each year brings its own unique challenges.[image error]

If you’d like to join us in the attempt, please go to www.nanowrimo.org. When you sign up, you gain access to tons of support, from fellow authors to organized writing events in your area, to the website’s own tracking system. Three of my indy novels, In the Service of the King, Souls of the Everwood, and Balefire and Brimstone, were all written during past Novembers. The wonderful thing is that whether you finish or not, you’ll be closer to a completed novel than when you started. Souls of the Everwood was started in 2008, and I failed to write 50,000 words that year. While I only managed 8,000 words, I still ultimately completed the book. More importantly, I learned how much was happening in my life which didn’t help my writing, and how to make more time to write. If you have lots of ideas, there’s never enough time to write. I look on the entire endeavor as a chance to clean house on my writing efforts and become more disciplined and organized. If you’ve been looking for a good excuse to finally write that novel, please consider National Novel Writing Month. It’s a tough but great experience.

My first challenge will be to figure out exactly what I’m writing in the next 45 minutes. I’ll let all of you know on this blog in the next day or so.

As for other updates, I’m still working on freelance projects in the gaming industry, and I recently finished a novella as part of the Jack Heckel writing team. It’s a Christmas story, and I’ll post more about it in the next few days. The Darker Lord and The Darkest Lord are my two big projects, and I’m looking forward to seeing both of those published next year. Fans of the Charming series, please recommend the books to your friends or consider picking up The Pitchfork of Destiny if you haven’t. The more sales we have, the better the chance of getting to write more books in the series.

Happy November to everyone!

 

 

 

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Mister M with the munching mouth and Mr. T with the Tall Teeth (not the gold chains)

I don’t remember as much about kindergarten as I’d like, but for the most part, what I do remember is good. My teacher was phenomenal. She made me feel like I could do anything, and nicely explained when I asked why I couldn’t call her Jane. Mister M with the munching mouth was also a highlight, along with the rest of the letter people. I had a few embarrassing moments that I’ll leave off the internet, but one thing I do remember is my favorite song – Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell. (It beat out Up, Up and Away by the 5th Dimension and Top of the World by the Carpenters.)During an odd bout of nostalgia and self-reflection brought on by multiple deadlines and the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, I decided to listen to the song again. In 1975, all I could sing was “Like a rhinestone cowboy, riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo…” If you want to read the lyrics, here they are as per Google.

I was surprised that the song resonated with me over forty years later. There’s one section in particular:

Well, I really don’t mind the rain

And a smile can hide all the pain

But you’re down when you’re ridin’ the train that’s takin’ the long way

And I dream of the things I’ll do

With a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe

There’ll be a load of compromisin’

On the road to my horizon

But I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me

 

Of course, I associated the lyrics with my writing. It’s been such a long road trying to be a writer. I feel guilty about neglecting my wife and my daughter. I wonder about what my neighbors think about the condition of my lawn. I collect twenty dollar royalty checks and sacrifice precious vacation time to keep chasing my dream. I see cool query contests on Twitter, and I wonder if I will ever find an agent. I even calculate how many books I can write in a year, and I’ve determined that unless I learn how to hit the accelerator, I’ll never write all the ones that I want to write unless I live to 200.

After all that thought, I wrote over 1500 words of The Darker Lord today.

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I have a bad feeling about this…

I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately, working on The Darker Lord along with some freelance projects, and I have due dates in May and June. It’s been a crazy few months, and there are still other obligations, like my day job, being a Dad and obstacles like allergy season.

Still, one of the biggest obstacles I face is that feeling I get when I sit down and have to write. It’s a little like the picture to the left. I’m staring at my equivalent to the Death Star, a blank page.

It’s a terrifying experience which I think every writer has. Sometimes, you wonder who you are and where these ideas come from and are they any good? You do things even when you start writing and ask, “Should I have put a question mark at the end of the last sentence or a period?” You could even go through this entire sequence of events in your head where everyone wakes up, realizes that your writing is terrible, and you are laughed at ceaselessly.

I want you to know that it’s okay. Just write. It’s simple advice and you can find it all over, but it works. As soon as that blank page is filled with something, it gets easier. You can add to it or subtract from it or rewrite it a dozen times. In the Service of the King (A Crimson Hawks Adventure), started with a simple idea and became a two page short story that I wrote when I was twenty. I wrote the novel nineteen years later, so you never know what might happen.

All writers are afraid or nervous, but get started typing or writing with a pen and fill the page. It helps.

If you have the chance this weekend, April 28-30, please come see me at RavenCon in Williamsburg, VA. It should be a great time.

I’ll be be getting back to The Darker Lord now. All the best!

I’ve spent 2017 buried in writing The Darker Lord, the sequel to Jack Heckel’s The Dark Lord. It has been a tremendous amount of fun, along with a tremendous amount of effort. Due in part to that and a number of other things, I’m a bit behind on blogging. However, if you are interested in catching up, I’ll be attending the James River Writers’ March Writing Show as one of their panelists. It should be a tremendous time and a great opportunity to meet a number of talented authors. Please click here for all the details.

Happy 2017!

First, I want to apologize to everyone who checks this blog. I have done a terrible job of blogging over the last two and a half months. Part of it was my day job, part of it was a nasty cold that lingered forever, and a lot of it was writing. Oh and there were some holidays…

[image error]So, the biggest news is that The Dark Lord is out in paperback! When John Peck and I wrote The Dark Lord, it was a shift for us from the fractured fairy-tales of The Charming Tales to a parody of epic fantasy. Probably our smartest decision was to put in as many references to geek culture as we felt the story could take, from Star Wars and Star Trek to World of Warcraft, Wizard of Oz, Lord of the Rings and a plethora of Dungeons & Dragons to boot. In addition, there’s what we believe is a pretty good fantasy story with some strong arcane mechanics behind it.

I’m hoping to do a launch party in February or March, though I need to remember to contact my favorite independent bookseller, Fountain Bookstore and coordinate efforts. We decided not to do a launch celebration in December due to the holidays.

Currently, John and I are working on the next two books in the series…The Darker Lord and The Darkest Lord, and we will let the world know release dates when we do. If they are half as much fun to read as they have been to write, we’ll be doing well.

I’ve got two big events in April. First, there’s the Hanover Book Festival on April 22, 2017 where I will join about 50 authors selling my books, doing signings, and meeting with readers at the Richmond Times-Dispatch building off 301 near Richmond, Virginia. I will also have a short story in the Hanover Writer’s Club anthology which should be on sale there. If possible, I may have the release of one of my Blue Oranda titles as well.

The following weekend, I’ll be in Williamsburg as a guest at RavenCon for the third year in a row. Mercedes Lackey, one of my favorite authors, is the guest of honor, and we should have a fantastic time. I’ll be doing a number of panels, although I’m not sure I’ll have a table. As we get closer, I’ll come up with something fun if you find me there.

Anyway, my apologies for going dark on social media. It’s been a bit overwhelming juggling the writing and life, but I think I’m back on the right track (no pun intended). I did complete Nanowrimo again, although it was a bit of a train wreck due to a freelance commitment, which I also completed. I definitely need to edit those 50,000 words before I share too much.

Thank you for visiting my blog!

All the best,

Harry

 

On November 1st, The Dark Lord, which I co-authored with John Peck under our joint penname of Jack Heckel (Wonder Twin powers, activate!), will be released as an ebook. It’s the start of a new series, unrelated to A Fairy-tale Ending and The Pitchfork of Destiny. It shares a sense of humor with The Charming Tales, but overall, it has a different tone, a touch darker and slightly more serious. The novel parodies epic fantasy, much in the same way our first series has fractured fairy tales.

In the book, Avery Stewart, grad student at Mysterium University, has assumed the identity of the Dark Lord on the sub-world of Trelari, a world similar to Middle-Earth, Azeroth, the Forgotten Realms, Krynn, the world of the Belgariad or any of a number of other fantasy novel settings. His purpose is to cause the Heroes of the Age to unite to defeat him, basically inoculating the world from evil, like a vaccine causing the body to protect itself from disease. Everything goes well, and with a few days to go, he leaves his experiment running. When an undergrad, Vivian, steals the key to Trelari’s reality, Avery has to go back to Trelari to set things right. The problems? His only ally is his roommate who made a boardgame out of his dissertation. Without the key to reality, he has to follow the rules of the sub-world, which means, among other things, going to a bar and recruiting a group of adventurers. The final problem? He’s allied with the same heroes who fought him as the Dark Lord.

And that’s not to mention dark riders, gelatinous slimes, golems, trolls, gnolls, and a plethora of traps… and more.

A lot of the inspiration for The Dark Lord goes back to my early days of playing Dungeons & Dragons. Fantasy novels have plenty of influence as well, but when I was about 10 years old, I fell completely in love with roleplaying games. My first game was a boxed version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons with a red dragon on the cover. Inside was a blue book, and inside that was magic!

After drawing massive dungeons on giant sheets of graph paper and throwing waves of 1st to 3rd level characters at them, I graduated to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st edition. I spent more time reading that Dungeon Master’s Guide than any other roleplaying book I have ever owned. As I roleplayed, I discovered various strange things in the game, little weird behaviors from players and odd bits caused by game mechanics. When game editions changed, I almost always tried to convert or grandfather older characters into the new rules. This led to even more weirdness. The Dark Lord was inspired by all of these little things and the amusement they caused, from encumbrance to wandering monsters. If orcs live in this set of caves with ten foot wide corridors, wouldn’t a wandering dragon eat them, get stuck in the corridors or dramatically widen the halls? Why do almost all of the magical weapons happen to be swords? Who built all those dungeons, and why would monsters choose to live there? And as far as treasure, who the heck did they steal all that gold from?

I was fascinated with dungeon modules, books that contained settings and quests and served as examples of how to create a good adventure. In my first D&D box, there was a module titled Keep on the Borderlands. My group played with that module, cutting it up, changing it around and reusing it more times than I could count. It had a castle, a wilderness and a set of caves known as the Caves of Chaos which I think contained every form of humanoid monster imaginable. Okay, actually, it didn’t have every kind, but for a teenager, it was pretty full. There were orcs, goblins, bugbears, hobgoblins and I even recall a minotaur. If my memory is failing me, then forgive me, because it’s hard to recall what was actually there and what we modified to throw into it. I may have to do a blog on that all on its own. However, we took some elements of those old modules and put them into The Dark Lord as well. Without giving too much away, if you ever suffered through the Tomb of Horrors, you will enjoy the novel.

If you are reading this and thinking, wait, do I have to have lived through the 80’s to appreciate The Dark Lord? The answer is definitely no. However, this book is  Jack Heckel’s love letter to epic fantasy and roleplaying games, including the online variety such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft. If you’ve never read Lord of the Rings or watched the movies and haven’t played any fantasy roleplaying games or wargames of any sort EVER, there are jokes that you will miss. I can’t imagine that any one reading this hasn’t been exposed to Harry Potter however.

There’s a little bit of metagaming inspiration as well with life at the Mysterium University. John Peck and I met at American University and were members of the AU Gaming Horde. There are a number of references to life in our dorms and a few bits from characters that other students played in my campaign and truthfully, from some of the students themselves. Eldrin’s penchant in the novel for setting up wargames and playing them by himself or taking them down was definitely one of my traits. I still do that. Hmmm…

If you have ANY questions about The Dark Lord, please comment below and I’ll be glad to answer.

All the best!

Harry

 

 

 

Hi everyone! Today we have a special guest, Liana Brooks, author of the Time & Shadows trilogy. She’s one of our fellow Harper Voyager Impulse authors, and her third book, DECOHERENCE, wa…

Source: Once Upon a Time with… Liana Brooks!