Friday, April 29th, 2011  I got sucked into the whole Royal Wedding Thing this morning, prompted by the fact that I wanted to see Kate Middleton’s dress.
As I was watching, I got to thinking about hands.
Kate’s hands were in the focus of the camera a lot, because she was waving, of course, and then there was that wedding ring bit. I was quite surprised to see how plain they were. Like the dress and the jewels and the tiara, I expected a little more pomp.
Here’s a close up of the ring ceremony. The angle’s not great, but you can see that Kate’s got blunt nails and little polish on them if any. I had an earlier impression of her having bit them down to nubs, but I think this disproves me. Still, her nails are short and to the point, yes?
Here’s a close-up of my own hands the morning of my wedding – those talons are real, btw, no fakes for me. (I couldn’t bear to waste my time in a salon – and besides, I think typing makes them stronger.)
So, what do Kate’s hands say about her? That she can’t be bothered at all? That she’d rather spend her time doing something else? That she can’t bear to spend her time in salon?
What about the photos to the left? Old hands at the top surely evoke a story. Robot hands must make something come to mind. My favorite are those working on the engine. When I get my hands dirty, I take off my rings. Not these fellows. What does that say about them?
Here’s Your Prompt: Study the hands around you. Look at the hands of mothers and policemen and construction workers. Peer at artists’ hands and those of teachers and nurses. Look at your own hands!
Do these hands reveal the vocation or hobby of their owners or not? Does the mechanic you know carefully remove any hint of grease from his nails before he comes home from the shop? Does the artist strip all the paint off or leave it on? Whose hands are dry and cracked, old and worn, nicked and cut?
Now, write a scene or memoir or even non-fiction about a person who’s interesting feature is his hands. Describe them, and why they’re significant — but don’t keep all the description in a large single paragraph. Work in bits of description and significance between the story: show us how these hands are important without telling us all at once. Keep the tension by gradually revealing the story bit by bit.
Saturday, November 13th, 2010 Tangent posted an in-depth review of Bad Ass Fairies 3: In all Their Glory, and had some really nice things to say about my story, Selk-Skin Deep:
“Selk-Skin Deep” by Kelly A. Harmon is a very well-written, harrowing story of an accident that didn’t have to happen aboard an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam war. The selkie uses his advantage to try and save the ship and its crew. Ms. Harmon has written an action packed, suspenseful account of a naval battle with a poignant ending.
 I’m pleased to hear it. There have been a few other reviews, and they’ve been good, but no one’s singled out my story. Of course, the Tangent reviewer mentioned all the stories, but I can’t help feeling a happy glow from what she said.
If you’re interested, I’ve got permission to post the first five pages of the story. You can read it here. Warning: it ends abruptly in the middle of the scene!
 You can read the entire story in the anthology, which just happens to be an EPIC Finalist. (Winners will be announced in March. With a little luck, I’ll be changing this “finalist” icon to a “winner” icon some time in the next few months.)
If you’re at all curious about the Bad Ass Faeries™ series, you need to check out the new Bad Ass Fairies Web site. There’s an associated blog as well.
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 Inspired by Susan Adrian, who was herself inspired by Scott Tracey, I’m posting a little snippet of a story I wrote a while back.
It’s a “coming of age” tale of a unicorn and a young girl. I’d written it for a proprietary world anthology (hence the brackets around the generic city name), but the editors disbanded the idea of the anthology without going to print.
Here’s the beginning…
Süchender bent his long-maned head to the black, rich earth of the forest and dug a small trench with his horn. Boredom more than any purpose drove him to dig the hollow, yet he couldn’t help but enjoy the odor of the fresh-turned soil. Even in this harsh place, on the outskirts of [the evil city], small signs of beauty could be found.
And beauty is what he sought– his own.
At nearly three years of age he should have reached full-maturity. But his dappled coat belied that and prevented him from joining the others during the mating season in the fall. Large, dark birthmarks still peppered his dun-colored hide, the same as all immature unicorns. Only good deeds might erase his spots, brighten his dull gray coat to white, and allow his magic to emerge.
He turned his head and rubbed his sullied horn against a hoof-sized birthmark on his left shoulder. The dirt-stain lay hidden beneath the dark blemish, but the gray coat surrounding the spot now bore the filthy scruffs.
He huffed, letting out a weary sigh, and wondered not for the first time if there were anything he could do to demonstrate his worthiness.
Süchender resumed his digging, using his horn like a spade: stabbing the ground, turning his head to catch the soil in the conch-like twists of his horn, then flinging the dirt aside before stabbing again–until a round, black berry landed neatly in the soil beside his nose.
He froze, noticing a muddy pair of boot-clad feet and ankles standing within his view just across the small clearing.
Then he realized he couldn’t move at all.
Paralyzed by the lasso-berry’s magic, he had no choice but to keep his horn in the ground and his hooves firmly planted in the loamy soil. He cursed himself for a fool, so engrossed in his digging that he didn’t think to keep a watchful eye for danger. Accustomed to the protection of the herd, he hadn’t given it a passing thought.
He had no protection against this witch or her sorcery, but at least the pleasant smell of the fresh-turned soil covered most of her foul stench. Of course, if the scent of new earth had not masked the warning of her pungent odor, he would have discerned it long ago, and retreated.
Instead, he stood there, withers shaking, while she stalked around him, pacing counter-clockwise. Her broken fingernails scratched against his hide as her rough hand caressed down his flank and over his croup. She pulled his tail as she rounded him, and came to a stop in front of his nose.
If he owned magic enough to discern her virginity, her touch would have comforted him. But he hadn’t even power to detect that–though he knew she must be untouched. How else could the witch see him, let alone capture him? No animal-mage had the power to feign virginity.
This close, he could smell the fullness of her witchy musk. Perhaps if she bathed once in a while, her smell might not be quite so offensive. He sneezed as she moved closer, her odor irritating.
“I have you now,” she said, bending to retrieve her berry.
She touched it to his forelock, directly above his horn, and muttered a spell. His muscles thawed, and he raised his head, shaking it about to remove the stiffness.
She was young, he noticed. No warts. Perhaps she was out to earn her first one.
Monday, September 13th, 2010 
Drollerie Press just announced the cover of their upcoming anthology, “Hellebore and Rue.” Isn’t it gorgeous? I love the eye-catching color of the woman’s hair on the stark black, white and gray background.
The anthology is due out in mid-October…and I’ve got a story in it!
(And, look! My name’s on the cover!)
My story, Sky Lit Bargains, is about a woman who is forced to leave her home or face the repeated, escalating sexual advances of her new brother-in-law. Trained for warfare, rather than domesticity, Sigrid crosses the channel to her Uncle Gervais’ keep and makes a bargain with him to kill the wyvern plaguing his lands. Her plans go awry when she’s followed by her best friend (and sorceress) and her brother-in-law’s guards…
I’ll post an excerpt once I get a go-ahead from Drollerie.
Here’s the Table of Contents (TOC):
“Counterbalance” by Ruth Sorrell
“Trouble Arrived” by C.B. Calsing
“Personal Demons” by Jean Marie Ward
“The Windskimmer” by Connie Wilkins
“Sky Lit Bargains” by Kelly A. Harmon
“Gloam” by Quinn Smythwood
“Witches Have Cats” by Juliet Kemp
“D is for Delicious” by Steve Berman
“And Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness” by Lisa Nohealani Morton
“Bridges and Lullabies” by Rrain Prior
“Thin Spun” by Sunny Moraine
“A State of Panic” by Rachel Green
Read more about Hellebore and Rue.
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010  I had lunch with a good friend yesterday and she asked me about my novel WIP. I was going to give her my elevator pitch until I remembered she has a Masters in Literature.
So I started telling her about my protagonist who is upstanding, moral, and ethical – and who lives by a set of personal rules of honor that isolate him from others: he lacks a core group of friends and also lives apart from the main community.
He’s flawed of course, and much of the making of his rules stems from a troubled history. I won’t bore you with the details.
After I explained my protagonist, I told my friend all the things I did to him:
- made him honor-bound to escort a group of women he abhors back to their home through dangerous territory
- had him kill one of those women as he tries to help them
- required him to obtain a drug that has been declared illegal (and didn’t tell him it’s illegal)
- made him fight the militia – who inform him the drug is illegal – in order to escape and maintain possession of the drug
- tricked him into promising to help a thief, who helps him flee the militia
- had him declared an outlaw and put a price on his head
And this is only in the first three chapters!
As I sat there ticking off the ordeals I put him through, I was reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Creative Writing 101” rules, number six of which is:
Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
My main character holds himself apart from everyone else, and tends to think in black in white. By putting all these obstacles in his path — and making him do things he clearly doesn’t want to do — he learns that there are many shades of gray. He’s got to learn to loosen up his personal rules before he snaps.
It’s this learning process which makes the book interesting. And it’s the obstacles that make it so exciting – and so fun to write, too!
Is your story suffering from a lack of excitement? Is your character staid or boring? Be a sadist! Put your characters in interesting and dangerous situations. Make him work. Take away the easy: make all of his desires difficult to obtain.
All you writers out there: how have you been a sadist? What kinds of things have you made your characters do?
In case you’re interested, here is more information on Kurt Vonnegut’s Rules.
Friday, July 16th, 2010 My alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. Static, rather than rock-n-roll greeted my morning. Moments later, the bed began vibrating. The entire house shook, making a noise like heavy rain on the roof – only amplified a dozen times.
According to the US Geological Survey, an earthquake measuring 3.6 had struck the Potomac-Shenandoah Region.
The vibrations ceased about eight seconds later, and the morning silenced. I found it an exhilarating way to start the day!
Nifty, eh? Here’s a handy map:
I probably wouldn’t think so highly of this morning’s occurrence if it had rocked the house so much that all the glassware broke. It’s only the second earthquake I’ve experienced. Scoff all you want, westerners… earthquakes are rare on the East Coast.
According to USGS:
Earthquakes in Maryland and Northern Virginia are uncommon but not unprecedented. The earthquake on July 16th, 2010 occurred in a part of the Eastern Seaboard that is less seismically active than central Virginia, New England, and the area surrounding New York City… Earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains, although less frequent than in the West, are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast.
We were lucky. The quake was mild. Nothing broke. Just a bit of fun to liven the morning. But what if it hadn’t been?
Here’s your prompt:
Write about a single person or a few tight friends caught up in a natural disaster. It could be a landslide, a flood, an earthquake…anything. But stretch: pick a disaster uncommon to the area you live in. How did it start? Was your character the instigator? (That is, did someone throw a pebble that caused a landslide? Or toss a lit cigarette that caused a wildfire?) How do they feel about causing the situation? Do they even know they caused it? Are lives at stake? Or homes, schools and businesses? How does your character escape? What has he lost during the situation? What has he gained?
Make the stakes high in order to ramp up the tension, but don’t kill off your character. (That’s too easy.)
Sunday, April 25th, 2010 Kaye Manro featured me on her blog last week (Thanks again, Kaye!) discussing the Five Things I Wish I Knew About Writing…but the post was edited to a much shorter version. Yeah, it was long, and of course I added my own advice. Nonetheless, I’ve decided to post it here just in case I’ve said something which might help someone else.
Please comment and let me know what you think.
Five Things I Wish I Knew About Writing Before I Got Started
1. Selling books is a commercial occupation. If I wanted to be published, I needed to focus on the end product.
That probably sounded like a business pitch, but I’ve learned that if I wanted an agent or editor to consider my manuscripts, I needed to get serious about the business of writing, rather than the process of it.
I recently heard someone say, “Writing is a journey, but publishing is a goal.” I agree completely. I could have saved years on my writer’s journey if I’d established goals from the beginning, and planned the way to achieve those goals.
My advice: Set specific, achievable goals. Take the time to detail the steps needed to achieve those goals. Set a deadline and start crossing the steps off your list.
2. I’m Not Just a Writer, I’m a Marketer, and …
I’m a publicist, and a webmaster and a researcher, and a bookkeeper, and a teacher, and I wear a slew of other hats, too. I used to think that as a writer, I could write the story, polish it, and then mail the manuscript off to my agent or editor. He or she would then take care of the business of the book and leave me alone to write my next manuscript.
Gone are the days of the author existing in his garret–if they ever existed at all.
The job doesn’t end when you hand off the manuscript. You’ve got to market it, publicize it and keep records about it. If you write short fiction or non-fiction pieces, you’ll have to track submissions and queries. You have to make sure you’re paid on time, the agreed upon amount, and pay your taxes quarterly.
My advice: First, get organized, using whatever system works for you. You won’t be able to do all these tasks well, but you’ll be able to do them competently if you’re organized. Second, see if you can trade or split some of these tasks (book-keeping, anyone?) with another writer friend who has just such a knack. Also: publicity costs are less if you split them with someone else, and you’ll draw crowds larger than you can on your own.
3. Marketing A Book is a Whole Lot Tougher Than It Sounds…
…especially if you don’t know anything about marketing. (I didn’t, especially how time consuming it would be.) I did know that I would have to market my own book, and I knew that would be true even if my book were published by a large, traditional publishing house. But I didn’t think that there would be some days, in fact –some weeks– where I would do nothing but marketing, and not be able to write.
I recently read that a writer should expect to spend two hours a day just on marketing. Techno-Marketer Matt Dickman (http://technomarketer.typepad.com/technomarketer/) breaks it down into three phases:
∙ Listening: reading your feeds, checking your Google alerts, watching your twitter, etc.
∙ Engaging: monitoring conversations on the Web which you may be involved in, and answering/commenting in as real time as possible.
∙ Discovering: finding new blogs to read, new twitter feeds to follow, etc.
And Dickman’s advice doesn’t address traditional marketing venues: press releases to newspapers, radio spots, etc.
My Advice: When you’ve finished your book and you’re ready to send it to agents, do some research on marketing. Make a plan (sound familiar?) for how and where you’re going to market–do your research here. Be thorough. Once the contract is signed (earlier, if you can!), begin marketing. Lay the groundwork for a huge marketing push in the weeks before your book debuts. Starting early saves time in the long run, and will allow you to keep writing during the process. In the beginning, expect to spend more than two hours a day marketing.
4. I Need a Platform (Yes: Fiction Writers, Too)
Two years ago, I’d never even heard the word platform. Now, I know that a platform is a writer’s ability to promote his book. It’s a level of credibility that resonates with the buying public.
It used to be that publishers only looked for platforms from authors of non-fiction, whose platforms are relatively easy to build. For example, a registered-dietician has a built-in platform to write a diet book. She’s got an education and work experience in the field.
If you write fiction, platform may be harder to determine unless, for example, you really are a vampire and you write vampire novels.
My Advice: Your online presence will be a large part of your platform. Start a Web site or a blog, join some social networks, begin building a community. Strong platforms are built on niches. Explore your talents for something you can capitalize on. An excellent resource on platform creation is “Get Known before the Book Deal” by Christina Katz.
5. I Need to Be Able to Tell My Story in 30 Seconds or Less
A plethora of information exists on the web about how to prepare a manuscript for submission, how to write query letters, how to write a synopsis. How to write.
But there’s not much to be found about pitching your novel.
Yet, if you’re serious about getting published, I believe you’ll find more opportunities to speak about your novel, then you will to mail it away for review. You could sign up for a pitch session during a conference, or bump into an agent at a convention. You could, very literally, find yourself in an elevator with a bonafide editor, who wants to hear your elevator pitch.
Once, I was introduced to an agent by someone in my critique group. “What do you write?” he asked. Here was the perfect opportunity for a pitch…and I wasn’t ready.
My Advice: Be prepared to briefly describe the plot and the main characters of your story. Make certain it’s succinct. Rehearse it out loud and be prepared to make changes: some things sound differently when spoken aloud.
Pitch it to your family, your peers and your critique group–anyone who will listen– and ask for criticism–not just on how you presented, but on the content of the pitch. Have you hit the high points? Are you adding too much detail? Work it out until you’re satisfied it’s perfect.
Practice until you can make the pitch without mistakes.
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 Not much action on the blog lately. Are you feeling it? My fiction production has taken a downturn, too.
Spring is in the air, and despite the length of my to-do list, (or maybe because of it) I’m having a hard time staying focused.
Anyone else having that problem? I’d rather be hiking than writing these days (hell, after all the snow we’ve had this season, just sitting in a sunbeam is enough to make me giddy. I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse.)
Knowing I can be such a slacker when the weather gets nice, I’ve put together some strategies to help maintain productivity:
- Make a “Must Do” List. I usually keep two running “to do” lists. Today, I have 27 items on my “writing” to do list and 26 on my “other.” I’m going to choose the top five writing items I absolutely have to get done in the next week or so and concentrate on those. I’ll put the list on a sticky note and attach it right to my monitor.
- Break Up the Work This probably seems counter-productive, especially if you work full-time as I do: I get little time to write during the week days: not enough to break up. But during the weekend it’s my usual M.O. to spend hours at the keyboard to make up for lost time. If I set finite goals, and a deadline, I might be able to accomplish just as much as if I’d been staring at the monitor all day.
- Work on the “Bad Stuff” First. For me, that mean’s tackling the non-fiction items on my list. I’d rather be working on my novel. With that goal in mind, I’m hoping I can whip out the non-fiction faster and move on to fiction. (I’m fairly confident I can accomplish this since I used to be a reporter…) Afterward, writing fiction should feel like a reward.
- And Speaking of Rewards… If I get everything done on my list before the deadline, I plan to reward myself with something. Something outdoor-sy like a a hike or a long walk or even a long drive…something out.
How do you stay focused?
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
I took this photo on Christmas day.
I call it, “Overkill.” At least twenty-four blow-up decorations can be counted from this angle.
I love it, because it shows so much energy and excitement for the season. The exuberance behind it just makes me laugh. At the same time, I realize it’s just too much.
The theory can be applied to writing, especially journalistic writing. (Remember, “Just the facts, ma’am.” ?)
A news story answers only the whos, whats, when’s and wheres. Follow-up news stories might contain the hows. If it’s more in depth, the whys might be explored.
Whatever you do, don’t offer your own opinion or theory (although you might quote someone else’s) and don’t resort to language greater than one-syllable words unless the word you’re using has no alternative.
In other words, use “red” and not “vermillion”. Do use the word cytosol instead of saying, “that jelly-like substance between cells.”
More on how to write a news story in another post.
There’s plenty of overkill in fiction, too. It’s best to “kill your darlings” if you find yourself writing too much.
Spare, elegant writing is usually better than ornate, dazzling words. When I see writing like that, all I can think is that the writer cared more about showing off his knowledge (“Look at how many big words I know!”) than about telling a good story.
I find in my own writing it’s the prose that seemed to flow so freely — when it feels like my muse is sitting on my shoulder and whispering the words right into my brain — that I’ve got to review it for probable “overwriting.”
I’m getting good at not allowing it to appear on the page at all, but sometimes it sneaks in. New writers are especially fond of overwriting…especially if they are aspiring literary artists.
Here’s an example. Start with a perfectly good sentence:
Jane walked through the park, pushing the stroller.
But what about the park? We haven’t really described it in any detail…
Jane walked through the 250-acre, half-wooded park, past the duck pond where children and old men alike paused to throw breadcrumbs, where July sunshine beamed down on the water bouncing light around, pushing the stroller.
It’s getting there, (if a bit awkward) but we don’t know anything about the situation from Jane’s point of view, do we? This sentence is about her, after all. Her and the baby, right? Let’s put some emotion into it. And when you’re done, you’ve got a fantastically overwritten sentence.
Jane happily walked through the 250-acre, half-wooded park, past the duck pond where children and old men alike paused to throw breadcrumbs, where July sunshine beamed down on the water bouncing light around, pushing the stroller containing a smiling, gurgling infant.
There’s a lot of rich detail in the final product, but it’s hard to determine who the sentence is about. Is it about Jane and the baby? Or is it about the old men and children feeding the ducks at the pond? Worse, could it be about the park?
All the extraneous clauses, adverbs and adjectives conceal the point of the original sentence.
Don’t feel like you’ve got to pack every bit of detail into a single sentence. If you want to say more, write another sentence. But beware, sentences in a paragraph can be just as cluttering as words and clauses in a single sentence.
When in doubt, leave it out. 😉
Monday, November 2nd, 2009 
Blood Soup went out to several reviewers in September and October and I’ve been anxiously awaiting a response.
I’m thrilled to see the first is a good one.
Kari at Kari’s Korner Reviews apparently enjoyed it very much. I’m doubly honored since Kari reviews mostly romance.
To wit:
With the scary title BLOOD SOUP (Eternal Press, ISBN: 978-1-926704-53-1) by Kelly A. Harmon, it even has a cover that immediately catches your eye and makes you shiver. This is a medieval tale about a kingdom destined for certain dire ruin if the King’s heir isn’t a girl.
The characters in the story work together AND against each other as they secretly manipulate, scheme, hope, and react to the surprising birth of the King’s heir.
Filled with murder, mystery, and very dire consequences, this is a fast paced Novella with vivid portrayal of events and characters, pulling you into this harsh world the author has created and no doubt leaving her with new fans eagerly awaiting her next book.
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If you’re interested, Blood Soup can be purchased:
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