All posts by Tom Andry

The Craft

The Suffering Writer and Me

Me not writingI remember when I was in college and wrote my first short stories. You can read some of them basically unedited on Wattpad. I would stay up until all hours trying to “get in the mood”. The “mood” was usually dark and semi-depressed. I would concentrate on all the stuff that was “unfair” in my life and use that as fuel to fire my writing. Consequently, many of the stories are dark and surrealistic.

That was decades ago.

Since then I have been a freelance writer for Audioholics.com, self-published three books (find them here), and have written two more (one more to be self-published, the other…well, not sure). That “mood” may have worked for those short stories but they certainly don’t work anymore.

Recently (four weeks and five days ago but who is counting?) I had knee surgery. My thought process before the surgery was that I’d use the recovery time (which I seriously underestimated) to write.

Yeah, that didn’t work out. Continue reading The Suffering Writer and Me →

Other

The Internet is not a Clique

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If you’ve been online on any social media or news outlet, you’ve heard that the leader of the Westboro church, Fred Phelps, is sick or dying or dead. I’m honestly not sure. I’m too busy doing other things like making sure my kids are at soccer and haven’t dropkicked each other to pay much attention. I tend to take an osmosis approach to world events – if it is important enough, I’ll find out about it whether or not I try. I know that many people are news junkies. I’m not. I won’t judge you if you don’t judge me.

But judgment is really what it comes down to on the Internet, isn’t it? How did I find out that this Fred guy was sick? People celebrating about it on Twitter. For me, Twitter is different from other social media outlets. I specifically follow people who I know, those I want to know, or people I respect. When it is the last category dancing on the upcoming grave of a man neither of us knows except from what we’ve seen on television, color me taken aback.  Continue reading The Internet is not a Clique →

Deleted Scenes, News

Deleted Scenes from Bob Moore: Hostile Territory Part 2

Bob Moore: God Complex has been done for about a month now and is sitting in the hands of my first beta reader. He’s already told me he doesn’t like the beginning so I guess I’m in for a bit of fun with this one. Sigh. Anyhow, here is another deleted scene from Bob Moore: Hostile Territory. In the early drafts, the order of events was different. These conversations happened at the very beginning, right after he got back from EnviroKop, and later just when Swell showed up for the first time. I’ve taken all the references to these people and put them in chronological order. The idea was to foreshadow Siddeon’s plan and explore how the supers recruit people. In the end, it just slowed down the plot with no real payoff so I cut it. Enjoy:

Continue reading Deleted Scenes from Bob Moore: Hostile Territory Part 2 →

Deleted Scenes

Deleted Scenes from Bob Moore: Hostile Territory Part 1

In my last post, I famously aimed to finish Bob Moore: God Complex by the end of October.

Yeah, that didn’t work out.

I’d like to say my goal was unachievable – but it wasn’t. I just got busy. And then the holidays happened. And a bunch of other stuff. All in all, I’m up to chapter 19 which puts me on the downward slope side of writing this book. Will I be done by the end of January? Maybe. But I’m not going to make that prediction again.

Touch of Pain went through some revisions and I expect my final Beta reader to finish with it by the end of the week. That means I’ll either have to stop working on Bob and finish it up or put it aside and finish up Bob first.

Decisions, decisions.

But, for now, enjoy these two deleted scenes from Bob Moore: Hostile Territory. If you haven’t read the book, there are spoilers after the break. Continue reading Deleted Scenes from Bob Moore: Hostile Territory Part 1 →

News

Update 10/2013

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What the hell is going on with this site, wondered probably no one. I don’t much update it anymore and that isn’t by choice. I’ve got a few posts in my queue that have been there for months. MONTHS I tell you. Why didn’t I post them? Too controversial. Too personal. Just too ‘something’. It didn’t feel right.

And I’m bad at bullshit.

Okay, back up. I’m great at bullshit. I can go on and on about subwoofers even though I’ve probably written 50,000 words on them already (that may be a very low estimate). But I’m bad at bullshit on this site. Here, I want what I write to be about something. I was on another site the other day. They posted about their cat. Or fish. I don’t remember. Might not have been theirs. But they posted it and had like 20 replies. Maybe 30. About pets.

I don’t have pets. I have kids. And I don’t much want to talk about them because it is all I talk about most days. The problem has been life. I only have three days a week to work and the rest of the time I’m watching my kids. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for writing much less for posting on a blog that I’m pretty sure very few people read.

So, what is going on with me asked both of you that haven’t just called me to ask? Touch of Pain, my fantasy novel, is in the hands of two, count’em, two beta readers at the same time. That puts that book officially in limbo until they get done. After, I’ve got one or perhaps two more readers to go through before I get go in for my final, FINAL edits. Touch of Pain is in the home stretch, that’s for sure, but it is probably a month or two off.

But you’re probably wondering about Bob. Well, Bob 4 is in the works. How far? Good question. Continue reading Update 10/2013 →