The Stories of Scott D. Southard

January 22, 2014

Five Things I Am Into Right Now, January 2014
This is the first time I have hated a winter.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I used to complain about the lack of seasons. It threw off my natural clock! I couldn’t feel the shift in the world, in my mood and energy that came with the seasons. And when “winter” did come around in that warm land, I would dream beautiful dreams of perfect white snow.

Now, with this harsh winter, Jack Frost and Suzy Snowflake can both go suck it.

I want warm weather.

I want to lay on a beach and get a sunburn. I want to pretend again that wearing a long sleeve shirt is a “cold” weather day. Oh, LA, I am so sorry. Take me back!

This month’s list has one overlapping theme to all of my selection… They involve things that help distract you when you are stuck inside for long periods of time. Don’t believe me? Check out my first choice! (more…)
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 19, 2014

Poisoning the Genius
I want to say this at the start and I want it be clear to all who read this that I had no intention of killing my professor.

However, I’m certain if things had turned out worse that fateful night, some of my fellow students would have sold me down the river. I can picture them even today, accusingly pointing their finger across the courtroom at me. “There he is! That is the man who did it! That is the monster!”

The funny thing is there is actually a precedence for poisoning teachers in my family. Back when my grandmother was a principal at monthly meetings one of the heavier set teachers used to eat all of the snacks before the other teachers had a chance. My grandmother, being my grandmother, decided that she was going to send a “subtle” message to that teacher.

At the next full staff meeting, my grandmother brought in “special” brownies. Oh, they were fine. Perfectly fine… except for the biggest piece which was filled to the brim with laxatives.

That teacher called in sick the next day.

“But that is my grandmother!” I would say to the judge. “She is not me! And I had no idea that I was technically poisoning the guy. I throw myself on the mercy of the court.” (more…)
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 17, 2014

My Lost Years in Trucking (Part 2)
This is part 2, part 1 can be found here.

We were the shadow people.

The lost boys and girls. The six of us who worked third shift were not invited to meetings or parties. No one sung Happy Birthday to us or bought us a cake. We were the forgotten souls that haunted the trucking halls after everyone went home. Yes, I know what it is like to be a ghost.

There was a certain level of mad freedom that came with working this late shift. For all of the rules were nonexistent for us. They disappeared in a poof of smoke once the day people left to continue their real lives.
- No internet? Sure (until the boss left).
- No music? Of course (until the last car drove away).
- Scheduled breaks and lunches? Yes (whatever).
Before I began this job I used to consider myself a good worker, trustworthy. But when thrown in an occupation I had no interest in, I seemed to be a lot more questionable than I ever imagined myself to be. It seems I am somewhat a rebel. James Dean. Marlon Brando. Go figure.

We did have a supervisor, but we rarely saw him. There was a good reason for this actually. He was having an affair at the time and checking in with us was one of his excuses for meeting up with his mistress. I never had to answer a call and make an excuse to his wife (who, by the way, was home with a baby), but other employees did. If I did ever get his wife on the phone, I am almost a hundred percent sure I would have told her.

The mistress was a secretary from the day shift, and oddly in that office this affair was not too surprising for me the longer I was there. Right from the first day sitting with Marian I could sense the amount of flirting going on around. In many ways it was like an uninhibited high school. No teachers or parents here to tell you no! And we night owls knew everyone’s secrets. (more…)
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 16, 2014

New WKAR Book Review: Our Picnics in the Sun by Morag Joss
I’m back on WKAR’s Current State today with a new book review! This time I am taking on the new novel by Morag Joss, Our Picnics in the Sun.

You can hear the review here: http://wkar.org/post/book-review-morag-joss-our-picnics-sun

You can find this book on amazon.com here.

If you would rather read my review, you can do so below. If you would like to hear/read my other reviews, you can find them on this page on my site.

I hope you enjoy the review! (more…)
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 15, 2014

“To write or not to write.” Part two of my interview with Nancy Christie
Part two of my interview with blogger and author Nancy Christie is up on her site! (You can read part one here.) Check it out via this link!

In this segment of the interview, I dive more into my life as a writer and a reader. For example in this question I am asked which three authors I would like to have a “one-on-one” with.

The idea of meeting a hero has always been terrifying for me. For example, one of the authors I would put on the list would have been Kurt Vonnegut. But I had his home phone number for years on my desk! I am not kidding, for years. It was given to me by a friend. I just never had the courage to call him and now it is, of course, too late.

I think someone needs to sit down with William Shakespeare and get the truth on the authorship question. That interview has to happen just so we can get the discussion behind us, good or bad.

Growing up, I exchanged a few letters with Ray Bradbury. I would have loved to have spoken to him in person. He was very kind to me then.

You can read the rest of the interview here. Thank you Nancy for this chance to speak to your readers!

My latest novel, A Jane Austen Daydream, can be purchased in print ($13.46) or as an eBook for the outrageously low price of $3.99 for Kindle. You can find it on Amazon here (http://amzn.com/B00CH3HQUU).
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 13, 2014

My Lost Years in Trucking (Part 1)
For two years I had the awful song “Convoy” stuck in my head. I hummed it as a I went into work, sometimes sang the chorus out loud on the drive home, and had even been known to mumble it under my breath while walking down hallways.

[On a side note, did you know the creator of that song is Chip Davis? For those that don’t recognize that name, he went on after that success to create Mannheim Steamroller, which was formed on the bad notion that 80’s synthesizers would sound great with classic old instruments like a harpsichord… and then put it to the test with Christmas music. It’s astonishing the amount of musical torture that man has to answer for once he makes it to the pearly gates.]

My wife was in graduate school, and it fell on my shoulders to pay the bills and the rent. We had just moved back to Michigan from Los Angeles. On the day we arrived back in my home state there was a major power outage throughout the region. I made a joke to the movers that our return must have caused it. The movers actually believed me (thinking I did something with a plug, I guess) until I explained it was a joke. That failed joke moment, as well as the power outage, were both foreboding signs for the two years ahead that my wife and I should have taken.

While I thought having an MFA in writing from one of the best writing schools in the country was pretty awesome, most businesses didn’t agree with me. Actually, I could see the expression of confusion cross over employer’s faces each time it came up and I had to on numerous occasions answer the question, “Why are you here?”

A very good question, Mr. Employer! Of course, a better question I have tried to answer since then is where does such a person with such a degree belong at all? (more…)
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 9, 2014

The Night I Stopped Being a Model
From around the age of 8 to about 13, I was a model. Yes, I once worked it.

Before anyone gets overwhelmed by images of catwalks, raining money, national commercials, and maybe bulimia, this was all local stuff; the work was not even unionized. And, to be honest, even locally I was not very popular. My brother was the popular one. He even had an agent before me. He is six-years younger than me, did a lot of local theater and had cute long curly hair. He played the camera, I stared dumbly at it.

So in a way, I was the twofer. “If you need an older brother for the cute kid, we have one ready for you!”

The first ad, I ever did was for a holiday commercial for Meijer. It was around GI Joe action figures, and for some reason they had me and this other boy dress in matching camouflage (because boys did that, coordinate their clothing with their toys). And for about 15 minutes, this stranger and I played with army toys on the ground (that was turned into less than five seconds on TV). Knowing me as a kid (and now), the image of me dressed like that playing with that kind of toy is kind of hilarious. That’s acting, that is!

Most of the work I did was around print ads, I would be brought into a photography studio, put on shorts or a shirt I would never consider wearing and pretend to laugh with strangers. Then on Sunday, my family and I would grab the newspaper, and scan for the local ad and image…. That would be followed by phone calls with family, pats on the back and then the ad being cut out for a scrapbook.

I didn’t like being in the spotlight (still don’t to a certain extent), but I liked the check. Sometimes I would buy a toy or book with it, many times I put it in an account (I would use most of it later in high school to buy a new alto saxophone). It was all a perfectly fine arrangement… until the night I decided I wouldn’t model again. (more…)
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 6, 2014

The Mad Man I Stole From (Part 2)
This is part 2 of a rememberance I began in Part 1 here.

So for two months, I worked for the mad man, and strangely I saw him very rarely while doing it. I was supposedly restarting his car company, chasing his dreams, but I was doing it mainly solo. The working arrangement went something like this:
- When I could get away from my own writing, I would leave him a voicemail saying I was going to the office with the white Elvis piano. (I would never receive a response to the message.)
- If it was the right guard at the front desk (which was only occasionally, sometimes if another guard was on duty when I left later they would have some questions on where I was coming from), I would sneak into the building and up to my own little office.
- After playing a few chords on the piano (Who wouldn’t?), I would then go to my spot in the back, turn on the computer, write for a few hours, and print up whatever I wrote for his review.
The strange thing is he never reviewed what I wrote! Not even a word. The most I would hear from him was the weekly small check by the computer waiting for me and an occasional assignment.

Usually, those assignments involved me having to drop off a check someplace or making a phone call for him. On one occasion, I had to drop off a check at a government office, I was informed exactly which worker to meet with and a script of what to say. That experience took over four hours with nothing but old magazines in a waiting room for entertainment.

After the specific worker took the check from me (after listening to my excuse from Mr. W that the rest of the money would be in soon), he looked me up and down and asked, “What are you doing working for him?”

It was a great question. “I have no idea,” I responded. And I didn’t. (more…)
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 3, 2014

The Mad Man I Stole From (Part 1)
I needed money.

I had just moved out to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California. I was going to get my Master’s in writing and I had dreams of screenplays and television pilots, actresses calling me and pleading for a role in my latest projects. I also imagined myself wearing sunglasses a lot. The LA dream!

Now, I did have some savings before making the move. I had even set it up so my student loans would cover my student housing, but as the weeks turned into months I saw that savings stockpile dripping away thanks to food and a car loan, and maybe one too many trips to Disneyland.

My initial hope was to find work at a studio, but anything I would have gotten would have been so entry-level I’d be surprised if they even paid me a dime. I would be working for the experience and the contacts, probably a good decision for my career, just not for my livelihood. Plus, I had no idea how to make coffee. I assumed such a job would involve coffee.

When I first arrived in LA I did my best to get to know each of the professors (thinking that each was a possible contact to someone in the industry who might want a young, ambitious writer like me). One professor was quite fond of me since I recognized her from an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I even owned a copy of that episode and she was thrilled to see she was listed on the back of it as a guest star. After that she gave me a series of odd little jobs, including once transporting some of her sculptures (she was an artist as well) in the back seat of my car. One of the statues was of an angel fallen to the earth surrounded by little rocks. I still occasionally find some of those little rocks in my car.

After eating dinner at her house with some of my fellow students (she was always having us over), she told me about this man she knew. Eccentric, she called him, a real character (“You would like him.”) and he owned a car company.

“A car company?” That idea floored me. How does someone just own a car company? Was he Henry freaking Ford?

“Well, the brand,” she explained noticing the expression on my face. “He is an entrepreneur and he is trying to start it up. He needs a writer. Are you interested?” (more…)
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…
January 1, 2014

“Nightmares and dreams” Part one of an interview with Nancy Christie
Happy New Year faithful readers!

Last month I was interviewed by novelist Nancy Christie as part of her “One on One” series. It was quite a long and fun interview, and she has turned it into a two-part series for the site!

If you ever wanted to get really into my writing head, meet the wizard hiding behind the curtain, this is that interview! The first part of her interview was released today; you can read it here. In this excerpt is my answer to the most challenging undertaking I have had as a writer:

A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM was easily the most difficult book I have ever undertaken, because I had to be true to Jane. In other words, I wanted her to be alive on the pages, which means her own dialogue and spirit had to be part of the narrative.

So first, I had to research her life and her books thoroughly. I used to be able to quote entire passages of her novels! (Not anymore, now that space is taken over by cute kid songs from Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood thanks to my young daughter’s obsession with the show.)

Then I had to decide what of her life I wanted to keep and what I wanted to use for the book. See, I wanted the plot to be influenced more by her own stories than her actual life (it is a daydream).

After the plot was in place (with some very notable surprises and literary twists included), I then had to write a book where her voice would feel natural, but not too dated to scare off a contemporary reader.

Yes, it was a slow process, with each sentence and chapter written and re-written numerous times. By the end, I felt like I had run a marathon (or at least what I assume that would feel like). But it was all very worth it.

You can read the rest of the interview here. Part 2 of the interview will be on Nancy Christie’s site on January 15. Thanks Nancy!

My latest novel, A Jane Austen Daydream, can be purchased in print ($13.46) or as an eBook for the outrageously low price of $3.99 for Kindle. You can find it on Amazon here (http://amzn.com/B00CH3HQUU).
Share this:
Email
X
Facebook
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Reddit
Print
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Like Loading…