Bestselling paranormal/romance fiction author Danica Winters is sharing my editorial “”What I learned From Having A Literary Agent” on her blog today! Very cool.
You can read my editorial on her site here, and also learn more about her books and her writing. I hope you will check it out.
Thanks for reading!
Today, to help support the release of A Jane Austen Daydream in April by Madison Street Publishing, I am pleased to have an article up on the Novel Travelist. The Novel Travelist is a fun site for writers hoping to explore the world, writers, and history. Here is the beginning of my post, Writing Advice – Leave Home:
We writers are isolationists, introverts. How else do you explain the fact we spend our time alone creating friends and worlds? We are not made for the outside; we’d rather stay inside, thank you very much.
When I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree, as much as I cared about the degree, I was more interested in something else. It was always my dream to be that young traveler/writer by himself going through Europe, with nothing but a notepad and a few paperbacks in a bag. I saw myself sitting under trees in Jane Austen’s garden, opening my soul to the romantic poets, or wandering the halls of Charles Dickens’ home hoping for a message from beyond. I even sometimes thought about smoking a pipe (I didn’t, but wouldn’t it look cool?)
What I actually experienced though really was not at all what I expected. The rude awakening of being thrown out of my “universe,” my norm; well, I had to adjust for that in a major way.
There were no little safe places to go, like I could when I wanted to write or just read at home; here everything was new and different (as well as the people around) and for an introvert it can make one’s hair stand on the back of one’s neck… permanently.
Still, I know that this experience made me a better writer. I look at what I did before I went on that six-week trip and what I did later and I see a more imaginative, more creative, more introspective, and more worldly writer.
You can read the rest of the editorial here. I hope you enjoy it.
Today I am sharing a scene from my novel My Problem With Doors. It is currently available in print via amazon.com (here) and in eBook format via Google Play (here).
My Problem With Doors is the story of Jacob who is lost in time.
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The pirate ship the Bloody Scourge was the bane of the Caribbean isles in the 1680s. Its ten years of brutality and pillaging were legend throughout the world. Many a dark pirate tale originated with that ship, though over time other crews and captains tried to claim the yarns as their own.
To be found at sea by that ship was to be confronted by the very face of death. The soldiers of port cities, naval sailors patrolling coastlines, and harbormasters all found themselves working long hours with little rest when even just a hint floated about that the
Bloody Scourge had entered their waters. There was no vessel more perilous, no crew more dangerous, and no captain more bloodthirsty. (more…)
They Might Be Giants have a new CD out today! It is called Nanobots. I really like it a lot (not a surprise there), reminding me a lot of their CD Apollo 18. My favorite songs so far are You’re on Fire and 9 Secret Steps.
I’m a proud card carrying member of the lifetime fans of They Might Be Giants.
I own all of the albums, each collection, a box filled with B-sides, concert albums, and too many shirts to count spanning the last two-and-a-half decades. I even once bought a shirt of theirs to save! See, my dream was that one of the characters in a screenplay I had written would wear that shirt in one scene. So even though I didn’t have a producer, studio, director or even an actor for it, I wanted to have the shirt just in case.
I’ve seen They Might Be Giants five times in concert, and the best way I have found to describe the experience is to compare it to what (I assume) it is like to attend a meeting of the masons. You are with others that believe the same as you, know the same…
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It takes courage to be an artist.
Many people don’t realize this in that first moment they pick up a pen or paintbrush, but they are put on display with the creation the second of its completion.
My favorite example of what I mean comes from being married to a dancer and choreographer. See, when a dancer performs, especially in a piece that they have created, their audience is watching many things.
Yes, the hope is that the audience is focused on the artistic performance, expression and emotional message of the piece, but an audience does so much more than that. They also may compare the dancers in the piece (which are better, which are worse), they might try to find the artist’s personality in it, they may look for mistakes, they may even study the bodies of the dancers. Of all of the art forms, this is in my opinion the most exposed and bravest.
But when you are writing a book, in the beginning you are alone, probably sitting in front of a desk someplace, a large drink with caffeine right nearby (well, that is me); it’s hard to remember that the real world is out there. However, it is out there and if your creation finds an audience, the audience will find you…. (more…)
We’ve all heard the expression not to judge a book by its cover.
IT’S BULL!
We all do it!
A cover is the first line of communication between an author and their audience. It’s the opening shot at a race. It is what convinces a reader to pick it up and read the description (or in today’s world, scroll down the page). Frankly, a cover can make or break a book on the market and we as writers have to care. We have to care a lot!
Right now I have almost 15,000 twitter followers, most of them are my fellow writers, and each time I get the e-mail saying I have a new follower, I will usually visit their website quickly or check them out on amazon. And, I hate to admit this, a cover has been known to influence how I feel about their work before investigating further. See, if a work has a cover that is a generic one from a self-publisher or is obviously created out of stock footage on Photoshop (without any flair to it)… well… there ya go.
I know how unfair this is!
To sit down and write any work (and then have the guts to get it out into the harsh world of sales and reviews) a writer has to care some. No one simply falls into writing a book. Only Paul McCartney can wake up humming Yesterday; we authors are not that lucky. Yes, we may wake up with Yesterday (or with “Scrambled Eggs” as was the original title), but it takes months and months before our song is ready for a performance. (more…)
Everything feels very influx right now in my life.
I’m busy working on two books for publication (A Jane Austen Daydream and Maximilian Standforth and the Case of the Dangerous Dare), and I have had to put my new book (Permanent Spring Showers) on the sideline; which is not a bad thing. I have found the more time I have between a first draft and a second, the more “clear-headed” when I return to the manuscript. See, I don’t want to be the dude happy for finishing a new book; I want to be the editor ready to question everything that previous dude did.
So do I have time to be into anything? No, not really. Remember how last month I listed a video game I looked forward to playing? I put a whole record thirty minutes into it so far.
But this is not a bad thing! I am really enjoying my life right now, and I couldn’t be happier with where my writing is going. So… what else? Oh, did I mention I want a new tattoo? I already have one–a quote from the Beatles– but this time I am thinking of a line from Shakespeare lower down on my arm. Yeah, I’m Scott, cool dude writer guy…
Here is my list: (more…)
Massive spoilers are ahead the size of the dragon Drogon for those who have not read the series by George R.R. Martin or watched the HBO series. You’ve been warned.
I am fan of the shadow of Game of Thrones.
What that means is I love the show and books in spirit, but in actual execution it is all a little bit more… well… shadowy. Imagine me as Peter Pan racing up the wall trying to get me hands on my shadow but it is just out of my reach and very dark. But I have to have it! It might complete me!
Now before you judge me, I’ve paid my Westeros dues (in Gold Dragons, of course). I’ve read all the books, I’ve seen the first two seasons of the show. Heck, I even own the first two seasons of the show on Blu-Ray (ordering both before they were actually released)! I am even guilty of driving others to the series. Regretfully, I’ve not only bought my dad the books and Blu-Rays, but also a shirt and calendar.
(Yeah, I said regretfully, and here is why: while I was finishing up book five, my dad was still back in book three and he happily told me that he felt a strong connection to Jon Snow. Considering the end of A Dance With Dragons, I couldn’t help but blush and mumble under my breath, “Sorry.”)
The thing is that all of this, for me, it may be coming to end soon.
I’m actually debating whether I need to say goodbye to my secret direwolf, hang up my sword made of Valyrian steel, and take the first boat out of there like Sansa from King’s Landing. Yes, I may have actually reached my goodbye with the show and the books, because… honestly… it was in the third book (A Storm of Swords) that I felt like everything fell apart. That third book is tragically where the HBO series is at; and two books later George R.R. Martin, in my opinion, has yet to clean up the mess he made at a certain wedding.
He needs a really big mop. (more…)
The Voracious Reader has reviewed my novel MY PROBLEM WITH DOORS. This is what she said about the book:
This is a most compelling book. It pulls you in to a fascinating concept from the beginning. Jacob at the age of three goes through the door of his bedroom to another time and place. This starts him on a life long journey through time as another door opens time and time again. He has many trials and few good times. He finds his Love only to lose her as another door opens to another time and place. He finds many dangers. The author does an excellent job of working great historical detail into Jacobs life. From his influence on Lord Byron and the poet Shelley to the events on September 11 at the world trade center. It is a fascinating and original concept. I give this book 5 stars.
You can read the review on the Voracious Reader here.
My PROBLEM WITH DOORS is available in print via amazon.com here and as an eBook via Google Play here.
Madison Street Publishing is excited to reveal the cover for A Jane Austen Daydream, by Scott D. Southard. The book will be available in April of this year, the same year that Pride and Prejudice celebrates its 200th birthday.
All her heroines find love in the end–but is there love waiting for Jane?
Jane Austen spends her days writing and matchmaking in the small countryside village of Steventon, until a ball at Godmersham Park propels her into a new world where she yearns for a romance of her own. But whether her heart will settle on a young lawyer, a clever Reverend, a wealthy childhood friend, or a mysterious stranger is anyone’s guess.
Written in the style of Jane herself, this novel ponders the question faced by many devoted readers over the years–did she ever find love? Weaving fact with fiction, it re-imagines her life, using her own stories to fill in the gaps left by history and showing that all of us–to a greater or lesser degree–are head over heels for Jane.
The Stories of Scott D. Southard 