The Stories of Scott D. Southard

August 19, 2013

The Issue With My Clock or the Post With Breaks
My clock has switched.

I’m not sure how this happened, but everything is upside down and it is the new norm I have to accept. I’m Alice in a world where the ceiling is now the floor, and that is just how reality will have to be. We are all mad here.

Let me explain this better: When you are young you are always counting up to experiences.
- When I am 16, I will learn to drive a car.
- When I am 18, I graduate and go to college.
- When I am 21, I can drink (well, I don’t like alcohol very much, so I watch my friends drink…. I just have never liked the taste or smell of beer or wine. Okay, I do admit I drink a little but the stuff I do enjoy, the mixes, usually involve chocolate or fruity flavors and they can come in glasses that some would find embarrassing. Well, just the color would be embarrassing for many to be near. So I keep to the soda when I am out in public, because I like to believe I have a certain swagger in my step and a coolness that I aim to keep, and the fruity drinks don’t help).
More counting! Then there is a wedding… and a house…the first baby… and a second… And suddenly, right there, when you have reached your limit on kids, and they begin to age out of diapers and clothes… everything turns.

It’s like in one of those cartoons from the 1940’s where the clocks have a face and the hands are attached to the nose and they spin in a strange fashion. Well, that is my internal clock, and now with 40 fast approaching, I feel the face’s confusion.

I have begun counting down to things… The outcome at the end, I don’t want to even imagine.

(I need a break, just a second. I have a soda around here someplace.) (more…)
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August 7, 2013

Mo Willems Is a Genius
Last week, I actually cried while reading my daughter’s bedtime story. Looking back, I think I was set up for this moment.

My family is big fans of the books of Mo Willems and, in my opinion, there is no more imaginative and witty author of children picture books out there today. To say he is this generation Dr. Seuss or Maurice Sendak is not to do his creativity justice. That is not to say he is better than Dr. Seuss; no, what I mean is he is on his own path.

He is incomparable, unique.

And I, honestly, wish his books were around when I was my little ones’ ages. I would have devoured his books like a box of Macaroni and Cheese…

…or like a pigeon with hot dogs. (more…)
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May 29, 2013

Dante, Tigers, & Tap-Dancing Demons, Oh My! Listen to THE DANTE EXPERIENCE
Dan Brown in his latest book, Inferno, thinks he knows Dante’s Divine Comedy.

I. THINK. NOT.

Inspired by Douglas Adams’ The Hithchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series and Monty Python, the entire award-winning unpredictable and bizarre radio comedy series The Dante Experience is available to listen to online via soundcloud. All freaking 10 episodes! If you don’t know this work of mine, you are in for a treat. Listen below!

Produced and directed by Mind’s Ear Audio Productions, The Dante Experience follows a badly-managed attempt to instill a fear of the afterlife in the next generation of man. Robert and his friends were definitely the wrong young adults to choose for the tour, as his girlfriend dumps him for Mephistopheles the devil, his friend Susan forms an army with Julius Caesar to argue for the deads’ rights, and Steve seduces famous women throughout history. The afterlife is never going to be the same.

I hope you enjoy listening to my comedy series!
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February 7, 2013

While You Wait…
I like to think of life as a theater sometimes. Mainly this is because I had so much experience growing up around the stage since my brother was a young actor and I was dragged along many evenings (sometimes even helping backstage with the crew).

Right now, I have two books waiting in the wings, being prepared for their performances (A Jane Austen Daydream and Maximilian Standforth and the Case of the Dangerous Dare). So while you wait for their appearances in a few months, why not check out some of the acts ready for the spotlight? I’m extremely proud of both of these books and I think you will enjoy them.

My Problem With Doors

Jacob is lost in time. He has been lost since as a toddler he first stepped through a door and ended up in a different land, in a different time. Over the course of the tale, Jacob tells of his struggles growing up in history. From the battlefields of WWI to an Afghanistan terrorist camp to the streets of Jack the Ripper to the estate of Lord Byron to a pirate ship, Jacob explores what it means to be human and if he, with his unique problem, has a purpose, a destiny. Romantic, surprising, and full of adventure, My Problem With Doors is filled with twists and turns.

You can find the book:
- In print on amazon for $15.95 here.
- It is available as an eBook (and will work on all devices) via Google Play (here) or on the publisher’s site (here).
You can read a sample from My Problem With Doors here.

Megan

Megan Wane lives in two worlds. In one she is a beloved princess and secret superhero fighting to save her dream-like kingdom of Prosperity from disaster with a magic sword firmly in her grasp; and in the other world Megan is an event planner living in a stale cubicle, lost in the drab of an uninspired 9-to-5 existence. Megan is a story about the line where dreams and tragedy meet and the repercussions of the choices we make in our precious lives.

You can find the book:
- In print on amazon for $15.95 here.
- It is available as an eBook (and will work on all devices) via Google Play (here) or on the publisher’s site (here).
You can read a sample from Megan here.
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February 4, 2013

Re-Blog: Maurice Sendak Tribute
This morning on NPR’s Morning Edition (I am addicted to this show), they discussed a new book by Maurice Sendak. In many ways, it is his goodbye and is called My Brother’s Book. It’s not often that someone simply reading something on the radio can move me to tears but this did. The book’s illustrations are also gorgeous making me immediately think of William Blake’s work. When Maurice Sendak passed away last year, I wrote this piece in celebration of him. I hope you enjoy it.

The Stories of Scott D. Southard

There was always an element of darkness in Maurice Sendak’s stories that I found impossible to avoid.

With his passing, we hear and read again about his rough childhood fighting sicknesses, stuck in a room by himself, with only his imagination for company and the fear of death. His family were immigrants, just luckily avoiding the Holocaust; living with the grief that they were not able to save many of the people on his father’s side of the family. Yes, it was a childhood filled with death and the possibility of it around every corner. So it is not surprising that there is that darkness always someplace in his work, lurking and waiting.

In In the Night Kitchen, Mickey is almost baked in a cake by three heavy set individuals with Hitler mustaches. He emerges when he is put in the oven. When I first shared this book with…

View original post 620 more words
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December 3, 2012

My Five Favorite Posts, 2012
I know we are not at the end of the year yet but I couldn’t wait. Yes, I am the kid on Christmas Eve wanting to open all of the presents early. And. let’s be honest, every blogger or writing site is going to be a doing a post like this. Why not be ahead of the curve?

So that’s me- Mr. Ahead of the Curve.

Before I get to my favorite posts, let me begin by saying how much I got a kick out of running this site this year. As a writer it has been very satisfying. Over the course of one year, I went from zero followers to 213 with over 25000 views this year alone. That is pretty awesome in my book, and just as satisfying this blog gave something back to me as a writer.
- I was able to share fiction; things I have cared about that have been collecting dust around my house (and in my brain). The Dante Experience radio series is once again available to listen to, along with the unproduced scripts of the sequel.
- A new collection of short stories, Upon The Ground, was shared on Green Spot Blue.
- And I am writing a new book, Permanent Spring Showers, right here live for all to follow along… and many do!
A lot of what drives me and this site right now are you the readers. I know people say things like that all the time, but I am being very honest. You have no idea how powerful a like and a comment can be in spurring me forward, inspiring me. I might have abandoned this months ago if it wasn’t for the numbers and the responses. So this year, I am the most thankful for you the readers.

Thank you.

Here is my list of my favorite posts in no certain order… (more…)
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October 29, 2012

My Remaining Years and the Birthday of Doom
I have always hated birthdays and I think part of the problem is I have always put too much pressuring on meeting difficult milestones.

I blame myself, but I also blame great writers for this. See, I have always put a lot on what others have done by my age and the older I get (and more great writers die off with each year I pass. I mean, come on! I’m almost a few years off from when Jane Austen snuffed it), the more this is getting difficult to do. Many of the greats have already hit their classic by this point. Me? I’m still struggling to get people to find my writing (and thank you for reading).

Looking back over my website this year it seems aging is a big theme for me. Maybe part of this is related to the fact I lost my grandfather at the beginning of the year. He was the last of my grandparents and with him an entire generation of my family disappeared. Yet, to be honest, I have written about aging before then. One of the first things I wrote for Green Spot Blue was a piece about being older than Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Yes, being older than Indy is a big deal for members of my generation. If you don’t understand what I mean, I can’t help you. (You can read that piece here.) I’m approaching Last Crusade now… after that there is a long draught until the flying fridge and the crystal skulls.

Before this becomes some kind of a great pity party for me, let me add here that I am very happy in my reality. My wife and I have created a wonderful life together and our kids are amazing. I know it’s almost corny to say one’s kids are their greatest achievement but… Okay… my kids are my greatest achievement. (more…)
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October 22, 2012

The Art of the Blog: Getting Personal
Blogs are always started with the best intention. A writer feels they have something to share, something that could enrich a reader out there in the stratosphere of the internet.

The funny thing is you see this a lot around the newly published, both self-published and professionally published. Did I say “a lot” in that last sentence? Good, because I meant to say “a lot.” And usually on these newly minted blogs there will be a few posts about their book, their experience writing it, and a few helpful suggestions and then… nothing. The internet is littered with the remains of these kinds of websites, something akin to a field after a rock concert. The party is done, but no one bothered to clean up the mess from the show.

Frankly, what the beginning blogger doesn’t realize is that it takes guts and stamina to write a true blog and to build a readership for it. A blog is more than a marketing tool, it is a new writing platform (and in my opinion could become its own powerful writing medium right alongside writing for plays, books, television, etc.), and if you don’t see it as such, you won’t be able to use it to its full potential. Yes, you can fill it up with advice and your opinion, but for people to come back again and again, there has to be something in your blog that is not available anywhere else on the internet…

I’m talking about you, by the way.

(more…)
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September 24, 2012

Missing My Vonnegut Moment
Listen:

There is a piece of family mythology that I might have made up.

My grandmother was friends with Kurt Vonnegut’s first wife’s college roommate. I know that is not much, but here me out; there is a chance that my favorite writer (the genius behind Slaughterhouse-Five and others works of literary greatness) might have been aware of my family.

Why is this important? Well, in 1999, Kurt Vonnegut released a book of his uncollected short stories (Bagombo Snuff Box). Many of these stories were uncollected for a good reason; being the product of a struggling writer just looking for a sale in the booming short story market of the 1950s. Yet, there is one story in it of particular importance to me.

It is called “The Runaways” and it stars a family named the Southards.

Now, I know there are other Southards out there in the world. Heck, I’ve even found other writers out there with the same name as me (first and last), but with that slight connection, who is to say he might not have remembered meeting my grandmother by chance at that dorm room before a date (and my grandmother was quite the looker then) or had seen her referenced in a letter? Whatever the case, before anyone else does, I am staking my claim:

The great Kurt Vonnegut was inspired to use the name Southard in that story because of my grandmother.

There I typed it, and because it is the internet (and there are no falsehoods on the internet) and Vonnegut is no longer around to argue about it, it must be true.

So it goes. (more…)
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August 6, 2012

Living With Giants: Growing Up and Older With They Might Be Giants
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 rites, know the same words, and instead of wearing creepy pinky rings we wear shirts with obscure references that no one but us really know…. And whenever I have met someone who already knows their albums, we immediately bond, our humor and artistic likes immediately snapping into alignment.

I was indoctrinated into the club of John Flansburgh and John Linnell (The geniuses behind They Might Be Giants) via a B-side of a single for Flood. I was in high school, and had to rely on one of my friends to get back and forth to school. And as we would drive each day, with our saxophones bumping against each other in the backseat, my esteemed driver would keep throwing in the same tape that had nothing more than four songs on it. (more…)
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