Focus on Fiction | The Musings & Artful Blunders of Scott D. Southard

So this is my life right now.

I got this book. I can’t really talk about it. I mean, it’s still being created. It’s fresh, still new, like a babe. Let’s call it SB for Secret Book. This book has taken over a good part of my daily thoughts, and I’ve spent the last few evenings just working on it.

SB has also entered my dreams. No seriously, I’ve had two dreams with it and both moments ended up in the book.

This is the part of writing that I love about writing. The pure joy of creation, not being bogged down in marketing, query letters (to agents and publishers), etc. Just me and a blank piece of paper. Nothing but possibility.

The only thing I can compare the feeling to is back when I used to play jazz. For me it was the saxophone (alto and soprano), and there is this wild feeling of freedom once you know a song and its chords. That confidence that you are on this, you are in control and you can take the song wherever you want. There is pure improv possibility at that moment. It’s a flash of lightning, controlled energy.

That… right there, is what putting together a first draft feels like for me. And I’m in the midst of it. That is the smile on my face.

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Greetings, fearless readers!

I have recently written a post about my new book Permanent Spring Showers. It is called “Throwing Logic to the Wind” and is being showcased on author Nancy Christie’s site Focus on Fiction. Here is an excerpt from the beginning:

There is no logic to writing. At least that is what I have learned playing this author game.

It doesn’t matter how much I have outlined a work, considered its potential on the market, or other such nonsense, there is no guarantee that it will fly or even work in the slightest. My computer is a graveyard of abandoned characters and plots. Their folder names are like little tombstones to the stories that might have been. And just like a visit to a real cemetery, there is an almost eerie silence when I explore that realm on my computer.

Permanent Spring Showers, my latest novel, is a great example of the non-logic of creative writing.

You can read the rest of the post here.

Permanent Spring Showers was just published by 5 Prince Books. It is available on all online retailors but you can find it on amazon here in both print and ebook.

I hope you will grab a copy! And then buy one for a friend… and then a second friend… and then a third… it’s good to have friends.