George Elliot | The Musings & Artful Blunders of Scott D. Southard

In my next life, I will be British.

I know this is true right down to the fiber of my being.

I will be sophisticated, I will look good in suits, I will enjoy tea and crumpets, I will understand the point of Cricket, and I will have an accent that will add to my wit, not diminish it in the least.

I grew up with a love of the country and when I got married it was only natural that I married a woman whose family is British. Sadly, my wife doesn’t have the accent (she was the only member of the family born in the states), but she still shows hints of it; she perfectly pronounces all of her words and doesn’t have, what I like to think of as the “Michigan slur” that haunts me and many others in my state. (When I was in grad school in Los Angeles you have no idea how many times I was asked to repeat something because of that slur.)

Shirts with the Union Jack, Beatles’ posters on my walls, this adoration for England stems from music to history to, most importantly, books.

Yes, all cultures have great writers to point to, but when you speak of British writers you enter the land of myths and legends for me. These are my Herculeses, my Paul Bunyans.

From Jane Austen’s little villages to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s shadowy moors to Charles Dickens’ cobblestone and dirty London streets, they each had a hand in creating the image that stuck with me of merry ol’ England. Every major experience I had growing up as a reader involved a British writer, starting with reading Winnie-the-Pooh with my mom (I remember us both laughing hysterically when Piglet was trying to help Pooh capture a Heffalump) through Roald Dahl and then the fantasy realms of Tolkien and Lewis that took my breath away.

And don’t forget, England gave us Shakespeare. Continue reading →

I can never look back as a writer. It’s not in my literary makeup.

I don’t end a book when I am writing, I divorce it. Yes, I have a literary breakup. “I’m sorry, it was a great run, and I really enjoyed our time together. I will always cherish it, but I need to move on.”

Dating, in my opinion, is a great way to describe the writing of a book. There is the initial first crush, the hint of interest that drives the beginning; the first date, learning about each other; and there is even that moment of pure writing ecstasy when things all come together in a magical union of bliss…. Yes, I just compared writing to sex, let’s move on before all of us feel more uncomfortable.

And also, sometimes like in dating, things don’t work out and you realize after the “first date” or “second date” that you and the book are just two different and won’t “mesh” well.

Taking it a step further, if I didn’t wipe my hands of even a completed work, and walk away, I would be forever working on a novel, rewriting passages, rethinking plots. I have never experienced the “Ah ha! Eureka! It’s done moment” and I probably won’t. It’s not in my literary makeup as well. So, for me as a writer, I simply need to know when to say when. This part of my writing brain is one of the reasons I cannot go back and read my old work easily. Continue reading →