The Stories of Scott D. Southard

May 6, 2013

An Interview on Austen Hill on A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM
There is a new interview with me today up on Austen Hill (here). This interview was a lot of fun and she had some great questions, discussing everything from literature to inspiration to, of course, Jane Austen and my new book A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM. Here is an excerpt from one of my answers, where I give my favorite advice for new authors:

I think what was smart for me as a young writer, looking back, is that I always wrote first for myself. In other words, I took on stories that I would want to read, not worrying about publishers, agents, marketing, etc. See, it is when you dip into that business world of the art that it gets risky, because it can kill your creativity, starve the part of the brain that just loves to see where the imagination may lead. So whenever I meet a new writer or someone asks for advice, I will usually say write for yourself, if success comes, it comes; but if you write for yourself first everything else is a nice bonus and you will never feel like a failure.

You can read the rest of this fun interview at Austen Hill here. And don’t forget about the new book giveaway (through May 12) which you can enter here! My new novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is available exculsively through amazon.com (here) where you can find it in print for $13.46 and in eBook for $3.99.

I hope you enjoy the interview!
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May 1, 2013

Interview With Deborah Kalb on A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM
Today, Deborah Kalb, author and blogger, has up an interview with me about my just released new novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM. You can read the interview here. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

While Jane Austen is the main character and it is a treasure trove for Jane Austen fans, I don’t want people to think this book is only for Austenites. Not at all. If it was, well, then it wouldn’t be my book. There is a lot more going on here.

Yes, there is romance in the book, but it is also very witty, touching and filled with literary experiments. I like to believe there is something in it for everyone.

You can read the rest on the interview on her site by clicking here.

A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM was published yesterday by Madison Street Publishing. It is available exclusively via amazon.com where it is priced at $3.99 for the eBook and $14.99 for the print version. You can visit the amazon page for the book here.

Thanks for reading!
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April 29, 2013

Austen in Stealth: Introducing My New Novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM
A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is published by Madison Street Publishing and can be purchased in print and as an eBook for only $3.99 via amazon.com here.

–

My wife doesn’t like to buy me presents.

This is not an anti-love or an anti-affection thing. No, not at all. This is because I am the King of Presents. Seriously, I could teach classes on the subject. I remember conversations, take notes, and buy things early when inspiration hits. And birthdays and Christmases, because of my mad skills, are filled with tears and exclamations of “How did you know?” or “How did you remember that?”

How did I remember that? I’m the King of Presents, that is how I remembered!

The fact is when it comes to receiving gifts, I try to make it easy for people. This goes back to a mistake by “Santa” when I was in fourth grade. I wanted a CD player, and by mistake the old man in red got me a tape deck. Since then, I keep a gift list up to date with ideas (which I forward to family members, including my wife, before every holiday) and I even highlight the stuff that means more to me that year (last year it was the new Indiana Jones blu-ray set). Yes, I go away happy with every holiday, but there are no tears, no surprises, and the exclamation is usually a nice “Thank you.”

It is one of the sacrifices of being the king.

(more…)
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April 22, 2013

Visiting Austen: Introducing My New Novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM
A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is published by Madison Street Publishing and can be purchased in print and as an eBook for only $3.99 via amazon.com here.

I went to England to find Jane Austen.

To be honest, I also went to find Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Elliot, John Keats, William Shakespeare (or whoever wrote his plays), J.R.R. Tolkien, and Winnie-the-Pooh.

(Winnie-the-Pooh? Yeah, with some research, I figured out where the real 100-Acre Woods is located and spent a day wandering the fields, visiting Roo’s Sandy Place, sitting at the Enchanted Place, finding the north pole, playing poohstick on the actual poohstick bridge. As a kid who has fond memories growing up with A.A. Milne’s classic books, I was in children literature heaven. It is a magical and natural place, please don’t tell Disney!)

That was me at age 23, Scott the explorer, the new college grad, future “bestselling” author (in my mind), chasing down the legends, my heroes. I’m not sure what lofty goals I had, per se, in making the six-week solo trip to England. I mean, I wasn’t expecting any “haunting” encounters or secret treasures to discover, but it was a voyage I needed to take. I needed to escape the confines of my small West Michigan world, and chase down the locations that made my heroes… well… heroes. (more…)
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April 11, 2013

Braving Austen: Introducing My New Novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM
A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is published by Madison Street Publishing and can be purchased in print and as an eBook for only $3.99. It is available for the Kindle, Nook, andKobo.

Jane Austen was one of my two Mount Everests.

The other Mount Everest in my adventures as a writer was Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Yes, I just said Hamlet.

See, I’ve always been obsessed with that play and even attempted over a summer to memorize every line of it (I discussed part of that experience in this comedy essay) and I always had a unique vision for the play (and how many of its famous soliquies could be reinterpreted on stage or on the screen). I decided to focus on a screenplay, and like a swimmer jumping into cold water, over the course of one week (one), I took my decade’s worth of notes, a torn paperback copy, and did it.

Yes, in my house and on my computer is sitting my screenplay adaptation of Hamlet. It is one of my lifetime dreams to see it made, but if it does is anyone’s guess. Whatever the case, I can look back on that mad week (with its large doses of caffeine, twenty hours of nonstop writing, and my mad acting out performance of it) as the literary equivalent of me standing on that snowy slope with flag in hand watching a new dawn.

Hamlet, yeah I did that.

But Austen? Whoa boy… That is when things get tricky. (more…)
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March 25, 2013

Pushing The Boulder: Finding Your Drive to Write
Once, I basked in the sunlight of destiny.

Most of us writers do, it is a repercussion of reading too much fiction growing up (all heroes and heroines have destinies, don’t they?). And, honestly, when one reads a biography of a writer doesn’t it always feel like some other worldly power gave something somewhere a nudge? You can feel the word just hanging on everyone’s lips, hiding behind each quote:

Destiny.

Another reason why we writers feel the tide of destiny is because of ego. All writers have an ego! If we didn’t, we wouldn’t believe that we have something worth saying! There is a reason people should waste their time with our words! Yes, egos are a prerequisite for picking up a pen. Some are big, some are loud, but they are all there for each of us, whispering in our ears and telling us how pretty we are.

When I look over my life, I have a collection of experiences (that feel like short stories) that make up my mental autobiography, the chapter that made this man the writer. The funny thing is, after all this time, I couldn’t tell you exactly which earlier chapters were fiction and which were nonfiction. See, things blend together with me over time. (If you think this is silly, ask my wife. It is a common occurance for her to ask me if I am exaggerating something; and, to be honest, I do it all the time.)

So why am I bringing up destiny? Well, after years of trying to make it as a novelist I have a great truth to share, one that may not be easy for many to hear.

There is no destiny.

No destiny, no fate. The life of a writer is something you have to earn with sweat, blood, and a lot of luck.

And if you walk away, you walk away. (more…)
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March 11, 2013

My Adventure in Self-Publishing: Finding Inspiration in a Cover Artist
In today’s overly-congested world of writers, you need something to stand out, something to capture the eye.

As much as I would love to say it needs to be all in your story… well… that is not enough anymore. Because, frankly, readers might make a decision before even getting to the point that your characters can breath a faint hello.

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, author pages on amazon.com, etc., every little bit helps. But another part, a big part, has to be that the cover captures the eye. The cover needs to buy you a few seconds of consideration; enough to draw the eye to the description and then to your story. This is true for traditionally published books, indie books, and self-published authors as well. Yes, it is one of the overarching and common struggles that they all share.

Another way to understand what I am saying is that the market is senior prom. You remember senior prom, right? Well, at this prom you want to wear the powdered-blue suit from the 1970’s.

Why?

Because everyone will remember that you did… and they will remember it for years after. (more…)
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January 30, 2013

Wookies, Princesses, and the Return of the Force: My Life With Star Wars
Episode I

THE NEW DISCOVERY

Star Wars was my childhood and my childhood was Star Wars.

To know me as a child was to know my love of the galaxy far, far away.

One of my first memories (if not the very first) was of seeing the first Star Wars (Oh hell, the fourth one) in a theater. I was three and R2-D2 was on the screen. This image and moment is burned onto my retinas to the point I can almost touch it. R2 is in the Death Star and the heads of all of the other filmgoers line the bottom of the screen (and being little, they take up more then one might imagine).

My parents claim as I left the theater I could not stop talking about it, even going so far as to debate the film with some college students standing nearby us; listing in my opinion what was the best parts of the film (considering who I am as an adult, this is not at all surprising). (more…)
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January 16, 2013

My Online Literary Experiment: Be John Coltrane
Since I started my online literary experiment, Permanent Spring Showers, a novel written off-the-cuff, with a new chapter each week, I’ve had quite a few writers ask me about the experience.

Some seem to have a dark fascination, much like a driver passing by an accident on the road, while others seem to be excited by the prospect, wondering if they will risk attempting the experience themselves.

If you have been following these occasional editorials I have created around the experience… well.. you can tell it is kind of emotional with a lot of highs and lows. Basically, the best way to explain what it does to your nerves is what you experience while writing a book but heightened a great deal and rushed, since there is always the pressure to make it work and you can’t go back. Because it has to work, and if one chapter falters I have no excuse but to continue. So somedays I think I am the biggest idiot in the world, while on others I would kiss a mirror of myself. (Actually, I’ve been known to go through those feelings in the same hour of working!)

This Friday, I am sharing the last chapter (which is in a first draft form now) and I am now, finally, more in a position to look back over the experience and feel out how it worked for me… and one word comes forward more than any other:

Jazz (more…)
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September 20, 2012

My Online Literary Experiment: Literary Dating Regrets
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. (more…)
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