Tag Archives: Megan

New for Kindle! MEGAN, a real-world fantasy adventure with a big imagination!

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MeganI’m proud to announce that my novel MEGAN was just released for the Kindle! It can be found on amazon via this link (http://amzn.com/B00MUEAW48).

I love the format of this book.  I’m sure most of us—as children or even now as adults—have made up worlds within our imaginations and spent hours daydreaming or play acting what occurs in our imaginary worlds.  Our protagonist, Megan, is stuck in a boring job, with coworkers she barely coexists with, with a boss she hates, and nothing interesting or exciting happening in her life.  She escapes this monotony and the dreary reality of her life by imagining the world of Prosperity. -Definitely Not For the Birds

Published by iPublish Press, MEGAN is the story of Megan Wane. To me and you, she is just a normal worker in a drab office, but in her imagination there exists an entire world, one she has escaped into ever since she was a child. It is the land of Prosperity and it is filled with dragons, castles, trolls, moon people, and wizards, And in Prosperity, Megan is a princess and a super hero. MEGAN is the story of her worst day and how Prosperity saved the real her.

If you will like to learn more about this novel you can do so on this site. There is an excerpt as well as a post about the writing of it (here). And, as AN EXCLUSIVE for the Kindle version, it contains a brand-new preface to the book written by… well… me.

I am very impressed with how Mr. Southard has interwoven the two world’s of Megan. It is very artfully crafted with vivid descriptions. I enjoyed it! -S. M. Nystoriak, Writer’s Block

Grab a copy today, tell a friend, tell a dozen! You can get your copy on amazon here. I hope you like the book!

Cool! A Review & Interview For My Novel MEGAN

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MeganRecently, writer and blogger S.M. Nystoriak reviewed my novel MEGAN. This is how she described MEGAN in her review:

A blend of whimsical fantasy and modern day reality, Southard’s writing takes the reader through Megan’s life. Megan, the character, is unhappy with the lot she has been given in her modern day life, and she escapes into her imagination at will to the World of Prosperity, where she is Princess Megan, and has a whole fantasy world at her disposal. Much like Alice’s world of Wonderland, Southard has created the World of Prosperity, where the sun battles the moon for control on a daily basis, and the inhabitants of Prosperity have unique problems all their own.

I am very impressed with how Mr. Southard has interwoven the two world’s of Megan. It is very artfully crafted with vivid descriptions. I enjoyed it!

Afterwards, Nystoriak asked if I would give an interview about the book for her website Writer’s Block. In the interview, I discuss my history as a writer, my books and my inspiration for this novel. You can read it here.

I hope you will check out the interview and consider reading my novel. It can be found in print via amazon.com and as an eBook on Google Play (which will work on all eReaders).

Thanks for reading!

MEGAN is now available as an eBook! (Only $9.99). The link to purchase, samples, and a new introduction in this post…

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I am proud to announce that my novel MEGAN is now available as an eBook!

It is being sold via Google Books for only $9.99 and it can be used on any eBook reader (Kindle, etc.) or iPad or iPhone. Here is the link to my novel, MEGAN.

I hope you will check it out and share it with your friends.

If you would like a sample of the work first, they are available as well via Google Books, or you can find a previous sample I have shared on my site here.

If you would rather not deal with an eBook, it is, of course, still available via amazon. You can find the paperback here for $15.95.

Here is the amazon description of the book: Megan Wane is caught in a life of dull dreariness. She goes to work in a dead end job with a boss she can’t stand, and comes home to a silent apartment with only a standoffish cat for company. She can only get away through her imagination. And there, in her thoughts, there exists a fairy-tale kingdom with wizards and dragons. A place called Prosperity, where she is both a princess and a hero. On this day, both Megan’s external reality and her interior world will suffer tragedy that will turn her life upside down and shake her to the foundation. Can Megan turn disaster into deliverance?

Below is a new introduction to the book and my experience writing it.

I hope you will check out the eBook of my novel, MEGAN. I am really proud of the book and I think you will like it as well. Continue reading →

The publisher of MEGAN and MY PROBLEM WITH DOORS likes my blog!

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The publisher of My Problem With Doors and Megan likes this writing blog and what I am doing on it. Neat! She just wrote an article on the publisher’s site, including excerpts she liked and links to some of my pieces.  You can check it out here:

http://www.ipublishpress.com/ippblog/scott-southard-is-writing-up-a-storm/

And thanks a lot Terry and Michelle and the iPublish Press crew! (When can we work together again?)

Now Serving 10,074

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This entry is about time.

The first stop is into the past, to the beginning of this blog. And let me be frightfully honest, I began this blog for purely selfish reasons. There was nothing in my mind really about readers, it was merely to get my writing voice back… and yes, it was something I had lost and in many ways I thought might have been gone for good.

See, a few years ago I lost my literary agent (I wrote extensively about this experience in this editorial as well), and it devastated me since I knew, in losing that agent, I had lost time in my career. Like being forced to go back spaces in a board game; I was near the end of the game, and now I was back at the first square, wondering how I got there and do I really want to play so much of the game again?

No. My initial reaction was to walk away from the board and throw my token back in the box. I was over it. Continue reading →

Time to Share! Some Southard Samples

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Today, I thought I would link to some samples I have shared from some of my novels in the past. Think of this as something like Show and Tell, but it is my turn and no one gets a turn but me… Oh, and everyone has to listen and applaud at the end with a hint of jealousy… oh yes, and run out and buy all my books and love me.

Okay, maybe not all that, but you get the gist.

I have two novels currently in print. They were both honored in a novel-writing competition before being selected for publication by a new indie press. They are Megan and My Problem With Doors. I am really proud of both books.

Megan is the story of Megan Wane. Megan lives in two different worlds. In the real world, she is a very bored office worker, frustrated by the direction her life has taken and dealing with a micro-managing boss. In her fantasy world though, Megan is a princess superhero, The Great Defender.

In this excerpt (here), Megan deals with a very “bureaucratic” dragon. You can find my book on amazon.com here.

My Problem With Doors is the story of Jacob who has been stuck time traveling ever since he was a toddler. His “problem” is a unique one; doors do not work for him as they do for us, and when he enters one he never knows what he will meet on the other side.

In this excerpt (here) from the novel, Jacob has dinner with Jack the Ripper. You can find the book on amazon.com here.

A lot of my work over this year has been trying to find a home for A Jane Austen Daydream, my most current novel. Last year, it was selected to be shared online by greenspotblue.com. (Those links to the chapters from the book can still be found on the A Jane Austen Daydream page.)  My hope is to find an agent for the work and then get it published. So if you are an agent or publisher reading this… ah… hi...

A Jane Austen Daydream is not a biography, it is not even close to being one. In the book, I am “retelling” Jane’s life as if she was one of the characters in her novel, giving her the love story she deserved and never had.

This selection (here) is chapter two from the first part of the work.

Thanks for reading! And please, if you like what you read, share the work on your page or share with your friends or buy the books or visit the Austen page or tell your aunt who is an agent about me or send me cookies… I like cookies. Who doesn’t?

My March 2012 Update

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Now that I am three months into this experiment that is my blog, I’ll like to give some updates on some of the things I have written about (I’ll probably do this from time to time).

Writing here has been an interesting experience for me, and I think I am a better writer for it, but really who am I to judge?

My update is in three parts.  

Part I: School Days…

I never considered myself popular when I was a teenager. Oh, I had some close friends, but pretty much that is where it stopped for me. I really didn’t need more. Strangely, this reality changed for me 20 years after graduating from high school and just over the last 5 or so days.

See, on Tuesday, I learned that my old high school was closing and merging with our arch rivals. On Wednesday, I realized it was definitely stirring some emotions, so I sat down and worked on an essay to explain my thoughts around it. Continue reading →

The Trick of Finding Inspiration for That Novel

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I have found over the years that inspiration can come at strange times and moments; and many times I do not realize it has occurred, as my brain stores a little seed aside, like a gardener in spring.

A lot of helpful “you can do it too” type writing books try to give you ideas on how to find inspiration. You will see examples of how to look around you, look at your experiences, or think about things you like and maybe consider combinations (Like in the classic Hollywood pitch style: “It’s ___ meets ___”). For me, I find none of that works.

“Thinking” for inspiration, rarely gives off enough of a spark to carry a project through to a satisfying fruition. Yes, you might finish a draft of something, sure, but it will never be as good, in my opinion, as an idea that overwhelms your consciousness or wakes you up in the middle of the night like a scream.

A good book needs a spark. Continue reading →

An Excerpt from MEGAN, a Novel

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In the hope of doing something different, I decided today to share a scene from my novel MEGAN.  In 2009 it was honored in an international novel-writing competition which led to its publication with a new press out of Canada. It can be found on amazon.com here. It is also available as an ebook and audiobook by contacting the publisher or as an eBook from GooglePlay here.

MEGAN is the story of Megan Wane, an imaginative soul who lives in two different worlds. In the real world, she is an event planner at a large firm, dealing with a micromanager and angry fellow employees; in her imaginary world she is a princess and secret superhero who is on a mission to save her world which was turned to blackness. Sometimes her real world slips into her imagination. In this scene Princess Megan and her two companions meet a terrifying and strangely bureaucratic dragon.

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“Greetings. Hello? Over here. Hi!” The great green dragon was standing in the middle of a large open field. The field (situated where the woods once were) was surrounded by yellow torches. All of the torchlight seemed to coalesce on the dragon, making the beast look larger in the contrast of shadow and the brightness. It was the first dragon Princess Megan had ever seen and it astounded her.

The dragon really didn’t need to direct their attention to itself. The beast was hard to miss, no matter how much the trio might have wanted to pretend that they didn’t see it. It was standing on its hind legs and was wearing a pair of thick reading glasses and a red sweater-vest. It was also holding a clipboard in its right claw and a pencil was positioned behind its left ear. “Are you Princess Megan and her two servants?” the Dragon asked when they had approached closer. Continue reading →

Relearning to Write

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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has a theory of flow, which defines flow as “‘the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” (You can read more about it here).

For me, this is more than a theory, this was my reality as a fiction writer. I can’t begin to tell you the days, weeks, and months, I would lose with a project. This is how my creativity used to work:

  • I would get a spark of an idea, scribble down a few notes, but chances are it will sit in my head from anywhere to a few months to years.
  • Suddenly, for some unexplained reason, my creativity is ready, and the idea is ready to be born, all I have to do is sit down.
  • I will start to work on the idea, not always in chronological order, allowing my creativity to dictate what to work on and when.
  • Bliss. Continue reading →