A new review is online for my novel A Jane Austen Daydream. This time done by the Capital Area District Library in Michigan.
You can read the review here: http://www.cadl.org/books-movies/recrev/2013/southardjane.html/
And if you are interested in learning more, checking out interviews and excerpts, and finding out where to buy it in print ($9.99) and eBook ($4.99), please visit my A Jane Austen Daydream page here.
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…)
I’m honored to have an interview and excerpt from A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM shared on the Jane Austen Centre Forum!
In the interview you can learn a bit more about my inspiration for the book, my thoughts on it, and my experience with Ms. Austen.
The short excerpt included is from Volume I in which Jane meets the interesting Mr. Lefroy. You can read both the excerpt and interview here:
http://www.janeausten.co.uk/forum/topic/sd-southard-a-jane-austen-daydream-the-interview
And, as always, if you want to buy the book in eBook ($4.99) or print ($9.99), you can find it here:
I hope you will consider checking out my new novel!
There are two new reader reviews for A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM up on amazon. Both gave the book five stars! Here are some excerpts:
…With wry humor, wit, and poignant sensitivity, Scott D. Southard has created characters that are so real that they seem to have only a tenuous hold on their fictitious world. When Jane walks, the reader walks. When Jane finds, loses, and finds love again, the reader will find herself warning, comforting, and cheering this character on.
Southard’s novel is well written and full of witty characters…. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think Jane would have too.
I hope you will consider checking out my new book. You can find it in print and eBook here:
Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B00AILCDJCAnd remember- a new chapter of Permanent Spring Showers will be up tomorrow!
Happy 2013, my loyal and wonderful readers!
Have you enjoyed my editorials on this site and my original fiction here, Permanent Spring Showers and Upon the Ground? As you plan your reading in 2013, why not check out one of my three available books? Below are their descriptions and some links on where you can find them. I hope you will consider checking them out (and did I mention how wonderfully affordable they all are as well?).
My Problem With Doors
Jacob’s life changed in a single moment when, as a toddler, he walked through his bedroom door only to find himself in the office of a British officer in Capetown, 1870. This would begin a thirty-year journey which would take him from ancient to future civilizations, and innumerable places and times in between. Through all of his travels, Jacob seeks for the purpose of his predicament while meeting pirates, poets, loves, and even Jack the Ripper.
My Problem With Doors is available as a paperback (on amazon here), an eBook (on Google Play here) and even as a downloadable audiobook (here).
Megan
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?
Megan is available as a paperback (on amazon here), an eBook (on Google Play here) and even as a downloadable audiobook (here).
A Jane Austen Daydream
Jane Austen thought she knew everything about love, but was there something she wasn’t telling us? A self-confessed dreamer, gossip, and matchmaker, Jane emerges from a prophetic meeting with gypsies and sets out to discover her soul mate. As Jane writes through the twists and turns of her turbulent romances, Southard ponders the question faced by many devoted readers over the years – did she ever find love? What would the story of that love be like if Jane could write it? Binding fact with fiction, courting brace new literary twists, and written in the style of Jane Austen herself, A Jane Austen Daydream is the tale of Jane’s life as a novel. It contemplates the eventual fate of Jane’s heart, and uses her own stories to fill the gaps that history left to the imagination.
A Jane Austen Daydream is available on all major sites in print and eBook including amazon.com (here).
…and thanks for all of your support of my writing over the last year!
The first reader review for my novel A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is on amazon! I couldn’t be more thrilled.
I’ve yet to find an author who is as adept as Mr. Southard at imitating voice. Reading this was like reading Jane Austen – and I’m a huge Jane Austen fan. I think she’d be pleased, too.
This story weaves fact and fiction effortlessly. I love the pace, the form and obvious admiration the author has for the subject. This is not your typical book, yet it’s eclectic nature is its draw. I can’t say more without a spoiler. Sometimes we just need a happy ending.
I highly recommend this book to Austen fans.
The print and eBook version are both available on amazon right now. You can find them here via my author page: http://www.amazon.com/Scott-D.-Southard/e/B002EDX5VC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Permanent Spring Showers is a new novel, but it is also an experiment… an experiment around creation, instinct, and a heck of a lot of literary luck.
To begin with, I grew up a fan of Charles Dickens, and one of the things he is well known for is how he wrote many of his novels, sharing them via his papers one chapter at a time; many times while still creating them. So to start, I wondered if I could do the same thing. That was the basis right there for my challenge.
Using an old screenplay I wrote years and years ago as the starting point, I first created 25 chapter titles. Those chapter titles now are the only direction I really have in the writing. See, the book is nothing like the screenplay, only a few scant remnants remain. (I can’t even remember the last time I have even opened up the screenplay file!) If having to guess, I would say only two plotlines remain, and only that many of the original characters are still like their former selves. Everything else is so sparkly new, and many times when I start a chapter, I have no idea where the characters are going to take me next. Thrilling and terrifying.
When I started it felt so wonderfully easy, with the first chapter oddly being the shortest one in the book. It was a lie! When the third chapter reached over 25 pages I realized I might be in a little bit of trouble. I wasn’t drowning, but I was enjoying the deep end of the pool a little too much, let me say that.
To help you, the readers, feel part of the process, I’ve also been creating occasional editorial updates on the experience. I like to think of them as fun little glimpses into the mind of a writer at work. They are full of contradictions, conflicting goals, and seem to carry through them the one underlining thought, “I don’t know what I am doing or where I am going, but this is strangely fun.”
And it has been a fun experience for me.
In 2013 I will be creating the last three chapters (plus one very short epilogue) for the novel. With the end so close I thought this might be a good time for readers to consider catching up or maybe starting for the first time. You can find all of the chapters here. I hope you will consider checking it out. Below, is a brief introduction to the book and the characters in it: (more…)
I am honored to have Green Spot Blue, a literary and parenting (and very wonderful) web site, sharing the first chapter from A Jane Austen Daydream. You can read it right now by clicking here.
Green Spot Blue was one of the first and strongest supporter of this work and in many ways gave me the confidence not only to seek out a publisher for it but to even do this writing blog. I hope you will visit their site.
If you will like to buy the ebook, you can find it here:
The paperback is coming soon…
I am honored that today A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM is being shared on the main page of the Jane Austen Society of North America, Central NJ Chapter. You can visit the site and its page for the book here.
On the site you can see the trailer, read about me and the book, and find links where you can purchase it. Pretty cool!
If you would like to read the eBook of A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM you can find it via these links:
I have the honor of sharing that A Jane Austen Daydream is being showcased on the website My Jane Austen Book Club right now!
You can read not only a description of the book, but also the first two chapters!
The Stories of Scott D. Southard 