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?)
So this morning I woke up with my left eye swollen shut. I kid you not.
Seriously, I looked like Rocky from the movies after a few rounds. I have had allergy reactions to things in the past, but nothing like this.
After a doctor and a specialist, it turns out to be related to allergies and the outrageous levels of pollen in the area. Of course, as a writer, I immediately wondered if there was some symbolism going on.
Symbolically: What am I not seeing that is right in front of my face? I mean, that is what it would mean in a book, right? I am blind to something…
Or, realistically it is just allergies and I need to take a break… Kiddies be warned: becoming a writer or studying English Literature can warp your perspectives, you look for meaning everywhere! (more…)
Almost time for Chapter 2, and in preparation I have created a page for Permanent Spring Showers (here). As each chapter in my online literary experiment goes up, I’ll as well update this page in case you want to revisit the previous chapters… or if you are just finding my site now (hello, welcome), you can check out this page to start from the attention-getting beginning.
I have a few pages now on this site for different writings that are available online. So if you like my fiction, why not check out some of my other work that is out there on the World Wide Web?
In regards to the writing of Permanent Spring Showers, so far I am intrigued by the voice of it. Very different from my published novels (my writing page), if anything reminding me of my energetic literary style in college. No holds barred, right for the literary throat.
I hope you are enjoying this ongoing creation and will tune in tomorrow for Chapter 2.
Self-publishing feels so easy… It feels so safe.
The sad truth of writing is that the fun aspect of creation is only really 10 percent of the work. The rest is the difficult and time-consuming work of marketing and promoting the manuscript to the publishing world. Query letters, writing conferences, agent meetings; that is the real work, and self-publishing takes all of that away… Just leaving the author with their creation and then publication and none of the hassle of the mess in between.
It all sounds like bliss.
Yet, the easy path is not always the right one, and for self-publishing that is just as true. While there are a few self-publishing success stories, there are a thousand unsuccessful stories to each successful one of books that appear on amazon and disappear into the vacuum that is a search engine never to be seen again.
Frankly, if an author wants success for their book, and success for their own future as a writer, self-publishing should be a last resort, to be only considered when all of the other avenues have been tried. Why? Well, I’ll get to that… (more…)
When I was a young writer I was obsessed with short stories.
There was something about them that felt very freeing for me as a newbie; because, they don’t come with the same burdens a novel does, and even in my young writing days I could see that. If you don’t like a story, stop writing it! It’s not like you lose months and years of work like you would on a novel. For a short story you lose, what?, a week in the most. I don’t know about you, but I can lose a week.
And you can experiment; and, boy, did I like to experiment in stories! I had to try everything! Sci-fi, fantasy, horror, romantic, comedy, parody, etc.; heck, I even wrote my own Chaucer Canterbury tale, if you can believe it! (more…)
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:
Whenever a newbie writer has had the misfortune (if that is the right word) to ask for my advice, I will always say the same two things:
1. Enter as many writing contests as possible. It will build up your resume, give you free opinion from someone who isn’t family or a friend if you are actually good or not, and you never know who a judge might be (For example, my radio series, The Dante Experience, was produced and directed by a judge of a radio script competition I entered).
2. Try to get an agent. An agent’s job is to find you a publisher and help you succeed. They have contacts you don’t have. You need them.
The problem is with number 2; while it is right to say it, it does always leave a little bad taste in my mouth since my experience with working with agents has been lackluster at best. So far I’ve had four agents. (more…)
1. To be more up-front about my writing and experiences in my blog, but not to come off as whiney or as if I deserve anything from anyone. The market is far too-congested with writers and luck and “who you know” plays a greater role than anything else on finding success as a writer.
2. To accept being a number three and hope someday to be a number 2… OK, I need to explain this one.
-BREAK FOR EXPLANATION-
In my opinion there are four levels of being a writer in today’s world:
3. Not to look down on the world of the Number 4 anymore. I do it, and even though my first book is out there via iuniverse, I still scorn the idea of being self-published. Sometimes all a writer wants is for their book to be published and at least this is an avenue for that. I need to be more understanding of that, but it can be hard for me to take a work like that as seriously as something from Putnam, for example. I know a lot of educated writers have the same mountain as me to climb about this; so this is me acknowledging the mountain. “Yes, I see the mountain, damn it!”
4. Find some inspiration this year, but not enough to take me away from being a good parent (I have two little ones and I don’t want them to come in second behind a project). I wrote an editorial on Green Spot Blue about this a while ago called “Mush.” Here is the link- http://www.greenspotblue.com/lifenestbabytoy/2010/12/21/mush.html
Hmmm…. It seems a lot of these deal with just be accepting of who I am and not getting down on myself about things.
So what are my hopes for the new year?
Well, I hope to find a publisher for A JANE AUSTEN DAYDREAM. The reaction for it appearing online was very good, and some publishers were initially interested, but everything has been silent since then. I did have one publisher replied and said that it needed to sound more “contemporary” if you can believe it. So a book that was mirroring Jane’s voice sounded too much like Jane, I’m not sure whether to be insulted or happy by that. While I would love a big house, I would be happy with a small press and the capability of it be in ebook format.
Ipublish Press which published MY PROBLEM WITH DOORS and MEGAN said they are trying to get the ebooks out on Google Ebooks this year. I really want that to happen… Which is funny since I have no desire to own a kindle or read an ebook. I actually had a friend since me a copy of her book as an ebook a while ag0 and I have guiltly yet to look at it ( I’m really sorry, Emlyn Chand. I will read FARSIGHTED soon, I swear). Is it an anti Kindle/ebook thing? I don’t know. It’s just reading a book on a screen takes something away for me.
And then there are the screenplays… I still dream of them being made, but the days of wanting to be the next Woody Allen are long gone. I have three scripts I really want to see made- CHRISTMAS DREAMING, THE SISTER MOON, and my adaptation of HAMLET (Which is always a debate for me whether it is the best thing I will ever do, or just one of them). But I do have others (4 others to be honest)… And there is a part of me that would like to write a new screenplay, but like with my books it is hard to be inspired when you think a work might join the pile of material sitting in my chest at the end of my bed. I need to feel like it will breath later. I have quite a few works already to feel guilty about just sitting around…. But seeing one of them that I wrote on the screen would be a dream…
Finally, I hope to survive the Mayan Death Day…
… Ok, that last one was a joke.
Hopefully.
Definitely, I mean nothing bad is going to happen.
Of course, if it does and I don’t plan, I’m going to regret it.
Argh.
The Stories of Scott D. Southard 