Newsletter: February 2025 Edition
Notes from the Writing Desk, An Excellent Author Interview, and More
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Welcome to the February 2025 edition of my newsletter and… Did you watch that Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl Half Time show? I’m sure you did and, if you didn’t—oh man, it was a doozy! Packed full of symbolism, it was one for the ages, surely to be studied and referenced for a long time to come. Without mentions of blunts, hoochie mamas, or bling as many may expect, it was a masterclass in Black history, U.S. political division, Lamar’s place in pop culture, and one of the most biting finales in a hip-hop beef EVER (sorry, Drake. Good luck coming back from this one). I really, really enjoyed it. There were the obligatory social media posts afterwards of “I didn’t get it” and that’s to be expected. Lamar is a next-level artist who can navigate between low and high brow, tell complicated stories, and drop bangers. Dude won a Pulitzer Prize for crying out loud (other popular musicians to do that = zero). Those of us in the business of telling stories recognized his mastery. He did it at the Super Bowl of all places. And the funny thing is, I don’t even like to watch football. I had to power through several minutes of some boring excuse for a sport to get to the good stuff. Anyway, up and onward to the newsletter.
Last month, I completed a first draft of a novel I started working on in July 2024. I’m keeping the title and description under wraps for now. It came out to 74,000 words in length, four thousand more than my target of 70k words. I felt really inspired writing this first draft. It brought me a lot of joy, which is something to celebrate in these troubled political times. Rather than inundate myself in national news, I curbed my desire to do just that and focused on writing this novel. It took a lot of discipline! It would have been easy to sink into the political-news rabbit hole and fume and seethe and grit my teeth, something I did a lot from 2016 – 2020 when our orange-baby overlord miraculously won the presidency the first time. But I was determined to focus on the joy of writing and I did just that.
The only problem I encountered with this first draft was a set piece about three-fourths of the way into the story, a place where a major reveal was supposed to happen. When I reached this point, this set piece was... How can I explain this in simple terms? It was... ho hum. Boring! Anyway, I stopped writing and spent a few weeks rethinking a more exciting way to reveal this plot twist, one that I wanted to be jaw dropping for the reader. I retooled my outline which I was tracking in Microsoft Excel. I backtracked to previous chapters to remove any references to the boring set piece, then wrote new references as I reread from the beginning back to the “log jam” in the story. Once I got there, I wrote an entirely new set piece and was very pleased with the results. Writing to the end after this redirection was a complete joy. I was giddy writing the final chapters knowing that I had accomplished what I’d set out to do in this first draft. I took my wife out to dinner to celebrate, but I’m far from done.
There will be a first revision, then a second, and possibly a third if not more, some done on the screen and some printed out and scrawled on with red ink. Then copy edits and line edits and other editing tasks like finding weasel words (thanks Matt Bell!!!). Once all of this is done, I’ll print out a clean copy to give to my wife to read. She’s my first editor and most trusted advisor. After reviewing her notes and discussing the book with her, I’ll make the appropriate changes. And after all of this, I’ll send it to my literary agent. If it gets picked up by a publisher, then it will be edited a couple of more times at least.
Whew! Writing a book is hard. After publishing ten books, I find it doesn’t get any easier. I know the process better and have confidence that I can do it, but that still doesn’t guarantee I’ll finish the next book I start to write. I have a couple of manuscripts on my thumb drive that are like 17k words and 22k words each that I completely abandoned. Sometimes ideas for novels start out great until you dive into it, then you discover that it was not so good of an idea after all. It happens. So, I have to celebrate each time I finish a first draft. That’s the hard part! The first revision is always—always—my favorite part. That’s when I can massage it and mold it and revise it into something great, not just a barebones story. I decided to take four to six weeks off and ruminate about the story before revising it. I know the full thing now—the full arc of it, the full scope and end of it—so I’m taking notes for revision: how to set certain scenes the way I like, how to introduce characters fully when they first appear, backstory ideas, etc.
Don’t worry; I’ll keep you posted. :)
Here’s a great Austin Liti Limits interview I did with Emily Jon Tobias! Her story collection MONARCH is fantastic, full of pathos and heartbreak and sadness, told beautifully. Sometimes, you just need a gut-punch of a book and MONARCH delivers. Watch this fantastic interview here:
https://austinlitilimits.com/episodes/episode-58-emily-jon-tobias.html
I can’t sign off without mentioning that I have a new book coming out on March 4, 2025 called STARMAN AFTER MIDNIGHT, a quirky novel-in-stories about two beer-drinking next-door neighbors who couldn’t be more different. When they discover a naked man roaming their street late at night, they decide to form a posse and investigate.
BlueInk Review declared it, “Effortlessly funny, likably odd, surprisingly moving, and imminently relatable—a genuine pleasure to read.”
Kirkus Reviews called it, “An encouraging tale of neighborliness and camaraderie in the face of the unknown. A big-hearted, often amusing tale of the weirdness of suburbia.”
Receive 25% off your preorder using discount code STARMAN at checkout from Tertulia. Preorders are SO important for authors and new books. Get yours here:
Preorder STARMAN AFTER MIDNIGHT paperback on Tertulia
If eBooks are your thing, then preorder for your Kindle now at a great low price:
Preorder STARMAN AFTER MIDNIGHT eBook for Amazon Kindle
Thank you for your support. Until next month, read more books, read less news about you-know-who, support your local bookstores, support your local library, be good to each other, and above all else: eat more fiber.
Sincerely,
Scott
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