Scott D Southard – Nail Your Novel

My guest this week is making a return appearance to the series. Last time he wrote about how he’d driven his wife bonkers by playing certain albums that evoked the souls of his characters. This good spouse will surely be donning the earplugs again as his musical choice for his current novel is a striking album by Fiona Apple, which consists of drums, close-up vocals and percussive piano. He describes the pieces as having the feel of a therapy session, all raw emotion and obsession – and perfect for his characters who are all connected by an act of betrayal. He is Scott D Southard and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.

And there’ll be a slight hiatus in my posting schedule this weekend as I’m teaching at WriteCon in Zurich. (This is tremendously exciting as it’s the first time anyone’s flown me anywhere to teach!) So I’m tied up preparing for that at the moment, but I’m anticipating some interesting issues to share afterwards.

My guest this week says his wife has forbidden him to air certain overplayed albums in her presence. Of course, they are the ones that provided the souls of his novels; drew him to the writing desk; catapulted him into the worlds of his characters. Readers here will be well acquainted with the idea that once a song joins your writing repertoire, you never tire of it (although your family might). For his latest novel, he was drawn to songs of desperation, and the finely drawn character vignettes of Belle & Sebastian – a band he says are truly made for writers. When you see that the title of his novel is A Jane Austen Daydream, you might be surprised that its music is so contemporary. But has there ever been a time when Ms Austen didn’t feel bang up to date? Scott D Southard is on The Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.