Scott Burtness's Blog: Scott's Thoughts, page 3

Writing Update

For those who enjoyed An Oracle Walks Into a Bar, The Misadventures of a Post-Relationship Personal Effects Repossession Specialist, Book One, you’re in luck! There will be a Book Two.

I’m at ~65k words in the first draft, with a goal of ~85k words. For reference, AOWIAB was just shy of ~80k words. I’ll be done with the draft before the end of April. Then it’s time for rewrites, some beta reader feedback, more rewrites. You know. All the things.

This book has been a lot of fun to write, and I’m excited to share it. If all goes well, a July-ish release should be totally doable.

If you haven’t already, sign up for my monthly newsletter, The Paranomedy Pint. I’ll be sure to let you know when the new book is available for pre-order.

Thawing Out

I’ve been a little quiet over here. Sorry about that. There are so many places to be chatty. This blog, Facebook. Twitter, Instagram, my newsletter. Sometimes it’s hard to think of something to say, especially when I need my words for the next book I’m writing.

(Like how I did that? A nice little plug for the next book, just casually dropped at the end of a passing thought like it’s no big deal? So smooth…)

I decided that January would be focused on marketing and promoting my existing books. I read marketing books. I took an online class. I spent hours and hours mining keywords for advertising and spinning up ads on Amazon. All good stuff, but it definitely didn’t leave time for much else. My creativity froze up a little bit, not unlike my nose hair every time I went outside.

Now that I’ve been shifting my focus back to writing, I can feel the creativity starting to thaw out. I’ve had a couple of really good writing sessions over the past few days, and it’s got me all fired up. Writing’s fun that way. The more you do it, the more you want to do it.

So that’s what’s going on over here. Stay tuned for more sporadic posts about nothing in particular. The creativity may be thawing, but my blogging skills are still a little iced over.

Wisconsin Vamp – An Origin Story

Everyone loves a good origin story, amiright?

Well, it just so happens that Wisconsin Vamp has an origin story of its very own, and I’m gonna share it right here, right now.

You read that correctly! You are about to learn the origin of the book that changed my life. And by ‘changed,’ I mean turned me into a guy that spends his nights writing while drinking beer, instead of just drinking beer.

And now, without further ado…

The origin of Wisconsin Vamp (Monsters in the Midwest, Book One)

At its heart, Wisconsin Vamp is about change, and how sometimes it takes a really big change to discover who we’re meant to be.

Herb Knudsen is a 30-something truckstop diner cook and mediocre bowler living in a small Wisconsin town. His place in his tiny world is well-defined. Herb’s best friend, Dallas is the big man on campus. His other friend, Stanley is the town’s weirdo who swears he was abducted by aliens back in highschool. Herb is just… Herb. The three friends’ lives chug along in well-worn ruts. They drink. They bowl. Occasionally, Herb dreams about what might be, but knows that those dreams won’t come true.

Everything changes when Herb becomes a vampire. He isn’t sure how it happened and doesn’t have a maker to guide him, so the poor guy fumbles into his newfound abilities while courting disaster at every step. Sure, there’s a lot to like about being a vampire. He’s stronger, a little sexier, and a heck of a lot better at bowling. Even Lois, the girl of his dreams, is starting to notice him. But he can’t drink beer, the bodies are piling up, and his best friend Dallas isn’t just getting suspicious – he’s getting jealous. When Lois is caught in the middle of the two friends’ escalating rivalry, keeping his dark secret becomes the least of Herb’s concerns. The book kicks-off a chain reaction that turns their lives inside out. After Herb, Dallas learns a little sympathy for the devil in Northwoods Wolfman, and poor Stanley rounds out the misadventures in Undead Cheesehead.

Wisconsin Vamp was started as a screenplay. Back when I lived in Los Angeles, CA in the early 2000s, I genuinely felt like I was the only guy in town without a screenplay. At the liquor store, they didn’t ask for your I.D., they asked for your log line. If a cop pulled you over for speeding, you were guaranteed to get a ticket unless the officer liked your feature synopsis. Since I desperately wanted to stay in L.A., buy beer, and not get speeding tickets, I started working on a movie idea where a schlubby guy in the rural Midwest that becomes a vampire. I’d recently re-watched Interview With the Vampire and found myself wondering about young Claudia’s transformation. The girl went from being sickly and dying to radiant and beautiful like that. It bugged me, and I couldn’t stop thinking that becoming a vampire simply couldn’t be that easy. From there, I started to wonder about a lot of the modern vampire mythos. Vampires were powerful, sexy, confident. More than a few were fulfilling some prophecy or other. They lived in cool places like New Orleans, L.A. and New York Ciy. All of them were quintessentially badass.

“What about those other guys?” I thought. “Guys like me that can barely match their socks. Guys that live in a one-stoplight town. What happens when they become vampires?”

That question led to a logline, then a script synopsis, and eventually about half a screenplay. And then – alas – I left Los Angeles. Since I didn’t need it to buy beer, that screenplay ended up in a box for many years. 

Fast forward a few years to 2011-12. Self-publishing books was on the upswing thanks to platforms like Amazon. An itch I didn’t even realize needed scratching suddenly became all I could think about. I pulled out the screenplay and converted what I had into novel format, wrote the middle and the end, and the rest is history. Wisconsin Vamp was released in early 2014. The sequel, Northwoods Wolfman, came out in mid-2015, and the final book in the trilogy, Undead Cheesehead, was released in 2017.

When I wrote that first book, I figured I was writing for guys like me; Gen-X’ers with a fondness for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Evil Dead, and authors like Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. As the book began to sell and reviews started coming in, I realized that my true fans were women that liked paranormal romance. I’m still a bit flummoxed by that. Sure, there are some love stories woven into the series, but nothing that rises to the level of ‘paranormal romance.’ Hell, I can barely type the word ‘boobs’ without blushing furiously. All I can think is that Herb is a lovable loser that makes a great fixer-upper, Dallas is that bad boy that you really want to change, and Stanley is that iconic nerd that ends up being the hero. There’s a lot to love about those guys, including an innocence that is a bit refreshing if all you’ve been reading are paranormal bodice-rippers.

When someone finishes the Monsters in the Midwest trilogy, I hope they come away with sore cheeks from laughing out loud, a few happy tears in their eyes, and a deeper appreciation of what friendship truly means. I hope Wisconsin Vamp and the trilogy continue to delight paranormal comedy fans for years to come.

And if someone over in Hollywood decides to option it for screen… Well, I’ve got half a screenplay somewhere!

Make Words When There’s No Sun

Hey friends! I hope your weekend is off to a good start. Things are good enough up here in Minnesota. The weather is getting its winter on. Overcast, chilly temps, snow tomorrow. All in all, it’s the perfect kind of weekend to hit the writing hard. You know the saying, “Make hay when the sun shines?” It’s like that, but I’m making words, and there’s no sun. So more like, “Make words when there’s no sun.”

Yeah, I’m really not your guy for snappy proverbs. Anywho…

I’m hard at work on book 2 for my “Misadventures of a Paranormal Post-Relationship Personal Effects Repossession Specialist” series!

Poor August is definitely getting in over his head again. Dueling hag sisters, ghosts, a terrifying scarecrow, a drunken Satyr, a paranormal loan shark, and a nefarious plot involving the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (those guys are the WORST!)

Here’s the start of Chapter One-

As was often the case, I was running for my life.

Some might call that an exaggeration, an embellishment, a colorful overstating of what was happening for dramatic effect. In their opinion, I was probably running, sure, but for my life? Really? Would I actually die if whatever I was fleeing caught me, or was I maybe – just maybe – telling an above-average-height tale? Stretching that minnow into a northern pike? Whipping up a good, old-fashioned Minnesotan whopper? In their opinion, I was likely upping the stakes a smidge for the sake of a good story.

If someone decided to opine that I was taking a few liberties with the truth, good for them. Opinions are like assholes; everybody has one. That said, let me be perfectly clear: You can have all the opinions you want. It doesn’t change the fact that I was running. For. My. Life.

***

While predicting when a book will be done is harder than forecasting the weather in Minnesota, I’m shooting for an April 2022 release. As long as there aren’t any beer shortages in the next few months, that should be doable.

If you haven’t read the first book in the series yet, you can get An Oracle Walks into a Bar on Amazon.

Test, Test… Is This Thing On?

I’m a writer, so I like writing words. Good thing, too since it’s kinda in the job description.

But typing the same words twice? Or some words over here, some words over there? Yeesh. Enough already.

Which brings me to this particular post. I’m linking my author website Bloggity Blog Blog with my Goodreads “Scott’s Not even Remotely Helpful for Authors” blog. Because, you know, working smarter. What I post on my author website blog will magically appear on my Goodreads blog. Magically! As in, magic! Because it totally is. Abra cadabra! Bloggus overthere-icus. Ta da!

Not to worry, though. My Goodreads blog will still likely be totally unhelpful for authors.

Where Drinking is the Least of Your Problems

Hey, friend!

Sorry I've been such a stranger. Me and blogs... Meh. I do what I can, but I think we can both agree that I haven't been crushing it.

Which is why I've started a monthly newsletter, The Paranomedy Pint!

Yeah, I don't get it either. I mean, if I'm terrible about blogging, how would I do any better with a newsletter? Like a teenager that fails their driving test in a Honda Civic. Will putting them behind the wheel of a Toyota Corolla make any difference?

Welp, maybe...

So here's the scoop on the whole newsletter thing. Each month, I'll share what I'm reading, watching, and drinking. Are there other places you can go for book/show/beer recommendations? Yes! But will those recommendations be from me? No!

Huh. That sounded better in my head.

Back to The Paranomedy Pint. In addition to my monthly recommendations, I'll also share some paranormal weirdness.

That's cool, right?

Like the first issue that just came out in October. I went on a ghost hunt in Des Moines, Iowa and had a spooky encounter with a chair. A chair!

Yeah... that sounded better in my head, too.

All I can say is that this blog and my author website blog will continue to be random. The Paranomedy Pint, though... If you like knowing what you're going to get and when you're going to get it, you gotta sign up for my newsletter!

So That Happened…

Something happened.

Something so unexpected that I’m willing to bet that something like this simply hasn’t ever happened to an author EVER.

Let me say that again: I’m convinced that this has NEVER happened. Fan fic? Sure. But this? THIS?!?

I’ve agonized over how to properly share this news. What I’ve come to decide is that there simply is no way to do this “right.” It just has to be done.

That is how truly awesome this is. How remarkable. How incredibly rare and special.

My friend Ben Forsberg took it upon himself to compose and perform a musical score to Wisconsin Vamp, presented in three Acts.

And it is amazing.

There simply aren’t any words to express the joy this has brought me. All I can do is offer a humble, “Thank you,” and share Ben’s music. I hope you’ll do the same.

Act I

https://unquabain.bandcamp.com/album/wisconsin-vamp-act-i

Act II

https://unquabain.bandcamp.com/album/wisconsin-vamp-act-ii

Act III

https://unquabain.bandcamp.com/album/wisconsin-vamp-act-iii

The Paranomedy Pint

I read books.

I watch shows.

I drink beer.

I love paranormal weirdness.

Every month, I’ll share my favorite musings about all of the above and more in my new newsletter – The Paranomedy Pint!

Sign up here to get all that important stuff delivered to your inbox.

Support Your Monster Makers!

Hey everyone!

I launched a Kickstarter for “A is for All the Monsters We Can’t Stand.” Check it out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

I Done Did a Kickstarter!

Welp. That happened. I just launched a Kickstarter for A is for All the Monsters We Can’t Stand: A monster-themed coloring book for grownups.

Fun fact: Marketing and promoting a book is hard. Really, really hard. There are tens of millions of books in the world. Hundreds of millions. Billions. So how is a weird guy in Minnesota supposed to get noticed?

There’s luck. Maybe someone super cool and popular discovers the book and tells all their friends.

There’s discipline. Month after month, year after year, the author executes on a steady marketing and promotion strategy to win over readers one at a time.

And there’s money. Paid advertising on Amazon and Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. The goal is eyeballs. The more people that see the book, the better the odds that at least a few will buy it.

I haven’t been lucky yet.

I’ve tried to be disciplined.

Now I’m going to try money.

Making A is for All the Monsters We Can’t Stand was such a fun project. I loved working with Harold Torres, and I’m super happy with how it turned out. Let’s hope this Kickstarter gives us the fuel we need to send this book into the stratosphere and beyond!

Want to help? We’ve got some great rewards. Check it out!