Month: September 2018

S.C. Barrus Progress Report

The state of S.C. Barrus – Updates on Discovering Aberration, The Gin Thief, Grim Curio & more

S.C. BarrusUpdate

I’m juggling a lot of projects right now which is keeping me really busy. But from the perspective of an outsider, it may seem like I’ve been twiddling my thumbs.

Despite the void that is my recent releases, I’ve actually been progressing nicely on a number of projects. In the last year, I wrote a novel, edited another, began work an a novella, rebooted my newsletter, began a YouTube channel, and I even took some time to plan a surprise for you guys 🤫

In light of all this, today I’m taking a moment to share the status of nearly every single project I’m working on. So let’s get started.

Release Order

Before diving into the specifics, let’s take a look at the current order of releases any dates attached—because I don’t do that anymore 🧐.

  1. Super secret short story 😮
  2. Discovering Aberration: Revised Edition
  3. The Gin Thief: Ep 2
  4. The rest of The Gin Thief episodes.
  5. Grim Curio (perhaps released in the middle of Gin Thief episodes)
  6. Half-price Hitman (we’re talking at least two years out)

My goal here is to hit a cadence of at least one major release every year from here on out. The one caveat is The Gin Thief episodes. I consider 2-3 episodes to equal one major release.

When you want to move a freight train, it takes a while to build up steam, but the momentum carries it forward. So I guess my books are a freight train or something.

via GIPHY

Don’t be surprised if a short story or two get thrown into the mix. I’ve been contemplating starting a pattern of releasing a short story between each novel with a collection released every few years. Why not?

Ok, now on to the specifics.

Discovering Aberration: Revised Edtion

A few months ago I revealed I was fixing some issues that Discovering Aberration was facing. Technical errors and irregular pacing made it into the release, so I took it upon myself to clean it up and rerelease it before I strike out on this second stage of my publishing career.

I finished editing the book several weeks ago then passed it along to my editor. A few days later I heard back from her. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “But it lost a lot of the charm in the rewrite.” 😱

On the upside, she hardly found any errors. Sooooooo……. I guess that’s a win.

I overdid it, plain and simple. Now I need to go back through it with a lighter touch, so a second round of edits is in order. sigh.

via GIPHY

Together, we’ve come up with a strategy to address this nightmare. I’ll go into what we’re doing in another post, but we think we can keep the improvements and not lose any of the charm along the way.

It’s going to take some work. I suspect this pushes back the release a couple months. But I think we’ll still hit a 2018 release date. I mean, please let me hit this dateoccasionally one. Please? Fingers crossed.

The Gin Thief: Episodes

The delay of DA: RE is sadly going to affect the release of The Gin Thief: Ep. 2. 

I know….

Delays have this cascading effect that isn’t much fun. I really don’t know if Episode 2 is going to squeeze in 2018 anymore (didn’t I once promise it out by February 2018? See why I gave up on release dates), though I remain pessimistically hopeful.

I’m trying hard to make 2018 happen, but it may turn out to be an early 2019 release. Sorry. For real, sorry. But it’s coming.

After Episode 2 is released, I’m going to soldier on and draft all of the remaining episodes in one go. Then I’ll set them aside much like I did for Grim Curio, focus on finishing Grim Curio, then return to the episodes for a final round of edits.

Grim Curio

Grim Curio is currently in a state of hibernation. The draft is done, beta reads are done, editing round 1 is done. Now I have some rewrites to do before it goes through the editing process again, but I won’t start rewrites until after the release of The Gin Thief Episodes are all drafted.

I think this strategy will lead to a stronger novel while also keeping me on track to push out those episodes. It’s not easy to write this way, but I think it’ll be worth it in the long run.

Get it? Green Day? I’m taking the long view. Like the Green Day song. Wow that’s a stretch.

via GIPHY

Half-price Hitman

And at last, we come to Half-price Hitman. This one is just a small side project which isn’t actively being written. I’m using it as a way to demonstrate my writing process to patrons.

So occasionally I’ll document myself in one stage of the writing process or another using this as an example. It’ll eventually turn into a full-fledged project, but it has no release date in sight. If you become a patron you can see it evolve as I share everything behind the scenes.

As for the super secret short story…

Delay’s aren’t fun, and I need to get something new out there.

I thought I’d have Discovering Aberration: Revised Edition out within a couple of weeks, but since that’s no longer the case, I wracked my brain for a way to deliver something to you without a substantial time commitment on my part. It had to be something I’d already written, something good enough to see the light of day, something I could put out there and be proud of in less than 2 weeks.

Tall order. But I found it!!! Get this, it’s still super secret. I’ll tell you this, it’s a short story that has an indirect relation to both Discovering Aberration and Grim Curio but isn’t directly set in either universe. And it’ll be free to newsletter subscribers and patrons.

That’s all from me today. Hopefully there’s something in this list that you’re excited about. And if so, why not subscribe to my newsletter. There are some cool benefits nobody even knows about yet (plus you get a free copy of Discovering Aberration).

Stoner by John Williams - Book Review by S.C. Barrus

Book Review – Stoner by John Williams

S.C. BarrusRecommendations & Reviews

Stoner by John Williams is an absolutely beautiful novel. Perhaps the best novel I’ve read this year. I’ve tried to share it with several people, but I think the appeal is lost in description. It’s a quiet, understated, sad novel, but it will make you feel deeply.

[You can also read this review on Goodreads. Follow me there for frequent updates on the books I read.]

Your heart will split for William Stoner as he quietly goes about his day, taking life’s blows like a reed bends to the wind. He’s not a strong-willed guy, not heroic or wise. He just tries to do what he loves and makes little effort to change the world.

As his life slowly becomes more difficult due to his family relationships, he approaches his work as a literature professor with more vigor and love. This passion brings him a brief time of fame within his university but results in a confrontation with a student that sends his professional life into a downward spiral as well.

He does rally from time to time both in his personal and professional life. The moments of accomplishment and happiness feel all the more powerful for the quiet sadness that envelopes most of the pages.

And the ending… This was the first book in some time that made me shed literal tears. I cried for the final two chapters. They are beautiful and devastating.

You should definitely read this book. As I stated in the opening, Stoner is a difficult book to sell because a lot of its value is the depth of emotion you’ll feel for this simple man. But give it a chance and you’ll absolutely fall in love with perhaps the best book I’ve read about the life of a simple man.

Recommended Reads after Stoner by John Williams

If you read and enjoy Stoner by John Williams, then I recommend reading Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger which was recently featured in a recent blog post on nine books that changed my life. John Williams has also written a western called Butcher’s Crossing which I intend to read in the near future.

Stoner was an excellent read which I consider among the best of the best. I’m adding it to the Books That Changed My Life list on Kit. Check out the other books that made the list right here.

Nine Novels that Changed My Life

S.C. BarrusFeature
I also filmed a video version of this blog post. Watch it on YouTube.

Most readers can put together a list of life changing books. I have my own. A list of novels that shaped me in some way. Some of they expanded my perspective of the world, others inspired they way I write my own works. So today I’m sharing a list of nine life changing novels.

This is an abbreviated list. If I were to list every novel that affected me, we’d be here for days. So I set up a kit, an ever-growing list of books that changed my life. If you want more life-changing books, check it out too.

Treasure Island by Robert Luis Stevenson

Treasure Island was one of those early books that encouraged my love of reading and writing. While I started reading illustrated abridged versions of young readers, as I grew older I revisited it several times. Unlike other novels (and movies for that matter) of my younger years, this one held up because of it’s fun and fast-moving plot, engaging characters, and standout villain.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is an inspiration (buy his complete works). I continue to draw from his works again and again, but never live up to anything he’s accomplished. I love King Lear and Titus for the passion in their protagonists. There’s something so compelling in watching a person at their height brought low. The Tempest is surreal, and Othello is captivating. If you haven’t seen a live Shakespeare performance, you owe it to yourself to do so.

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Generally speaking, people tend to talk about Catcher in the Rye as J.D. Salinger’s masterpiece, but I personally think it pales in comparison to Franny and Zooey. The novel is mostly dialog, so we Perdidoget to know these characters. If you’re looking for a study in dialog to improve your own writing, you can’t do much better than this.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Doesn’t it have a fantastic title? The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time follows a young autistic boy as he investigates the murder of a dog in his Perdido yard. But it goes much deeper than that as we follow him day by day and see everything through his perspective. It does a great job of immersing you in a characters head that may be very much unlike you, which is why it affected me so much.

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days heavily influenced the writing style in my first two books, Discovering Aberration and The Gin Thief. I love the way he strings a sentence together, so when I set to writing a steampunk novel, I thought a voice similar to his would make a great fit. Not only that, but his novels are pure fun. Sure there are a few boring sections here and there where he get’s overly specific on how technology works or how an economy functions, but if that bores you, simply skip a paragraph or two and you’re back into the adventure.

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hess

In my college years, Hermann Hess affected me more than any other writer. I felt a real connection with him that I haven’t felt with a writer since. While everyone reads Siddhartha, a book that’s fine, most don’t move on to his real masterpieces like Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund, or The Glass Bead Game. All of these novels shaped the way I think permanently, gave me perspective on life, sex, religion, and art. If you’re looking for the standout author who really changed the way I view the world, it would be Hermann Hess.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

The grand achievement of this book is the fact that as soon as I finished reading it, I started again from the beginning. I don’t think I’ve done that before or since. It’s world is so utterly engrossing, and so wildly different from our own. If you’re searching for a fantasy that throws out all of the genre norms, builds a world fresh from the ground up, and tells an engaging and dark narrative, look no further than the masterpiece that is Perdido Street Station.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

It is the first book of a now famously unfinished trilogy. The fact that it’s unfinished doesn’t bother me a bit, and it shouldn’t bother you either. Let genius work. Time has always been a major ingredient in the writing of these books. Anyway, The Name of the Wind is an outstanding novel that drops you into a characters head as he goes about life, grows up, learns magic, and seeks revenge in this fantasy world. It all sounds fairly typical of a fantasy novel, but in its execution, it really stands out. I’ve read it several times and will read it several more.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

This is a novel with perfect prose. I’ve never read a more perfectly written novel. It’s astounding. Blood Meridian is an extremely dark tale that will stick with you well after you put it down. There are scenes that get etched in your mind. I’ve loved some of Cormac McCarthy’s other books, such as The Road and No Country for Old Men, but even those fantastic novels don’t hold a candle to Blood Meridian.