Scott G. Skinner – Writer

Hi there! Welcome to my website, a work in progress dedicated to my reinvention, almost five decades post-birth, as a writer. A novelist, to be specific.

I’m Scott (obviously), and if all goes well, at the time I write this I’m just six weeks away from publishing my first novel.

What’s it about, you ask? A better question might be, what isn’t it about? Do you like stories about time travel? You’ll find that here. Do you enjoy science fiction world-building? Great, you’ll find plenty of that here, too. Are you a fan of fiction set in and around large cities? Check. Do you like stories of young love? Of a person’s struggle against mental illness? Are you obsessed with 1980s pop culture? Check, check, and check. Are you drawn to dystopian, end of the world-type fare? You’ll get some of that, too.

“Displaced,” my novel, started out as little more than a kernel some thirty-aught years ago. I had five characters, a rudimentary sense of the plot, and a clear opening and closing. Once upon a time, it was to be my million-dollar screenplay, adapted into a Joel Silver-produced megahit with ‘splosions, car chases, and the requisite love triangle, an element of box office smashes ranging from from 1942’s “Casablanca” to 2023’s “Oppenheimer.” (I even moved to L.A. in an attempt to make my dream a reality.)

Alas, the industry changed and I found that I wasn’t a good enough writer. Frankly, the 12 years I spent there flew by in the blink of an eye, and looking back, I don’t even know what I did to keep myself busy for all those years. Writing, sure, but not enough of it to truly hone my craft. That came later.

Two cities and three career changes later found me living outside Knoxville, TN, with a bit of time on my hands as I took on a special project at work that left me with more downtime than I was used to. “It’s time to try my hand at writing a novel,” I told myself. “I doubt I’ll ever have children” – don’t worry, no regrets there – “but at least if I publish a novel there will be something to leave behind.”

That’s how it started. Of the myriad screenplays (in varying stages of completion) and story outlines I had thought up over the years, I decided “Displaced” – then called “Invasion” – would be the best one to start with, since I suspected its basic premise was too complex for a single, 120-page screenplay. I outlined a few scenes, starting with the original (and still unchanged) prologue, but quickly became curious how the words would unfold with dialogue attached to them and not just as a series of bullet points and sentence fragments. I set the outline aside and wrote the prologue and the first three chapters. Before I knew it, I’d written 150 pages, and by then it was too late to go back.

To say there were roadblocks along the way is an understatement. I lost the plot thread more times than I’d like to admit. I wrote myself into a corner more than once, and had to make the novel’s central idea of time travel ridiculously complicated in order to make scientific sense . . . or as much sense as one’s suspension of disbelief allows.

But I finished the book. I got a few sets of external eyes on it, added some stuff, deleted other stuff, then added some more. I spent two days of my April 2022 Hilton Head Island vacation simply lounging by the pool with my manuscript and a red pen, and was thankful that I had set a rock from the hotel garden on top of the loose pages to hold them in place when the inevitable afternoon breeze rolled in.

Finally, in November 2022, I felt the novel, now clocking in at 800+ pages and having been read and revised perhaps four times, was well and truly finished.

And then the hard work really began.

The “tortured artist” stereotype is a real thing. I knew I wanted to self-publish rather than shop around to Random House, Doubleday, and other publishing houses, where my synopsis might pique their interest, only for them to later ask for me to cut 300 pages or change the ending or make it more “woke” or . . . All good. But going it alone means many more rereads and rewrites. As it turns out, the four revisions I made prior to November 2022 were not enough by half. Not enough by a third, even. During the 11 months that have since elapsed, I’ve reread “Displaced” at least eight more times, and possibly as many as 15 times from my start in August 2021 until today. The good news is that my writing improved as I went along, and I’m pleased with the end result, tighter and more concise in some areas and bulkier and more detailed in others. I consider myself a perfectionist and suspect that there will always be something I feel needs changing. That being said, there comes a time when a writer needs to say, “Enough.” So here we are.

If all goes well, the novel will go on sale before Thanksgiving. Between now and then, I’ll be building author accounts across various online platforms and getting the layout just right. When you order a copy, it will be printed fresh and shipped to you, rather than plucked from the top of a pile of 500 others gathering dust in my living room. I hope, of course, that you like it, and that you leave a review. I lost my job last fall, and hope against hope that before too long, I’ll be able to support myself full time as an author, and that writing for pleasure morphs from a hobby into a career. (I purchased a Powerball lottery ticket this afternoon; the jackpot is over a billion dollars, but between winning the Lotto and finding success as an author, believe it or not, I’d choose the latter every time.)

Thanks for reading. I’ll share character art, order links, and pricing information once I have it.