Music Fiction
Date Published: 09-30-2025
Publisher: Covfefe Press
For anyone who's ever said, "They're playing my song!"
On
Halloween Eve, 1961, in his dingy Bronx walkup apartment, seventeen-year-old
Jimmy Welton hears the opening notes of a song in his head. Jimmy’s
still mourning his firefighter father, who taught him to play the guitar but
recently died in a house fire, leaving his family destitute. Jimmy takes this
song, about all he misses from his life now, to the New York amusement park
where he works after school. There, he meets Mark Morgan, a rebellious teen
with his own band, who eventually invites Jimmy to join them. And the rest is
rock'n roll history...
The GooseBumps become a worldwide phenomenon, and
the songs they write and sing together become the backbone of rock musical
history. And the song Jimmy first heard on Halloween, "Wrapped in Gauze",
becomes the song that not only comforts him in that terrible time but also
comforts others: Victoria, recently divorced and dealing with an unthinkable
family tragedy; Carolyn, whose final flippant words to someone in pain can't
be taken back; and Jack, battling back from unimaginable loss with the help of
his cheeky therapist and a song he thinks he hates.
SCENES
FROM A SONG is the story of a song that makes us smile, that breaks our
hearts, that stays with us forever, and the very special band that started it
all.
Interview
Is There a Message in Your Novel That You Want Readers to Grasp?
The message is really about the importance of music in cushioning and comforting us at difficult times in our lives. The story of the band is fun, I hope, but it’s really the story of what happens to the song afterward that drives home the message. I hope that’s what readers will take away from it.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Yes! The bleepity-bleeping MIDDLE!
Whenever I get stuck, it’s ALWAYS in the middle. I almost always know how a story will begin and end, but getting there sometimes isn’t fun at all! I’ve learned when I get stuck to pick the most outrageous possible solution, because that tends to work the best. I’ve done that several times, and it’s gotten me not only through difficult scenes, but also through major story arcs.
With SCENES FROM A SONG, I didn’t find writing the middle that difficult, because by the middle of the novel, I was really just writing short vignettes about people at painful, life-changing moments, and I only had a short time with them, so I had to get to the point fast. (The story begins in 1961 and ends in 2015.) I also wrote the first draft for the 2018 Nanowrimo, which is such a sprint (50,000 words of an original novel in 30 days) that you don’t have time to question much about your work, you just have to keep doing it, to hit the deadline. So that helped a lot.
How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
I’ve written 26 published books, both traditional and indie, in a variety of genres (I can never seem to settle down to just one). Right now my favorite is a tossup between my novel FORWARD TO CAMELOT (co-authored with Kevin Finn), about the JFK assassination, and SCENES FROM A SONG, my brand-new novel, because I enjoyed writing them both so much. CAMELOT was much harder to write—I was trying to keep to certain important historical facts, while telling a fictional story, and that was tough at time—and SCENES, because it was written for Nanowrimo, had a lot less angst. It’s hard to feel angst when you have to hit 1600 words every day for 30 days!
If You had the chance to cast your main character from Hollywood today, who would you pick and why?
I think you’re talking about Jimmy Welton, the teenager who meets Mark Morgan, the leader of a rock band, on Halloween and becomes part of the GooseBumps, a group which achieves lasting worldwide fame that goes on for decades. Jimmy is a gorgeous, very nice guy with very good values whose father has just died, and he’s still adjusting to that sense of loss and having to move to the Bronx, to an awful apartment away from the home he grew up in on Long Island. I can’t think of anyone in Hollywood right now in that age range (17) who I think could really nail the part. Any suggestions?
When did you begin writing?
I started writing stories at about 7. I was always a passionate reader and of course, sooner or later you start to think, “I can do this, too.” And I started putting down ideas for stories, including some long pieces like a novel I started at 12. Of course, I started writing all these things, but the key is… I never finished any of them.
How long did it take to complete your first book?
Seriously? One month. And no, I’m not kidding.
As I said, I’d never finished any of the stories I’d written as a kid, but when I went looking for book assignments with companies who hired writers for hire, I found a company that offered me a contract on the basis of some sample chapters I submitted. But the editor said to me, “We’re under a lot of pressure here. Can you finish this in a month?”
I’d never finished a single long piece of prose (just a three-act play I wrote as a teenager). I wasn’t sure I could even do it. So I said what any budding writer would say: “Absolutely. No problem!”
And yes, I finished it in a month, panting all the way down the wire. And then went on to write 9 more books for that company (same type of deadlines) over the next 2 years.
Did you have an author who inspired you to become a writer?
I have authors I love and re-read constantly, but not necessarily one who pushed me toward writing, since I was already writing, in most cases, before I read their work. But authors I love? Daphne du Maurier, Ayn Rand, Noel Streatfeild (brilliant English children’s author); Dick Francis (best thriller writer ever), Jack Finney (his time-travel books really are the best ever written) and people like Susan Isaacs, whom I read for fun. I also admit to a passion for children’s middle-grade fiction; I re-read it constantly, though in some cases I first read it decades ago, when I WAS a child.
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
Typing “THE END”.
Describe your latest book in 4 words.
Music heals hurting hearts.
Can you share a little bit about your current work or what is in the future for your writing?
Right now I’m working on a project I’m thrilled about—a STAGE MUSICAL based on an old novel I’ve loved since the 1980’s. It’s so much fun to get into this and to know I’ll be writing the lyrics as well as the script. It’s a whole other side to me as a writer that I haven’t exercised in a long while!
About the Author
SUSAN SLOATE is the author or co-author of more than 25 published books. This includes 3 editions of Forward to Camelot, a time-travel thriller about the JFK assassination that became a #6 Amazon bestseller, was honored in 3 literary competitions and was optioned by a Hollywood company for film production. She also wrote the autobiographical Broadway novel Stealing Fire, which became a #2 Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release, and Realizing You (with Ron Doades), for which she invented a new genre: the self-help novel.
Susan has also written young-adult fiction
and non-fiction, including the children’s biography Ray Charles: Find
Another Way, which won the silver medal in the 2007 Children’s Moonbeam
Awards. Mysteries Unwrapped: The Secrets of Alcatraz led to her 2009
appearance on the TV series MysteryQuest for The History Channel. She has also
been a sportswriter and a screenwriter, edited the popular Kyle & Corey
young-adult book series, managed two political campaigns and founded an
author’s festival to promote student literacy in her hometown outside
Charleston, SC. She has appeared in multiple volumes of WHO’S WHO IN
AMERICA, WHO’S WHO IN ENTERTAINMENT and WHO’S WHO AMONG AMERICAN
WOMEN.
Contact Links
Twitter: @Susan_Sloate
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1 Comments
Thanks so much for hosting me today... it's great to be here!
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