A writer, WRITES!

“Every time I write, I die a little bit more, Then, I breathe again.”

The story is the ‘thing.’ Yes? I think so.

I was born in many ways to be a scribe. My father Louis Scotty Scotellaro (2/7/1936 – 9/11/2025) was the consummate Renaissance Man who instilled in me a love for fiction. “BOOKS ARE YOUR FRIENDS” was his credo throughout my childhood. To be introduced at a young age to epic authors like Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and Joseph Conrad lay the foundation for a life-long dedication to story telling.

From the age of 7 or 8 to the present, 61, I’ve sat in plain rooms with a window and a bed typing away on whatever devices were fashionable at the time; from word processors, to the first desk top computers to the modern portable laptop and cell phone, writing stories has morphed into a constant begging! On the toilet, beach, driving a car, walking a street, riding in the elevator, in a diner booth, where ever, the lure n’ lust to carve words on a screen dictates the moment, the means to tell a story has never been easier, especially with audio features. All writers admit to the compulsion and obsession to squelch the voices in the head SCREAMING to be heard. Least for me, that’s how it always was. A necessary truth in order to be creative or, go insane. The ‘hearing n’ listening’ to voices clearly may be a sign of mental illness akin to schizophrenia 101.

Yet, when one is tapped ‘pon the shoulder so to speak by angels n’ demons or something else begging our attention, the choice is to LISTEN or simply, ignore what you think ya’ heard. I’ve ALWAYS listened. There’s a risk in doing so of course once you agree to sit at the typer to bang o’way your strange tales only you believe are worth telling. Aye, ya see, there’s the rub! Is the story worth the time it takes to pen it? Oft’times it is not. Then again, who knows what’s the right tale to tell when the ‘tap tap TAPPIN‘ comes? You don’t – a writer’s left to his own desire and choice to HEAR what the Spirits are asking him to do. To all the truly noble scribes out there here’s some honest advice: never think every word you may write is sacred and not worth editing, and NEVER write fiction for a reader you imagine will fall in love with those words. Write for yourself alone first and then if luck befalls you, an audience and/or readership may follow over Time. Unless of course you choose to be a sports or political journalist then sure, write for the consumers of that genre/material.

Fiction, however, to me at least, isn’t about anything other than ‘taking dictation’ and not interfering with the mental dogshit of other people’s perceptions of your talent. My last words to offer any writer n’ no more I promise because advice n’ ‘opinions’, are like assholes and ya’s know the rest of that cliche. NEVER write yourself out at the end of the day n ‘ o’ways leave something else to bite into the next day and if your standard of what is marketable n’ literary is based on dramaturges of your time, then please just don’t write a sentence. FUCK CRITICS! They haven’t the skill or courage to create toilet paper anyway if get my meanin.’ I might have a third piece of two dirty pennies to offer – OH, well, heed this warning because one of my all time faves Mr. Henry Charles Bukowski’s epitaph reads – ‘DON’T TRY.‘ Brilliant in its simplicity and warning.

Killers, KILL. Doctors, DOC. Bears…maybe they really do SHIT in the woods, huh? Orange men, BECOME POTUS CLOWNS! Grease monkeys fix cars. End of day, I’ve known many men who fancy themselves scribblers and poets, story tellers and novelists n’ gabbers of tales. Any man can say he has a story to tell. But, is it worth telling? Or, simply better to be alone reciting into a dirty mirror on meaningless nights in a slanted room with the ceiling bleeding razorblades – a window whipping in bee stings. Most men can manage that trick, no? If I may, writing, after so many fuckin’ years of it now at age 61, is pulling a rabbit outta’ my ass hoping the fur is stained with gold flakes and not shit. It happens sometimes ya know, that once the typer is ablaze with the finger fucking of the keyboard, p’raps real truths emerge within a plot n’ theme so what follows as characters n’ their dialog reaches up off the page n’ grabs a reader by his fuckin’ throat! That’s my usual intention to be honest.

BELOW, are the first three books I finished in Vermont that combined took me a solid 7 years to complete.

My first novel written in Vermont

The second novel for Ms. Delcina Brown set in Jamaica and Vermont

THE BLARNY BOYS (A Hell’s Kitchen Tale), DELCINA’S TREE (Legend of the Crossin’ Tree Witch) & LEGEND OF JACK HENRY (The Immortal Tattooist), launched the compulsion after the ‘tappin’ started to translate voices into long-form ‘third person omniscient’ narrative. To these three sacred novels to I dedicate to the Spirits for allowing me a chance to tell my tales so dictated. To The Blarney Boys, well, I wrote that novel to honor the noble drunkards I ran with in my Hell’s Kitchen days of rage, lust, n’ binges. Delcina’s Tree, to honor the woman who helped raise me and my sister Stacey, and Jack Henry, in tribute to the many maritime novels I was inspired by as a boy n’ young teen, i.e. Joseph’s Conrad’s NIGGER OF THE THE NARCISSUS, n’ the epic, HEART OF DARKNESS. Many decades later as a middle-aged scag, my father and I discovered the books that became the great Russel Crowe film, MASTER AND COMMANDER ( Far Side of the World). The novel (from his 20-book series) by Patrick O’Brian, made for a helluva great movie directed by Peter Weir in 2003. My father and I used to watch the film in the library we have at the Vermont house. With the sound turned up full volume, we were immersed onto the high seas long with the HMS Surprise captained by the fierce ‘n’ capable ‘Lucky Jack’, Capt. Jack Aubrey.

O’Brian wasn’t another Charles Dickens or Herman Melville author who sculpted immortal characters in his classic Moby Dick like Capt. Ahab, Queequeg, or the shipmate Starbuck. Nor did he create timeless characters contained in the works, Typee, Omoo, or, Billy Budd/Sailor, etc with other sea inspired works Melville penned. But with Capt. Aubrey, I was compelled to try my own hand at a coming of age sea tale and did so with JACK HENRY. All three books were created under a shit ton of duress between the years 2001-2007/’08. For those younger scribes, please know this (again with the two-pennies?) that most good writing is born from chaos either inward or outward. Trick is to just lean into the process and write your wares no matter what ails ya at the time. Is there ever a good time to write fiction other than scheduled hours you adopt?

(for more expanded bio on S.W. Laro’s work, STAY TUNED…!)