The Biography (abridged) of Mr Scott Black
I was debating writing this in the third person and starting it with the very “writer’s bio” sounding line of “Scott always was a creative writer,” but it made my face cringe so hard that it almost turned inside out; so I’m not going to do that.
What I will start with is I’ve been making sh@% up since I was a kid. What started as a kid making up stories to make simple toys and old Atari video games enjoyable because he was the last of four kids with a massive age gap, essentially making him an old child to parents that checked out before he was conceived into a profession that I get to do and teach others.
The first lesson is free; above was an incredibly indulgent run-on sentence made for comedic purposes. It’s fun to break the rules when you have a reason.
I made up superheroes and backstories for toys to keep me entertained as a child. Still, I didn’t officially start putting craziness to paper until I was a teenager and started in the fast-paced world of morning radio. Sounds glamorous, until you find out I was employed to do weekend producing, but the morning team thought I was funny so asked me to volunteer to write bits for them five mornings a week from 5 AM to 9 AM with the promise of one day, maybe, thinking about, probably paying me. Spoiler Alert they didn’t. Still, it was an exciting time and the first time I wrote comedy down for others and myself to perform.
Then came professional wrestling. Yup. You read that right.
I started wrestling, and with that, I started writing promos (the speeches the wrestlers give to tell the audience the various horrible things they are going to do to their opponents), and the other wrestlers liked them so much that they asked me to help with theirs. I started helping the promoters write for television and fleshed out the bios of the talent on the website. Not bad for a kid that barely passed high school English.
I branched out into stand-up comedy from wrestling as “cutting a promo” was my favourite part of wrestling, and in stand-up, I was less likely, but never ruled out, to be body slammed through a table after I finished talking. In the late 90s, I would be asked to write for a few startup e-zines (now known as blogs).
The land down under beckoned me in early 2001, and here I quickly found myself writing for websites, marketing materials and this new platform called “social media”. In 2005, I worked in local television in Brisbane, writing marketing materials, scripts for promotions and advertisements, and punching up talent scripts for television shows. Getting tired of having other people screw up the quips and bits that I wrote for them, in 2009 I started “The Late Nite Show with Scott Black” and for the next five years wrote, produced, and performed an hour-long live late-night talk show that was as hard as it was rewarding.
During the “Late Nite Show” run, I would write jokes for other comics and work on scripts with screenwriters when I suggested that I make it a professional side hustle. Late Nite Media was born. In the early days, LNM produced podcasts, wrote sketches for YouTube, and blogs for other websites. Once “The Late Nite Show” came to an end, I transitioned into writing marketing, social media, eBooks, scripts, blogs, articles, and various other forms of the written word for clients all over the world.
I have been doing it professionally ever since. I hung up the wrestling boots, stopped performing in front of the camera, and focused on the writing. Today I’m fortunate to have a full-time marketing job and a successful freelancing business on the side.
Ghostwriting has been a significant part of my business. While it means I can’t directly tell you some of the fantastic things I have written on, I can guarantee that if you have been watching trending content on Netflix or Disney+, then it’s almost guaranteed that you’ve seen something I’ve written.
Thankfully, a few projects with my name on them are two feature films produced in the US by Silicon Mango Studios and a holiday special, A Very Goo Goo Dolls Christmas. There are more, but I like those three.
Now we are caught up till today, and I love writing for others and have three passion projects of my own to finish up this year; I’ll also be diving into streaming and coaching more.
I love working with creative people, so if you want to bounce some things around, please get in touch with me, and we can make sh@% up together.