Starting from Scratch

From the best-selling author ofRubyfruit Jungle andBingo here is a writers'' manual as provocativefrank and funny as her fiction. Unlike mostwriters'' guides this one had as much to do with howwriters live as with mastering the tools of theirtrade. Rita Mae Brown begins with a very personalaccount of her own career from her days as a youngpoet who had written a novel no publisher wantedto take a chance on right up to her recentadventures as a Hollywood screenwriter. In a sassy stylethat makes her outspoken advice as entertaining asit is useful she provides straight talk aboutpaying the rent while maintaining the energy towrite; and dealing with agents publishers criticsand the publicity circus; about pursuingjournalisim academia or screen-writing; and about rejectingthe Hemingway myth of the hard-livinghard-drinking genius. In addition Brown a former teacher orwriting offers a serious examination of thewriter''s tool--language plotting characterssymbolism--plus exercises to sharpen the ear for dialogueand a fascinating annoted reading list ofimportant works from the seventh century to the latetwentieth.