Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual

From the best-selling author of  Rubyfruit Jungle and  Bingo here is a writers manual as provocative  frank and funny as her fiction. Unlike most  writers guides this one had as much to do with how  writers live as with mastering the tools of their  trade. Rita Mae Brown begins with a very personal  account of her own career from her days as a young  poet who had written a novel no publisher wanted  to take a chance on right up to her recent  adventures as a Hollywood screenwriter. In a sassy style  that makes her outspoken advice as entertaining as  it is useful she provides straight talk about  paying the rent while maintaining the energy to  write; and dealing with agents publishers critics  and the publicity circus; about pursuingj  ournalisim academia or screen-writing; and about rejecting  the Hemingway myth of the hard-living  hard-drinking genius. In addition Brown a former teacher or  writing offers a serious examination of the  writers tool--language plotting characters  symbolism--plus exercises to sharpen the ear for dialogue  and a fascinating annoted reading list of  important works from the seventh century to the late  twentieth.