Rita Mae Brown - Starting from Scratch

Books by the same author

T HE H AND T HAT C RADLES THE R OCK
S ONGS TO A H ANDSOME W OMAN
T HE P LAIN B ROW R APPER
R UBYFRUIT J UNGLE
I N H ER D AY
S IX OF O NE
S OUTHERN D ISCOMFORT
S UDDEN D EATH
H IGH H EARTS
B INGO

STARTING FROM SCRATCH
A Bantam Book

All rights reserved.
Copyright1988 by Speakeasy Productions, Inc.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Rita Mae
Starting from scratch.

1. Brown, Rita MaeAuthorship. 2 Authorship.
I. Title.
PS3552.R698Z47 1988 813.54 87-19535
eISBN: 978-0-307-79400-0

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v3.1

Scribble, scribble scribble! Eh, Mr. Gibbon?
To you Scribblers everywhere

Its an act of faith to be a writer in a postliterate world. One disrobes ones typewriter with trembling and hope. Did someone put the film of history into the projector backwards? Are we becoming more barbaric and illiterate? Are we entering the technological Dark Ages?

If we are, then, as in the original Dark Ages, there will be people dedicated to Literature. We may be diminished in number but we wont die out, because a book will remain what it has ever been: the most intense, private form of communication between two minds. This special bond invests the act of reading and the act of writing with passion. Inevitably it becomes a love affair or its opposite.

This fiction writers manual is not a substitute for the more conventional manuals. Rather, it gathers what Ive learned the hard way through my failures and my occasional triumphs. I hope some of the following will be useful to you. If it isnt, dont tell me.

Every writer starts from the foundation of his or her physical life. We each carry beliefs formed in childhood that are so much a part of us as to be definitive. If I tell you mine, as a person and a writer, maybe youll be able to decide whether to push on with this volume.

I believe all literature started as gossip. I believe self-pity stinks. I believe that a hen never cackles until shes finished her job. I believe in art that conceals art. I believe we often disguise pain through ritual and it may be the only solace we have. Literature is part of that ritual. I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority. I believe every change any word has undergone probably originated in ignorance. I believe life is a grand spectacle of foolishness and that each generation must find its weapons for the old battle of good versus evil, life versus death, the trivial versus the profound. I believe that I have the ability to write a pulp novel larger than the Cedars of Lebanon and I hope I can resist the siren call to do it. I believe in serenity, not passivity. I believe that after exhausting all other alternatives, Ill behave reasonably.

While the above beliefs may not spill over into the information in this writers manual, my temperament will. Best you know that before you embark, because if you can tolerate my temperament youll probably enjoy the writers manual. Even if you reject this book it will have served its purpose, which is to clarify your thinking and your feelings about writing. Youll at least know what you dont like, and thats a gift of sorts.

Being happy made me want to write, so I figured writing would make me happy. I set off to be a writer and my above-stated childhood premise proved correct. I have been writing since I was fifteen. I am now forty-one. I didnt make any money from my labor until I was twenty-eight and then I made $1,000. Still, writing made me happy. Now, years later, with a sprinkling of novels that clambered onto The New York Times Best Seller list, with two Emmy nominations under my belt and with contracts for future novels, teleplays, and screenplays in hand, I can say that writing not only makes me happy but brings me rapture. Happiness is in the animal brain and joy is in the cerebrum. Writing gives me both experiences of pleasure.

Notice I am not saying that the work is easy. I doubt any writer will tell you that but why dedicate yourself to something thats easy? I cant promise that writing will make you happy, but if youre the real thing youll never be bored. That may be the greatest gift each of the Arts gives its practitioners. I hope that you may write on.

In order to help you do that, let me, up front, tell you something you need to know. Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.

Your far from humble servant,

R ITA M AE B ROWN

C HARLOTTESVILLE , V IRGINIA

Writers will happen in the best of families. No one is quite sure why. What comes first: the chicken or the eggthe family or the writer? Fortunately, this question cannot be answered, insuring grist for the biographers mill whenever a deceased writer is the subject. Oscar Wilde said, Biography lends to death a new terror. This is especially true for a writer because its so easy to read far more than was intended into novels, plays, poetry.

Maybe you know why you are a writer. I dont know why I am. I only know it never occurred to me to be anything else, and I proudly display the stigmata of my novels as proof of this. Let me tell you how I started, not so much because I need to tell you but because my publisher wants to know. She needs an explanation for the torrent of words that flows across her desk. Also, she thinks you might want to know how one person started in this profession and managed to survive.

I wasnt kidding when I said Ive never thought of being anything but a writer. I was born knowing. I think of birth as the search for a larger apartment. I wanted a huge apartment that was one big library. I started to read at three. Dont be alarmed if you did not begin so early. The reason I started was that I was blessed with a mother and father who encouraged me, read to me, told me stories, and did everything humanly possible to activate my mind. Its silly to wait until first grade to teach children to read. They are ready before that.