From the best-selling author ofRubyfruit Jungle andBingo, here is a writers' manual as provocative,frank, 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, critics,and the publicity circus; about pursuingjournalisim, academia, or screen-writing; and about rejectingthe Hemingway myth of the hard-living,hard-drinking genius. In addition Brown, a former teacher orwriting, offers a serious examination of thewriter's tool--language, plotting, characters,symbolism--plus exercises to sharpen the ear for dialogue,and a fascinating, annoted reading list ofimportant works from the seventh century to the latetwentieth.
By:
Rita Mae Brown
Imprint: Bantam USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 140mm,
Spine: 13mm
Weight: 320g
ISBN: 9780553346305
ISBN 10: 055334630X
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 31 March 1999
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
CONTENTS Contributors Foreword Preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Joseph Chinyong Liow and Ralf Emmers Regional Order, Balance of Power, and the English School Shocks of Recognition: Leifer, Realism, and Regionalism in Southeast Asia Donald Emmerson Michael Leifer and the Pre-requisites of Regional Order in Southeast Asia Khong Yuen Foong Michael Leifer, the Balance of Power, and International Relations Theory Jurgen Haacke Untying Leifer's Discourse on Order and Power See Seng Tan Institutions and Multilateralism Do Norms and Identity Matter? Community and Power in Southeast Asia's Regional Order Amitav Acharya Realism and Regionalism in Southeast Asia: The ARF and the War on Terror Sheldon Simon Nationalism and Multilateralism in Chinese Foreign Policy: Implications for Southeast Asia Christopher Hughes Maritime Security Michael Leifer and the Security of Southeast Asia's Maritime Thoroughfares Alan Chong Foreign and Security Policy-Making Singapore's Strategic Outlook and Defence Policy Tim Huxley Michael Leifer on Cambodia and the Third Indochina Conflict Ang Cheng Guan Domestic Security Priorities, Balance of Interests and Indonesia's Management of Regional Order Leonard C. Sebastian Michael Leifer's Reflections on the Foreign Policy of Singapore Chin Kin Wah The Domestic Sources of Regional Order in Michael Leifer's Analysis of Southeast Asia James Cotton Leifer and the Study of Southeast Asia Michael Leifer's Contribution to Southeast Asian Studies Michael Yahuda
Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of the Sneaky Pie Brown series; the Sister Jane series; A Nose for Justice and Murder Unleashed; Rubyfruit Jungle; In Her Day; and Six of One, as well as several other novels. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, Brown lives in Afton, Virginia.
Reviews for Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual
Funny enough inplaces to make you laugh aloud but honest enough toweed out the weak of heart who think writing is madeby muses rather than writers' hardwork. --<i>Columbus Sunday Dispatch</i> A writer's manual that reads like a crossbetween <i>Writers Digest</i> and AllanBloom's <i>The Closing of the AmericanMind</i>. --<i>The WashingtonPost</i>.