Scoop

Here's Rene Gutteridge... she's a successful author. She's interesting. She wrote an interesting book called Scoop. I liked it... except we have this thing that is fast becoming worse than a pet peeve for me. But put that aside for right now. You can find out all about her on her web page here.

There are some great Q&As there, too, like this one...

Q: Do novelists write out of their own experience?
A: Sometimes, but not always. Many readers assume that a writer is writing about a topic that they've lived through. I think most of the time, novelists write about things that interest them. They develop characters they can both relate to and can't relate at all to. Our ideas and inspirations come from many, many different sources. Sometimes we do extensive research. Other times it's a small, insignificant detail that can spur an entire book.

Scoop is the first book I've read of hers and it started out really well, but if I had a brother and he sold my parent's business they took years building, I think I'd kill him.

Back to that thing I hate. Call it an ague... feverish symptoms like malaria... my stomach tightens up and my brain whorls and I get a headache that pounds my head. It's that thing that editors and publishers and authors do that drives me insane. Why oh why can't a person just tell a story from point A to point B to C skip D if you have to for space and to delete yawns and then end with Z?

Evidently most people are not like me... they don't mind jumping from one place to another. They evidently like to find out all about each character before they meet each other. I like stories and characters to unfold together or wrap around each other. Those are the kinds of stories I grew up with. Today's author is not at all like that. I just hate that when it happens.

If that sort of thing doesn't bother, I know you'll like Scoop. Scoop it up today.