Thoughtful About . . . Extra Stuff

I confess. I’m one of those writers that just wants to write. When I was first informed that I’d have to market, I said something like, “Grooooooaaaaaan.” I’ve mostly gotten over that, but I still had a few pockets of Hold-Out in my little brain.

For some reason, one of them was discussion questions. I moaned at the very thought of someday maybe needing to write them. Then at the conference in September, someone said something about feeling similarly . . . until they got a piece of reader mail saying that one of those questions changed the reader’s life. Now I’m saying, “Well, huh.”

Given that I’ve already had people express interest in using A Stray Drop of Blood for bookclubs, It occurred to me that discussion questions might be a good thing. I said as much to my husband, who replied, “Better still, put together a bunch of the stuff that you drew on to write it. You know, behind the scenes stuff or information they can read to understand the culture of the day better. Encyclopedia Roseann-ica.”

This sounded cool, so I started taking notes on ideas. And thanks to my obsessive nature, it’s approaching completion on my website. I’ve now got both the Companion Guide and the Discussion Questions online (yes, the questions are also in the back of the book). If you’re curious but haven’t read Stray Drop, you’ll want to avoid the discussion questions (which might tip you off on some plot points) but you still might find the Companion Guide interesting. I’ll hopefully be finishing off my sections today. There’ll still be a few topics without links, though, which will be written by guest-experts. Just go to www.RoseannaMWhite.com, click on the Books tab, and voila. Companion Guide and Discussion Question links are front and center.

And since this is on my mind because I need to go do it, I guess I better, you know . . . go do it. =)