Author Quirks: Latayne Scott

Next up is Latayne Scott, author of Latter-Day Cipher. I asked her:

What's a quirky or little-known fact about yourself, your writing, and/or one of your novels? (For example, you can tell us about a non-standard pet you have, an unusual way you do your writing, a strange real life incident that inspired a scene in one of your novels, or so on.)


Latayne Scott's answer:

Here's something that even the ladies at Novel Mattters, my dear friends, don't know about my writing career!

I have always tried to let the Lord guide my writing career. That’s a romantic ideal – as long as He puts you into glamorous writing jobs. But sometimes He led me into writing jobs I didn’t want and didn’t think I was qualified to do. For a three year period around 2000 I was paid to interview people and write articles about utilities for a business Internet site that was partially owned by CBS.

That’s right, utilities. Like natural gas, nuclear, electric, water and sewer. I had to produce up to five feature-length articles a week, with at least two original interviews of professionals in those fields per article. It was a 60 hour a week treadmill of reading press releases about natural gas pipelines and nuclear safety and transmission lines and gray water and black water. And then thinking up article ideas and getting them approved. And then writing them.

Did you know that one prominent ski resort used artificial snow made from, um, toilet water?

And do you know why I so much enjoy writing novels now?

Yes, I do! Thank you, Ms. Scott, for sharing this funny information about your writing career.