The hardest part of starting a new manuscript is starting. It’s that first paragraph and that first page. Oh, I can always go back and revise, but the first will set the tone and give me a jump start on crafting a work that pleases me. I kept saying I was going to write a particular story, and then there was this other one…one that kept dangling itself in my face, appearing in my morning and evening thoughts.
For days, I’ve gone deck-side to look at the Giganta range in the background of that photo my husband took from Sea Venture’s cockpit. You can see how distracting that could be, can’t you? Then I’d go below and revise our boat’s website/blog.
I uploaded pictures. I cleaned the boat. I climbed into the cockpit again and gazed at the view. Then, I removed old caulking from around the doghouse (a boaty name for the smaller cabin top, aft of the pilothouse, which allows us walking room in the aft cabin).
En route to the galley to fix lunch/dinner/snack, I’d stare at my writing computer. Today, I needed to go online with it as it had specific pictures stored in its hard drive. Maybe the fact that the screen was lit and glaring at me did the tick. Maybe it was that breeze blowing down the companionway to the nav station, the first in a couple of days.
I wrote one beginning and tossed it. Wrote the second and thought: boring. Wrote another and decided that, yes, I have a beginning. A real, attention-grabbing beginning that ties in book 2 and brings us to a new conflict.
So Now, I just have to write. Okay…. I can do this.
