EXERCISE: Getting Started?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 29 March 2009

Over here http://www.sfnovelists.com/2009/03/03/beginning-again/

They're discussing how to get started on novels. And down near the end (11) Kelly McCullough offers a description of how Tim Powers apparently likes to start books. It goes something like this:

I'm not going to start today, but let's open the document and just put together 10 practice sentences that could open the book when I do start.

That was easy, wasn't it? How about picking out the 3 best and expanding them into paragraphs? Just as an exercise.

You know, as long as things are moving along, why not get a sample page ready showing one way to start? So pick the best of those three and expand it again.

Wow, that looks pretty good. Now that you're committed, why not use that as the start of your book and keep going?

Not a bad idea, eh?