Once upon a time- I mean, last night- I stayed up until 11 p.m. working on this… this… novel (I still shudder at the word). In bed, with the lights off and the door closed, I started hacking away at what I hope becomes another chapter. You know how everything glows blue when the lights are off, but a computer screen is on? It's never been a comforting color. It's kind of a sickly blue, more of a washing out than a wash of color. But I digress.
I've been working on this book on and off for a few months (since August… maybe July. Four or five months). But the idea that I had, a character's occupation, I've been kicking around since February. I had no place for him to be, just what he did. I thought it was a funny job, something that seemed like it would be rich for some kind of human interaction. I mean, if it does or not, who knows, but that's beside the point. I'm forcing that, so whatever.
The thing was that actually putting him down into a story seemed to be impossible. Everything seemed forced. Every time that I wrote something I had every intention of putting him in, he would wriggle free from my creative grasp and hide away like a frightened animal in the back of my brain. It was maddening. It's like having a twenty dollar bill in your pocket, but every time you go to purchase something, it turns into lint, only to regenerate once you're away from the store (naturally, in this simile, you were planning on purchasing booze. Well whiskey, probably, so don't get too upset.)
But then, one day while bored at work (which is a desk job monitoring a computer lab. What the gig lacks in pay, it more than makes up for in writing time) I started writing character descriptions out of boredom, characters I never planned on writing, while playing around with the voice I wrote them in. I got attached to one, and the description of a drug dealer ended up being the first paragraph of what slowly morphed into this novel. When it came time to say what the character did for a living, I gave him the occupation I was kicking around, and that was that. It was basically a free write that gained traction.
Eventually, that original paragraph, and the next several pages, would be cut. But those (terrible) free written paragraphs gave me the start I needed.
Which is different than I normally go about things.
When a story idea is at the front of my mind and I have things planned out and ready to go, I still find myself stuck on how to actually go about getting the thing written. The empty space is intimidating, and I've seemed to trick myself into thinking that if the first line is a failure, the rest of the piece will be a failure. So, how do I start when the thing that needs to just get out of the way is what keeps the pen from contact with the paper?
The same way every five year old ever starts a story that they're making up. "Once upon a time…"
Seriously. "Once upon a time" has been my tool for starting to write for the last two years now. Think about what comes after. Once upon a time is typically followed with "there was a [character] who lived [place] and there was [a problem]." It forces the story. Sure, I don't say "Once upon a time there was a republican campaign staffer in Minnesota who hated his coworker," (probably the worst thing I wrote) but it at least reminds me of the things that are important. I start off knowing who I'm working with, knowing where I'm putting them, and I know what they're up against. It also forces the story to start. And I typically know that those words are to be omitted.
Sometimes I leave them there. Well, kinda. I replace them with a more specific time frame. "Recently," "last week," "two months ago." All ways that I have started stories. Shamelessly.
Now, I get to deal with chapters or sections or stories within a story. Each of these has to have its own start. But hey, at least I don't have to deal with endings just yet.
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