It's a lazy sort of Sunday morning around here. Zelda's snoozing on the back patio, E's still buried beneath the covers of our bed and I'm settled in the library with an iced coffee (made with our amazing Toddy cold brewing system...YUM!) and the sound of the bookcase clock ticking off the time. The sky is still gray, though I suspect (I have yet to check the forecast) that within a few hours there will be sunshine and blue skies.
Today is a sort of bittersweet day, as the last day of lovely vacations tend to be. And this was a lovely vacation. I haven't felt a calm that runs this deep since, well, that weekend I spent at the beach last October. I feel...relaxed.
This vacation has been filled with grand adventures (LeakyCon...which I still can't stop thinking about, in fact, I'm fairly certain I've convinced E to join me in Orlando next year) and it's been filled with quiet afternoons in the backyard reading books and lounging in the sun. I've wandered to various coffee shops trying to find a new writing space. I've hung out with some of my favorite people.
I've been reading and writing and reading about writing. I spent a great deal of time the other day writing about the manuscript I've been trying to finish. I essentially combined a character bio with an outline and just talked about the story and the people in the story. I wrote about the motivations, the reasons behind the actions, hoping to get a stronger sense for what was working and what wasn't working...and I think it really helped. I think I understand my story in a much clearer way and as I continue working on the manuscript, I think I finally understand the changes that must be made, for the good of the story.
I also spent some time looking back at my Pick-Up Lines post from the end of May. For some mysterious reason I absolutely cannot find the post on my Facebook page where people commented on which first line they wanted to see more of. I'm kind of bummed about that. I figured I was long overdue to take the second challenge and write the first paragraph. I went with the line I remembered multiple people selecting, "Tell me," Jeremiah said, "how it is you ended up here, at my door in
the middle of the night, when you are supposed to be on a plane to the
other side of the world."
Let's just say I ended up writing a bit more than a paragraph and if you're curious you can find it here.
So all and all, I'd say this was exactly the sort of vacation I needed. Though there is a part of me that wishes I never had to go back to work, there is a part of me that's ready to go back and see the awesome people I get to work with and surround myself with books.
Showing posts with label first lines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first lines. Show all posts
07 July 2013
Picked Up (a follow-up to the Pick-Up Lines Post)
At the end of May I wrote a post about first lines and did an exercise based around that. The original post can be found here. This past week I took the next challenge which was to turn a first line (which if memory serves was one that most people were interested in knowing more about) into the first paragraph. I couldn't stop with one paragraph and ended up writing a whole page. I was surprised by what came out. It was not at all what I was expecting.
I'm already thinking about NaNoWriMo 2013 and the story that I'll tell this year. Perhaps it will be this one, perhaps I'll find something else entirely. I do know that I'm going to do more pre-planning this time perhaps even doing a story outline (in some form or another).
But for now, in case you were curious, here's what came out of that first line:
I'm already thinking about NaNoWriMo 2013 and the story that I'll tell this year. Perhaps it will be this one, perhaps I'll find something else entirely. I do know that I'm going to do more pre-planning this time perhaps even doing a story outline (in some form or another).
But for now, in case you were curious, here's what came out of that first line:
"Tell me," Jeremiah
said, "how it is you ended up here, at my door in the middle of the night,
when you are supposed to be on a plane to the other side of the world."
All the way from the airport,
riding in the back of a taxi that seemed to contain the stench of every
passenger who’d come before, I’d been thinking of this moment, the moment when
Jeremiah would open the door and I would finally tell him the words that I had
been saving for 10 years, words I’d been holding back since we were seventeen
and he caught me smoking a cigarette outside, alone, during our senior prom. Words
I should have spoken then but didn’t because his date was two steps behind him.
Now there were no excuses
left. I would finally tell him the truth, how I’d had a crush on him since we
were 14 and fate had given us neighboring lockers on the first day of high
school.
“Who is it?” I heard an
unfamiliar woman’s sleep-coated voice emerge from darkness of the apartment.
Jeremiah looked at me and
then looked back towards the apartment. “It’s just a friend, babe. I’m going to
step outside for a minute.”
I could feel the tears rising
from the depths. I’d always been good at swallowing them down, but this time I
couldn’t make them stop. I turned and walked down the hallway to the door
leading to the staircase and opened it, not looking back to see if Jeremiah was
still behind me.
I should have known this was
a horrible idea. I should have gotten on the plane and left for my new life,
leaving old friends and unrequited loves behind, in the past where they belonged.
Maybe I’d watched too many romantic films or maybe I’d had one too many mojitos
in the airport bar as I waited for my plane to begin boarding. Whatever it was
I wished I could go back in time and erase it so I’d never end up here, sitting
alone in a stairwell, embarrassed, alone and crying.
My personal pity part was
really starting to heat up when I heard the door open and close behind me. I
buried my tear-streaked face in my hands so Jeremiah wouldn’t be able to see.
He sat down beside me and I
felt the weight and warmth of his arm wrap around me. “Alice,” he said, his
voice steady, calm, and sure. “What happened?”
Here I was, faced with that
moment of truth, the opportunity to say those very words I’d come here to say.
Instead I said, “My flight
was cancelled and I just didn’t know where else to go.”
Another lie.
And whether Jeremiah believed
me or not, he accepted those words.
26 May 2013
Pick-up Lines
If asked, I would probably say my favorite opening line to a book would be from Charlotte's Web. I mean, "Where's Papa going with that ax?" has got to be in a great many top ten lists. It says so much, with so little.
The last few weeks I've been doing a lot of reading about writing and a lot of thinking about the art of storytelling. I'm still working on the opening of my novel and have yet to settle on exactly the right way to start the book. So I keep playing. I keep exploring. I keep dreaming.
After a morning of adventuring and yard work, I decided to settle into the library for an hour or two of reading/writing/thinking. I pulled The Observation Deck by Naomi Epel off the shelf where I keep my books about writing and decided to draw a card and see where it took me.
Ah, a bit timely and appropriate. I was instructed to pull some favorite books of the shelf and look at their opening lines. I pulled five favorites (from childhood to present day) off the shelf. These are their first lines:
Looking at first lines all on there own is an interesting adventure, especially when they are from a story that is so familiar you to you it feels like one of your very own. (like Anne or Lucy) Some people argue that the opening line should be, in some way or another, tied in to the story's end, that the essence of what the book is about, from beginning to end, should be represented in that first line. Talk about a lot of weight resting on only a few words!
In addition to looking at some of the opening lines to some of my favorites, The Observation Deck also challenged me to "brainstorm a list of twenty-five spontaneous opening lines."
Here are my unedited opening lines:
1) Recently divorced, Penny sat alone in her new apartment, looking at the blank walls, wondering where and when, exactly, she had taken the wrong path.
2) When Esperanza was twelve years old, she had a dream that one day she would own her own gas station.
3) Paul held his breath and listened to the crowd roaring as loud as the Pacific, waiting for him to make his entrance, wondering if everything had been worth it.
4) After sleeping until noon, I finally woke up and went into the kitchen where I found my grandmother working on yet another puzzle.
5) "Because," my mother said, "and that is the only answer you deserve."
6) "Tell me," Jeremiah said, "how it is you ended up here, at my door in the middle of the night, when you are supposed to be on a plane to the other side of the world."
7) I wanted to say yes, and yet, I couldn't believe it when I heard myself say no.
8) There is a certain freedom that comes from having lost everything.
9) Allison didn't even know she was nervous until she looked down and saw that she'd chewed her nails all the way down to the quick.
10) Susan sat back in her seat, the air of the plane already stale, and waited for that moment when the wheels left the ground.
11) Nichole hadn't opened the yearbook from her senior year of high school since the day she'd brought it home from school.
12) Sometimes the truth is more ambitious than a lie.
13) After being a parent for 4 years, Andrea was convinced the only purpose she played was to answer the question, "Why?"
14) My grandfather always said, "You go up or you go down, those are the only two choices you get in life or in death."
15) Patricia learned the hard way to never say never.
16) Standing on the edge of cliff, one that was both literal and figurative, Amy thought about the time her father took her to the zoo.
17) As soon as Georgia opened the refrigerator, she knew that there was something she had forgotten long ago.
18) After 12 years of piano lessons, Andy decided he would never play again.
19) There have been many times I have wished for a time machine, a way to go back and make the smarter choice, but never a time when I have wished for it more than the night my best friend married the only boy I had ever loved.
20) "Imagine," I said to Andy, the boy who'd been my neighbor and best friend since we started kindergarten, "Imagine if there actually had been a body inside."
21) It wasn't until my phone rang that I knew I was going to be in some serious trouble.
22) Once upon a time there was a girl at a party when she should have been home, snuggled beneath the covers of her childhood bed.
23) The room was dark and lined with bookshelf after bookshelf, each one stacked with books both vertically and horizontally.
24) If it weren't for the fireworks, with their booms and cracks, I would not have known that today was the 4th of July.
25) It was unusual for Vivian to be caught by surprise and so I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to make her appear so out of sorts.
The second part of the exercise involves taking one of the 25 opening lines and writing the paragraphs that follow. I'm curious to know which, if any of these opening lines were intriguing to you, dear reader. Are there any that leave you wanting to know the rest of the story? Give me a number in a comment (on the blog or on Facebook) and we'll see what happens!
The last few weeks I've been doing a lot of reading about writing and a lot of thinking about the art of storytelling. I'm still working on the opening of my novel and have yet to settle on exactly the right way to start the book. So I keep playing. I keep exploring. I keep dreaming.
After a morning of adventuring and yard work, I decided to settle into the library for an hour or two of reading/writing/thinking. I pulled The Observation Deck by Naomi Epel off the shelf where I keep my books about writing and decided to draw a card and see where it took me.
study opening lines
Ah, a bit timely and appropriate. I was instructed to pull some favorite books of the shelf and look at their opening lines. I pulled five favorites (from childhood to present day) off the shelf. These are their first lines:
"The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself." (from the prologue of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere)
"The circus arrives without warning." (from Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus)
"Walking to school over the snow-muffled cobblestones, Karou had no sinister premonitions about the day." (from Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone)
"Once there were four children named Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy." from (C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
"Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting in her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof." (from L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables)
Looking at first lines all on there own is an interesting adventure, especially when they are from a story that is so familiar you to you it feels like one of your very own. (like Anne or Lucy) Some people argue that the opening line should be, in some way or another, tied in to the story's end, that the essence of what the book is about, from beginning to end, should be represented in that first line. Talk about a lot of weight resting on only a few words!
In addition to looking at some of the opening lines to some of my favorites, The Observation Deck also challenged me to "brainstorm a list of twenty-five spontaneous opening lines."
Here are my unedited opening lines:
1) Recently divorced, Penny sat alone in her new apartment, looking at the blank walls, wondering where and when, exactly, she had taken the wrong path.
2) When Esperanza was twelve years old, she had a dream that one day she would own her own gas station.
3) Paul held his breath and listened to the crowd roaring as loud as the Pacific, waiting for him to make his entrance, wondering if everything had been worth it.
4) After sleeping until noon, I finally woke up and went into the kitchen where I found my grandmother working on yet another puzzle.
5) "Because," my mother said, "and that is the only answer you deserve."
6) "Tell me," Jeremiah said, "how it is you ended up here, at my door in the middle of the night, when you are supposed to be on a plane to the other side of the world."
7) I wanted to say yes, and yet, I couldn't believe it when I heard myself say no.
8) There is a certain freedom that comes from having lost everything.
9) Allison didn't even know she was nervous until she looked down and saw that she'd chewed her nails all the way down to the quick.
10) Susan sat back in her seat, the air of the plane already stale, and waited for that moment when the wheels left the ground.
11) Nichole hadn't opened the yearbook from her senior year of high school since the day she'd brought it home from school.
12) Sometimes the truth is more ambitious than a lie.
13) After being a parent for 4 years, Andrea was convinced the only purpose she played was to answer the question, "Why?"
14) My grandfather always said, "You go up or you go down, those are the only two choices you get in life or in death."
15) Patricia learned the hard way to never say never.
16) Standing on the edge of cliff, one that was both literal and figurative, Amy thought about the time her father took her to the zoo.
17) As soon as Georgia opened the refrigerator, she knew that there was something she had forgotten long ago.
18) After 12 years of piano lessons, Andy decided he would never play again.
19) There have been many times I have wished for a time machine, a way to go back and make the smarter choice, but never a time when I have wished for it more than the night my best friend married the only boy I had ever loved.
20) "Imagine," I said to Andy, the boy who'd been my neighbor and best friend since we started kindergarten, "Imagine if there actually had been a body inside."
21) It wasn't until my phone rang that I knew I was going to be in some serious trouble.
22) Once upon a time there was a girl at a party when she should have been home, snuggled beneath the covers of her childhood bed.
23) The room was dark and lined with bookshelf after bookshelf, each one stacked with books both vertically and horizontally.
24) If it weren't for the fireworks, with their booms and cracks, I would not have known that today was the 4th of July.
25) It was unusual for Vivian to be caught by surprise and so I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to make her appear so out of sorts.
The second part of the exercise involves taking one of the 25 opening lines and writing the paragraphs that follow. I'm curious to know which, if any of these opening lines were intriguing to you, dear reader. Are there any that leave you wanting to know the rest of the story? Give me a number in a comment (on the blog or on Facebook) and we'll see what happens!
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