Openings

Because of my schedule I only write two to three days a week. I started a new story on Sunday and since then I've pondered how snoozingly dull it is. Being a discovery writer has its advantages, but beginnings aren't one of them. I'm pretty good at opening lines, but I think with this one I may have started in the wrong place. 

I'm a visual writer. By that I mean that I "see" the scene play out before me. Maybe everybody does that; I don't know. In fact, I think I am in the scene that's playing out. By that calculus I should be better at writing sensory details ~ something I need to work on. My opening scene for this one, while quite grounded, isn't exactly a blockbuster.

There was a time when I'd never even mull over things like this. I would just hit "start" and off I'd go. That's a mistake. Readers are going to know very quickly whether to keep reading or to slam the book shut.  

My opening line for Lies and Love: 

George Washington keeps staring at me.

New Kaitlyn:

When I saw the archway with "Buffalo Cemetery" welded in wrought iron, I had two immediate thoughts: There are buffalo here? And they bury them?

 

I think, and I may be wrong, that those opening lines might make a reader want to at least continue on to find out what the heck they mean. (They actually worked with these two novellas.)

Too, they set a tone for the writer. If you write a good opening, you're more jazzed to keep going and live up to it.

Maybe that's what's lulling me to sleep right now. I didn't write one. Granted, I wasn't in the mood to even start a new story, but that's a bad excuse. I need to start over. Not kill all my words, but add some better ones. 

One would think that more experience would lead to better instincts. I do worry that I'm growing tired of writing. So many people online say, "I have so many stories in my head, I don't know which one to write first!" What? I have no stories in my head. 

The only way for me to get over my writing exhaustion is to pique my interest, and the only way to do that is to love what I come up with in the beginning. Make myself want to know what'll happen.

On the plus side, I've assembled the tiny bones of a plot. All is not lost. 

People say, if you're weary of doing something, take a break. That doesn't really translate to the creative arts. I write a blog post every day because I don't want my skills to slip away. I need to keep going. I never left more than a week between writing songs. Now it's been years, and if I picked up the guitar today, what would come out would be complete garbage. 

Tomorrow I will try to keep those skills intact.