Today’s post: the mental state of being at the front-end of the novel. I love the start of novels. It may be the only time I can say I am unabashedly happy as a writer. Other times I may be confidant, poised, satisfied, or happily resigned. But there is only one sequence when I am in love: At the beginning.
Other authors do not love beginnings. Mary Higgins Clark has said:
“The first four months of writing a book, my mental image is scratching with my hands through granite.”
In contrast to this–quite common, I believe–writing experience is mine:
Springtime at Giverny – Monet
“The first hundred pages or so, my mental attitude is that of being lost in a fun house–no, not lost, more staggering from one wonder to another”
