To Start Writing is Half the Effort

tyunglebower ♦ September 26, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

As I write this, I have written the first paragraph of my next novel.

And to this point no more of it.

It’s been a few days since I wrote that first paragraph. Furthermore, that first paragraph was a long time coming; I’ve been outlining and structuring the nature of this upcoming work for months now.

It’s a space sci-fi story, as I have mentioned before. If my current projections are accurate it will be the longest novel I have yet written, with the most characters to keep track of, and more subplots than normal.

I wrote a single paragraph of it the other day. That’s all.

I call that paragraph “pushing the boulder.” If I sat down and considered the enormity of the project that lay ahead of me I may never have gotten started. The bigness has probably delayed my start more than once in fact.

Yet I sat down one day determined to write just the opening paragraph. Push that boulder, and get it rolling down that hill.

It may not seem like it, but there is all the difference in the world between zero paragraphs and one paragraph. Far more difference than between one paragraph and two.

With one paragraph down, you enter an entirely new stage of work. The era of the project in progress is upon you. You may stall, take breaks, get frustrated, you know, experience all the downs of writing.

But you are “in progress.”

When you have zero written, you are not in progress. You are delayed. Not ready. IN some cases, perhaps afraid.

It’s particularly useful, nay vital for someone like me, who finishes an entire first draft before editing. But getting that first paragraph written, even if you edit it 50 times before proceeding opens the door. You may sit on the floor for two weeks after the fact, but the door is open, and that is where the power comes from.

So don’t start your next project if it intimidates you. Write your first paragraph, and tell the world you are currently working.

Just saying it, even to yourself, helps.