Chapter 1

I once tried to write a book. I had what, in my head, was a great idea. I knew it would be a bestseller if I could just get it on paper. So I sat down, opened the computer, loaded Word, typed “Chapter 1″, hit enter a couple times, and clicked “tab” to indent for the paragraph. Up to this point things were going great. The book was coming along exactly as planned.

“OK,” I thought to myself, “what’s the opening scene? How do I hook my audience from sentence number one?” This, of course, turned out to be the first major roadblock on my way to the publishing house, but I muscled through and finally typed out the first sentence of my Hugo Award winning novel. Feeling quite accomplished I sat back and read what I written. This brought me to the book’s first major editing spree. In fact, I had to rewrite the entire chapter at this point. Again, I muscled through, nose to the grindstone (among other cliche’s that we accomplished author’s tend to avoid) and after a few more drastic edits, I had the scene set. I was on a roll, the words practically typing themselves:

“It was another hot day of work in the desert, with temperatures soaring near 120 degrees. A stiff breeze out of the west did nothing to alleviate the heat; instead it filled the air with fine grains of sand which stuck to the sweat covered bodies of the archaeologists and their crew. Declan stood up, removing the bandanna from his wind-burned face and using it to wipe his brow.”

“Well, now!” I said, that’s one fine piece of writing! I was dazzled by thoughts of being the world’s newest Arthur C. Clark. I was already going over the movie rights with my agent. For the next few weeks I worked. I was a mad typist (and delete-ist), page after page (of the same page) flew from my mind onto the screen (and back off).  Finally, exhausted and satiated, I viewed my masterpiece in its entirety. I had written 358 words, including the words “chapter” and “1″. Well that’s not entirely true. I had written 16,789 words. But only 358 stuck.

To end what I’m sure is a burning curiosity here are the other 287 words I haven’t already revealed:

Man is it ever a scorcher today,” he exclaimed to his still-kneeling colleague, “What do you suppose it is, 118? 119?”

“All you do is complain about the heat, Declan. It makes me wonder why you chose a profession whose sole purpose is to dig holes in the middle of a desert!’ Branson replied, laughing. “Besides it’s not that bad. We have water, we have shade. And the new fans your company sent for use in the tents work pretty well, all things considered.”

“Yea, well it’s still hot,” he said, smiling. Standing atop a small outcrop of rock, Declan shielded his eyes from the glaring sun and peered out over the dust covered landscape trying to imagine what it must have looked like in ancient times when the whole area was lush, green, and covered with vegetation. A cry from one of the crew brought his attention back to the present.

“We better go see what that’s all about,” he told Branson, jogging off towards the source of the excitement.

The crew’s forman met him halfway there.

“What is it, what did you guys find?”

“I’m not really sure, boss. I haven’t seen anything like it before.”

“Well that’s promising,” Declan said hopefully. “What’s it looke like?”

“It’s only a small shard, but the surface is, well it’s hard to describe. It’s silvery, but extrememly smooth, not like any kind of jewelry we’ve seen. It’s almost mirror-like. It’s got a curved edge and looks like it’s just a piece, broken off of a larger, I dunno, like a disc or something.”

“Is it a colored lens?  We’ve found plenty of sunglasses before.”

“No, sir. It’s perfectly flat.”

“Hmm. that does sound strange. Let’s take a look.”

 

It was around the time that I placed that last quotation mark that I began to realize that I had no interest in where the story was going, how I was going to get there, or what would become of the characters. Intrigued with this newest development I clicked “save” and put the file in a safe place while I contemplated my future as a rich novelist. “Bah!” I said, “Writing isn’t for me. It’s too structured and rule-ridden. I need something that will let me express myself freely, without being bound by society’s chains, chains I say!”

Chapter 2

I once tried to write a song…