Where Do You Start Your Novel?

Where do you start a book? Very few people can sit down and write a book start to finish without revision. The best thing about computers is that you can start writing a book anywhere and you can cut and paste easily and effortlessly. It isn’t like it was in the days when I started writing when you wrote the first draft by hand, typed the second draft on a typewriter. Cut and pasted with a scissors and glue. Typed. Cut, pasted and glued the third draft. And if you were lucky that was the last draft. Once you get rolling you’ll find that the process feeds the book and that a natural order appears. You should expect to start in the middle and build in several directions. One of my favorite stories is about the time I published an article inspired by a physics class I was taking. My physics professor said, “I’m so impressed, it would have taken me at least five drafts to write that.” My thought was, “What makes you think it didn’t take me five drafts?” Today I am announcing a $.99 special on my book “The Provenance.” It is a story inspired by a real rescue in New York laced with the new age theory of rebirthing. Rebirthing teaches that you make life long- decisions at or around birth and during early childhood. It deals with the question what led the prime characters to act out the hero, victim and savior roles they played in this dramatic rescue.