Beginnings are really, where it all starts.
Everything. The tone of the future is set in the beginning. You either spend the rest of your time sorting that out, or wanting to get back to how good it was, back then. Especially, when you were a kid.
You really had it made then, didn’t you, you smarmy faced bugger?
All you did was eat, burp, poop and be adored. A life expectation, we never really let go of.
What else is Greatness, but the desire to be adored, even as you eat, burp and poop? Speaking of, what is love, if not just that?
It is this constant chase, of going back to the beginning that determines everything ! Most relationships are constantly chasing the high of when it was new and fresh. If you were twisted and game-playing in the beginning, then you spend a LOT of time un-doing that good work, but the imprint of beginnings remain till the end.
Similar wisdom, governs books. The tone of any self-respecting novel is rooted in its opening lines. I can usually tell a lot about the author and the book, depending on how it began.
There is Nabokov with, “Lolita, light of my life and fire of my loins.”
We could juxtapose him with ol’ man Woodehouse’s.
"Jeeves," I said, "may I speak frankly?"
"Certainly, sir."
Who could always be held against , the lyrical poetry of, “ Once upon a Time”.
It’s almost like the author is warning you- this is it. It could be better, it could be so much worse and it could just be a trap. This is why I pay so much premium to the opening lines of my many, now half-written, books. These opening lines are the most honest work of every writer. They are probably the words of organic creative genius- or excellent editing.
Almost several thousand Microsoft Word docs, exist on my desktop. No filing or classification governance has been imposed yet. There is complete and total anarchy amongst the, almost hundred, icons covering my screen. And sometimes, late into the night, I suspect they plot rebellion.
I have now collated, for posterity and copyright, the 14 opening lines of my various best sellers. This does qualify for a Novella.
(Yes, I have lofty dreams and ADD. )
It could have been midnight, but you really couldn’t tell.
Jane’s annoyance at being called Jane is where the trouble started.
His yellow pin lapel and plaid pants screamed Fashion hara-kiri, but it wasn’t really polite, to criticize a dead body’s sartorial choices.
She threw her head back and laughed, drowning out her lovers’ tired snores, and rudely awakening him to self-doubt.
It wasn’t really what the room contained, but the remnants of what it used to.
The way the dinner was laid, forewarned you, of the company being expected.
Twenty minutes of staring at a man, could teach you a lot about his integrity.
Yet, she continued to love and pity him, alternatively, in the same night.
Every morning he furiously rowed - beads of sweat would form on his forehead, trying in vain to compete with the biting cold.
If they had just stopped, for one tiny second- It would all have come to a natural end.
The earth shook beneath her feet and she panicked, who would finish dusting the china table, in case the Jones’s made it alive?
They sat in a circle, it was a social commentary on where life had brought them. It was also, prudent utilisation of the living room space.
If time could stop, it would. But it didn’t. And so, it went on.
The night stretched ahead. Dark and long. He had already eaten the last piece of the pie. There was nothing left to do, but despair.
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