Waiting for the First Line

First - before I begin - this is not an April Fool’s post! There will be no gotcha at the end or anywhere else... just saying. :-)

All writers have their rituals.

Some I’ve done, others I’ve never done. A lot of writers write to playlists. I don’t mind music in the background while I write (think Starbucks), but I’ve never once put together a playlist of songs that I felt would inspire the writing of my story, or characters, or the mood of a scene, etc.

I don’t keep figurines or good-luck totems by my computer. I usually have coffee to start a writing session. I write on an old netbook that only has Microsoft Word on it. It’s great for first drafts, since it’s small and I can take it on the go.

I do have one ritual. I only do it once per book, once per story.

I call it “waiting for the first line.” Once I’ve come up with the rough outline, even if not every detail is filled in, I know that I’m ready to start writing. But I don’t actually begin writing. Not until the first line pops into my head.

I believe that first line of the story comes from the same place the rest of the story comes from; from the deep parts of the imagination. I literally ask my imagination for the first line, and then I wait until it comes to me.

It doesn’t have to be huge or profound. The first line of Rebellion was “There was nothing like harvest time in Califia,” and from that first line, a seven-novel series eventually came forth.

So right now, I’m waiting for the first line. When it comes to me, I’ll start writing the sequel to Daredevil Prince.

This also brings to mind something I said at GayRomLit last year, at my panel. It was in response to a question from the audience: are you a pantser or a plotter? I said I was a plotter, which generally speaking I still am after all these years. It’s how I started as a writer: meticulously plotting every detail of the story that I could come up with, before beginning to draft.

But actually, Daredevil Prince was an experiment. I barely had the plot down when I began writing. I didn’t even have the names - Jake was “AAA” and Shinsuke was “BBB” right up to the last page of my first draft. (You know you’re having trouble naming your characters when you use the placeholder names through the entire first draft... for some reason this was the case for that story.)

Another thing that was unusual for me with Daredevil Prince was the speed at which I wrote the first draft. It was three weeks from start to finish and I averaged 3,000 words per day, which is quite high for me.

The bottom line is that we’re all different, as writers. I don’t outline in the detailed way that I used to. Maybe it’s the years I’ve spent doing this. I have more trust in the process now after writing a lot of stories. ;-)

Happy April, everyone! I’ll post again soon.