Epic Start
I started my writing vacation in a library in Grass Valley, California. It’s the size of a gas station, and was littered with people, even at 10:30 am on a Thursday.
I’ve restarted my intended story, written a chapter already. I planned to write a script, but what is coming out of me is a narrative. I don’t know how to change course of what feels inevitable, so I won’t.
The first chapter is called “Abstract,” and that is exactly what it is. It’s a preface of sorts, a pronouncement of what the speaker hopes to accomplish.
Here’s the opening paragraph:
The past stretches out for the future, and the future keeps a hand out to the past, while in between on a razor-thin precipice coated with oil exists the present, a place I do not recognize, cannot control, and will never be a part of—a dream, a fantasy, a lie. Not the lie we tell our parents, when we assure them that we are doing well just as we subtly hint at our deep, personal peril; nor is it the lie that explains away distraction to our wives, that assures them we are still okay, even as our eyes track a mosquito humping the thick rind of an orange on the kitchen counter.