Nuts From the Family Tree: Beginning at the Beginning

So you know, I have this project going, the non-book project. Am trying to work on it day by day and keep the momentum strong. Easier to say than do. I know from a couple of previous experiences writing books that in the beginning and before it all gets weighed down under too many tangents, things are fun. Then later it's not so much fun as it is hard work. It's fun now.

Have an outline and it looks solid. The next step is to write an introduction.

The goal of the introduction - and the reason that it's written first - is to be a model for the book, to be the book in miniature, so to speak. It tells the why and the wherefore of the book and lays out chapter by chapter what the book contains. If the writer can, it's intended to give the reader a taste of the adventure, romance, and excitement that they will find in the pages that follow.

The original purpose for doing it this way was that you'd then have a proposal to show a publisher. It has worked for me in the past - a working method with which I'm familiar - so I'll do it this way even though at most this will be a self-published affair.

It's fun to write an Introduction! I like it:) It's your first shot at getting the flow of things going and a first shot at seeing where your boat holds water and where some of the more obvious leaks are. For that reason it's fine to take time writing this bit... or at least that's what I'll have to remind myself whenever I get frustrated and get bogged down, which is bound to come. I'm expecting a very leaky boat!

I do like constructing the introduction because it's the first rough draft of anything that gets down on paper. Someone once said, I love having written: it's the actual writing I hate. I could say I like having written because it's the only way I get to the editing bit. Kind of like going through kids to get at the grands;) And I know not to start editing in earnest too soon. There will be lots of time for that later. And I know from previous sad experience to lett all the word remain in the piece until later because it's a shame when you edit out a paragraph only to later realize that while it might not have fit there it shure would work there.

So that's where I am at present: have the outline in hand, and am gathering together my pile of random thoughts and ideas, then pouring them into the Introduction in no particular order. It's a real mess at the moment. It's supposed to be. It's just a mind dump of all manner of collected thoughts from here and ideas from there: the written version of the pile of scraps of paper I keep over on the corner of the table together with notes written in that spiral notebook I keep handy. But I have to say, I do love this project so far. There will be plenty of hard work and time to get angry at it later... but for the moment the bloom is definitely on the rose.

Photos of the day from Aunt Betty's Archive: