The Best Book Never Written…

Posted by Rick

March 23, 2008

Just Write I have one fear when it comes to starting a new novel or project. The fear begins with a blank page. Unmarred and untamed. The words are poised and ready to spring out of my head and onto the vast whiteness in front of me. I want it to be perfect. I want my reader to want to read it. The first line will do it. I want to hook them. So what do I say in those first few words that they will be talking about for years?
So how do I conquer that first obstacle? It’s actually very simple. I allow the floodgates to open. Sure, I cringe with nervous excitement. I’m about to create something where there was nothing. It’s like a literary starter’s gun. The first key pressed is akin to pulling the trigger, and you’re off, typing as fast as you can to get it all out. Racing against time. Who cares if it’s less than perfect? This is the first draft remember? It can all be revised later. The important part is actually getting something out there to revise.
A good friend of mine had an idea for a baseball book he wanted to write. He could visualize it. The cover, the spine, the colors, the pictures inside. He could even describe it to the point that I could even visualize it.
“So how’s the book coming,” I asked him one day.
“It isn’t. Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how to start it.”
That was twenty years ago. It has remained the greatest book on baseball never written.