Let me begin with an apology. I’d like to blame what will soon follow on the snow storm that greeted the Joplin area on this the first day of spring. Better that than blaming myself for procrastinating the day away instead of conscientiously working on a blog entry. Better that than blaming friends who actually braved the elements this evening and came over to eat Tony’s stew and play cards till past our bedtimes.

(Ceri, dear former student, if this blog comes in four times like it did last week, no, it is not because you need to meditate on the message therein. In fact, I strongly suggest you delete this now before you read another word.)

The truth is I’m bummed. I can’t seem to make the third novel I’ve been working on into the story it needs to be. I’ve reconceived it three times, and still it has problems. Never mind the things that work in the story, too many things still don’t. It’s quite aggravating, among other more serious and blog-worthy adjectives.

So, in my frustration, I’ve been thinking about shelving the thing and turning my attention to something else.

But what?

I’m not the kind of writer who has stories waving their hands in the air begging to be told next. This makes me doubt my calling, but, thankfully, I once read about a successful writer who sits in his chair after sending off a novel and refuses to get up until he gets a new idea. How happy I was to know there’s another writer who doesn’t have to keep ideas at bay with a chair and a whip.

I’ve heard and read that a speaker has three seconds to capture the attention of an audience. I doubt an author has much more than that when readers open a novel. Thus, the first page, even a first line, is extremely important.

Years ago in a moment of frivolity, or folly, I made a list of first lines. They follow, and if by chance you’d like to vote on the one you would gladly pay good money for (with the story to follow, of course), just leave a note below with a key word from your favorite. (I realize it will be a hard decision.)

Ted dragged himself into the back yard and out to his postage stamp garden plot to work the soil with his trusty tiller; he hadn’t dreaded this kind of labor since he was eight and had to help pick up sticks from the back yard after high winds had unexpectedly hit Jasper Country.

Shonda sat in Dr. Shay’s waiting room, excited by the prospect of spilling out of her 36A.

I had thought this trip to the mall would be no different than any other.

“Ask not,“ Lou said earnestly, “for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for everyone—it’s an ice cream truck!“

I could think of only one thing—it repeated itself like the old song playing on the juke box in the bar next door to the motel room I slept in one night when I was a kid—“If only I could still wear leggings and four inch heels.“

I rued the day we bought those stupid bird dogs when the kids ran into the house shouting at the top of their lungs: “Gus and Mandy are stuck!“

I think that I shall never see the fog coming on little cat feet.

Her favorite bush grew lush and symbolic-like all over the side of the porch; thus she named me Lilac.

Susie’s cat hated going outside, and when Susie, who loved the cat as though he were her cat, tried to make him, he dug his claws into her chest and screeched like a mountain lion.  (Ironically, Susie’s cat was named Comfort.)