I feel stuck, but my bookshelf had an answer for me.
When I was a teenager aspiring to write the next The Lord of the Rings, my Aunt, a writer, gave me a book called Beginnings, Middles & Ends. It describes the unique challenges posed by each section of a story, and outlines how to overcome them.
Naturally, problems in Beginnings are different from problems in Ends: presenting new characters in a compelling way is different from finding stirring resolutions to major plot arcs.
The real insight is that every writer tends to have a weakness in one of the three areas. Something about their mind, or their method (or perhaps both) leaves them with the same obstacles every time they try to tell a story.
In your life, and in your creative work, do you struggle with Beginnings, Middles, or Ends?
I think I struggle with Middles and maybe Ends. I feel so bogged down with the Paris photo book project now that it's in the writing phase. To fix that, I’m doing two things:
- I ditched social media. I love meeting other creative people online, but 9 minutes out of 10 it’s wasting my time with incessant flickering distractions.
- I’m going to re-read the book Beginnings, Middles & Ends, skipping Beginnings and starting with the section on Middles—if I get any better at starting things I’m going to end up in a fistfight.
I'd be thrilled if you use my link to buy the book, no matter how small my affiliate payout is, because sniping even 10¢ of revenue from Jeff Bezos would be a lark.
See you on the other side,
Josh
