I’m participating in a Christmas anthology.
I started a story for this
five times yesterday.
All five starts didn’t work.
I wish I could say
this was unusual.
I wish I could say
that the number of false starts
will decrease in time.
I can’t
because it isn’t
and it hasn’t.
What HAS changed is
when I kill the false starts.
In a longer novel,
I know to kill a start
if by the third chapter,
the characters haven’t taken over.
In a short story,
I know it isn’t working
in the first 1,000 words.
We talk about this a lot on this blog
because it is key to success.
Most successful people fail
but they fail fast.
They’ll have 10 failures in 10 weeks.
Learn how to spot a failure quickly.