Incipit Vita Nova

Or at the very least, Here Begins a New Beginning (if not New Life, to bastardize Dante). The meaning for such cryptic statements on the 32nd anniversary of Keith Jarrett's Cologne Concert
refers to my own experiences over the New Year, not in Cologne, but on Lewis, Harris, and then Knoydart in Bonnie Scotland. Especially in the latter place, where it rained a lot, but was still idyllic (great pub!) I managed to rethink the beginning of the novel and generally go back to a very basic approach that is hopefully unselfconscious and hopefully also oblivious to the whole idea of 'good writing'; I'd rather just try and get on and tell the story. Bugger good writing, if not Bognor!

It was rejuventating just to look at the part of the book that bugged me - the beginning - and realized that I just had to murder my darlings. It was a darling -the scene with the beached whale - that just didn't work. So it had to go. Once I had murdered said darling, I felt free to just write what had to be written - which is now a totally different beginning, but hopefully one that is much stronger, and one that gets the story going much quicker. More anon.