Chapter Twelve, and Beginning in the Middle

(Image: Chapter 12, Bennie, Perce, Gem, and Sean watch from the water tower as the city goes dark.)

Oh man, I'm super excited to post this chapter because, technically speaking, this was the first chapter of the story I ever wrote.

Obviously this isn't the exact same version; the drafting and rewrite process has run its course. But I kid you not; when I first came up with the idea of the Guardians trilogy this was the first scene I wrote with the characters: The San Antonio Split-Second Blackout. I knew I needed to go back and write the beginning, of course, but I needed to get a feel for the characters I had just created. Everyone in my family knew "Be the werewolf!" before they even knew the plot line.

Hmm, maybe I should get that on a T-shirt...

All that to say, beginnings are hard to write. I'm a pretty big stickler for writing in chronological order (and I'll blog about why sometime in the future), but I never truly write the start until I'm sure I'm going to finish. If you can't ever seem to get past page 1, maybe you should try starting on page 100 and come back. 

Just figure out what works for you. After all, what counts is that you have a beginning, middle, and end to your story when it's complete. Otherwise, it's not!