The Eternal Restart

The counter disease to World Builder's Disease is.....No wait, that's not right....

If you were to visit certain tribes in Africa, hidden from the rest of the world, you will discover that while most tribe members are illiterate their memory capacity far exceeds our own. Some can relate their tribes entire history, all the cultures, all the stories dating back decades...this begs the question...is this why some four year olds are fantastic at the game concentration?...Wait...this is clearly going in the wrong direction.

It all started with an ostrich. A simple ostrich. A social pariah. Ostracized from his own kind due to a love of french fries uncommon among the species.......No that's not quite the right beginning to this post either.

One of the hardest things about writing for some is getting past the beginning. This problem is different than World Builder's disease because those afflicted with the eternal restart at least get started, but it is still a major issue, because while they may restart their novels a thousand times trying to achieve first chapter perfection, their work isn't going to get finished anymore than the World Builder's ever will. The obvious solution to this is to just not ever restart. Unfortunately this is easier said than done....One more time.

Eternally restarting is a definite problem because those who eternally restart not only are trying to achieve the perfect vision that exists in their heads, they are also setting their entire novel around the beginning. When the beginning changes, so does the entire framework of the novel. A good beginning means a good novel, a bad beginning means a bad novel, or novella, or whatever you happen to be writing...For example this beginning was bad.....


Even though the Eternal Restart may seem like a daunting problem there is really only one solution.....


First there was darkness.....


It was a dark and....

Once upon a......


Oh nevermind, I'll come back to this post later.