The most common thing you hear from editors, publishers and agents is to make sure the beginning of your book is stellar; you must hook your reader. If not, they will cast your book aside, no matter how good the story eventually gets or how it ends. They simply don't have faith in you if you can't start well.
I have written and re-written the beginning of my book, and, it has gotten better each time. While studying for my online course today, I came across yet another compelling section on beginning well. It challenged me (again) and made me take my first chapter to task.
Story aside, it got me to thinking about life in general. We are all in a season of new beginnings. I know, I know, it's kind of cliche to continually restart at the new year, I personally have attitude about New Year's resolutions; they are usually primed to fail. But I think it's high time each of us evaluates our goals and really take them to task.
Set up mini-milestones in the midst of your goals so that you feel that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that you deserve. Resist the temptation to avoid self-evaluation; it is your greatest indicator of how you should be moving forward. Ask yourself the tough questions, you have to be able to self-feed and self diagnose. It is imperative to your success; no one else can do it for you, and if you try to rely on others, it is a sure sign of impending failure.
So, in a season of beginnings, it's okay to re-begin, over and over, until you accomplish that much desired goal. You are worth it, your future is worth it and ultimately, your God and King is worth your efforts. So, push on my friends, push on; re-beginnings are not a sign of failure, but rather editing, revision and ultimately a finely tuned and stellar version of who you are!
