I had a blog post planned to kick off the New Year. It was going to be all about beginnings. I had several books lined up to take a look at how the authors began their stories, but then I had houseguests staying and the blog post kept being put off, and off, and off…
And then, bang in the middle of all the delicious chaos of houseguest-landia, I look out of my window and see this:

Pretty cool, right? Maybe theyāre discussing emergency winter prep. Maybe theyāre hatching a nefarious plan to break into my house and steal ALL the birdseed. Or maybe theyāre just trying to keep their furry hindquarters warm, and the floor is made of lava, so theyāve devised a ādeathā game where they have to shoot each other off the tree trunks with nut-powered magic and in the end there can BE ONLY ONE!
Or perhaps it was just a wonderful serendipitous moment that I just happened to capture. But itās fun to imagine the stories behind the shot, and it sure entertained a bunch of us on Facebook that day.
And more: there, in that absolutely random photograph, is a beginning. Is it one Iāll ever use? Probably not; I donāt usually write about tiny, furry battle mages. But it was a little slice of life that got me thinking for a while and, really, thatās all that a beginning is. Something that sticks in your mind and keeps on growing until itās so big and full of awesome that you just have to sit down and write and see where the story takes you.
That weird dream you had that you canāt quite forget? A beginning. The oddly shaped tree you pass every day on the way to work? A beginning. Those comments you overheard in the coffee shop that day? Bam! A beginning.
Because the true beginning isnāt the much-edited and highly polished first page of the novel you love. Trust me, that thingās probably been rewritten a gajillion times to look that sleek and wonderful. No, the true beginning isĀ that image or concept that makesĀ you want to spend hours slaving over a keyboard in the first place. The primordial spark of life, the moment you stop in your tracks in the middle of the grocery store and go, āOh!ā while your heart beats just that little bit faster, and your eyes get that gleam that anyone who knows you willĀ recognize as the āforget me for the next few monthsā look.
So hereās to a new year and to many, many new beginnings. And if the well runs dry, you can always have my furry battle mages.
Youāre welcome.