Laurel Snyder

Back from AWP, and now I’m not going anywhere for over a month.

SO I WILL WRITE. FINALLY.

But I’m scared to start, scared to put words on a page and call them the beginning. So hard to strike the right tone, find that voice.  So much will follow from this. So much will be determined by this beginning, if I can find it. So much will NOT be determined by it if I can’t…

I know how this book goes. I know what the plot will do, and what the world will look like. Atlanta in the eighties, Baltimore in the thirties. I’m headed back in time, and deep into a fantasy-version of my own family saga…

And yet I need to hear a voice before I can begin.  I need to eavesdrop on one perfect conversation in a car.   Maybe even  just one line, to start me off.

The book opens, and a girl named Annie is waiting, in a light rain, for her (late) mother to pick her up from ballet class, in Atlanta. It’s 1987. Annie can feel the prickles of misting drops on her arms, which are dried-salty from dancing. Her legwarmers are pink-going gray. Her bun is loose from turning.  She’s a little chilly. Her mother is late, but that’s unusual, so Annie kind of likes it. She knows she’ll get to pickt dinner at her favorite place, because her mom, Ruby, will be feeling guilty.  She’s staring out at the rainy dusky day, waiting for a Volvo to pull up.

When it does, she gets into the car…

But what does she SAY?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 7th, 2011 at 10:30 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.