Romance novelist Terry Odell was commenting on romance novelist Joan Reeve's Sling Words blog that she really likes stories that start out slow and build. That's the reason why, she conjectures, she writes that way.

I'm not sure I agree. As an editor, I found that most stories benefit by throwing away the first part of the story. It doesn't mean that the first part doesn't need to be written; it gets the writer off to a running start, but that doesn't mean the first part needs to be inflicted on the reader.

The same is true for programming, as well. I think it was the Elements of Programming Style that said you should write version 1 quickly, not worrying about the bugs, to throw away. You will, anyhow, the advice continues. Once you're written the application, you know what needs to be included, what can be excluded without loss, you know what data structures are needed, and how the data needs to be manipulated. Armed with that information, version 2 is much easier to write, and maintain, and much easier to use as well.

The Door Dilated

Bob Heinlein was also a fan of getting right into things. You don't need to write three paragraphs setting the scene, he said. Just write "The door dilated" and reacers will have a pretty good idea that the story is set in the future.

Niven and Pournelle wrote "The Mote in God's Eye" which was an incredibly long book, maybe three to five times as long as your average novel. Years later, I read that they actually wrote a much longer book, almost twice that long, and they only published the last part as Mote. The first part, Pournelle later suggested, may someday be published as a prequel, or may be reworked as a standalone novel,

Or maybe it was Ringworld. I can't remember. This damnable Mad Cow's Syndrome, you know. But the point is, you need to do the first part in order to get to the good part. You need to do it even if you never publish it, whether it's a book, or a news article, or a compute program.

Following The Intermission

Or, as I realized after another 20 minutes, your life.

I had a crappy childhood and that continued until I was almost 30. I didn't know it was a crappy childhood; I didn't have anything to compare it to. And then I had a year of incredible bliss, and then Em was hospitalized with a mysterious problem that turned out to be an incurable, terminal, and almost-untreatable disease, SLE. All of a sudden, things were crappy for me again, and I didn't realize it, because I wasn't the one that was dying of SLE. And things kept going downhill until Em died, and even for a couple of years beyond that, when I was permanently disabled, and suddenly, I was living a crappy life, and I finally knew it at the time I was living it

But a year or two ago, I suddenly realized that things were looking up. My health was deteriorating, but I, my essential self, was doing better. And when I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to live much longer, things improved even more.

The Joys Of Stockholm Syndrome

When someone is being held captive by kidnappers, one eventually starts siding with the kidnappers. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's that, if the kidnappers suffer, the kidnappee is surely going to suffer as well, and given the fact that the kidnappee is appreciative of the fact that he hasn't simply been killed he is appreciative of good treatment, and he looks at the kidnappers as his benefactor.

One who marries gives hostages to fate. Even if you don't marry, your self is hostage to fate. And when you have no decisions to make, there is no worrying about making the right decision. Being shot at and missed is a most exhilarationg experience, according to Winston Churchill, and I believe he's right.

So, imagine, just imagine for a minute, that you have 24 hours to live. How would you use that 24 hours?I didn't want to waste ANY of it on those people. Damn, Damn, Damn! A perfect opportunity to take revenge, and I still couldn't do it. 'Tain't fair, McGee!

And I thought about what I really wanted to do. I'd like to take the ferry up into Lake Erie from Point Pelee, once more. I've done that before, though, and it was cold, even in June. I'd like to visit Kentucky Horse Park (never been there) and Mammoth Cave (there when I was five) once more, but was either one worth the hours in a car? No.

An Orange Soda

I ended up making myself an orange soda. Not an orange pop. Orange syrup, nilla ice cream, soda water. Oh, my goodness, that must have cost me the better part of $5, because I didn't use cheap ice cream. God, it was delicious.

And then what? I'd reached the end of my "bucket list", and I still had a few bucks in my pocket, still had a few hours left to live. You know what they call someone who has everything he really wants with time and money left over? He's wealthy, incredibly wealthy.

And that's the secret of incredible wealth. It's not to have more. It's to want less.

Star Wars, Episode IV

Which brings us back to the original premise. A story should start out with something interesting enough to keep your attention, not start slow and build from there. Star Wars started with episode four, and after you got to know the characters, episodes one, two and three were a little more interesting. I think life would be better if we started off at 40, and proceeded to the end - it seems to move pretty fast these days - an then we can live our childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.

That certainly would suit me just fine. I'm to the point where I'm comfortable in my own skin, and while half the time, I'd like to drag my foot just to slow down the circle of time, because it's going too damn fast, the other half of the time, I'm impatient to find out how it all ends. And if I knew then what I know now, I need not have been so miserable during my early years. I knew I was miserably lonely, and if only I'd have guessed that a big fraction of the wimmenfolk were equally as miserably lonely as I was, I could have figured out a way to make two lonely people a lot happier.

It's probably as big a secret, and probably as valuable. If a guy bathes regularly, and is otherwise clean of disease and drugs, and he appears safe, meaning that he will respect her safety and her reputation, and he appears to be appreciative of her physical charms, he usually will be welcomed into a lady's bed, and probably offered breakfast as well - and that includes married and engaged ladies who are feeling abandoned as well as single ladies. Although I always tried to respect the marital bed, and avoid any trouble with other gents, it was surprisingly common for a lady to 'fess up. before the night was over, that return visits would be welcome but would require care.

But What About Popeye

A can of spinach aside, I find that Popeye's Law seems to apply. I yam whut I yam, and that's all whut I yam. I got to where I am today as the result of all those crappy years. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have behaved differently, and if I behaved differently then, who would I have turned into? It certainly wouldn't be me,

It's sorta like the time-travel story that's been done so many times. A guy travels back in history and kills his own grandfather before his father is conceived. What happens then? Knowing what I know now, I think the answer is pretty obvious. His grandfather probably wasn't his grandfather. Of all the women I've spent time with, there was one who asked me to wear a raincoat in the shower, and one who suggested that we spoon, if you know what I mean, for the first month or so, until her birth control pills "kicked in". With the one who asked for the raincoat, I explained that raincoats were too small and tight, and I'd be happy to spend the night just cuddling. It was a sincere offer; hugging a beautiful woman all night is wonderfully enjoyable. Never the less, she woke me about 3 AM. demanding that we shower without
raincoats.

Familiarity Doesn't Breed Success, It Just Breeds

And I seem to be exceptionally fecund. There's a story about a lady getting on the bus with her eight kids, asking the driver how much the fare is. He asks their ages. She says there are a pair that are two, a pair that are four, a couple that are seven, and a couple that are ten. "My word, lady, do you always get twins," the driver exclaimed, and the lady replied, "Of course not. Lots of times, ain't none at all." But when a pre-menopausal girlfriend has not been using protection - usually the pill, but Em preferred a diaphragm - a pregnancy has always resulted within a month. I don't know that there are any children out there I've not met, the result of a casual encounter that became uncasual rather rapidly, but it'd be unrealistic of me to assume there are none. There's a difference between sharing your bed for a night and sharing the rest of your life with someone.

And even if I believed in reincarnation - I don't - I don't think it would work to my advantage. If I was the reincarnation of someone else, they learned nothing of life before they died. And if you can't take the secret of wealth and the secret of getting laid with you, you're not really living another life; it's someone else.

Life is short. The day is long. And the nights are getting longer for another six weeks yet before the Winter Solstice.

The name "Harl Delos" belonged to my grandfather before me. Delos is short for the old name for January 6, a latin phrase meaning "Day of the Magi". That holiday, the last of the 12 Days of Christmas, is known as Epiphany these days - and an epiphany is a sudden understanding of a fundamental truth. Grandpa died when Mom was thirteen, so I never knew him, and when I asked Mom what he was like, she told me that he was just like me. Maybe I've discovered these two epiphanies on my own, but of late, I've been wondering if I've simply inherited the epiphanies of a family of wise men. It's rare to have wealth the IRS cannot touch, and the love of many beautiful women.

When I was living those crappy years, I had no idea that it was a blessing from God and from a grandfather dead long before I was born.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
bucket list - build one to throw away - Epiphany - Fibber McGee - hostages to fate - Jerry Pournelle - Joan Reeves - Larry Niven - Magi - orange soda - Popeye - programming - reincarnation - Robert A Heinlein - secret of romance - secret of wealth - Star Wars - Stockholm Syndrome - Terry Odell - time travel - winter solstice