Author's Note

Chapter 1

Without a doubt, the most difficult part of writing a book would be figuring out how on earth to start it. Sure, endings are awful and writers block is just unpleasant, but actually figuring out how to start it is near enough impossible. You can have the whole story planned out, know exactly how it's going to work out in your head, yet as soon as it comes to finding a strong beginning your mind immediately goes blank.

And, inevitably, that is where I was stuck.

I puffed out my cheeks, exhaled, and pushed the floor with my toes, spinning my chair round and round. Frustration clung to me like a leech, sapping my energy and tiring me out, resulting in me knowing I had to write but also making me want to smack myself over the head with my laptop.

Luckily, this urge didn't suffice, and instead I sat, spinning gently in my desk chair, thinking and running over the plot line in my mind. The room span, my eyes locked on my bedroom light as I thought, slowly dizzying me and clouding my thoughts.

I snapped, let out a cry of exasperation. Flinging myself forwards, my head made contact with the hard wooden desk with a loud thud. My eyes squeezed shut, my brows trembling from anguish. I let out an exasperated sigh, stood up, and stretched, my fingertips brushing gently against the thin lampshade on my ceiling, nudging it and causing shadows to distort and dance around the room.

Now, my room was hardly big, but it wasn't too small either. There was about enough room for the essentials - those being a bed, a desk, a bookshelf, and a closet, all pushed against the walls to give me space on the floor. It isn't small, I'm making it sound worse than it was. I had it all colour coded and tidy, else I'd probably have gone out of my mind; the walls were a cream colour, they were bare and devoid of any posters or anything that most people at my age would have scattered around, with my bedsheets white (probably not the best idea for a teenage girl) and the rest of my objects a dark brown; that being my actual bed frame, my closet, my desk, and my bookshelf. Colour coded. It just made the whole room feel a lot cosier, if you ask me. Which you didn't.

There was a window on the wall, lined with soft, white curtains, looking out onto the street below. It was swung open widely on its hinge due to the summer heat during the day; it let in a soft glow from the evening sun, low on the horizon, and a cool breeze that floated slowly and cautiously into the room. I walked over to it and stared at the houses underneath the pink sky, breathing deeply, trying to rid myself of my irritation and release it into the cool, fresh air. If I were to be successful in my task, I needed to calm down.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Honestly, I sort of regretted choosing the college course that I did. I loved writing, truly I did, but enjoying it and doing it as a course are two different things. Because taking such a course meant that I was constantly stressed out, and this was only the first assignment. But I had to start it tonight if I were to stay on schedule - we'd been assigned to write a story, a novel, a chapter a week, turned in each Monday for marking. It was Friday now, half six in the evening, my planning had been going on since the previous Monday. And if I wanted to finish it on time with high quality content then I absolutely had to start writing tonight.

It's not like I couldn't write - I've written short stories before, and, as arrogant as this sounds, I'm rather good at it. One of the only thing's I actually am good at. But I always have this problem, always the problem with starting. Once I've started, I can write and write and write, but I haven't been able to start.

I inhaled, filled my lungs with the cold air, felt it spread within my chest, and sighed. And I stood there for a good few minutes, eyes out of focus, calming myself down while simultaneously psyching myself up. Every exhale was filled with a small portion of my tension. I let it all out, breath by breath, until I felt calmer, more focused. My fingers tapped a tune on the windowsill absentmindedly. My mind wandered to my plan, to Thomas and to Keith and Katie, to the plans I had for them. A starting point, I needed a starting point.