My first assignment was simple: Write out a timeline of events and a description of the various people in my life. Note that I said “simple,” not “easy.” The timeline ended up being around 46,000 words, more than half the eventual length of the book. The list of people wasn’t much shorter, and the whole thing took months.
When Alan had reviewed the two lists, he told me to take the timeline, start at the beginning, and write until the end. I was paralyzed, afraid of doing it wrong and messing up this chance. A long time passed, and Alan asked what was up. I was overwhelmed, and instead of sending him a chapter, I sent a fragment. And then another, and another. They were good, and Alan was patient, but he eventually suggested that perhaps I should write some chapters.
It was a logical suggestion. I wrote chapter 1, but I hated the opening. One of my abortive attempts at writing this had begun with a self-injury scene and then moved back to my mother’s death (when it all started going wrong) and from there into the necessary exposition. I wrote the chapter chronologically, and putting all that exposition up front felt clunky to me. I stewed about it for a year before working up the courage to propose changing it. All of my worry was for nothing – he approved of the revisions.
That came later, though. Right then, even though I didn’t like the opening, Chapter One was done.