Yesterday (Saturday) I read the short article, "[Exercise Your Pen] New Beginnings" in the September issue of Writers Digest, an excerpt from B. J. Hollars's You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside the Story. In it, Hollars suggests writing 10 to 20 first sentences of stories only. The exercise is a break icebreaker for the artist combatting writers block and had a number of benefits.

Among these is the ability to not be so serious for a change. With the directive NOT to consider the 20 or more pages that might follow any of these lines, the author is allowed to devote his full attention to that one opener itself. That concentration focuses the mind on creating the very most enticing hook for a story.

Once one has begun writing creating the sentences, the directive not to continue with the story idea transforms from a blessing to irksome to torturous.

I created opening sentences for the stories I had done some work on already but hadn't quite developed, then I moved onto the brief notes from a small notebook I keep with me at all times. When I was finished I had closer to 30 opening sentences and I had revealed another benefit of the exercise.

Beyond good practice crafting opening sentences and adding a twist and some freedom to a writing session, I now have a quick go-to sheet I can use the next time I need to start a new story. Not only that, but developing the story ideas from the tiny notebook reminded me of why I had written each of the notes. Now there's a far slimmer a chance I'll let them fester inside, never to be developed into the story i once knew could be there.