Raw Eggs and Great Lines

Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief…I’ve found a book to latch onto.
I know I said I was going to read “The Great Gatsby” and I did start into it, but didn’t get past the first chapter. It didn’t hook me. Granted I didn’t give it time to, but I’ll not write it off I’ll just pick it up another time.

My new found love is actually by Ms. E. L. Konigsburg. I know, I know, the last book I read of hers I ended up complaining about. But I’ve picked up another one the other night at 10:30 while Dayton slept soundly next to me, and I don’t know, maybe it was the magic of reading under the covers with my book light that just made it love at first read.

What does it for me is a good first line. I’m such a first line kind of person with everything really. My favorite Norah Jones song (well, ok I’ve got 5 contending for that spot so one of my favorite) is the one that starts off,

You’ve got a famous last name, but you’re not to blame. Baby, I see you for who you are.

I am incessantly drawn in by the mystery of that line—what is the last name, why is it famous, what does she see in him? It’s something I savor every time I hear it.

Konigsburg draws the same curious picture in my current read, T-backs, T-shirts, COAT, and Suit, with an opening line that goes like this,
“Going to Peco for the summer was not Chloe’s first choice. Or her second or her third. It was her only choice.”
A line like that deserves further investigation.

The delight of her writing continues, but takes new shape as the mystery of why it wasn’t Chloe’s choice is quickly dispelled. Konigsburg keeps you there with a smattering of really great descriptions.

I used to look at writing, and singing for that matter, as something you have to do extraordinarily well with every note and every word. Pick a sentence structure that will wow them every time and use words never before combined; sing a song so well the notes sound as if you’ve just created them from your own set of vocal chords…but no pressure.

It wasn’t until, well, I don’t remember the exact moment, but I soon realized that good writing, and good singing, involves not a string of heavenly sounds or words, but rather a body of well-crafted work with a surprising glimpse of talent here and there.

I don’t have to re-invent the wheel when I write a children’s story, I just have to have a good plot and some colorful characters and make sure that I have a humorous nugget or a clever description thrown in here and there like cookie dough to vanilla ice cream. It’s those bites with the cookie dough that we love so much, but if the whole cone were a ball of cookie dough with pockets of vanilla it just wouldn’t be the same.

Plus we’d probably get a stomachache, but that has nothing to do with my writing metaphor I just ran out of ways to end this thing.