Yesterday I raved about the first paragraph of Grace Paley’s story, “A Conversation with My Father.” I envied at how Paley is able to make me keep reading.
Today, I work on the first paragraph of my own story, “Lost in the Garden.” I’ll read and reread it many times. If it bores me after a while, then I’ll get rid of it.
But for now, the paragraph provides me with enough to keep writing.
“My sisters and I called Uncle Joey ‘Uncle Crazy’ because he used to offer us cigarettes when we were kids. I must have been nine when he told me to hold his lit cigarette before he jumped into a neighbor’s yard to pick a pomegranate from their tree. When he came back over the fence, he told me, ‘Keep the smoke.’ He turned from me and lit another one.”
Cosimo Giovine 