Beginning at the beginning (or perhaps not)

I think I'm going to have to start a blog notebook in which to jot down all those wise and witty observations on the writing process that come to me when I'm clearing out the attic or wiping down worktops.  It would save a lot of time spent gazing at a blank screen with a mind that is even more so when I come to post something.

Having said that, occasionally what passes for my mind does throw the right thing up at the right time.  And time is what this post is all about.

Where does a book start?  Page one?  The first page after all the copyright declarations and the dedication to the author's mum?  Or does it start somewhere in the middle?

This isn't going to turn into a musing on the nature of space and time, even though I did finally get round to watching the BBC's docudrama on Stephen Hawking last night (to my consternation, I caught myself thinking there wasn't enough physics in it for my liking; obviously I'm more of a scientist at heart than I realised).  No, big bang theory and superstrings aside, I'm wondering how much the first paragraphs you write influence the rest of the book.

I don't necessarily mean the beginning of the story.  Looking For Buttons started with a young woman trapped at a party she didn't want to attend.  I wanted to know how she'd got there.  Several years later, the book was finished and, yes, the scene did make the final cut.  It's the set piece of Chapter Nine.  By the time I'd written the preceding eight chapters, I knew how the book would end and it was more or less a case of joining the dots until I reached the final line.

The book I'm supposed to be working on now sprang from watching a 60s spy show and disagreeing with how the hero dealt with a sticky situation.  My somewhat less than heroic protagonist deals with a similar situation in quite another way and does so in Chapter One.

As I flounder partway through Chapter Ten, I wonder whether this is the problem.  With Looking For Buttons, I knew where I was going and just had to find where to begin the journey.  With the new book, I got where I was going almost before I'd begun.  Maybe this is why it's taking me so long to get anywhere else.

Luckily, I have another scene in my head from much later in the story, as vivid as the reruns of The Professionals they're showing in the afternoons at the moment.  So all I've got to do now is strike out in that direction and hope it points me towards the end...