Starting a Book

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I wasn't bothered at all by the fact that James Reasoner can write a book in a couple of weeks, whereas it's going to take me three months. And I'll be lucky if I can finish even in that length of time. But I forget to mention the reason why I'm not bothered. You see, James is cheating. He's going to be using an outline. I don't have one. All I have is one sentence: "When Sheriff Dan Rhodes opened the back door, the cat was there." It's a sentence that's been rattling around in the back of my mind for a while, so I'm going with it. The problem is, I don't know where I'm going. It's a little scary, if you want to know the truth. Some time later today, I'm going to have to sit down here at the computer and type that sentence onto a blank page and see if anything will follow it. James, meanwhile, will have written three or four chapters. But that doesn't bother me. Not even a little bit. Not at all. Really.