The Sentence

HB: Feeling good about life. I've been wrestling for some weeks with my book on money. I felt perfectly sure (i) that there was a good book to be written here, (ii) that I had the tools needed to write it, and (iii) that I'd enjoy doing so. But it wasn't gelling. The book and I hadn't yet found each other. I was scratching away, reading stuff, writing bits & pieces, but not feeling in the flow.

Then I got it. I went to sleep one night and the last thought as I drifted off was 'It needs to start with character'. The next morning, I woke up with my opening sentence - or pair of sentences, rather. They are:

It starts with character. Character and a moment of risk.

Now that may not mean much to you or strike you as a particularly wonderful bit of anything. But for me it's The Sentence. The tuning fork which gives me the note for everything that follows. The little fragment which tells me that the book & I have finally found each other. There'll be plenty of work from here on, and times of occasional frustration too. But I know now that this book will work; that I'll enjoy writing it; that it'll do something new and valuable; that it wants me to write it.

I'm happy now, and will be happy all the way to the final full stop. Happy days.