Sometimes I write an entire post just so I can have an excuse for putting a particular sentence I like into print. A good example was my mini-rant about college admissions – the entire post was a vehicle for writing the following:
There is a word to describe a school full of Harvard-caliber students: Harvard.
At other times, though, I start with a good line yet fail to build anything coherent out of it. The post about turning thirty is a good example. I started the post with the following thought:
Turning thirty means I’m so old, my age is uninteresting.
It felt like a start but it soon became apparent that a post starting from there had no real future – like turning thirty, the post was destined to be uninteresting.
I got a second wind a few days later when I stumbled into this sentence while playing around with a phrase:
What are you gonna do – you’re twenty… becomes… what are you doing – you’re thirty?
I did a little better with that one but, again, found myself in the familiar dead-end territory of trying to turn a sound bite into a coherent essay.
Eventually, I realized I might be wrong about the whole idea of starting from a single sentence. From there, the rest of the post fell into place.
