Edited by Jim McCrory, Friday, 13 June 2025, 18:57
"Most male writers start from the beginning. Try and break that mould."
Image generated with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot
It was one of those remarks that feels small at the time but grows in significance the more you sit with it. The kind of advice you don’t ask for but end up quoting years later. It came from a friend of mine with a PhD in English Literature, sharp-eyed, kind-hearted, and not easily impressed. She knew I was thinking about writing a biography of sorts. Not the sweeping, all-inclusive life story. I haven’t climbed Everest or led a rebellion, but a quieter excavation of a life lived with intent, trial, and a fair amount of stumbling. About being human.
Her words startled me in their simplicity. Most male writers start from the beginning. I knew exactly what she meant. The birth certificate, the childhood, the schooldays. The endless march from A to B, from boyhood to manhood, as though life were a straight line, and we just had to trace it neatly across the page. There’s something comfortable about chronology. Something expected. It’s where we all begin when we’re unsure. But as she pointed out, that’s precisely the problem—it’s often where we hide.
I nodded at her advice, filed it away like a receipt I knew I’d need later, and carried on trying to write in a way that pleased no one—not even me. But now, months later, I find myself overwhelmed not by a lack of material, but by choice. If not the beginning, then where?
Do I start with the year I moved to Norway, chasing the ghost of a childhood melody that had once stirred in me a longing for mountains and trolls and the melancholic music of Grieg? That year was golden. Stavanger’s light still lives inside me. But would that be too far in, too random, for someone meeting me on the page for the first time?
Or should I begin with a my diagnosis that reinforced my mortality?
Or maybe the night on my childhood island when I saw stars, many of them that triggered an epiphany?
Each of these could be a doorway. Each tells the truth, just not the whole truth. But perhaps that’s the point. A life is not a train timetable; it’s a mosaic. And sometimes the broken tile in the corner tells more about the whole than the neat ones in the centre.
My friend’s advice wasn’t just about writing. It was about freedom. About giving myself permission to walk into my own story from the side entrance, even the window if I had to. It was a reminder that the reader doesn’t need everything in order. They need honesty. They need movement. They need the sound of a real voice, not a résumé.
So maybe I begin here—mid-thought, mid-life, mid-sentence. Because the truth is, we never really start from the beginning. By the time we sit down to write, we’re already knee-deep in the story.
Where to begin? Wherever the pulse is strongest. Wherever the truth taps you on the shoulder and says, “Start here.”
Where To Begin? The Writing Life
"Most male writers start from the beginning. Try and break that mould."
Image generated with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot
It was one of those remarks that feels small at the time but grows in significance the more you sit with it. The kind of advice you don’t ask for but end up quoting years later. It came from a friend of mine with a PhD in English Literature, sharp-eyed, kind-hearted, and not easily impressed. She knew I was thinking about writing a biography of sorts. Not the sweeping, all-inclusive life story. I haven’t climbed Everest or led a rebellion, but a quieter excavation of a life lived with intent, trial, and a fair amount of stumbling. About being human.
Her words startled me in their simplicity. Most male writers start from the beginning. I knew exactly what she meant. The birth certificate, the childhood, the schooldays. The endless march from A to B, from boyhood to manhood, as though life were a straight line, and we just had to trace it neatly across the page. There’s something comfortable about chronology. Something expected. It’s where we all begin when we’re unsure. But as she pointed out, that’s precisely the problem—it’s often where we hide.
I nodded at her advice, filed it away like a receipt I knew I’d need later, and carried on trying to write in a way that pleased no one—not even me. But now, months later, I find myself overwhelmed not by a lack of material, but by choice. If not the beginning, then where?
Do I start with the year I moved to Norway, chasing the ghost of a childhood melody that had once stirred in me a longing for mountains and trolls and the melancholic music of Grieg? That year was golden. Stavanger’s light still lives inside me. But would that be too far in, too random, for someone meeting me on the page for the first time?
Or should I begin with a my diagnosis that reinforced my mortality?
Or maybe the night on my childhood island when I saw stars, many of them that triggered an epiphany?
Each of these could be a doorway. Each tells the truth, just not the whole truth. But perhaps that’s the point. A life is not a train timetable; it’s a mosaic. And sometimes the broken tile in the corner tells more about the whole than the neat ones in the centre.
My friend’s advice wasn’t just about writing. It was about freedom. About giving myself permission to walk into my own story from the side entrance, even the window if I had to. It was a reminder that the reader doesn’t need everything in order. They need honesty. They need movement. They need the sound of a real voice, not a résumé.
So maybe I begin here—mid-thought, mid-life, mid-sentence. Because the truth is, we never really start from the beginning. By the time we sit down to write, we’re already knee-deep in the story.
Where to begin? Wherever the pulse is strongest. Wherever the truth taps you on the shoulder and says, “Start here.”