The first lines of a book can change quite a bit from first draft to final copy. First impressions are important – and hard. Very hard. I was acutely reminded of this fact recently, when I stumbled across an old file full of my early attempts at the opening line for Lydia Green of Mulberry Glen. I read them, and started giggling with no regard for my struggling past self.

I thought I would share these attempts, along with a few others, for you to enjoy. These are pulled directly from my frustratedly typed notes – raw, unfinished sentences full of misspellings.

Lydia Green of Mulberry Glen

Official opening line: “Lydia had once been known to remark that ‘nothing can match the joy of a forest in the morning’, but she now wished that she had not been quite so correct in saying so.”

Early Attempts

When Lydia Glacier Green climbed down from her Housetree that morning, the world was ready to greet her.

I’m not sure, if you have ever seen such a thing as a Housetree.

Our story begins with the wistful worries of a young girl, up in the branches of a tree.

It was not a dark and stormy night, but such a description would have better suited Lydia’s mood than the bright morning that lay before her.

In the corner of the Valleylands, in a nook in Mulberry Glen, a girl named Lydia Green climbed down from a tree.

Lydia was already halfway down the branch ladder when resentment began to form.

The morning was bright and splendid, and did not agree with Lydia’s mood in the slightest.

The morning that blossomed in Mulberry Glen that day was bent of rejoicing, and gave no consideration to weather Lydia felt disposed to or not.

The sun will go on rising weather or not

Tragic 

Nature gives very little concern to the tragedies of human beings, or so Lydia felt,

When Lydia decended from her branch ladder that morning, only one thought dared to hold her attention.

There are some mornings in which

Lydia had once been known to remark that ‘nothing can match the joy of a forest in the morning’, she now wished that she had not been quite so correct in saying so. On this morning at least, she would have much perfered to be left alone with her melancholy, but the woods were bent or merriment, weather Lydia complied or not.

The morning that blossomed in Mulberry Glen that day was of the silver kind, flushed with the chill that coaxed color into one’s cheeks, filled with a frivolous new dance between restless branches and whispers of sky, and altogether much too splendid for Lydia’s taste.

I hope you enjoyed those little snippets!

docendo disco, scribendo cogito,
– Millie Florence