Let’s Start At The Very Beginning ~ @oddlynn3 #rndrobn0921

Welcome to our monthly Round Robin with the Night Writers gang. Follow the trail this month and you’ll see us all talking about new beginnings. Sometimes they’re fantastic, sometimes they’re so-so and sometimes they are downright disastrous. Follow the link at the bottom to go to the next author and see their take on new beginnings.

The Sound of Music has always been one of my favorite movies of all times and the Do-Ra-Mi songs the best ever. See when I was in 3^rd grade I was So, a needle pulling thread. I can remember the day, my favorite dress and the song I loved so much. I don’t remember much about the performance but I do remember I was happy it was all over.

So moving to Austria in May 2011 was a new beginning to an old song. True, I live in Vienna, which is a long way from Salzburg but I was in the same country where one of my favorite movies actually took place. Now I didn’t know when I would be able to see any of these things but imagine my surprise when my in-laws came to town and wanted to do a tour of the country including Salzburg. What was even more exciting for me, I got to walk the steps where the song actually was filmed, Mirabella Gardens. I really wanted to do the Sound of Music tour but they wouldn’t’ let us take pup Harry, so that’s left for another time. Here are a couple of things that we saw.

The story of Sound of Music is all about new beginnings for a family who didn’t believe in their country's decisions any more. Now that wasn’t my case. I do believe in the US and all it stands for but I also know that goodwill needs to be spread across the globe. So when my husband got the choice to move here, in many ways it was a no-brainer.  While here, I’ve interfaced with people from many nations. I live in a building with three embassies, Albania, Dominican Republic and Paraguay. Also in the same building are the OSCE  residences of Finland, Ireland and Spain. Up the street is the Turkish embassy and down the street is the huge embassy of France.

Sure, I didn’t, and still don’t, like the fact that I’m far away from my family but this time has provided many new beginnings in the form of my writing. Since my time here, I’ve been able to consolidate my social media and get totally on track with it. I’ve also started a whopping 13 books, finished 3, reworked some older ones and have been with a new critique group.

New beginnings can come in many forms and none have to be as drastic as what the von Trapps and I’ve done. One doesn’t have to move far away to get a new beginning. Every time we read a book, it has to start at the beginning. Every time we, as writers, write a book, it has to start at the beginning. And every time we start a new character that character has got to start somewhere be it a murder scene, something totally unexpected or just a normal but different day.

Beginnings abound every day. We as writers just need to embrace those new beginnings and use them to our best advantage. What about you? How do you embrace new beginnings?

Now let’s keep this round robin going. Please go to Connie Vines blog and see what she has to say about the subject of new beginnings.

Thanks and see you all next time!

Lynn