Nobody just flops a complete 'Doc Martin' script on the desk. They all have to be taken apart and all the apologizing taken out. Because it's hard to have a protagonist that doesn't really like anyone and nobody really likes him; it's a hard premise to start from.
You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.
It's quite ironic I suppose, it's that thing about being in a group when you all start out as friends and then invariably end up hating each other. So I just thought they needed telling really, in case they were labouring under the apprehension that they were still friends.
I enjoy worldbuilding very much. I generally start with an approximation. With 'Flesh and Spirit' and 'Breath and Bone,' because I was thinking of a world on the brink of a dark age, I began with the sense of Roman Britain. But I purposely set the geography to match something other than Britain - which has been overdone.
We've found that patterns of site looting have increased between 500 and 1000 percent since the start of the Arab Spring. Now this is a problem as old as human beings. People were looting tombs 5,000 years ago in Egypt as soon as people were buried, but the problem is only getting worse and worse.
This is Sunday, and the question arises, what'll I start tomorrow?
But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.
When you start with a portrait and search for a pure form, a clear volume, through successive eliminations, you arrive inevitably at the egg. Likewise, starting with the egg and following the same process in reverse, one finishes with the portrait.
Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to the U.S. The immigration guys kick the star out of my stardom.
On my first days here I did not start work immediately but, as planned, I took it easy for a few days - flicked through books, studied Japanese art a little.
If you can clearly articulate the dream or the goal, start.
The newspaper offers something very different from Google's aggregators. It offers a value system, an idea of what matters in the world. Newspapers need to start articulating that value.
I'm not a fan of fillers at all. If you've gone 35 or 40 years without big lips, I don't think it's time to start plumping them up artificially.
The French were generous in giving us assistance in corps and army artillery, with its personnel, and we were confident from the start of our superiority over the enemy in guns of all calibers.
When you start to ascertain a physique, you run that thing where you don't want to lose it. It catches you; it's like a hook.
I've read everything that Isaac Asimov ever wrote, for a start. I'm massively into my fantasy genre, anything by R.A. Salvatore or David Gemmell. I've read every single book those writers have written.
I was approached about having my own network many, many years ago. There were some people who wanted to start up a network, and I didn't want to get that involved in the business aspect of it.
The linear, single species idea of farming is an assault on ecological function. Something's going to break down in that system - anything from soil structure, in economics... but where to start is with true ecological function.
You have to assign specific tasks to everybody so you don't bump into each other and start arguing about silliness.
When you're writing, you're in a totally different zone... I can start a difficult poem and look up at the clock and see to my astonishment that three hours have passed.