The first sentence I couldn’t get right

Dear Reader,

It took me forty-three drafts to write the opening sentence of New Haven.

Forty-three.

The sentence that finally survived was simple: “The house smelled of rain and old wood the day Clara and Theo came home.”

Everything that mattered about the novel was already hiding inside that one line — the weather, the house, the returning siblings, the sense that something had been waiting for them.

I keep this number (43) written on a small card above my desk as a reminder that difficulty is not a sign that something is wrong. Sometimes it is the sign that something is important.

If you’re working on something that feels impossible right now, please keep going. The right words are often stubborn.

With quiet gratitude,

Claire