Doesn't everyone want to write the great American novel?  I never did until about two years ago when, in a fit of emotion, I wrote the first line and then it gushed.  

The problem now is that I have lost interest again.  So I need your help. 

Maybe it will give you an idea of who I am or how I think.  I hope so.

I am also looking to you to give me encouragement to keep going.

Below is the first few paragraphs of my untitled novel.  Please read it and let me know if I should rally and keep writing.

It wasn't the river that was on his mind.

He was getting ready for another trip down the rapids.  Just another
couple of nights of floating and camping.  He had the list of supplies
he needed in his head.  And, he knew he would forget something.  He
always did.

But, this trip he would be carrying something extra in the raft.  It
was the memory of what happened last night.

As the darkness of the highway engulfed the road, Jack Lawford was deep in his thoughts.  He knew he had to meet the guys by 9:30 that morning. The events of the last 48 hours had become such a distraction, that he missed the shortcut to the river, and lost precious time. This was his one trip a year, when he was allowed the pleasure of feeling completely free.  Days spent with no cell phone, no meetings, no responsibilities to anyone except the three other people whom he had known since childhood. 

He was thinking about that fate filled evening 4 years ago at a conference in Pebble Beach.  He was in his element.  At 46, he was the golden boy.  The one man whose experience and expertise was sought by some of the most powerful men in business. He always knew he would achieve a level of success that would elevate the pain and shame he felt as a young boy.  But in his wildest dreams, he never thought that a random introduction would threaten the dynamic of everything he had worked so hard to attain.

As he drove along watching the trees go by, he wondered if everyone had these flashbacks.  For as long as he could remember, he was always re-living some moment from the past.  He reached over and turned up the radio, hoping to drown out the thought of he grandmother’s cottage in northern Minnesota and cleaning fish on a wooden bench near the lake.  There was no reason for this flashback moment.  Maybe, he thought, it was God’s way of making him remember where he came from.  

He shook himself into the present.  He had more to worry about now.  It wasn’t 1963 anymore.  It was 2003 and life was a lot more complicated. 

In the distance he noticed one of those big RV’s coming at him.  It was a mile away, but he could still see the sun reflecting off the huge, bug stained grill.  It was the only other vehicle on the road to the river.

It got closer and closer.  And then…his cell phone rang.  And the trance was broken. 

 “Hello, Jack can you hear me?”  the voice said anxiously on the other end of the phone. 

What do you think?