Writing the First Chapter

I might be jumping ahead of myself, because I'd love to do a blog--or a blog series--on story outlining. But I'm about to start writing the first chapter of a new book and I wanted to blog about that first.

Are you in the same boat? About ready to dive into that heart-stopping, thrilling, depressing, scary, dreaded, and intimidating process of writing the first chapter?

My friends Nikki Trionfo and Heather Clark have a three-part video series on writing the first chapter. It's three hours long and... it's amazing, informative, entertaining, and motivating. I have nothing else to add, so I'll turn it over to the experts (but have one little surprise as the end):

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

And finally, who can't watch this all day long? Nikki doing the Scooby Doo doodle-dee-doop: