Frustration

I'm at the beginning.
You know how books often start right at the beginning of a problem? Not always, but sometimes they do. The more boring beginnings start right in with lots of background to "set the stage" but the better books find ways to grab you, to suck you into the story so that the mundane background info becomes as important to you as reliving your own history. It breathes richness into the attention-getting "grabber" of a beginning.
And you can see that the story is going to get better, meatier. Like a plump little calf you just know is going to be the biggest, juiciest walking steak you have ever seen! Well-I'm a vegetarian so I guess its like asparagus-no-a strawberry that you just know will get so plump and ripe... Yeah, that image just doesn't work as well for vegetarians. Sorry.
Anyway, the problem with this problem is that it is just that-a problem. You don't live the stress of the character as their life falls apart. Sure, you may sympathize but mostly you take on the attitude of a full-grown man that laughs at footage of another man getting hit in the double-nubles in a "I'm so glad that wasn't me way."
I guess my point is that I don't even have someone to read my life story and chuckle uncomfortably when things go wrong. I think I deserve it, too! At least that.
Well, unless I'm in a tragedy. Then I guess my life-book would bring no relief to either me or my reader.
Huh.