I finally got my head down today and wrote with such vigour that my pencil nearly caught fire… or it would had I used one … ok so my keyboard nearly caught fire.  Anyway, my point is, that I sat back and read the opening chapter.  It didn’t hook me in.  It was too ‘flowery’ so I took a deep breath and highlighted the offending purple passages, then hit ‘delete.’  I repeated the painful process and then rewrote.  The result was, I hope, a far stronger opening.  It’s never easy deleting but it can immeasurably improve the story arc and flow.