On NOT starting at the beginning

"Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." Ernest Hemingway

I hate stories, especially autobiographies that start at the beginning. I don't trust them. They always seem over worked like the writer spent too much time trying to understand the "early years" in order to accept a future that has yet to be realized.

With that in mind, I have struggled for years to write the first sentence of James' story. Where does it begin? For any of us? My interest in James' began with my grandmother. Her story was the key I needed to have all my internal dialogue make sense. I've spent years writing little stories about it and now I'm putting it all together and re-writing that first sentence to bring it all together... do you think it will sound overworked?