1 post from February 2009
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I'm supposed to be working on a novel right now. A real one, I mean. Not for NaNoWriMo. And I am! But I decided to write the first chapter all over again, and I can't get past the first paragraph. Those first lines set off the mood of the whole book, so they have to be right. Which reminds me of a few of my favorite first lines. I really wish I'd thought of these first:
10. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. - Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)
9. I warn you that what you're starting to read is full of loose ends and unanswered questions. - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Jack Finney)
8. Alice was eating grapes in the park when Herbert, an extremely well-endowed young man, introduced himself to her. - The Curious Sofa ((okay, maybe this one's cheating a little)) (Ogrdred Weary [Edward Gorey])
7. It is a sin to write this. - Anthem (Ayn Rand ((Don't judge me!)) )
6. We all knew nothing good would happen to him while the thief's widow had her claws dug into his flesh, but the boy was an innocent, a real donkey's child, you can't teach such people. - "The Free Radio" (Salman Rushdie)
5. My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name. Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her. - Everything Is Illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)
4. When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere. The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)
3. As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. - "The Metamorphosis" (Franz Kafka)
2. I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well. - My Name Is Red (Orhan Pamuk)
1. There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. - Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie)
Why can't I write like that?
