Miss Brill’s donning of her beloved fur in the beginning of the story, and her subsequent casting off of it at the end of the tale, represents her superior attitude and her punishment for possessing such a view of her fellow park-goers.

Miss Brill’s donning of her beloved fur in the beginning of the story, and her subsequent casting off of it at the end of the tale, is symbolic of her superior attitude and her punishment for possessing such a view of her fellow park-goers.

There is a mini-cult of first lines among us writers. The first line is sort of like the lobby of the book: the first thing you see, coloring all subsequent impressions. It’s one place where you’re truly allowed to show off.

"Getting dressed was always the hardest part of the afternoon." (Pretties)

"We are all around you." (So Yesterday)

"I think New York was leaking." (The Last Days)

"The five small craft passed from shadow, emerging with the suddenness of coins thrown into sunlight." (The Risen Empire)

"The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit." (Uglies)

• "The reason Weetzie Bat hated high school was because no one understood."
• "All children, except one, grow up."
• "We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our reat gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun."
• "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again."
• "At the far end of town where the Grickle-grass grows and the wind smells slow-and-sour when it blows and no birds ever sing excepting old crows...is the Street of the Lifted Lorax."
• "I am the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass."
• "I taped the commercial back in April, before anything had happened, and promptly forgot about it."
• "The Adventures of Captain Proton!"
• "Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys an wherefores thereof." (what a doozy!)
• "'Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug."
• "I remember where I was and what I was doing when Bonnie Prince Charlie was killed."
• "Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes."
• " Unhappy with a new treaty, Federation Colonists along the Cardassian border have banded together."
• "Marley was dead, to begin with."
• "One dollar and eighty-seven cents."
• "It's a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes."
• "Once upon a time there was a pair of pants."
• "It was a dark and stormy night."



While we're here, what are some of your favorite first lines?

Interlude - Make a Wish

Tingle--the bells chimed. Someone had arrived at the little shop. But was anybody actually there to greet them? Although...whether or not the shop mentioned was actually in business was the real question. Dark and dusty, with a few shy scritch-scritch-flutter's to indicate the presence of mice, innocently disturbing the rickety peace in the shop--if nothing else.

The stranger steps forward, not quite tentatively, yet not quite certain. Her foot-falls barely sound on the dingy wooden floor as she slowly makes her way forward, in a manner questioning the shop's occupancy.

"Hello?" Her voice is tinny and unsure.

"Aiieeee!"

The sharp, high-pitched reply is followed by a large bathunk-crash-thunk-THAM! which indicates that several of the large crates, barrels, packages, and jars have fallen and broken. It is followed by a lower-pitched moan of an "ow" and the shuffling sound of someone trying to escape the debris.

Upon running to the location of the commotion, the intruder discovers a lone shop girl, sitting on an overturned crate and massaging one of her arms. The shop girl glances up, and the two girls stare at each other.

"Oh! Oh..." The shop girl jumps up, and momentarily attempts to straighten both herself and her mess, before giving up and stepping forward quickly and dropping into a sloppy curtsy.

"Welcome to the Iwik Shop. I am Abigail St. James, what sort of life may I assist you in discovering today?"

The visitor stares at the shop girl--Abigail St. James--mouth agape.

"Umm..."

The shop girl catches her mistake.

"Oh, this is nothing--it happens all the time here. The shop isn't usually this messy, mind you. Mr. Locke St. James, the owner is out on business and it's just gotten a bit away from me at the moment. Come over here, I'll fetch you some tea." She takes hold of the younger girl's arm and gently pulls her away from the wreckage.

"Mr. St. James is your...husband?" Her tone is still quite hesitant and small.

"Oh no, Mr. Locke is my caretaker. He's watched over me when no one else would. This is his shop. I help him out as best as I can. It's my way of thanking him."

She leads her new charge up a set of stairs that had somehow previously evaded the girl's eyes and into a small back room where she seats the child and begins clattering about loudly making tea.

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible."

- Vladimir Nabokov

"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop."

- Vita Sackville-West

"I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all."

- Richard Wright, American Hunger

• a lick and a promise


• ataraxia


• contraband


• halva


• mantic


• praxis


• sapid


• semilunar


• serendipity


• zeitgeist

"I began to write for myself - selfish as ever. I began to write as a catharsis, as a means of expression and to essentially explore the deeper recesses of my own mind. I think I've been rather successful in doing that and while not each and every thing I leave behind is so esoteric, it means something to me - and that is what's important. If others find meaning in my words and writing - and I know some do for I am told repeatedly - then how fabulous that we can share some spark of unity in communication! I will continue to write, because I love to write. Often I feel that aside from grandstanding, it is what I was born to do in life."

- Lestat de Lioncourt

NANOWRIMO

I CAN'T WAIT!!! :D

I...write for myself - selfish as ever. I...write as a catharsis, as a means of expression and to essentially explore the deeper recesses of my own mind.

--Monsieur Lestat de Lioncourt

"I never started my online journal for the purposes of culling friends and admirers. I began to write for myself - selfish as ever. I began to write as a catharsis, as a means of expression and to essentially explore the deeper recesses of my own mind. I think I've been rather successful in doing that and while not each and every thing I leave behind is so esoteric, it means something to me - and that is what's important. If others find meaning in my words and writing - and I know some do for I am told repeatedly - then how fabulous that we can share some spark of unity in communication! I will continue to write, because I love to write. Often I feel that aside from grandstanding, it is what I was born to do in life. In years past I have been blessed with moments of what might be called enlightenment in those thoughts put to paper both here and privately, and I have countless souls to thank for their inspiration, again, both online and offline. That --- is what matters to me."