2012 Monday Challenge: A First Line Every Week

[Brandi_R]

Here’s a challenge: Write and post a new first line (of a fiction, a poem, or a creative non-fiction essay) every Monday in 2012. Who’s in? I am! Here are some parameters:

• Post to this thread every week. I’ll keep it floated to the top so it will be easy to find.

• Start whenever you discover this post. Perhaps you missed January or you just joined the Writing Room in July. No big deal. Just start posting the next Monday that rolls around. Once you start posting, don’t stop. Return every Monday.

• Write only one sentence (or, in the case of poetry, one line). See what you can do with a single sentence to create intrigue and draw the reader in. You might flesh some of these out into complete works. I hope you do! Post any complete stories, poems or essays in a separate thread for feedback. Let’s keep this thread focused on first lines only.

• Life happens. Not everyone will be able to log on and post on every Monday of the year. Feel free to give yourself some wiggle room on the weeks that you absolutely need it and post when you can. Otherwise, give yourself a weekly Monday deadline to stay on track.

• Don’t feel like you have to commit to one genre. You might write the first line of a story one week and the first line of a poem another week.

• Have fun. Revel in the vast and varied nature of your creativity.

I’m posting this after the first Monday of the year, so feel free to post one now and this upcoming Monday or just wait for this upcoming Monday.

[GS2991]

Crusty tears of timeless angels,

[Darkkin]

The truth, the mistake, a staggering blow, sent Lily reeling back; the brink of madness beckoned.

[Dan_Diego]

"I've broken nine of the ten commandments," Striker said to his neighbor's wife.

[GS2991]

I ran fast as I could as gun shots rang out spraying gravel where my feet had just been.

[chad]

A Pacific fog obscured the early evening lights and slowed most of the traffic of Main street, except for one car which somehow seemed to have avoided the entire rush hour and parallel-parked with unantural precision in front of the Sanddollar.

Chad

PS- This was kind of a mean exercise- I always fiddle around with one line openers. So if I write a sequel to what I'm working on now- the above is probably close to what it will be.

[Darkkin]

It was a path of no sight, but of great depth and magnitude, a path that only she how to find; what lay at its end Angel had no way of knowing, but she would follow wherever it led.

[Brandi_R]

These are great . . . we have intrigue, beautiful description, conflict. Way to start the new year with some excellent openings.

[Brandi_R]

Fran didn't want to burn down the Rainbow Cafe, but it was done and couldn't be undone and all she had to do now was call Charlie from the payphone at the corner of Main and Seaside and then beat it out of town.

[Darkkin]

---

Darkkin wrote:

It was a path of no sight, but of great depth and magnitude, a path that only she how to find; what lay at its end Angel had no way of knowing, but she would follow wherever it led.

---

Rewrite.  The edit button was eaten...

It was a path of no sight but of great depth and magnitude, a path that only she knew how to find; what lay at its end, Angel had no way of knowing, but she would follow wherever it led.

[GS2991]

Alone in the ship of sorrow,

[Darkkin]

Her feet were bare, toughened from weeks of traipsing about without slippers; the music pouring from the encampment drew her like a moth, dark and heady; Violet followed the sound her dusky curls bouncing about her shoulders in disarray as she whirled about, finally free.

[Dan_Diego]

The doctor fumbled with the beads on the rosary in his pocket and then said to the little girl's parents, "You're right, science saved your daughter today."

[chad]

Maybe it was the fact that events sometimes slowed down in an a life threatening emergency, or maybe it was just divine intervention, but Frank could have sworn that time stood still, allowing him to barely escape the avalanche with his life.

Chad

[Brandi_R]

Sitting at a metal desk in the dank stacks three floors beneath the reading room, Holly opened the dusty volume. It probably hadn’t been touched since her father found it two decades earlier.

[Whisper-Lynn]

"As Sophie approached the bus stop Clara waited, faithfully, with her ever present dimples edging a familiar grin."

[Open-Peacemind]

She opened the rusty old Doors, wind flapping her bouncy hair up and down, the bright light attacked her eyes, she began to feel her eyesight fading.

[Dan_Diego]

If my girlfriend died six months ago, then who is tweeting intimate delails of our relationship from her account?

[GS2991]

"There is no cure for what you have. Your suposed to be dead. " the Dr. said and layed the xrays down on his desk. James looked up to his Dr. shook his head then said "you said that a year ago and now its gone. What happed?"

[Darkkin]

Rue Dog, with his teddy bear face and huge dark eyes, rested his head and his enormous chewy bone on her leg, his tail a waving pleadingly.