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These are the opening lines that stuck with me this past month. See if you can guess the title. One isn't an opening line to a novel, but an opening line to a short story. I bet a few of them are a bit too obvious...

First the colors. Then the humans. That's usually how I see things. Or at least, how I try. Here is a small fact: you are going to die.

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.

Who am I? What am I? Where am I? Saturday. I am almost a whole day old now.

There is a particular circle of hell not mentioned in Dante's famous book.

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

If the Bains had striven for years, they could have been no more successful in making their living room into a small but admirably complete museum of objects suggesting strain, discomfort, or the tomb.

Recently, I was privileged to attend a talk by Ian Mc Cormack who had a dramatic encounter and consequently a life changing experience through an attack of box jellyfish. For anyone who is interested in after death experiences it is worth a look. His online testimony can be found here:http://www.aglimpseofeternity.org/ Changing the tone, I now share with you a humorous email to lift your

This will be your chance to enter both real first lines of manuscripts (for you gluttons for punishment) and made-up-just-for-the-contest first lines.

I'll offer a Bulwer Lytton Prize for overall, overwritten awfulness, but remember, this is the easy one. It's tougher to write first lines that are bad in ways that many people achieve accidentally--but those are the ones I'll really be on the lookout for.

There will also be a Seuss Prize for poetry as rhythmic as a pounding migraine, a Drivel Award for uninspired use of cliches, a Robert Munsch Citation for most dysfunctional relationship in a first line, and other honors based on the varieties of dreck you foist upon me.

Contesty-westy time, chickens. Editorial Anonymous has been commenting on the power of the first line. She considers tension, voice, sense of humor, cadence, and rhythm. Then she says this:

So here's the deal: send me your first line (or your first two lines, if you must) and I will post a select few to comment on. Send them to my email with CONTEST in the subject line.

This contest opens now, and closes as soon as I've had enough. Maybe tomorrow.