the muse is upon me (gerroff you stupid muse)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a jockey on a Friday night with a few pints of beer in him, who has not pulled a woman, must be in want of a fight.
These are the opening lines of Pride And Prejudice, Janes Austen's classic satire on manners and morality in the England of the year 1750.
Nobody ever said it better.
There's no doubt about it that a good opening is the most important thing in a novel.
A cracking first line, along with a good title, is worth a million dollars.
And what comes next doesn't really matter at all.
Think of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca.
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay again."
Now there's music.
What happened next?
Who cares!
Some interminable rubbish about a housekeeper, and brooding sexuality, and a husband that you'd be well advised not to turn your back on when you're standing at the top of the stairs.
In the dim and distant past, I myself attempted to write a novel.
It was called The Sword And The Rose, and was written in the Mills And Boon style which I innocently thought would be the easiest and most rewarding approach financially.
A sample of my oeuvre...
"Catherine collapsed against Lord De Rocheteau with a little cry of surrender. How could she resist these feelings any longer. Her breathing came in short sharp gasps like an animal's. His muscular arms enfolded her softly yielding body."
What a load of codswallop.
I even stole the last line from an old advertisement for perfume.
The Just Musk by Lentheric ad.
Crumbs.
But isn't it awful.
I actually showed an early draft of The Sword And The Rose to my feminist cousin Pauline expecting kudos.
She read it and then favoured me with some measured advice.
She spoke as one excercising great restraint.
For a moment I suspected she was struggling not to laugh.
"Write about what you know," she said, her tone of voice distinctly implying I knew nothing.
Undaunted I presented the novel to my brother Doctor Barn.
Doctor Barn is a different kettle of critics to the feminist cousin.
I still have the manuscript today with his annotated comments.
There's a passage in my novel about the young hero, Jacques Le Moray.
It reads:
"Jacques had no interest in the wanton wenches of the town, preferring instead to dedicate his life to the science of the sword."
My brother has written such a stream of invective in the margins about poor Jacques and the phallic, nay Freudian, symbolism of his love for the sword, that I blush to repeat it.
I gotta tell you it was tough being a swordsman in France during the Revolution.
They didn't get no respect.
In any case neither Jacques nor that alluring baggage Catherine, nor that insensate scoundrel De Rocheteau, ever made it beyond Chapter Three.
They were probably better off.
We were all probably better off.
My next venture into literature was called The Astro Hens, and rather cynically aimed, as was my form, at the children's market.
It floundered early in Chapter Two.
I couldn't stop laughing at the names of my characters.
Millie Hen, Roger Rooster, and Al Cockeral.
If you say Al Cockeral in a particular way it really is quite funny.
You've got to sass it.
There you go.
Anyhoo.
The years have passed and I think I'm ready to try again.
If my theories are correct, a good title is all we need and a good first line.
We shall call the book Tribe Of Women.
That should get people's attention.
The first line will go:
"At the edge of memory glimmers lilac blossom."
Nifty eh?
Now all we have to do is pad it out for another 250 pages.