TC Boyle & Opening Sentences

I've been reworking the opening of my novel and trying to create an opening sentence that packs a wallop. Today I went to the library and read the opening paragraph to all the Boyle novels on the shelf. There were seven or eight. While the exercise was very useful for my opening sentence, (I hope), it left me feeling rather discouraged. I'm 47 years old and have yet to complete even one novel, let alone the cornucopia of ideas that Boyle has produced so far.

Of course the only option to not trying to finish anything is never finishing anything so I continue on. But just for giggles, take a quick comparison and you'll see what I mean.

Falling From the Moon's first sentence: "He vaporized fifteen years ago leaving faint traces of patchouli, the echo of an acoustic guitar in the hallway and festering lesions on her destiny."

Drop's City's first sentence: The morning was a fish in a net, glistening and wriggling at the dead black border of her consciousness, but she'd never caught a fish in a net or on a hook either, so she couldn't really say if or how or why.