The first thing I did was apply this recursively to the article itself.
"When I was a 25-year-old Senior Editor of The Mother Earth News, I did a lot of rewrite editing."
Not bad! Started with an anecdote that got me interested. And it worked—I was interested enough to continue reading. Great article with some excellent writing suggestions for anyone.
Given the title of the link, I approached the article with intent. I answered the question "What does the opening line do for me?" before continuing. Here are my results:
* It is straight forward and obviously relates to the title, giving me the impression "An article about writing by someone who may actually know about it".
* It piqued my curiosity: "Is 25 young to be doing this job?" "I bet this was formative... how so?" "WTF is rewrite editing?"
* It nicely sets a tone of "here's some experience for you to chew on" (and the rest of the article keeps it decently.
Note: my opening sentence is a poor mimicry of calinet6's opener and of TFA's opener. Seems I need some practice :)
"When I was a 25-year-old Senior Editor of The Mother Earth News, I did a lot of rewrite editing."
Not bad! Started with an anecdote that got me interested. And it worked—I was interested enough to continue reading. Great article with some excellent writing suggestions for anyone.