Should I wait until I'm inspired?

That's the question kicking off exercise 2.14 of the second week of my Open University MOOC - Start Writing Fiction.  It's about getting starting by plunging in. Part of the introduction to the exercise read this way:

Don’t wait until you have the perfect first line. In practice, it often transpires that perfect first lines no longer fit with the story once it’s written out. Instead, try to think of your opening line as being simply like a doorway that you must pass through to get into the ‘room’ of your story. The doorway is much less important than what’s inside the room – focus on that. If you find yourself ‘seeing the whole story at once’, and you’re unsure where to begin, concentrate on one particular detail and start there. 

Example: You want to write about a young man and his girlfriend. He’s just realised he’s in love with her, and is going to say so, but you think that having him just saying ‘I love you’ will sound a bit flat. So, think about how else you could approach it.

And this was my response.

Alice flung her bag onto the kitchen table, knocking the fruit bowl. An apple fell out, wobbled on the weathered pine then rolled to the edge from which it plummeted, ending-up nestled between the refrigerator and the cat's saucer of half-eaten 'Chicken Dee-lite'. With a phone cradled between her neck and ear, Alice payed no attention to the wayward fruit. She was intent on the voice at the other end, making sure she caught every word. 

Weary from the day's routines, Alice slumped into the chair beside the table. And while adjusting the phone with one hand, she reached into her bag with the other to extract a crumpled pack of cigarettes. She had sworn she would give up but this was serious. So she pulled one from the pack, put it to her lips then rummaged in her bag again until the lighter came to hand. Alice lit the cigarette, drew heavily, then - as she arched her spine against the back of the chair, eyes to the ceiling - exhaled deeply. 

Something Alice heard made her sit upright. "Frank," she said, "it just won't work. You know? You can't keep messing up like this then hope things'll be OK by saying I love you." Alice paused. Listened. Spoke again. "Frank," she said, "grow up!"

Maybe 10 minutes to write the first draft.  An hour to get it down to less than 1200 characters to fit inside the submission window.  Still writing every day. Still hope for this old man.