處女作指的是作家、導演、演員、歌手等的第一部作品。俗話說，萬事開頭難。所以，不管他們的處女作能否一炮打響，讓他們一夜走紅，都會在他們的心里有特殊的位置，給他們留下很深的印象。

請看《中國日報》相關報道：

Soon the job as an art designer could no longer satisfy him. He started writing scripts and in 1994, he got a bank loan for his maiden work.

"From the very beginning I was shooting film by loan," he says, "which gave me big pressure to perform well at box office, otherwise I could have gone to jail. People who are saying that Feng Xiaogang is more focused on market performance than artistic value don't know the hardships in my early days."

報道中說，藝術設計的工作不久就不能滿足馮小剛，于是他開始寫劇本，并且在1994年為他的處女作拿到了一筆銀行貸款。馮小剛說，從一開始拍電影的時候，他就承受著票房壓力。如果票房不好，他可能會因為還不上貸款而進監獄。

這里的“maiden work”指的就是處女作，“work”是“作品”的意思。此外，與“maiden”一起構成的詞還有“maiden sword”（新刀，尚未染過血的刀），“maiden battle”（第一仗）和“maiden trip”（首次航行）等。

（英語點津 Linda 編輯）