This is the first time I've been really serious about writing a novel and have gotten so far (over 17k words) so here's the first three sentences of said novel:
The door creaked on its hinges and the bottom scraped on the hard wood floor as I pulled it open. Cringing, I paused to make sure my mother hadn’t woken from the sounds. When I was sure she hadn’t, I slipped through the opening into the cool summer night before shutting the door behind me.
Congratulations on getting 17k words written!
A lot of explain-y stuff going on here with the door. The phrase "the bottom scraped on the hard wood floor as I pulled it open" tripped me up right away - it makes your first sentence rather long and the imagery is flabby. In your last sentence, "before shutting the door behind me" also seems unnecessarily detailed. I think you could easily lose both phrases.
I wish you'd put that kind of detail into that moment when your narrator pauses to make certain that Mom didn't wake up. Is she/he straining her ears, holding her breath, feeling the pulse pound in her throat? The door isn't all that interesting; the sneaking, nervous narrator is.