How the story began

Like many people, I started a book years ago.  I come back to it from time to time, decide it’s worth continuing, write a bit more and then tail off again. I still think it's funny and I will finish it sometime but the one currently standing at 82500 words came from an exercise the tutor gave us to do in class. 

The exercise was in four stages, each one lasting about ten minutes.

We were asked to find something we had with us that had significance in our lives, and to write about it. 
          ‘I found the pink button yesterday; the one Amelia gave me soon after my dad died.’

Next we had to tell the same story but to write it using the voice of the 3^rd person.
          ‘She took the pink button, felt the smooth plastic cool from the evening air and ran her fingers over the four small holes.’

The next part of the task was to share our writing with the person sitting next to us. I had the great fortune to be sitting next to Kerry who told me about her object which I then wrote about in the 1^st person voice.
          ‘I put on my best-friend smile as he slid into the passenger seat beside me. The weekend away had been such fun and I felt as though he had seen me for the first time ever in all the years we’d known each other.’

The final part of the exercise was to write our partner’s story in the 2^nd person voice.
          ‘You thought it would be a laugh, didn’t you?  A weekend away with an old friend, drinking and reminiscing about the old days would just be a laugh; you weren’t prepared to fall in love with him again.’

The story has moved on and taken a much darker tone since then and has ceased to be Kerry’s Story.  For a while it was called Joanna’s Story but now looks like Clouded Leopard.

Writing exercises from books such as

What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter.

are useful for stretching the mind and forcing ideas. Who knows where they may lead?