Wednesday 18 January 2012

The mind works in mysterious ways...



Last Friday, Julia Webb, my wonderful creative writing tutor, gave us yet another inspired writing exercise. As a special treat she presented us with her treasured button tin and asked us to select four or five buttons each. We each chose, sat back down and admired. What came next was not so wonderful to begin with - we had to swap buttons with the person next to us and write something interesting about our neighbours choice. Ridiculous though it may sound we rather struggled to pass our collections on but I was more interested in the reasons that inspired our choices.


One classmate chose for colour; pink through to red, another for her husbands interest in Roman history whereas I myself was thinking of potential characters I could associate the buttons with.


My group included:

a duffle coat toggle - obviously belonging to a child


a smaller toggle - belonging to the teddy the child had lost on a journey


an overcoat button - from the mac worn by an elderly gent


a jade, square button - set on a white blouse worn by an eighties housewife


A somewhat eclectic collection but an interesting insight into my mind. It seems no matter what I am doing, somewhere, in the back of my mind, I am always looking for the potential story!


H-J

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like an interesting exercise - it's amazing how stories can start to form with the most unlikely and simple of inspirations!!

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  2. Newspaper headlines can work just as well. I wrote a 10,000 word 'short story' as a result of reading 'Boy Makes Up Kidnap Allegations' in a national paper!
    H-J

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