Objects of Desire

Writing about Jilly Cooper and my longing for a dog made me think about an exercise I used to do with my students from the Bristol Uni Diploma class, so here it is for the weekend.

Write about an object of desire you had as a child. It could be something tangible - in my case, a dog - it could be something more abstract, but write about something you really, really wanted. Why did you want it? Did you ever get it? What happened?

These were some of my favourite pieces when it came to reading them out and I noticed the rest of the students listened attentively. There was something so simple, so effective, so specific when we wrote about what we wanted and the frustrations or successes that came with those desires.

Shakespeare wrote: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on" so when we're writing about imaginary characters, we need to be clear about what it is they want and be as specific as we can. If it's good enough for Shakespeare....