The Page 123 Meme

Stumbled on this exercise on two different sites today (Perpetuus Mos and Writer's Round-About), and was intrigued to try it.

The assignment:
1) Pick up the book nearest you
2) Open to page 123
3) Find the 5th sentence
4) Post the following 3 sentences
5) Tag five others

OK, the book nearest me is Windswept by Ann Macela. It’s the only book in my cubicle. Bought it at my writers group meeting last night from one of my author friends, so it was in my bag. My copy is autographed. Haven’t read it yet, but the cover is pretty. See?

So, I open to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and then post the following three sentences:

“I didn’t expect you so early. Jesus just brought the paper in. It’s on the table.”

At first the selection, out of context like this, sounded completely inane to me. But the more I look at it, the more it seems like the opening of a writing exercise. Like a writing instructor is saying "Here's your bit of dialog, now build a scene around it" ... which I'm not going to do.

Now, the last part of the assignment is to tag five other people, which usually means I should single out five blogger friends and challenge them to post this same exercise. Nah. I'm not so into that part of the assignment.

Instead, I'll do the same as the two bloggers who turned me on to this. If you want to try the exercise yourself, post your version in the comments section here, or post a comment with a link to your blog entry. I'm curious what turns up.