Getting started - again.

Well, up to a point, it is. So far, I've managed to tidy drawers, sort out photographs, mop floors, dust and polish furniture, re-design bits of the garden and learn about bees. What has eluded me is the inspiration to finish an almost-completed play and re-start a completed stalled sixth novel. 
To galvanise myself into writing, I've gone back to my notes for a writing workshop I ran a few years ago.
I began with an exercise in narrative.
1. The stories we tell and the stories we write.
Tell a story, as you might tell it to a friend. An anecdote that comes to mind. It can be something as simple as an account of a recent trip to the hairdresser. 
Give the anecdote a title or headline, to make it more intriguing. The story of a trip to the hairdresser could be "Blow Dry", or "Cut and Dried".
Now write the story a. using first person narrative, past tense b. third person narrative, past tense. c. first person, present tense. d. third person, present tense.
Imagine this anecdote is the beginning of a novel. Why is the trip to the hairdresser important? Is it because of an incident in the salon? Or because of something the hairdresser, or other client, said? Or because your thoughts kept returning to something that was bothering you?
2. What happens next?
What if you overheard something, or saw something, or resolved something in your mind?
What if? is the beginning of all fiction. 
3. How will you approach the story?
Writers are either architects or explorers. Architects like to structure a story. Explorers set out not knowing where they are going or what they will find. Crime and suspense writers are architects. So too are George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Jane Austen. They lead us through the house they have created. James Joyce and Virginia Wolf are explorers.  Novels about 'issues' are always structured.  Picaresque and coming of age stories can be both.
4. Character
Strong characters are the heart of all good fiction. You remember them. You might not remember the plot of The Hound of the Baskervilles but you remember Sherlock Holmes. You remember Mr Micawber, and Mrs Bennet, and Mr Collins – and they’re not even principal characters. And you remember (random selection) Mr Casaubon, Holden Caulfield, Tom Ripley, Brigid Jones. What makes these characters memorable?Reading my own notes, I realise I always begin with an incident involving my principal character/narrator, and that I am an architect. I know and have written the incident that triggers the plot. But I need to have most of the story plotted before I can continue. And that is where my problem lies. I don't yet know where this story is going. That's what I need to find out.