It involves a recipe book

So the subject for Tuesday’s writing group (it’s only Sunday I’ve got plenty of time!) is to imagine finding something in a drawer, maybe an old notebook or diary, maybe a letter received or half-written,  a work-in-progress poem, a something mislaid or lost or abandoned. Using that as an idea we need to write a piece inspired by that thought. I started to write something – I mentioned this a couple of days ago: – ‘I imagined two sisters, maybe middle-aged, maybe older, who went back to a place they used to stay every summer holidays. The younger one had a vivid memory of an old, deserted place they and their young friends used to go into and play – the elder sister had absolutely no memory of it at all. ‘

This idea started off so promisingly with the two sisters, who break into the old abandoned cottage, the older one pulls open a chest of drawers – and no! The story developed into something completely different, there was nothing in the drawer and the woman closed it. So now I have to write another story, (plenty of time, we don’t meet until Tuesday!) My problem is that the others in the group are such imaginative, creative and excellent writers, with original ideas and perspectives,  who will produce clever, engaging pieces that will grip us all as they are read out.

The mysterious message from the past, an intriguing mystery or maybe a half-forgotten memory, bitter-sweet, enigmatic, revealing, a window into the past – the note-finder’s past or another’s – a known ‘another’ or an anonymous stranger, I’m sure we’ll hear them all on Tuesday including mine – which is not yet written.  Sometimes, as soon a subject is chosen for the next meeting ideas spring into my mind, sometimes I have a month of puzzling before a story gradually takes shape, sometimes my mind is as empty as the page on my laptop screen as I ponder on what on earth I can possibly write about.

I have an idea, it involves a recipe book; well, I have plenty of them within which to find inspiration, and I also have plenty of time, it’s Sunday evening and we don’t meet until Tuesday morning!