My marvellous writing group isn’t meeting until February, I guess we’re all recovering from Christmas and New Year, not always the best time to settle down to write! Each time we meet we share what we’ve produced in response to a writing challenge – it used to be that we would have a random topic, driftwood, cheese, rope etc. and we would respond in our different ways. After a while the challenges seemed less challenging – probably as we became more proficient, so we employed other strategies. We would write in an unfamiliar genre, we would take a well-known story and re-write it for a different audience, we would focus on a particular aspect – place, character, voice, style, we had a workshop with a published author, we went wild writing – visiting a local park to find a different sort of inspiration.
So, it’s 2026, and the poet Macaque has grabbed the writing prompt bull by the horns:
Right, you lot, settle down, pay attention The next meeting of the group will be on Wednesday 18th February, 10 am. The theme will be to write a story involving the character Apeth Blunt (gender not specified). This is not to be a character study, but a story in which Apeth is a main character. I am interested to see whether the name suggests any common traits to each of us.
Well, this is right up my street, I haven’t any firm ideas but there are many thoughts bubbling. I wonder what my fellow writers will come up with and whether there will be any overlap of ideas and their thoughts on the character! I will report back in February.
PS Is my featured image Apeth Blunt? Or is this our character:
Lois Elsden 