Write Club: Inspiration

Hey y'all.  Guh.  I haven't been feeling good today.  I've been forcing myself to drink a lot of liquids: a hot tea, three glasses of hot water, a coffee, a coffee with egg nog (try it!), a creme de menthe latte, and an orange juice.  Probably in the next minute or two I'm going to fix myself some hot egg nog with cinnamon.

But that didn't stop me from having a Write Club meeting tonight!  It would have, if two new people weren't coming.  But oh well.  Things are turning out alright all the same.  I had enough adrenaline to go tonight, and so it was all good.

So for the first part of the meeting, we had a little exercise where I handed out the things that I've collected this past year: stuff people leave in their used books.  I had several items: a Christmas card, a newspaper article, a drawing of a cat, someone's writing of a movie quote, a postcard with german on it, a couple of black and white photos, etc.  Each person picked out what they liked and wrote a little story for the person who left it there.  One member wrote a cute bit about a little girl who drew her own book illustrations.

As you can guess, the meeting was about inspiration.  So for the next exercise, I had them look at a member's drink cup.  Then I told them it wasn't a cup, and they were supposed to say what it was instead.  Here are some of our more interesting substitutions.

- An umbrella (think the straw and lid)
- A mutagenic drink that turns you into a zombie
- A dungeon for little people
- A telephone that looks like a drink cup
- A monster that sucks out your brain if you try to drink it.

The next one we did was about a big metal vent that protruded into the coffee shop where we meet.

- A toilet paper roll
- A baseball bat
- A large cannon
- The mast of a ship
- Stadium seating for small aliens
- A giant inhaler.
- A monument to an incompetent space "hero".

Once this was done, I had them pick their favorite substitution for the vent and do a little background on why it was there.  One member had it so a storm sent a ship crashing into the shop, and it would be too costly to get rid of so they just left it there.  Another said it was there to suck out the scent of coffee.  Yeah, he doesn't drink the stuff.  How dare he blaspheme the name of coffee???

I'm kidding...though seriously, coffee=goodness.

Honestly, it was a real casual meeting tonight.  That's good.  There's just so much stuff that can't come across in a blog that does come across in person.  We need to be a group that likes each other and can nerd it out over each other's stories.  Y'know?

But what does come across is this: you can take inspiration out of absolutely everything.  So, when you're bored, pick something, and decide what really is.  'S fun.  I've never been properly bored in years.