On being forced to write

I spent this morning with a group of fellow 3P Publishing authors. We got together to compare notes on overcoming writer's block, what we're reading and writing at the moment, and to have a good old natter about words. It was a very useful way to pass a couple of hours.

Andy, who facilitated the session, gave us an exercise to get our brains working. He gave us three words - suicide, prostitute, Brexit - and asked us to write a  sentence that included one of those words. I wrote:

I'm not a prostitute, it's just the way the light plays on my cleavage.'

Then we had to pass that sentence to the person on our right, so we each had a new sentence to develop into a paragraph or two. I was given:

Brexit drives one to consider suicide.

I continued as follows:

Doris, though, thought she'd rather someone else took responsibility. So she put on her best hat, bought a National Express ticket to London, put a small pistol in her handbag and set off. Quite what she expected to achieve wasn't clear, but someone had to pay and she didn't think it should be her.

It was surprisingly easy to get into the House of Commons. Playing the role of the dizzy old lady, she charmed her way past the security guard and into the lobby, then set off in search of her first quarry. She found the office of Septimus Nobworthy (Con), knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for permission.

He looked up in annoyance at the interruption: 'Who the hell are you?' Then he saw the gun in Doris's hand. 'Look, if this is about that shares business...'

'No,' she said. 'This is about Brexit. It's time to settle up.'

Now, I'm not saying this is a great piece of work, but given that we had no warning and about five minutes to write, I don't think it's too bad. The point is that sometimes you just need a little push to get started.

'Behind the jug in Annie's room'

At our lovely Weaving Words writing group this week, one of the prompts we were given was 'Filter', to be interpreted any way we liked. Off you go! I wrote something about clearing space in my head, letting go of stuff that is no longer useful to me and so forth. Not worth sharing as it stands, but I might turn it into something (fabulous) at a later date.

Inevitably, we ended up talking about physical clutter in our homes. I'm not a hoarder, but I am married to one, so I share the pain of random boxes of curiosities that will 'come in for something one day'. One of our group has moved home many times and confessed she has some boxes that have been shifted from house to house without even being opened. My advice was to dump them. She also has a box that has lost its original label along the way and she was written on the outside: 'Lord knows!' Why doesn't she have a look? 'Too scared of what I might find,' she said. That would drive me crazy.

In our house we have a small plastic tub that we call the Kitchen Drawer Box, because when we moved from our previous house the contents of said drawer were tipped into a box and there they have stayed. It's full of things like the radiator key, a tin of 3-in-1, a football boot stud remover and silver polish (these last two being particularly redundant, yet somehow they stay). We've all got these ridiculous places - haven't we?

And the title of this post? That's a family saying. We have no Annie and therefore no such room or  jug, but it's where we say something that you can't find will be hiding.