I've belonged to a writing group since 2004, meeting once a month and submitting a piece for comments every other month. It's really fun and I've become great friends with the ten or so members of the group. Really great friends. In the course of writing - many of us write memoir - you get to learn so much about yourself and each other. Even if you write fiction, you learn a lot.
It's inspiration too. I'm sure I wouldn't still be writing if it weren't for the group. Someday maybe I'll publish all the stories I've written about my life. Maybe you'll read them.
Every month Larry, our leader, puts out an idea, called a Prompt, that we each write 10 minutes on. This is in addition to our regular submissions. We can approach it any way we want. It's just a little creative thing, something to have fun with.
The prompt in November of 2015 was: "Write about the moon, about something it means to you, good or bad." Here was my entry; maybe you're old enough to relate.
MOON
My friend Brian Bobby and I sat upright on cushions in front
of a 19-inch black and white TV.
"It
looks exactly like the space shorts we used to see before the main movie when I
was a kid," I said. "Captain
Something, or Flash. That's what it was, Flash Gordon."
"Yeah,
grainy and wavy like that," Brian agreed. He scooped up a big handful of popcorn from the bowl next to his leg and took a slug from his can of
Budweiser.
It was July
1969, and on TV Neil Armstrong was descending the stairs from his spacecraft to
the surface of the moon. Supposedly. A big puff of dust rose around his feet as
one foot stepped off the ladder.
"Wow,"
Brian said. "What if there's nothing there but dust and he sinks out of
sight?"
"The
space ship's sitting on something, silly." Brian wasn't the sharpest tack
in the box.
"Oh
yeah," around a mouthful of popcorn.
Amidst a
hail of static the astronaut intoned, "One small step for man . . ."
The picture wavered, then faded in and out.
"I
don't know, Brian. What keeps this from being just a movie? How would we
know?" I didn't believe a word of it. It was so like Flash Gordon, I was pretty
sure it was faked.
"Nah.
They wouldn't do that."
Right. I'm
still not completely convinced it was real.
I never did post the final final of the chair I upholstered, with the very able and crucial help of my friend Rolando, who knows what he's doing! Good thing someone did!
