16 January 2007

American Inklings in McLean

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.
~ Thomas Mann

The first meeting of the American Inklings in the new year took place last night at Corkies ~ a cozy place where I am a regular Sunday brunch-er. The charm and atmosphere immediately said that the A. Inklings would be at home. And though they closed at nine, they graciously allowed us to stay until after ten.

We began by discussing creativity: what it means to be creative; whether there are boundaries to creativity and what creativity is not. Then we engaged in a writing exercise. We each took a piece of paper and wrote down one sentence, then passed it to the person to our right and they wrote a second sentence. We continued passing the pieces of paper around until Sullivan said stop.

Out of four beginning sentences, three of the unfolding stories were quite melodramatic and silly. I only claim responsibility for two sentences that took a story from a horror to a farce. But I must say the end result was humorous. :-)

The fourth story we all agreed we were intrigued by. It had the best flow; it made sense and we all wanted to know what happened next. How was it going to end? And there in lies our next writing exercise: to take that beginning and write an ending. And it does not have to be long nor does it have to be short. We put no limits on word length. Just write an ending and however long it takes you to get there, so be it. I can’t wait to read what the others will come up with. And I’m looking forward to seeing what story the characters are going to be telling me to write down!

Oremus pro invicem,
Mikaela

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