Story Time

So I joined a creative writing group. Its fun and allows contact with other writers. Writing is a lonely occupation. One only has one's characters to talk to ha ha!

So we are working out how to proceed. One thing we will be doing is to be given a plot and then write for 15 minutes and read out a short story. Can you imagine all the crossing out and the mess of it without edits and time to play with it?

Anyway, at the last meeting we were given this criteria as homework:

Creative writing group:

Male name: Peter    

Female name: Mary

Place: Hastings

Setting: Café

Time of year: Winter
Time of day: 3PM

Weather: Raining:          

Words: 300

I took a shot at it and here it is...so hard to fit all that into 300 words:

The First Meeting

    Peter felt nervous about today. Everything was about to change and he wasn’t sure if he could handle it. What if, he thought, I’m a disappointment? Or, what if I’m the one left feeling disappointed? After all, he’d only seen a very old picture of Mary and apart from the letters; he had no idea what she was really like.

    He was glad he’d purchased that Sat Nav. He didn’t like driving at the best of times, let alone all the way to Hastings. His hands shook a little as he set out on the journey. At one point he thought about cancelling the whole thing. But once on the motorway his concentration went into driving and his anxiety settled.

   He arrived in Hasting around 2.30pm. He and Mary had arranged to meet at 3pm in the Café des Arts. Mary had picked the location. She had mentioned in her letters that she’s an artist and that she frequents this quaint, little, bohemian café regularly. She thought she would feel less nervous if they met somewhere familiar to her.

   After parking the car, Peter decided to walk for a while before the meeting. He was getting on a bit and his legs stiffened up after long drives. He was nervously looking around the tables in the Café, when from behind, someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was her, it was Mary. Instinctively they hugged, both of them crying unashamedly, there in front of everyone. Ever since that first letter from Mary he’d worried but now Peter knew it would be okay. Here, in Hastings, on a grey, rainy day, the daughter he’d never met was in his arms. 

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Jen S copyrights 2010