A new friend invited me to be a guest at her writer’s group. They meet twice a month at the library in a nearby town. Presently there are 9 members but over the past 20 years apparently there have been many aspiring writers who attended for a while and then moved on – to other pursuits. It was informative and in some cases delightful to hear the results of the work of putting pen to paper by 6 of the members. Each person brings something they wrote to read aloud. After listening and before we all went out together for supper at a local restaurant, I was asked what I was working on and had I ever been a member of a writer’s group before. i gave a brief history that I had indeed at various times, been part of such a like-minded group and that after listening to them this evening perhaps I would revive one of the proverbial bottom-left-hand-desk-drawer-manuscripts of which I have more than one. The particular one I had in mind, when I had finished it years ago, I shopped around as fiction, while it was based on fact. Someone substantially plagiarized it. At the time, years ago, the advice of my attorney was, ‘Let it go’. ‘Your story is better and you will only increase his sales of what is not a very good book and an even dumber title.’ So I did nothing. Buried the manuscript, the music CD that went with it and all the photos which were never included, but should have been. Into storage where it waited. Today, with a bit of effort I found it. I have yet to open it past the title page.
