Recipes for a Good Critique Group Meeting Part I

Recipes for a Good Critique Group Meeting

I need to come clean right here at the beginning and confess that this story really is going to be about recipes - not writing. Unfortunately I have no clever twist at the end to bring it around to the normal theme of our blog. I am, therefore, asking you up front not to wait expectantly wondering how in the world I am going to bring this around to writing – I’m not.

Most of our Critique Group meetings are BUSINESS, BUSINESS, BUSINESS. We meet at Panera Bread, and I am always late. I dash past the food counter not even bothering to order a cup of tea, much less food. Recently, however, we have had some out of the ordinary meetings. The first one was when Lisa came back through Charlottesville on her way from Belgium to Oregon. We decided to have a party meeting at my house in honor of Lisa being with us in person rather than on the computer screen. I had hoped for a slumber party, but with so many people having to get up to be at work the next morning, it turned out to be just a party party. We had food, wine, and a writing video about Richard Peck. People brought a smorgasbord of yummy things but what has stuck in my mind (even though it was two months ago) is Sarah’s rich, dark, chocolatey, with a touch of cinnamon and coffee, brownies. Everyone at the meeting kept saying how good they were, but I proudly resisted tasting one. I can’t resist brownies right out of the oven, but once they’ve cooled down I have will power. With every compliment those brownies received, though, my will power weakened until finally I found one of the morsels melting in my mouth.

“It’s the real butter, the extra chocolate chips, the dash of cinnamon, and the sprinkle of coffee,” Sarah said, noticing the look of delight in my eyes.

“Mmmm,” I said and I closed my eyes and savored the flavor

***.

Right now I am on an official diet. I had my physical two weeks ago and experienced a moment of shock when the nurse told me how much I weigh. I felt hungry a while ago and realized that if I went to bed I could manage to not eat any more food today. I have set myself a goal, though, of writing for an hour a day and I had not completed my goal. I told myself that if I actually went to the computer and wrote I could have a bowl of cheddar cheese rice cakes as a reward. Well, my cheddar cheese rice cakes are gone, and I can’t handle writing about brownies anymore. Therefore, this is the end of part one of “Recipes for a good Critique Group Meeting.” I promise that although I am not going to write about writing I will give you the brownie recipe in a future edition. Stay Tuned.