Where Ideas Come From

I am not a joiner. Oh, I belong to two writers' groups and a book club, and do some volunteer work at the church, but that's the extent of it. A good week is when I have no meetings penciled on my calendar.

Mom was different. Once we kids were grown and out of the house, she became a social butterfly. If she didn't have at least one meeting reminder on her kitchen calendar she would go into a depression. For her, a good day was a committee meeting with coffee in the morning, a bridge club luncheon, a late afternoon bridge club and an evening with friends after dinner. Or an evening with friends with dinner.

Whnever I visited she hauled me along to her bridge clubs, thinking I "needed to get out and meet people." I couldn't convince her that I had plenty of friends of my own and viewed playing any card game with the same joy I greeted a dentist appointment.

There was one club she belonged to, though, where I did enjoy tagging along. This club had no name, no officers and no charter or bylaws. It grew, if I remember correctly, from Newcomers Club meetings when all the ladies were strangers to town and to each other. Long after they were settled, they continued meeting for lunch. That was it. The only rule was the members took turns choosing a restaurant for the next month's meeting.

There was no adgenda. They caught up on each other's lives, exchanged news of mutual friends, discussed the latest book or movie (or Hollywood scandal), and enjoyed a good meal.

So when I needed a reason to have my characters come together in my next book, it was a no-brainer to adopt Mom's monthly lunch meeting -- with one difference. I gave it a name: "The Lunch Club."