The Potion

/ roughwighting

Bluesnap, Pixabay, Halloween potionAll six writers received the invitation on the same day and immediately called each other: “Are you going? Will you bring your ingredient?”

As instructed, not one writer told the other what she was requested to bring.

On Halloween night, a round iron pot sat in the center of the library conference table where the writers met once a week. Joellen splashed in two quarts of Diet Coke. Danielle measured and added a tablespoon of vinegar.

Laura stirred in a cup of brown sugar while Denise slowly, hesitantly, added two dashes of hot sauce. Rolling her eyes, being the least compliant of the students, Roxanne poured in a cup of grapefruit juice as Judy added a pint of orange sherbet.

Samantha, the writing instructor, didn’t enter the room until the sherbet plopped in. She wore a pointed fuchsia hat and a long fitted purple dress with a silky red scarf wrapped around her shoulders. With a sanguine smile, Samantha revealed her ingredient – a silver pen engraved with words no one could read. Pixabay, moritz320, writing

As she threw in the writing instrument, Samantha intoned: “Make their tongues stop, their fingers loose.  Words created with a boost.” 

Poof! Steam streamed out of the pot with a swirl that encircled each one of the writers.

Samantha pulled out six sipping cups from her purse, dipped a cup into the potion for each of her students, and warned them: “Make sure your notebooks are empty and waiting.” Joellen, Danielle, Laura, Denise, Roxanne and Judy each showed off their blue-lined white paper, and then accepted the cup Samantha offered.

“The potion of creative power is obtainable only to those who desire. A sip is safe, but the power of words can’t be restrained. To your writing health!” Samantha nodded, and each of her students drank.

“That was surprisingly good,” Roxanne began to say, but she gagged a bit and then picked up her pen, and wrote along with her fellow students with a ferocious fury seen only in tornadoes, hurricanes, and writers who dared drink the potion of literary possibilities.

Yvion, Pixabay, potion

WHAT MAGIC WOULD YOU WISH FOR IN A POTION?

127 thoughts on “The Potion”

  9. I would add an elephant clove of garlic and a can of Tuttorossa crushed tomatoes to my brew ! Then wish for my pen to write as fast as my brain thinks!

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  11. I think the brew sounds magical. I think I would add nutmeg because it’s fall, after all, and a little bit of sweet spice never hurt anyone’s writing.

    Stay warm and dry today, Pam! It’s raining here, but supposed to let up by this afternoon. Happy Halloween to you!

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  13. The title made me stop in my tracks and mentally prepare, ‘Halloween’ and ‘Where is Pam going with this?’

    The concoction you describe sounds like the punches I used to make for parties, which included the sherbet on top. Also, women sitting around a large, round pot.

    Love “the notebooks are empty and waiting” – my favourite kind of notebook. ‘Daring to drink the potion of literary possibilities’ – the best.

    In answer to your question: the other magic I wish for is ‘solitude’.

    Only then will the magic truly happen ✨

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    • I responded to this days ago – and yet I find a blank space here. (Maybe the blank space is in my head!!). Ha. But what a wonderful magic to ask for: Solitude. Yes, we writers need solitude to spread our magic through our pen/keyboard. I think if you add a dash of nutmeg to Samantha’s potion, solitude will be included…. xo

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      • Occasionally, this happens to me, too, Pam. I will respond in sequence, go back and my response is not there. The unexplained…it is a Halloween post, after all. 😊I am all in for adding spices. Fun post! xx

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  14. A great Halloween story!! May you write with a ferocious fury seen only in tornadoes, hurricanes, and those who dared drink the potion of literary possibilities all year long. Happy Halloween. xo

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  15. Clearly, you drank the potion Pam. I’m intrigued and in need of a stiff drink along with writing inspiration. Maybe I’ll add some hard cider and a dash of nutmeg to celebrate All Hallows Day to see what happens. Happy Haunting, I mean writing! 🧙‍♀️

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  22. If I were in charge of making a potion the magic I’d like in it would be: no achey joints. Of course, maybe that exists in a pill called Advil– but a tasty potion would be great and more dramatic. Fun story

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  25. Dear Miz Creativity, McBeth’s witches may even gag at your potion in the caldron. However, permit me to pull out the orange sherbet AND the magical writing instrument, and I’ll be all set.

    Samantha is a hip writing teacher: “Make their tongues stop, their fingers loose. Words created with a boost.” She has smarts just as you do, dear Pam! 🙂

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  31. Your story brought back a memory from long ago during my college days. Like many college students, my judgment was less than stellar in those days. When my poker buddies and I finished our game as dawn was breaking (Who needed sleep in those days?), we sometimes would challenge our buddies to drink some wild concoction of ingredients (no alcohol). Just about anything else would go into those drinks. One of us (usually the big loser for the night) could recoup some of his lost money by downing an elaborate mixture of ingredients. I can almost hear my parents now, “This is what we sent you to college for?” 😎

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    • That DOES sound horrid, Pete, because my guess is that the college concoction did not include magic. Magic is a necessity for the potion to go down smoothly. That and a good pen…. ❤ Thanks for sharing the great memory…. or not so great? ;-0 🙂

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  36. I absolutely LOVE this story!! Oh for that potion. Do you think that’s what some writers are looking for in the bottom of their bottles? I’d bet Elizabeth Gilbert would have included this recipe in her book “Big Magic.” 🙂 I could use a good dose of it right now. Happy Halloween!!

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    • You always make me smile. Perhaps Elizabeth Gilbert would like me to collaborate with her for her next book. I’ll provide the potions. 🙂 Yes, I’m afraid that some writers think they need an alcoholic boost to loosen them up. Point of fact, it does the opposite. What’s the great quote? Something like writing is more about being AWAKE during the day .. and observing and BEING. (I made most of that up, but you know what I mean…) 🙂

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  39. I’m thinking that potion has to startle the tastebuds which nudge and encourage the writing hand while the aromas swirl around the thoughts that spill out to put it all together!
    That was fun!

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  48. Wow, this potion would be good enough to get me going for hours. I hope they have some left for me. I might try using the same ingredients because they all look delicious individually! ❤ 🙂

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    • Thanks for finding me here and reading my fun fiction. I didn’t think of this story as Wiccan literature, but can see how it might be perceived that way. I just close my eyes and let my pen show me what’s going on. 🙂

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