We are an unlikely group, the four of us women. An editor, a retired PR consultant, a job-seeking operations manager, a nurse–we meet monthly to drink coffee, eat things that are bad for us and discuss our writing. We’re in our 30s, 40s and 50s.

I met two of them at a writers’ conference and one through my blog and brought us all together a few months ago in a writing support group that meets in San Mateo.

It’s not like we have all that much in common, at least individually. Except that we write. We don’t even write in the same genre.

Last month, we did a free-writing exercise using one of Lisa Romeo’s prompts: “Keep in line.”

We wrote whatever came to mind when we thought about that topic, without regard to structure. Then we emailed our work to the group.

Once I read their free-writing, I knew each woman better and felt an even greater kinship to them.

Some excerpts:

….in a crisis situation, please, surround me with rebels.

She wore her miniskirts six inches above her knees, but no more. She french-kissed her boyfriend but never let him feel her up. And she never missed curfew, except the time she dragged Main with her friends and ended up at Moose’s Saloon without a ride home.

I’ve nver been good at keeping in line, coloring inside the line, holding the line, casting a line. I was, however, good at doing lines, once upon a time and have always been good at crossing the line.

NO.
Screw you, I won’t do what you tell me.
I will do whatever the hell I want.
Where’s the line?
Whose line am I supposed to be in?
My line goes all over the lace.
I LIKE to color outside the line.

We four iconoclasts have found a kinship that started with our shared love of writing and gets stronger as we get better acquainted. I really dig these women.