Found a writing prompt in a thrift store notebook last Tuesday

I was browsing a Goodwill in Akron last Tuesday when I spotted a spiral notebook full of handwritten prompts. Someone had filled like 30 pages with ideas like 'a key that unlocks memories from 1892' and 'a coffee shop where customers pay with stories.' I bought it for $2 and I've been using one prompt a day for practice. Has anyone else stumbled on something like this that sparked a whole new project?

2 comments

2 Comments

wren_thomas162d ago

Did it ever occur to you that the person who wrote those prompts might have died? I mean, 30 pages of handcrafted ideas left in a thrift store notebook. That's not just someone cleaning out their closet. That's somebody's life's work, their creative soul, sitting on a shelf for two bucks. Maybe they were a teacher, maybe a writer who passed away and family just dumped everything. I'd be checking obituaries for Akron writers or English teachers from the last year. Could be you're carrying someone's unfinished legacy now.

ivanlewis1d ago

Started digging into something similar a few years back. Found a box of handwritten recipes at a garage sale, all in the same neat script, and I actually tracked down the woman who wrote them through a local historical society... she was a home ec teacher who'd passed in the 90s. Her daughter told me she spent decades tweaking those ratios and bake times, and she was happy someone was using them again. @wren_thomas16, you might be onto something with the obituary route for that Akron notebook. Could be the family didn't know what they had.