As most of you will be aware if you’ve been following the updates on our Facebook group, I’m currently working on a novel for NaNoWriMo 2022, and my main character’s family runs a chemist’s shop much like this one:
By something ever-so-slightly less than a coincidence, our latest assignment is to write something set in (or connected with) a chemist’s shop or pharmacy. That way, although it seems highly likely I won’t quite reach the NaNo target of producing 50,000 words in one month, at least I’ll be able to say I’ve completed my Island Writers assignment!
Or so I thought!
Sadly, my NaNo novel’s plot hit a snag, so I have now declared myself a NaNoRebel – I’m trying to continue writing and aim for the same word count, but I’ve switched to another project: a memoir of my childhood.
Will I manage to include a chemist’s shop? I doubt it, but we’ll have to see.
So, what can be done with that topic? A chemist’s shop sells two main product lines: health and beauty.
Health
The pharmacy dispenses medicines from the doctors’ prescriptions, while off-the-shelf health products include vitamins and supplements, plasters and bandages, ointments and treatments for minor ailments, as well as products such as toothpaste.
The characters in your story might include ill people, particularly those who wish to avoid seeing their doctor, but are quite willing to spread their infections to others. Keeping people waiting while their prescriptions are dispensed might cause an interesting source of conflict between customers or staff. Alternatively, a customer may be pregnant, which could cause an emergency – or an embarrassing situation. The shop staff might be asked to help with advice or treatment for an injury to a passer-by, or a customer might decide to interfere and offer other customers inaccurate health advice.
Beauty
Beauty products include skin creams, cosmetics, hair dye, foot treatments, nail polish, hair remover and other self-grooming items.
These characters would be people who want to enhance their appearance, either because they’re ugly, or because they’re already beautiful. But does their self-perception reflect reality?
Do they understand how to use the product correctly, or listen to the sales assistant’s advice? Does the beauty product improve their looks, or spoil them? How does the change in their outer appearance affect their happiness, or alter the way they treat other people?
This might be an opportunity to write a memoir of your teenage years rather than a short story or poem. Or perhaps a piece of science fiction or fantasy, where the medication or beauty product causes an otherworldly change.
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Remember, as this month has five Tuesdays, we’re catching up for a friendly drink at Yelf’s Hotel in Ryde (with or without your partner, whichever you prefer) on Tuesday 29 November, 7pm onwards.
The next Island Writers meeting is Tuesday 6 December.
The latest Island Writers assignment topic is Flowers with a meaning.
Everyone knows that a single red rose means I love you. But why?
Back in Victorian times, there were things which couldn’t be said openly for reasons of delicacy, so a complicated language of flowers developed to express these emotions. It wasn’t just the flowers, but where the bow was tied and even how they were presented to the recipient which could impart each shade of meaning.
Some flower meanings pre-date the Victorian era. We might recall Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, saying, “Here’s rosemary; that’s for remembrance.” And it’s not too difficult to figure out the intended meaning behind a posy of forget-me-nots. But which other flower meanings have survived to the present day? And which have changed?
White roses symbolise new beginnings and purity, a reason for their continued popularity in wedding bouquets. My personal favourites, yellow roses, meant jealousy or infidelity in the Victorian era, but fortunately their modern meaning is friendship. Sunflowers, with their connotations of positivity and strength, have been chosen as a symbol for those coping with cancer.
Heraldic flower meanings include the white and red roses for the houses of York and Lancaster in the wars of the Roses. Other flowers have been chosen as their country’s symbol, notably the daffodil for Wales and the thistle for Scotland. Holly has Christian meaning, with its spiky leaves representing Christ’s crown of thorns, and its red berries symbolising his blood.
For creative writing, the meanings of flowers can be given a directly-stated symbolism, but can also add subtle emphasis of a theme, as the roses on the judge’s bench are used in Dorothy Sayers’ Strong Poison, which is not only a murder mystery but a love story: red roses (true love) “they looked like splashes of blood,” when Harriet is put on trial for murder and Wimsey falls in love with her, and gold chrysanthemums (neglected love) “they looked like burning banners,” to represent her triumph when she is found not guilty, but also her rejection of Wimsey’s proposal of marriage.
In a piece of historical fiction, if less well-known flower meanings are included, it might be necessary to explain their significance to a modern-day audience:
“The gentleman left these flowers for you, miss.” A basket of white clover, meaning, ‘think of me.’ Isabella’s heart leapt. “I shall do little else until you return, my dearest,” she murmured. Then, to her horror, she noticed a single poppy nestling in the middle of the clover. Horatio was telling her he was not free! “Why, you impertinent…” As he had already departed for London, she couldn’t even send him a single yellow carnation to express her disdain. In a fury, Isabella snatched up the basket and hurled it out of the open window to land on the flagstones below.
In this modern era, we’re free to speak our minds (although that particular doorway of opportunity appears to be edging closed already), but we’re still using symbols to communicate. Emojis began as the use of regular typography to represent smiley faces and other simple emotions and has proliferated into a vast range of symbols requiring an Emojipedia to explain them all. So, if flowers don’t do it for you, perhaps another aspect of the topic could motivate a non-fiction opinion piece.
Or, as it’s November, the present-day symbolism of poppies might inspire you to create an appropriate piece of writing.
The latest Island Writers assignment topic, Maps, may seem limiting at first. OK, we could write a story about someone who discovers an ancient pirate map, and goes off voyaging to seek the treasure. Although it’s fair to say that this scenario might not have the same freshness today as when Robert Louis Stephenson wrote Treasure Island in the 1880s, there may be a few twists left if we use our imaginations.
We’re not restricted to a particular period in history, for a start. Our story could be set in the Stone Age with a map drawn in the sand, or during Medieval times, the Victorian era, World War II, the 1970s, the present day, or even the future, with space explorers going beyond the mapped area of a planet into uncharted territory.
And the map doesn’t need to lead to treasure. The map might be to give directions for some other reason, be used for town planning, or be part of an orienteering exercise for soldiers or girl guides. Maybe it’s a team-building activity for an unwilling group of office colleagues, or a TV game show.
Examining an area more closely on a street-map, or comparing a historical map with a more recent one, might reveal a secret building or local feature such as a cave or old water-tower. Or the information shown might reveal a hitherto-unsuspected problem which could lead to a story for your characters.
Our map could be something different from the pirates’ treasure-chart or a standard Ordnance Survey map. It might show tunnels, or ley-lines, or rock strata, or the journeys of religious believers. Or perhaps it just shows places with funny names such as Fatt Bottom or Bald Knob.
If all else fails, for inspiration, try Googling, “Interesting Map Facts.” If you found geography lessons boring at school , you might not think there are any interesting facts about maps – but there certainly are!
NEXT ISLAND WRITERS MEETING:
Tuesday 19 October 2021 – for more details, use the Contact page.
Lockdown was quite a shock to the system. Almost overnight, it took us away from our jobs, distanced us from our families and friends, and cancelled most of our hobbies.
It wasn’t easy, but human nature is resilient. So, after a while, we got used to these tiresome social restrictions and created different patterns of living for ourselves. Some of us even preferred our new, relaxed lifestyles, chilling at home in our PJs instead of struggling through the rush hour, and spending more time with the kids, with a cast-iron excuse not to visit our annoying in-laws. As for our creative writing… well, much as we loved it, we had to put that on the back burner until we got the other stuff sorted out.
Now, we’re crawling back towards normality… but wait. Isn’t there something we’ve overlooked? Has our writing been simmering on the back burner for so long, that it’s almost boiled away? It’s become something we used to do, instead of something we do?
It’s time for action: time to do something positive to get our creative urge back.
For writers of memoirs or family history, an afternoon spent looking through old photographs or a visit to a place that has links with the past could be a spur to get writing again. For playwrights (failing a theatre trip), watching a film we haven’t seen before could start us off again, or watching an old favourite, but with a critical eye for its construction.
For short story writers and poets, being an active member of a writers’ group gives accountability, a reason to actually do some writing instead of just feeling guilty that we haven’t. Island Writers meets at our house in Ryde twice a month to do short writing exercises, share our work and keep ourselves on track, and we set a new (optional) topic every two weeks. The current topic is Badges, and the next meeting is Tuesday 5th October, 7pm-9pm.
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is coming up in November – so for those of us who prefer to write novels, Nano Prep can help us get revved up and ready to write. It’s already started, but it’s not too late to catch up, or we can use it as guidance, but follow the steps at our own pace – the important thing is to get going.
Instead of tinkering around with an existing bit of writing, adding a word here and deleting a phrase there, let’s get started on a fresh piece. Any subject, any genre, any length. Try one of these:
A journal entry – what you’ve done so far today.
A story which starts, “The dragon was restless.”
A list of reasons why your neighbour is a pain.
A poem about cheese.
A description of one item in the room you’re in.
A memoir of something naughty you did as a child.
A piece of dialogue between a posh person and someone who works for them.
Whatever we decide, it’s vital to remember that all new writing is good. If we’re not happy with it, we can edit it later, but first, let’s get some new writing down on paper.
Ever had that dream where you show up somewhere in clothes that are totally wrong… or perhaps wearing none at all? Remember the scene in Bridget Jones’ Diary where the protagonist attends a party wearing a Bunny Girl costume… only, it isn’t a fancy dress party?
Being unsuitably dressed for an occasion is a fear shared by many. Why is it such a big deal?
Wearing inappropriate clothing marks us as an outsider – the person who didn’t understand the social rules.
Even the choice of a single accessory can be fraught with pitfalls for the socially unwary. Wearing an unsuitably loud tie, or even just one with stripes instead of spots, choosing a handbag in the wrong colour, or carefully matching all our accessories together too well perfectly – any of these mistakes can signal clearly that we don’t belong.
And it’s not just when trying to impress snooty people at posh formal gatherings that we need to worry. Lower down the social scale, buying the wrong brand of trainers, or wearing clothes that look too immaculately new, or picking a t-shirt with the wrong kind of slogan or band name can have exactly the same effect.
As a topic for creative writing, this visible display of being an outsider can be an excellent way to show (rather than tell) readers what a character is like. Do they swagger rebelliously into the ritzy restaurant, knowing their outfit will shock the boring people who try to fit others’ expectations? Or are they consumed with embarrassment as they slink in, hoping to go unnoticed?
If you prefer writing memoirs, perhaps you recall a wedding where someone turned up in a white dress, upsetting the bride? Or a day when you got in trouble for wearing yellow socks to school? What happened next?
The wrong clothes can be dangerous.
Many jobs have dress codes for good reason. Frilly skirts, trailing shoelaces or baggy clothing can get caught in factory machinery, or create hygiene hazards when working with food. Specialist footwear and headgear are needed on building sites to provide protection against horrific accidents.
Outside working hours, dangers can also come from inappropriate clothes for some leisure pursuits, particularly sports and physical activities such as rock-climbing and caving. Lack of protection against sudden changes in the weather can be a classic – and even fatal – rookie mistake.
These hazards could make a funny poem, or become plot points for a story, and often reveal character, too. What kind of a person knows a piece of clothing could be dangerous to wear, but risks it anyway for the sake of their appearance?
Personally, I solved these sartorial dilemmas by deciding several years ago that I will not attend any event or gathering where wearing jeans would not be appropriate. Not that I insist on wearing jeans, but if it’s too posh for jeans, I’m not going. (Actually, yes, I do insist on wearing jeans! Our wedding was the only exception).
Our next gathering is a social get together for drinkies at Yelf’s Hotel in Union Street, Ryde, on Tuesday 31 August, 7pm onwards. New writers are welcome to drop in for a spot of liquid encouragement!
To share your Unsuitably Dressed assignment or any other new writing, the next Island Writers meeting is at our house on Tuesday 7 September, 7pm-9pm. If you haven’t been before, contact Emily via the Island Writers Facebook group.
Scribbled down in a hurry, sometimes our attempts at creative writing can be… well, superficial. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A short story or poem can be simple, lighthearted and entertaining; it doesn’t need to be imbued with deeply significant psychological resonance to be worth reading.
But our new assignment title, Skin, was chosen because it offers the opportunity to get under the surface of our characters and perhaps create something more subtle and nuanced.
In a literal sense, the skin is the body’s protective layer, of course, but it’s more than that. It has become a social signifier to other people, revealing information about our age, our ethnic background, our state of health, and sometimes our relationship status, social groupings and personal tastes.
We decorate it with cosmetics and tattoos, lighten it with bleach or darken it with sunbed sessions, scent it with perfumes and smooth it with oils. Usually these are attempts to subvert the information our skin signals to others: to look younger or healthier or more aggressive, or just different from (or the same as) other people. Why might your character want to achieve this?
Even without these efforts, the outer appearance people present – or try to present – in public can be a metaphorical protective ‘skin,’ very different from the emotions hidden underneath.
Skin is also the organ for our sense of touch: the most important way we interact with and explore our world.
It’s how we express love, anger, sympathy and a myriad other feelings in a physical way, and how we experience pleasure and pain, heat and cold, freedom and confinement.
A character in the James Bond film The World is Not Enough is unable to feel physical sensations at all. In the film, he’s depicted as super-powerful, unable to feel tiredness or suffer injury – but what would life really be like for someone who cannot sense anything through their skin?
Our latest Island Writers creative writing assignment takes its inspiration from the famous science fiction novel by Robert A Heinlein:
Stranger in a Strange Land.
It seems perfectly fair to borrow his title, considering Heinlein borrowed it in the first place, from the Book of Moses in the Bible.
Heinlein’s theme, an alien experiencing Earth as an alien world, still has plenty of scope for creative writing, as does the Biblical idea of journeying for hundreds of miles to find a new home. However, your assignment doesn’t have to be science fiction, or religious writing, although it can be.
Your ‘stranger’ may be much closer to home: an ordinary person who has come to an unfamiliar setting or lifestyle, perhaps a city slicker lost in the wilderness, someone facing the trials of their first day at college, a club or a new job, or some other social milieu where everyone else seems to know the rules.
The important thing is to allow your writing to express the universal experience of being an outsider. Whether you’re creating a short story, poem, personal memoir or opinion piece, fill it with the emotions which will resonate with every reader. We’ve all been that stranger… but will yours find acceptance or rejection?
If you’re trying to remember all the assignments in case you’ve missed one (or perhaps more than one!) here is a list of the most recent ones:
Is your creativity feeling trapped? These long months of lockdown have left many of us struggling to write anything more challenging than a shopping list.
It’s not merely the physical restrictions of having to stay indoors, or events and clubs (including Island Writers meetings) being cancelled. The financial and practical issues of changes in business, job losses and working from home have affected almost everyone. Social distancing, wearing masks and being unable to invite friends and family to visit have left some people emotionally detached, trapped inside a mental bubble and often unable to express what’s wrong.
So, maybe it’s time to start planning our escape!
I had expected that we’d be allowed back to Ryde Library soon, but sadly it doesn’t look like that will be happening yet. Until that time, we’ll be returning to monthly Zoom meetings to keep in touch, and if the weather holds, we’ll try some mini-meetings in our garden – contact me if you’re interested.
No doubt you are all longing for our next assignment – oh, yes, you are! – so our subject is to write about someone or something which is trapped and wants to escape.
Your main character could be a person or an animal, of course, but there are other possibilities – even a Triffid-style plant.
Perhaps your trapped creature is a ghost or spirit, or you might prefer to write about a more abstract thing such as a snowflake escaping from a cloud, or water trapped behind a dam.
Whether your writing is a sorrowful, reflective piece about the trapped creature’s feelings or an action-packed escape from danger is up to you. Or maybe your character is only trapped temporarily and it’s a humorous situation, causing embarrassment rather than mortal peril.
Your assignment can be a story, memoir, poem or play-script, or you may like to experiment with another format such as a sequence of letters or diary entries – whatever you feel is appropriate to the subject matter.
Come and share your assignment at the next Island Writers Zoom meeting on Tuesday 15th September, 7.30pm – watch your email inbox or Facebook Messenger for an invitation.
Our current writing assignment is: THAT SEEMS SIGNIFICANT. So, what are we to do with it it?
We have a tendency to look for significance in everyday things found in nature. The shape of a leaf, an unusual-coloured pebble, or a well-timed crash of thunder, could be taken as a good or bad sign, giving an answer to a problem for your story character. Or if you’d rather write a memoir, perhaps you have a memory of finding something significant which helped you to make a decision?
We see ‘faces’ in random objects, from potatoes to buildings – a phenomenon called pareidolia – and many people give them such significance that they choose to buy things or reject them depending on whether they are friendly-looking or scary. This attitude could create a good opportunity for conflict between two story characters – but is it foolish superstition, or are they right to trust their gut instincts?
We assign the quality of being ‘lucky’ to the socks we were wearing when we scored that winning goal, or the bracelet we chose when we got that brilliant job offer. A character having to manage without the confidence of these items can be believed to prove or disprove whether they’re really significant. Then we have lucky or unlucky numbers, lucky colours… the Daily Telegraph’s spoof horoscope column even had such things as “lucky biscuit: custard cream.” A decision based on a horoscope column’s ‘lucky colour’ or the decision to buy the house at No. 13 could be the inciting incident to start your story, or an idea for a poem.
For many people, the search for significance is what life’s all about. But we may be deluding ourselves. Perhaps life is, as Macbeth described it, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” And maybe the significance in your writing is that nothing is actually significant.
If you have nothing to say on the subject of significance, feel free to take it as a sign that you should pick another subject and write about that instead!
Our next Zoom meeting will be Tuesday 2nd June, 7pm. Watch your inbox for the link!
