The Grapevine Late Summer 2019 Grapevine Aug-Sep 2019 v2 | Page 40

Pick Up Your Pen! T his month, I’m inviting you to have fun and create an adventure story. The only ‘rule’ is that it must have a precious stone in it. (This only need to be precious to your main character – it doesn’t have to be anything like a diamond or an emerald if you don’t want it to be.) As a starting point, think of the following: • A character. Who are they? Give them a name. • A place. For example, they could be in a café, a bookshop or the middle of a wood. • A problem. What does the character want? • Who or what is getting in their way? • What happens next? Even if you’ve not written anything since you were at school, be brave and pick up your pen. You really have got nothing to lose – and you may be one our winners. Use the senses as much as you can. Colours, sounds, smells and textures all help to bring a story to life for the reader. The good news is that you only need to write a maximum of 250 words (3 short paragraphs). tidy it up later. Reward yourself for trying – and do send me the story. I love reading the stories I receive and wish we could publish them all. Send your entries to me at sue.r.johnson@ outlook.com by Monday 2nd September. I will award a small prize to the winning entry. Don’t worry about getting it in the right order to start with. Just get the ideas onto the paper and Congratulations to Sue Knott who is this month’s winner – a small prize is on its way to her. Sue Johnson www.writers-toolkit.co.uk Sue Johnson Poet & Novelist Creative Writing Workshops Critique Service & Talks Tel: [phone] • www.writers-toolkit.co.uk Aftershave by Sue Knott U gh – not again! The house is full of it. My brother Ed’s aftershave. I found a good word to describe it: pungent. Not sure how you pronounce it but it’s a posher version of pong. Hawaiian Beach, it’s called. More like Weston-Super-Mare – damp clothes, wet dogs, soggy sandwiches – than Honolulu. He stands there, posing in front of the bathroom mirror inspecting the wispy hairs on his chin. On goes the shaving gel. Finally he picks up the precious bottle – patting it 40 on his cheeks and cringing as it stings. Even my favourite smell – of fried onions cooking for dinner – is drowned out. All this started when he got a girlfriend. I didn’t mind the deodorant. Super Fresh they called it. It was an improvement on sweaty socks. But aftershave was a step too far. Do girls really like you to smell all perfumed? Me and my friend Archie, we’re staying single. Everybody’s talking about the end of term disco. I wasn’t going to bother but Archie said: “Why not? I’ve got these cool jeans.” “Will we have to dance?” I said. “Been practising my moves,” he said. I put my music on and stood in front of the bedroom mirror waving my arms. I thought Ed would laugh when he saw me but he turned out to have some good ideas. And when, on Friday night, he offered to lend me his aftershave, I thought: “Why not?” Actually, it smells quite sexy. To advertise call 01684 833715 or email: [email protected]