I’ve been away from this blog for several weeks now, after all the entries relating to my new book (Spit & Polish). Partly, I wanted to give you lovely people who subscribe to this blog a bit of a breather. Partly, I was recovering from many week away from home base – I was looking after my kids’ cat and had to relocate for weeks. Coming back, I had all of those appointments and other foolishnesses to catch up on. Sucks the brain away.

And finally partly because, when I returned, I decided I couldn’t live without a cat of my own. I adopted one that (of course) required a five hour driving session to his shelter (Furry Tales Rescue) and back (He is big and orange and polydactyl, so I had to have him), followed by the usual buying frenzy and the somewhat more unusual trying to figure out what was wrong with his leg. But we’re getting along and I’m trying to keep him loving me while also helping him learn the rules of the house. He seems to be settling in well. I’ve named him Archy, after the Archy in Archy and Mehitabel, a book I’ve loved for years. (Archy is a cockroach/ beat poet, but with all those extra toes and my Archy’s singing voice, I think it works)

So work has taken a bit of a backseat of late. I am just starting the research for the sequel to Spit & Polish, hoping to get it tied up in draft by the end of the year. In-between I have a few editing projects lined up (by all means contact me if you need a developmental editor as I still have some spaces available), plus my usual onslaught of volunteer activities. This feeling like I have to make a contribution is exhausting sometimes, but to be honest most of my commitments are great fun and grist for the writing mill.

I’m now seeking input for the next book – in it, my nursing student, Ruth Maclean, is sent for her rotation to the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, once known as the Rockwood Asylum. It’s 1947, and treatments for the mentally ill are still pretty basic. The concept of treating mental illness, as versus just hiding its sufferers away, is still new, but the building here was designed by William Coverdale with all the best of intentions, with lots of light and privacy. (It’s not the building’s fault it now is vacant, falling apart, and perhaps haunted.)

I mean, just look at all those windows! Very unusual at the time for psychiatric hospitals, even more so for asylums for the criminally insane like Rockwood. It’s going to be fun to research more about this building and its inhabitants.

During the time my fictional Ruth is on placement there, there was an existing nursing education program running on site, for Registered Psychiatric Nurses. I can only imagine the tensions between all of the nursing programs in Kingston at the time – the Kingston General Hospital School, the Hotel Dieu School, Queen’s University, and this one. Competition for the best jobs, various comments about discrepancies in programs – this is all familiar to me from my time at Queen’s, where there was still great tension between regular nurses who trained for their RNs, and those that opted for the university program to get their BNSc. Could lead to some interesting interpersonal interludes.

So I’m looking for any information about psychiatric nursing schools, inter school competition, psychiatric care in 1947, and life in Canada in the post-war period. I’d be most grateful if you have any tidbits to share that I could insert into Ruth’s life.

It’s going to be a bit of a challenging time for Ruth again, I’m afraid. Money remains tight, doctors are flirtatious, supervisors are demanding, patients are difficult. Someone may even have an unfortunate “accident.”

I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.

You can get a Quick Look at the Museum of Health Care here: