Tag Archives: Spit and Polish

Not celebrating International Women’s Day


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I just can’t. I am too close to rage about the state of women’s rights in the world today. It’s all cheery to say “Yay, Women!”, but hey, why are we still not being paid the correct rate? Why do republican candidates in the US think it’s okay to play Stepford Wives and talk in mealy-mouthed voices and fight reproductive choice? Why do women and men both seem to feel that women belong in the kitchen, preferably pregnant and docile? Why is the Christ I learned about being touted as someone who wanted women to bow and scrape to men? (I don’t remember that lesson). Why are we still overwhelmingly likely to suffer violence, even from those who purport to love us?

It’s enraging, as someone who grew up in the long long fight of trying to be treated as an equal.

And year by year, month by month, day by day, I am seeing women’s rights being eroded everywhere. Even here in my beloved Canada, things are slipping. Not that we’ve ever been allowed to be equals, no. But at least the effort used to be there.

I’ve led a fairly quiet life, and yet I have had to suffer multiple instances of sexual assault, had to endure being paid much less than someone doing my exact job, had to fight to be seen despite accruing qualifications and expertise. It’s annoying, and dangerous. And I’m living in a “democracy”, as vs. a place where I would be required not to be seen at all.

There are many many places like that. I’m grateful not to live in any of those places, but on the other hand, I’ve been raised to believe in equality of opportunity. It feels bad to lose it. And I worry about our kids and grandkids who have to try to push their way forward. It feels so redundant to fight for rights again, to fight for women and the2SLGBTQ+ community, to worry about anyone who isn’t a white male being the object of hatred. And I worry about the white males, too. It must be terrifying to lose privilege. Perhaps they could use this understanding and apply it to the treatment of everyone else? And don’t they wish they could have a broader definition of their roles than the standard one?

So that’s why I don’t celebrate International Women’s Day. It feels like wearing a pink t-shirt against bullying. Pretty but ultimately meaningless.

In my recent book, Spit & Polish, I write about a time where women had very limited opportunities. The war was over, and the men coming back took back all the jobs that women did so well while they were off fighting. Women were back to being nurses, secretaries, teachers — if they were allowed out of the house at all. Ruth Maclean, my main character, is part of a new change in nursing. Nurses were working to become less of a drudge, more of an educated professional, and being fought all the way.

It’s a process that still continues. Even with the professional nursing corps, male nurses are often paid more than female ones. Why? And nurses, particularly female ones, are victims of assault way too often. It needs to stop. We need to take women seriously, stop squashing them, stop trying to shove them back into the kitchen unless they want to be there. Stop killing them.

Then we can truly celebrate International Women’s Day.

Spit & Polish is now available on book sites in ebook and paperback format, and through your local bookstore. It also can be ordered through Somewhat Grumpy Press directly. Why not also check out the other books published through Somewhat Grumpy Press? Lots of good reading to be found…

An Excerpt from Spit & Polish


A little taste to encourage you to run right out and pre-purchase Spit & Polish while the ebook remains on pre-release sale. It’s available on many platforms. The paperback will be released February 29, 2024.

Nightingale Pledge, 1935

 

“I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practise my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping, and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavour to aid the physician in his work, and as a ‘missioner of health’ I will dedicate myself to devoted service to human welfare.”

Ruth dragged her feet up the stairs of the nursing residence, almost tripping on the risers. She was so tired. A long day of classes and reception duty hit her. At least she didn’t have to ring the front doorbell—the thought of having to wake one of the housemothers terrified her. The students called them “dragons” for a reason.

Tiptoeing down the hallway, Ruth opened her door and started to undress and put away her uniform. She carefully took off her apron and cuffs, placing the cuffs on the windowsill and hanging her apron over the radiator. She had a spot on the chest of her uniform, darn it. At least the blue and white striped material seemed to wash easily. She’d have to sponge that out before class tomorrow. She was too tired to think about it now. She cringed as her warped wardrobe door shrieked. Everything else lay silent, all of her fellow students asleep or on their night shifts. It appeared both eerie and lovely at night. Her window overlooked Lake Ontario, and the water glistened, flat as glass. She laid her black stockings carefully over the chair beside her bed and gazed out at the September moonlight. 

Suddenly, her door banged open, and a terrifying shape filled it.

“What in the name of all that’s good and holy are you doing?” The apparition, a grey-haired medusa in a long flannel nightgown, waved its arms at her. “Can’t you be quieter? Some of us want to sleep!” It turned and stumbled along the hall, thumping its feet in its hard-soled slippers.

Ruth fell back on her bed, heart racing.

Her friend Betty peeked her head around the corner. She grinned. “I see you’ve met the new matron.”

Ruth pulled Betty into the room and pulled her door almost closed. “Who WAS that?”

“Shhh. She’ll hear you. That’s our new supervisor,” Betty whispered. “Her name is Mrs. Graham, but she wants us to call her Matron. Some British thing. She trained there.”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “She scared me half to death! I’m trying to be so quiet!”

“I didn’t hear a thing until she stomped in. She’s afraid of prowlers or something. Ann got lambasted before you got in. She seems to have it in for first years.”

“Oh great,” moaned Ruth. “Just what I need is someone to yell at me unexpectedly. I thought I left that back at home with my father.”

Betty nodded, put her hand on Ruth’s. “It won’t be that bad, surely. After all, she can’t be everywhere, can she?”

“I hope not. That hair!” Ruth permitted herself another quiet laugh. “She looked like she’d been electrified!”

On the joys (?) of revision


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“Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.”
―Bernard Malamud

So went the quotation in my email from Writers.com. (I highly recommend this newsletter, btw) I have mixed feelings about this. Yes, adjusting prose to make it clearer and more bright, to enhance the emotions in your first draft, to make your words sing – that can be pleasurable. I personally like the hack and burn part of revision, too, where you look through your tome and realize this bit AND that bit, and also the other bit, could really be thrown to the wolves (or if decent, tucked into a file for use later).

But I am licking my wounds a bit. My publisher has sent out advance review copies of my book to people and of course (probably my fault as I was pushing for release), it went out with multiple typos in it. People have noticed and commented. Sigh. One or two (you know who you are, DP!) helped me find the more egregious ones. Bless them.

Since it was exposed to some of the masses, my publisher and I have gone back and forth and back and forth, correcting things — but I’m certain little errors remain. I’m equally sure some eagle-eyed readers will find them and helpfully point them out to me so that I can revise it again.

All of which leads me to the conclusion that I will hire a copyeditor for my next book. Editors are good things (of course I would say this, being one myself). They can see things that the author misses in all sorts of places. I love my editing work. It gives me the chance to REALLY read a story, see it in its wholeness, try to help the author bring forward what they want. I’ve had great pleasure in my editing jobs – I do mostly developmental and line editing, which doesn’t require me to copyedit. Phew.

Because I realize the limit of my capabilities. I am not a copyeditor. I need helpful eyes for this. And my glasses aren’t doing it.

So, just to liven things up a bit, I will send a surprise to anyone who spots a typo in the officially released Spit & Polish book. Send me a message here, and I’ll contact you. What will it be, the surprise? Well, you will just have to wait and see…

Meantime, why not join me today, February 27, 2024, for an interview about the book and the writing process (I imagine there will be some shuffling in shame about errors), today at 4 pm AT, 5PM Eastern, 12noon Pacific on Youtube, Facebook, etc. Or you can watch me and the wonderful Anne O’Connell of OC Publishing on her YouTube channel later. It’s so generous of Anne to have me on. If you watch the show, look through her other interviews, too. She is a very generous and interested interviewer.

And don’t forget to pre-order your discount ebook before the official release date of February 29, 2924. After that things will be full price… Check out Amazon, Kobo, Apple Books, and more. The paperback will be available February 29th everywhere – just ask your local store to order in a copy for you. Or you can order directly from Somewhat Grumpy Press, too. I do hope you enjoy it!

Stretching umbilical cords, or the joy/sorrow of letting kids go


I woke this morning thinking about how my kids, the hearts of my heart, are about as far away from me and each other that they can be, geographically. One is in Europe, one in Australia, one back in Kingston while I am in Vancouver. It reminded me of the imagery I tried to share with them (but of course they found repellent, because, kids) that I can almost feel the leftover umbilical threads tugging at times, especially when I am worrying about them, or when I know life is being challenging for them. It’s a weird thing.

I raised them to be independent, to question the status quo, to be unafraid of trying new things. This has resulted in them being all over the world. I miss them, still find such joy in their contact with me. I have fantasies of them all being together, chatting and laughing with each other again. I used to love listening to them talk amongst themselves. This is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

But that’s the thing – you’ve got to let those kids go. Let them vanish and like that old tiresome quote: If you love something, set it free. If it is yours, it will come back to you. It’s risky, though. They may never come back. One of mine hasn’t. Still have that psychic umbilical attachment, though, even if these days it is more of an ache.

In my upcoming book, Spit & Polish, my main character, Ruth, is dying to leave her small town and move to the slightly bigger city of Kingston, ON. She’s bored, the local boys are mean, and she dreads having nothing to do but wash diapers for her always increasing brood of siblings.

In that time period, the years after WW2, choices for single women were few. All the jobs that had opened up for women during the war were closed with a snap. Men needed the jobs, everyone thought. Women should get married and have babies. And endlessly support their husbands, no matter how unfulfilling that might be. Ruth, at her young age of 18, didn’t love that option. She wanted an alternative.

Cloyne in the 1930’s

But her parents wanted her nearby, of course. At least until she got married. Which is why Ruth was so surprised to find her mother supporting her to go away to nursing school. It meant a very real increase of work for her mother, and Ruth is frequently guilty about her escape. (Not so much that she wants to go home, though…)

While nursing might seem a stereotypical choice for women now (I beg to differ, having had a very varied and exciting career as a nurse myself), it certainly wasn’t then. Nursing was just becoming respectable, and nurses were continually being portrayed as being easy, loose, a bit tawdry. Nursing schools were incredibly strict to help control this image, and students were held to a very high standard for behaviour. Of course there were a few who snuck out after hours, misbehaved with patients, followed doctors like eager puppies. Ruth doesn’t dare. She knows she is there on a short leash from her father, and she is terrified of losing her route to what she hopes is a satisfying career.

It doesn’t help that challenges are thrown at her every time she steps just a wee bit out of line. Still, she keeps on, gradually becoming braver as she falls more in love with nursing. It gives her strength to stand up for her choice, even as another pregnancy makes her guilt about not being at home to help her mother. Fortunately, Mrs. Maclean is willing to do the letting go, to allow herself to accept the risk of losing Ruth forever.

I’ll be doing an interview about the book with OC Publishing, on their Author’s Journey sites : YouTube, and Facebook, on Tuesday February 27. I’m delighted to have a chance to visit with Anne O’Connell, who has been a tremendous supporter of writers and writing.

Spit & Polish officially launches February 29th. It’s on sale (the ebook) for pre-order until then on Kobo, Amazon, Apple Books and more. Why not grab a copy and see what happens to Ruth in this first in a series of books on Ruth, nursing education, medical care, and Kingston, ON in 1946.

Self-promotion, or why I’ll never succeed in politics


This meme showed up on Facebook this morning and it made me laugh out loud. I’m battling with self-promotion. When I wrote my first book, Recycled Virgin, and launched it right in the middle of the pandemic, I just couldn’t force myself to do any promotion. Life felt too grim. So my first novel sunk gently into the muck. It is still available, and I think it’s worth a read, if I do say so myself.

Some other people say so, too – one Goodreads review that warmed my heart says: “Recycled Virgin” by D.A. Brown is an intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking exploration of a fictional premise that brilliantly reimagines a cornerstone of religious history. In this intricately woven narrative, the author takes readers on a captivating journey that questions traditional narratives, challenges preconceived notions, and offers a fresh perspective on a timeless story.

Hmm. I seem to have firmly stuck my promotional hat on. Those of you who read this blog, (and cheers to all of you who do. I really appreciate you!) have been somewhat awash in messages about the upcoming launch of Spit and Polish. I’m truly sorry if you feel overwhelmed. It’s all about the search engines…

Publishing a book these days is quite a feat. It’s easy to create a book, but will anyone ever read it? There are so many DIY’d books out there, many of them only responsible for the unnecessary killing of trees, it becomes hard to make an impact. There’s a sweet spot where the behemoth Amazon actually takes notice of your humble book and starts promoting you. This makes a huge difference, lifts your book temporarily out of the mire, shines a bit of effort from them upon it. All those “Amazon Best Sellers” manage the algorithm by finessing pre-orders, sending out piles of notices to their mailing lists (obtained by offering ‘freebies’ for a name). I’m simply not good at that.

I’d like to think my prose will pull people in and my book will take off independent of advertising, but realistically, I know that just ain’t so. So I’m writing this blog, and we are offering the ebook on the cheap for pre-order – won’t make me rich, but it might just make me noticeable.

But I really hate promoting myself. I can promote you and what you do with great ease – will gladly cheer on your books (especially if I’ve edited them) (stop it! More self-promotion!) But ask me to sell myself, and somehow, I’m just not convincing. When I did run for politics many years ago, I failed utterly in the “call people and ask for money” phase. My burgeoning career failed so promptly there was barely a ripple.

So please forgive me as I thrash about promoting my book. I’m kind of proud of it. I loved writing it and researching for it. I’m working on the sequel as we speak. I’d like it if you enjoy it, too.

I have had a sweet review posted by an early reviewer on LibraryThing: I love books where I identify with the characters, and Ruth was a very sympathetic and resilient character, with all the trials she went through. The author is planning to continue Ruth’s story in a sequel, so I will look forward to that. Highly recommended!.

And on Tuesday, I’ll be doing an interview with the inimitable Anne O’Connell from OC Publishing so you can watch me struggle to self-promote, and hear more about the book. Check it out (along with many other excellent interviews) on her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@OCPublishing

Being a nursing student, or getting by with a little help from your friends


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There are lots of books and stories about the trauma of training to become a medical doctor. There are fewer about nursing education, for some reason, unless you count the romances and Cherry Ames-type books. Apparently nurses have an easier time of it.

I beg to differ.

I’ve looked at nursing education from both sides now…as a student and teacher. Anyway you slice it, it’s tough. In my character Ruth Maclean‘s time, nursing was largely a process of training young women to obey. In my time as a student, some years later, we were initially forced to obey, and then after the first couple of years, were gently allowed to think for ourselves, a bit. I still entered practice completely green, but with an expanded view of my own competence. How I pity my poor patients from back then!

In every case, the amount of knowledge needed to become a competent nurse was huge. Huge and unappreciated. Nurses had to be able both to assess their patients and to persuade doctors to take the issues they found seriously. This was more difficult than it would seem. Doctors also have their image to maintain, and often that meant putting down the nurses they counted on to keep the patient alive.

And the training was gruelling. I’ve tried to convey that a bit in Spit and Polish. Exacting expectations for everything from dress to bed-making to the medical treatments made learning nerve-wracking for the average student. Shift work and the endless demands to clean as well as care for the people in the beds could throw a student off track. Poor Ruth is less competent at physical tasks than her fellow students – largely, I think, because of having to do piles of housework at her crowded and noisy home. She had a tendency to be slap-dash, and that just was not acceptable for a nursing student. So she was called into her supervisor’s office far too often for the school’s comfort, and eventually banished to build up her skills at the Tuberculosis Sanatorium.

Fortunately for Ruth, and my story, she took this admonition in good spirit and vowed to do better. But key to her progress were the friends she made along the way, the supportive other students, the senior nurses who took her under their wings, the friendly physicians who helped her learn new skills.

And that’s the key point about nursing education — the only way to survive it is with friends and colleagues who can prop you up when things get bad. I was fortunate to have a roommate and friend, Paula, who was by my side as we trudged through our degree. We studied for the RN exams together, sitting on a sunbaked roof in Kingston, ON, then removed the gains through some fairly serious celebration afterwards. (We both passed.)

Before that, we saw each other through disastrous relationships, unfriendly profs, bad placements, annoying exams. We fought off the “nurses are easy” teasing, became professionals. When we got our first jobs, we rallied to support each other after bad shifts where patients died or head nurses snarled or doctors were nasty. Her friendship was invaluable.

It’s for that reason I decided Ruth should go to the Kingston General Hospital School of Nursing, a place whose alumni are still close friends after more than 60 years. They still look after one another, still meet regularly. It’s pretty impressive — but it also speaks of the shared experiences they had, the support they gave one another all along.

I hope you enjoy reading about Ruth and her nursing classmates and their trials and tribulations. If you act now and pre-order Spit and Polish before it launches on February 29, you can get a discounted price. And keep an eye out for the sequel, expected soon.

Medical progress, quackery, and the profit motive


The last couple of days I’ve been disabled with back pain. This is new for me as my multiple sclerosis means most of the time I rarely feel any pain. Anywhere. Which can make for missing some essential things going on in my body. Right now I am wondering if it is a kidney stone or a bulging disc or I’m just generally falling apart but I have places to go and things to do and I haven’t got time for this.

Onto YouTube I go, for helpful (?) advice about self-diagnosis. It wasn’t helpful. I don’t have a doc to go see so the only alternative to self-diagnosis is sitting in the ER for hours which would likely aggravate everything with not much reward. SO YouTube it is.

After listening to a relatively sane doc tell me how to relieve things, the other videos cued up. The first one was about faecal impaction (it must sense my age and state of decrepitude). According to the handsome charlatan, drinking water or eating fibre or even exercise won’t help this – you have to pay for this doc’s special advice. (She was “once on a prestigious medical faculty” – I’d be interested in knowing where she is now, as fraudsters regularly assign names of people that don’t exist to their miracle cures. I’d look it up but sitting is painful.) He went on about how bits of stool linger in your bowel for years – that old chestnut. It just ain’t true. I do wish some of these people would look inside a bowel now and again. Or prep for a colonoscopy.

It all reminded me of the tuberculosis treatments back in the time of my upcoming book, Spit and Polish. Back in 1946, tuberculosis was common. Overcrowding, traveling to places where it was epidemic during the war, poverty, poor diet — all of these created a happy environment for mycobacterium tuberculosis. The bacterium that causes TB is a nasty wee thing, designed to defeat elimination. The cells have a waxy coating, which makes them resistant to drying out and to attack by antibiotics. Fortunately, it reproduces relatively slowly, so it isn’t as wildly infective as say, Covid, but once you have it, it is the devil to get rid of. Our usual immune system has a very hard time digesting the cells. And it can lay latent for years. My father had TB in 1946. He survived with no long term effects, but when he was going through chemotherapy in the 1980’s, those rotten little cells started coming alive again.

TB is often in the lungs, but as you will read in my novel, it can infect any part of the body, including the kidney, spine and brain. Back in 1946, there weren’t any antibiotics widely available that effectively treated it, so TB patients were put through all sorts of torment as their docs tried to keep ahead of the disease.

The chief therapy was bedrest and better nutrition, sunbathing and moderate exercise. That could go on for years, and did, in sanatoria all over the world. This was expensive and money was needed, so more interventions were invented to apply for grants. Things like inhalants like mercury and paraffin were tried, to ease coughing. They often eased patients into the next world.

Frequently patients with bone involvement were placed in traction or casted to keep the bones in place while a hoped for reconstruction could take place. Patients could remain casted for months, which led to other problems.

Surgical approaches were used, aimed at letting the lung “rest” and cure itself-and, as the mycobacterium tuberculosis are aerobes, so removing oxygen from the area would help slow its growth. Surgical treatments could be temporary, like a created pneumothorax, or permanent, like a Semb’s strip, phrenic nerve crushing, rib removal, lung collapses and resections and the like. Needless to say, patients who experienced these treatments were forever deformed and visible. This made it difficult for them to live in a tuberculosis-afraid society.

Add the prejudice that some types of people (I’ll leave you to imagine who, but hint hint, they are assumed to cause every bad thing that happens to them) were predisposed to TB, and no one even wanted the affected to deliver the paper. It was a bit like the early stages of AIDS.

Fortunately for the surgically maimed and those awaiting maiming, streptomycin came on the scene, with initial miraculous results. Other antibiotics followed, and combinations of antibiotics that worked well against the tiny foe.

Unfortunately, antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis is now on the rise, so the future surgically maimed may yet be waiting in the wings.

Want to know more? See my upcoming novel, available February 29, 2024.

Wallowing in research, or when did that happen, exactly?


I’m in the depths of finishing up my book about a nursing student in Kingston, ON, back at the end of WW2. I’ve got the plot mostly finished, I know where it’s going, I have my characters in place and they are mostly defined, though I’m working on deepening their portrayal.

But I keep getting distracted.

The other day I was writing about charting, as in recording medical records. It’s unlikely they’d be done in pencil, since they could be too easily changed that way. Did they have ball point pens at the time?

1950’s pen ad

It turns out, no they didn’t. The excellent Wikipedia (please donate) brought me to links about the Hungarian inventor, László Bíró, who noticed that newspaper inks dried faster and didn’t smear as much as regular ink, and created the first Biro. There was a previous design but it wasn’t fluid enough to use for writing on paper and so languished.

This was in 1931. The war intervened and Biro fled to Argentina, and subsequent development was vastly slowed. In 1945, Marcel Bich bought the patent and started with his Bic pens. He started manufacturing the steel balls for the pen tips, and apparently they are essentially the same construction now.

Back at the start, the pens were used for airmen, who found fountain pens leaked at altitude. They were seriously expensive, the first models at around $1000 our money, later ones still selling for $188. It wasn’t until 1954, when Parker got into the business, and competition lowered the price, that they started being ubiquitous.

So then I had to wonder about what sort of pens might have been used in hospitals at the time. Would they be pen and ink? Or fountain pens? Could the hospitals at the time afford fountain pens? Or would they just provide inkwells and cheap nibs everywhere?

And how did nursing students keep their aprons pristine while dealing with blotchy pens?

That led to another research hunt. Nursing students at the time sent their uniforms, aprons, bibs, cuffs, and caps to a local laundry. But my character gets bounced out of nursing school to work as a nurses’ aide. Where does she get her uniforms cleaned?

It’s like a link of puzzles, and at some point I am going to have to decide that’s enough, you don’t need that detail…

But it’s all so fascinating. I suspect by the end of writing this book I’ll have enough information for another. And that’s a good thing…I think!

Writing clothes, or what to wear when you really don’t want to be distracted


Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.com

I am ashamed and a bit embarrassed to state I don’t have any sweatpants at the moment. I certainly don’t have a set that matches my surroundings and computer, allowing me to lounge in peaceful positions. To be fair, my surroundings when I write are anything but peaceful, scattered with pens, notebooks, reference texts, a cup of something, and the occasional chocolate item (for strengthening).

Yes, despite being a writer with my head in the clouds and definitely not in sartorial splendour, I lack this essential garment. I’m wondering if I need to invest, just to speed my writing along.

Part of why I don’t have sweats has to do with hemming – every pair of pants I own has required hemming and even with the elastic bottoms of the average sweatpants leg, the ballooning of extra material over my too short legs is distracting and potentially a tripping hazard. We won’t get into how things tangle up in my under the desk bike I use to fool myself into thinking writing is an aerobic activity. (Undoing tangles seems to be, though. That bike is heavy.)

Plus, they are expensive these days, sweatpants. And unless this book actually gives me more royalties than my first one, (Recycled Virgin, coming in at roughly $20 so far this year) (please buy a copy as winter is coming), I may have to do without. Even used ones at thrift shops are more than that and, ummm, used sweatpants conjure up images of underwear not worn…

I do have writing clothes, though. I just read this article by an author, Heidi Soyinka, who bought clothing like her characters would wear, to put her into the mood. She bought vintage clothing of all sorts as she tried to get into her characters’ heads.

It made me think about what I wear to thrash through my novel. I suppose, for me to be in the mood, I should put on a nursing uniform, one of the old ones from the Kingston General Hospital School of Nursing, the ones with the aprons and starched cuffs and collar.

I rather suspect the excellent Museum of Health Care might have something to say about me filching same from them.

And, unfortunately, I gave away my old nursing student uniforms. Maybe I could get away with my kitchen apron, just pretend the food stains weren’t on it, tie it up tight so I had the necessary chest constriction…this would help keep the chocolate stains to a minimum, I suppose…

Fortunately for my writing, I remember my nursing school uniform days, the nylon stockings that always grabbed, the uncomfortable shoes that were the cheapest available, and which squeaked unattractively and ruined my arches. My student uniform was pink and white striped, with a white bib and cuffs and it was unspeakably horrid, fitted tightly over my already too round figure. I was furious that the one male student in my year didn’t have to wear pink stripes, and got to wear a much more practical scrub suit, with no nylons to be seen.

So no, don’t want to repeat this.

I suppose I could try coughing excessively, as I am writing about Tuberculosis and a hacking cough and sore throat would bring me into the scene – but in these COVID times I feel my neighbours would report me to the health police as a vector of infection.

I could open the windows wide, as they did in the sanatoriums of the time, bringing in bracing and clear air, but it does get chilly sitting and writing, and besides, my companion birds would object. They dislike chills. Even in the slightest cross breeze they puff up and glare at me with their beady eyes. It’s disconcerting.

So I’m left with my usual not-so-glorious clothing for writing. These involve some jeans-type things (inexpertly hemmed) with elastic waists so they don’t compress, and some sort of overly loose top. These are things that I never wear out of doors as they are too disreputable for polite company – after Covid lockdowns I’ve worn the seams off some of them, and they look chewed. Could be I’ve chewed them in agony over some unexpected plot twist (characters WILL misbehave)–I can’t remember.

But something about putting them on does set me up for writing. It says, to myself and anyone who happens to come to the door, that I am not going out anywhere, that my focus is internal that day, that I don’t want to be disturbed. Add unwashed hair and anyone who doubts I am really busy would quickly grasp I didn’t want to be seen. I have frightened Amazon delivery persons on a writing day, and they are tough.

And in them, I’m comfortable enough to sink into my story, let my brain go play. That’s more difficult with fancy clothes. They distract, as I tug and rearrange them. But perhaps that’s only because I’m trying to cycle as I write?

I think, instead, I’ll turn on some music from the 1940’s to generate atmosphere – that’s easier than having to change, and the birdies even like it.

Keep an eye out for my upcoming book, Spit and Polish, expected Spring 2023.