Tag Stream of Consciousness Saturday

Stream of Consciousness Saturday – SoCS Oct 31/2020

freyathewriter 3 Comments

Here’s this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday, courtesy of the lovely Linda. Please do take part, it’s fun to write and also fun to read the contributions from everyone else.

This week the prompt is the word ‘trick’. Here’s my contribution (albeit late!). And you’re welcome to another segment of my life. Who knows, you may eventually have the whole citrus fruit that is me! (No you won’t, by the way).

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That word ‘trickcyclist’ always used to confuse me when I was growing up. I think I heard it on a sitcom back in the 1970s, and couldn’t understand the context. Of course, being a little girl, I imediately thought of someone doing tricks on a unicycle, à la countless Royal Variety Performance shows, or a clown riding a bike that gradually falls apart as he rides it around the circus ring.

Eventually, of course, I understood that it was a malapropism for psychiatrist, and everything fell into place. But then I began to wonder if it was a way of referring to a need for psychiatric help that kept mental health in its dark, shady, uncomfortable place. By using a jokey term, we place mental health problems firmly in the ‘other’ category of health needs that we humans like to keep tidily organised and reserved for acceptable physical issues such as cancer or a broken bone.

We have got better at looking at mental health issues with less of a side-eye over the decades, we have got better about talking about mental health more openly, but there is still a long way to go. I personally have had my struggles, I’ve had therapy and I’ve been on medication and I’ve learned, over time, how to manage my anxiety and depression. It’s part of me. And I’m OK with that.

A word that starts with ‘m’ – SoCS Oct 24/2020

freyathewriter 4 Comments

Here’s this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday, courtesy of the lovely Linda. Please do take part, it’s fun to write and also fun to read the contributions from everyone else.

This week the prompt is a word that starts with ‘m’. Here’s my contribution. And you’re welcome to a slice of the programme that is constantly running in the back of my mind as I get on with the more mundane parts of my day…

My word that starts with ‘m’ is ‘manipulated’. No, it’s not about me, not now, at any rate. I have been manipulated before, but I’m older, wiser and stronger because of it, so there is that. That ain’t happening again, no siree (I don’t talk like that, it just seemed appropriate).

Words such as ‘manipulated’ are the themes running through my work in progress novel, Anti-Virus’, which is, and isn’t, about a pandemic (it’s kind of a Schrödinger’s pandemic, if you will).

Dystopian fiction, like many other types of fiction, requires an antagonist or two, or three to balance your protagonist’s journey through the pages. In my novel’s case, this involves a particular person, an organ of state and an industry. It’s one thing to determine if a particular character would act a certain way, but quite another to ask myself if an organ of state or an industry would do so. Or is it?

The simple answer to whether a person or indeed a non-natural entity would do anything to get their way is actually a question –

ARE THE STAKES HIGH ENOUGH?

The answer to that question might not be so easy…!

Oh the joys of writing a novel. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.