Hazel McHaffie

medical ethics

The pace of change

Thirty years ago, when I first started writing novels set in the world of medical ethics, I had an abiding horror of someone else writing on the same theme and publishing before me, or real life medicine coming up with something new that rendered my plotting obsolete – or that made it look as if I’d copied from real life, or the topic simply becoming old hat in some way. In reality the reverse has happened: real life has occasionally mimicked my fiction.  And not one of the eleven novels I’ve published has actually gone out of date. Such is the enduring nature of ethical issues.

This week I’ve been following up an ongoing story in the Isle of Man – a self-governing UK dependency in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland – where a Bill is going through Parliament designed to legalise assisted dying. The first reading of the Bill was approved by 22 to 2 votes. In the second reading at the end of October, 17 members voted for, 7 against. It now faces three more stages: a clause stage – where each clause is independently scrutinised; a potential committee stage, and a third reading. If it survives these obstacles it goes to the Legislative Council where it could be signed into law and could be available as early as 2025. If it is, the island will be the closest place to mainland Britain where this service is available, although it should be noted, tourists will not be able to take advantage of it.

It’s fifteen years now since my novel Right to Die was published – hard to believe! But the issues remain the same; the complexities and caveats are still confounding the process of actually enshrining a practical workable solution in legal language; patients and families are still facing horrendous choices. Could it be that an island 426 times smaller than the UK will blaze a trail for its neighbours?

Whatever, the wheels of law turn oh so slowly. I shall not be short of potential material in my lifetime!

, , , , , ,

Comments

Best Interests

Wow! What d’you know! BBC 1 has just aired a remarkable drama all about medical ethics – yep, really – and I’ve been totally gripped. For an hour on four evenings, culminating two days ago, Best Interests tracked the case of a young teenager, Marnie Lloyd, and the struggle to decide whether she should be allowed to die.

Marnie (played by Niamh Moriarty) was born with a form of muscular dystrophy, which means a short life with major disability. Her devoted parents, Andrew (Michael Sheen) and Nicci (Sharon Horgan), are shocked by the diagnosis when she’s just six months old, but do all in their power to give her a happy childhood. Inevitably, though, their family life is an emotional roller coaster, chequered with crises, and spells in hospital, and a fine juggling act with Marnie’s older sister, Katie (Alison Oliver).

Then one day a severe respiratory infection leads to a cardiac arrest, prolonged deprivation of oxygen to the brain, and Marnie goes into an unresponsive state where she only reacts to painful stimuli. She can’t be weaned off the ventilator, and she starts to have seizures. The prognosis is grim.

The doctors caring for her recommend stopping treatment; the cost to Marnie herself is just too high, they say. But Nicci won’t hear of it. She clings to an outside chance that Marnie might smile again if her brain is given time to heal. ‘How can you let go of someone who still laughs?’ she asks – the poignant cry of a mother.

The hospital take advice from the Ethics Committee; they suggest calling in a mediator, but Nicci refuses to be involved in any negotiations; she has no confidence in the impartiality of any process.

When a Christian Pro-life group make contact she clings to the hope they give of support to fight this through the courts. They fuel her sense of injustice by telling her the hospital performs eugenics all the time, and doctors are more concerned with saving money than lives. What’s more, they quote three cases where parents have won against doctors in court – it’s enough for Nicci. And once they have the bit between their teeth, the legal team dig deep. They latch on to one incident in the past where a mistake in Marnie’s care might be used against the consultant physician, showing her to be a fallible person with flawed judgement at times. It speaks volumes that Nicci might even contemplate such a course of action against a dedicated woman who has cared for Marnie so devotedly since she was seven. Or that she might consider seeking experimental treatment from abroad – in spite of Andrew’s scathing ‘there is always some doctor from America or Italy who promises a miracle’.

But Andrew is in a very different place. Devoted though he is to these three women in his life, he simply can’t bear to be in the same house as Nicci in her single-minded battle. He believes the consultant when she says objective signs show Marnie feels pain, and that there is no realistic prospect of any recovery to a meaningful life. So he moves out, leaving elder daughter Katie torn between her loyalties to both of them, and with her own private battles to fight.

It’s a story of love and torment. It’s both heartbreaking and beautiful. It’s brilliantly acted. It feels real with shambolic kitchens and untidy people and chaotic relationships. And it poignantly captures the conflicting emotions, the stress on families, the impossible position of the medical team. It all depends where you’re standing what this looks like. As the judge says in her preliminary statement, the notion of best interests is very complex; everyone in the court room thinks they have Marnie’s best interests at heart, but they’ve come to different conclusions as to how those interests are best served. Even medicine is about opinions not just facts. And throughout the deliberations it’s imperative they all keep the child Marnie Lloyd at the forefront at all times.

I’m sure we can all relate to each member of the family. To Nicci as a mother wanting to hang on to her precious girl. To Andrew who sums up his own struggle to articulate how he feels, loving this child more than he can express, but not wanting her to suffer: he can’t talk about it; he can’t rationalise it; he can only feel it … to the depths of his soul. To Katie, torn by feeling of guilt and regret and impotence as the battle rages around her, and her beloved only sister lies unconscious in a hospital bed. All her life, whenever Marnie has been rushed to hospital, Katie has felt compelled to ask, ‘Is she going to die?’ And now that reality is closer than it has ever been. Each one feels so alone.

But as the judge emphasises, it’s not a competition. Rehearsing the arguments in the controlled atmosphere of a court of law, gives opportunity for everyone to hear and see the case for and against withdrawal of treatment. In reality the experience in the witness box at times feels pretty brutal, with lawyers straying into the realms of disrespectful comments and intrusive questioning, but others are on hand to correct the overload, and to expose unwarranted bias and shaky premises. And the judge in this case shows fairness, grace and understanding.

If there is a weakness in the film it’s the end scenes where the machines are removed, Marnie dies, and is taken to theatre to have her organs removed for transplantation. But perhaps a bit of artistic licence here is what we all needed after so much raw emotion.

I spent years studying this subject, being with real families facing these horrific decisions, and I was hugely impressed by this moving drama. I salute commissioners, screenwriters, film makers, actors … well, everyone concerned.

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Something stirring …

We’re rather used to recognising acting dynasties, identifying young upcoming stars as son/daughter of legendary names, but it’s much less common in the world of literature. So I was rather taken aback by the blurb about the author Christopher Rice which appears on the very first page of The Snow Garden:

Christopher Rice is the son of Anne Rice, bestselling novelist, and Stan Rice, the poet.

Hmmm. I’d rather stand or fall on my own merits when it comes to writing novels, I think.

Anyway, that aside, this book came under my radar because it includes an ethical dilemma – someone deliberately infecting a number of others knowing he is HIV positive – and I do try to keep tabs on the potential competition!!

Two women dying in suspicious circumstances … a group of undergrads with rampant hormones up to no goo … a professor somehow linked to all of them … several people not who they claim to be – that’s the essence of the storyline. And it took me back to the days when HIV/AIDS was a ‘new’ and much feared incurable disease. I carried out research on the topic and met a large number of young homosexual men and drug users who were dying from it, so I could relate to this book.

But my novels are definitely not in competition with this one. Christopher Rice is himself gay and writes from that perspective. And it’s a far more literary style of work which unravels slowly and is steeped in complex relationships, dubious morality, haunted pasts, convoluted cult religious ideas, academic and personal jealousies. Way beyond my pay-grade! And definitely not my cup of tea.

But, for some obscure reason, what came out of this was a poke into the embers of my own writing fire, hitherto suppressed during the pandemic.

As I tramped along on my morning constitutionals this week, enjoying the blossom and the birdsong, the imagination raced away with ideas which throughout the past year have been vague possibilities for a plot and characters. Feels invigorating. Spring buds emerging in the brain as well as the trees …? Time will tell.

 

, , , , , ,

Comments

Online presence

Phew, how the weeks fly by! I’ve just noted my tally … well over 600 posts.

So, a moment to pause and ask myself, why do I even have a blog? and why do I continue to write it every week? Initially, of course, it was set up to give me a profile (sounds so grand, doesn’t it?) which people could consult to see who I am, how I operate, why I write my style of novels, what I stand for. Some form of online presence is a prerequisite for authors nowadays, and the advice is: choose the ones with which you feel most comfortable. I’m at ease with this format.

But in my case, it’s more than that.

 

 

 

 

 

In my medical ethics novels, I make a point of leaving lots of breathing space for readers to form their own conclusions about the issues that provide the backdrop to each story. They aren’t polemics; they aren’t a vehicle for my opinions; they’re novels … although it’s not uncommon for readers to ask me what my personal views are. If I give nothing away about myself I can come across as a blank canvas. A blog gives me a vehicle to occasionally declare my hand in a controlled kind of way. It may be what I think of a piece of legislation, or a world event, or a book, or what someone has said, or an experience I’ve had. Anything really which has made me think, about which I have something to say. Reading back over some of it, I hardly recognise myself!! Did I actually formulate that argument, or articulate that thought?

Life can be so full, that it’s all too easy to skim read, only half-attend when listening to a programme/lecture/seminar or going to an event/function. But if I know I’m going to print on the topic, it concentrates the mind wonderfully. ‘I write to find out what I think!‘, as Stephen King said. Knowing my thoughts will be shared with others somehow allows me the mental bandwidth to think things through properly and reach a logical conclusion that I’d be prepared to defend. And it’s good for me personally to keep the little grey cells nudging one another.

If you too find what I have to say of interest, that’s a bonus! Thanks for visiting.

 

, , ,

Comments

Justice, rights, entitlement

The latest casualty of the coronavirus lockdown in this country is fertility care. As of Wednesday of this week, no new patients will be accepted, and even those in mid-treatment, those for whom this is their last hope, those who will be too old to qualify or stand a chance of success by the end of lockdown, will not now receive the necessary procedures towards which they’ve been working for so long. Yet another tragedy. More heartbreak. More hopelessness.

Which brings my thoughts to the ethical issues around assisted conception …

It’s now fifteen years since I wrote Double Trouble, a book about surrogate pregnancy. Fifteen years! Yoiks. But as with so many ethical dilemmas in medicine, the issues are still relevant today.

I was fascinated then, to watch the serialised BBC1 drama, The Nest, which finished this week, about a very wealthy but childless couple, Glasgow property tycoon Dan and his beautiful pampered wife Emily, who decide to go down this route. Click on the picture for the official trailer.

All attempts at IVF have proved unsuccessful. Dan’s sister has already tried to carry a baby for them but miscarried. They have one precious embryo left. One. Only one more chance. Emily meets the troubled teenage Kaya when she accidentally knocks into her in her car. Kaya sees an opportunity to get out of her impoverished life, and offers to be a surrogate for them in return for £50K. But as the story unravels we find that Kaya has secrets in her past and a very dubious pedigree indeed …; the would-be father Dan is something of a rough diamond too, dealing with a lot of shady characters and skullduggery …; Emily is single-minded about motherhood and what she wants, but privately troubled by the morality of what they are doing – always setting herself up as ‘the principled one‘ according to her sister-in-law. No-one in the UK will implant the last embryo. However, the Dochertys can well afford to go abroad for the simple procedure, and they do so.

On the face of it everyone stands to win. Kaya will be set on her dreamed-of pathway to becoming a successful business woman, able to ‘go on a plane, have one of these pull-along cases‘. The wealthy couple get their hearts’ desire. Better yet, surrogate and intended parents establish a relationship, even friendship. Kaya moves in with the Dochertys and gets a taste of a life of privilege. The baby will not only be much wanted, but will have every advantage money can buy.

Naturally – this is, after all, fiction, drama, a series requiring cliff hangers – things go pear-shaped. Relationships get confused. Loyalties are divided. Dubious and unsavoury motives emerge. But the underlying questions and challenges remain pertinent.

Is parenthood a right?
Is ‘want’ the same as ‘need’ in childbirth terms?
Payment for this service in the UK is forbidden. Should it be?
How binding should a contract between intending parents and surrogate be?
Should private arrangements for surrogacy be permitted?
Does a woman have the right to do whatever she likes with her own body?
What constitutes ‘reasonable expenses’?
Should those with the wherewithal be allowed to circumvent ethical and medical guidelines?
Does using someone far less powerful in this way constitute exploitation?
In the event of a dispute about whose baby it is, whose rights should take precedence, and who should decide?
What if the child is damaged/imperfect/not what was expected? Should the contract still stand? Who should accept responsibility for him/her?
What of the baby’s rights?
How much of its origins should a child be told?

Back to the drama … enter Kaya’s long-estranged mother, who encourages her to renege on the contract, hang on to the baby, become a mother herself, a better mother than she has been. But Dan already loves this child. Even when he finds out she is not his genetically, she’s still his daughter in his heart. The Dochertys call in their lawyer; the case goes to court. It’s left to the judge in the Family Court to put things into perspective – severely castigating their self-serving recklessness, the complete imbalance of power, the undesirable qualities on both sides. But, she says, at the end of the day it’s not a question of how she would judge them; it’s about what is in the baby’s best interests.

Contrary to expectation, there is a happy ending to this story, and both sides demonstrate they’ve learned important lessons about what matters in life. But the drama perfectly illustrates the power of fiction to challenge us to think about what society today should endorse, and how far the law can go in dealing with the fine nuances of moral questions in assisted reproduction. Well done, screenwriter Nicole Taylor.

 

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Future possibilities

There will never be a shortage of subjects for me to write about! I lose tracks of scientific breakthroughs and medical marvels. And today, given the breadth and range of material available, I’m not going to even attempt to link everything I mention to scientific papers – Google the key words and you’ll get the information if you’re interested.

When HIV/AIDS first came to our attention in the 80s there were doomsday predictions of biblical plague proportions and real-life devastating statistics. I was a researcher at the time and saw it, wrote about it, first hand. Then came huge public awareness campaigns … followed by the development of anti-retroviral wonder drugs … then combination therapies, that could hold the disease at bay. Now here we are, with stories of stem cell donations from people with ‘natural immunity’ rendering patients free from the virus. You could weave a pretty complex plot with that one! And in 2019 my file marked HIV/AIDS looks completely different from the slim wallet of 30 years ago.

Inside of Me coverThen there’s the transgender issue. Wow! So many dimensions. About young children wanting to transition. About people wanting to reverse the process; the irreversibility of some therapies. About misleading statistics. Eebie jeebie – how crazily tortuous a plot could you construct in that area. The imagination goes into overdrive. Makes my little sally into that world in Inside of Me, pale into banality.

It’s 41 years since the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, was created, and infertility was very much top of my pile when it came to choosing subjects for my set of novels. Now despite widespread opposition, criticism, vilification, stigma, as many as 8 million babies have been born by IVF. And the endless thirst for knowledge and understanding, coupled with a bottomless pit of compassion, drives researchers and clinicians in this area to seek more and more solutions to the problems couples have in conceiving, or avoiding perpetuating deadly genetic diseases. There’s mileage for several more books to follow on from Paternity, Double Trouble and Saving Sebastian. Did you know, for example, that the success rate for assisted fertility is way way higher (50%) than for natural conception (25%) … plenty of scope to work up a story-line there, huh? Imagine a gang of 35-year-old career girls going to the freezer to select artificially-created sperm … or genetically screened/modified embryos … ticking selection boxes along the way for green eyes, athletic ability, fiery temperament …? Endless possibilities!

The statistics on abortion reflect changes in society’s mores and values; programmes like Call the Midwife have increased public awareness of how things have developed in a generation. Add in dating apps, modern career paths, cohabitation, social expectation, fertility statistics … I feel an historical reflective story coming on! I well remember, in the 70s/80s soon after the 1967 Abortion Act was introduced, women coming in for a second, perhaps even third, abortion were looked upon askance. Recent Government figures have highlighted that of almost 68000 abortions carried out in 2017, 1049 were undergoing their fifth abortion and 72 their ninth! And there’s a story behind every one.

Then there’s the horrific topic of female genital mutation … don’t get me started! The recent story of the first person to be convicted in Britain briefly reported in the national press was shocking enough – the little girl was three years old; the mother cut the child herself in her London home; indecent images and animal pornography were involved. I absolutely couldn’t go there with fiction. But … should our collective conscience be prodded?

Resources, caps on the cost of medical and social care … I’m somewhat allergic to numbers, but reading about the human consequences of budgetary restrictions brings out the indignant in me. And might just compel me to write about it if I’m around long enough to get to that file.

Even the topic of assisted dying – a recurring hot potato – has subtly changed since I published my novel on the subject, Right to Die, eleven years ago. The issue’s been described by lawyers for the Royal College of Physicians as ‘one of the most controversial and morally contentious issues in medicine’, but ongoing polls of both medical and public opinion show a definite move towards accepting the need for some change. This might be simply taking a neutral professional stand as against opposing it; or a swing towards legalising some form of assisted suicide in the UK. A novel today could look very different.

Yep, I’m endlessly adding to the possibilities in my files as medicine and science reveal more and more, and society’s tolerances and expectations change. This is just a superficial skim. Anyone out there keen to pick up the gauntlet?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

A lifelong apprenticeship

Wow! I’ve had quite a jolt.

Picture if you will …

… the Canary Islands: brilliant sunshine, millions of years of volcanic activity, vibrant flora, a whistling language, an excellent health service but serious economic struggles …

Fascinating and a real get-away-from-it-all break. But, in the back of my mind, lurks the thought that I have an author appearance shortly after I get back to the UK. Hmm. Best tactic? Jot down a few ideas in idle moments, on the train/plane/ferry, let the topic (‘Well-being’) simmer on the old back burner, but concentrate on the Canarian experience.

Overall strategy? Take the audience up to the bedside of some of my characters, let them listen to the conversations, enter into the minds, of people who are facing challenging, even tragic, choices. Give them a chance to consider the different options themselves. Maybe ruffle their sense of well-being a tiny tad …?

Saving SebastianHow would you feel having a four-year-old dying in front of you, I wonder? Would you agree to create another baby specifically to try to save his life, knowing that many perfectly healthy embryos will probably be destroyed in the process, that this new child might have the same fatal blood disorder too, that it might all be in vain?

How would you react to being told you have a terrible degenerative disease which will certainly destroy your body inch by inch, killing you before you reach your 42nd birthday, your brain fully aware of every ghastly step?

You get the idea.

It’s a long time since I wrote – or indeed read – my earliest books, so I quickly realise I need a crash course on McHaffie’s medical ethical novels. Happily I have several on my Kindle, so I immediately start to update myself. And that’s when I make a sobering discovery. I want to edit them! Hey, why did I write this that way?! But of course, I can’t change it; not now they’re published. Any more than I could change the experience I had of Tenerife, or La Palma, or La Gomera, once the ferry drew away from each in turn.

Why should that surprise me?  It shouldn’t. I’ve moved on, honed certain skills, developed my craft, progressed – hopefully! As Ian Rankin once said; the reason we keep writing is, we’re always trying to improve, to write the perfect story. It’s a lifetime’s apprenticeship.

And each time I embark on a new book, the older ones recede in my mind, much as the islands become hazy and less defined as the ferry powers off across the Atlantic.

New horizons beckon. I’m already scanning the ocean for new excitement, noticing the changes in colour and swell, watching the other passengers, wondering about their lives … scavenging new ideas, creating new connections, forging a new pathway in this fathomless deep that is our world/imagination.

So, it’s been a salutary experience, re-visiting my own earlier novels. I’ve had to forgive myself for the failures and infelicities of the past, cling on to the better aspects, and extract useful messages that might provoke discussion and pique interest when I’m in that other life, in that Scottish library, talking to an audience about ‘Well-being’ and the writing life.

OK, next step? Inject some humour! Don’t want them leaving in tears, never wanting to go to a library again, do we?! And there’s planty to amuse in my books … a fabulous train conductor on the Aberdeen-Penzance Cross-Country run; a minister with holey/holy socks and an all-embracing love; a lab technician who quotes Oscar Wilde to excellent effect … I’m sure they’ll come to my aid. But first, let’s savour every experience these amazing islands have to offer. No need for regret on that score.

 

 

, , , , , , , ,

Comments

‘A time to rejoice …’

Hey … time methinks for a completely undemanding, totally positive, uncomplicated post. I’ve given you some pretty heavy duty stuff lately, I know.

But … give your brain a rest, and let’s just celebrate this week. My latest book is now PUBLISHED!!

Here’s what it looks like:

Here’s what it’s about:
Professor Jocelyn Grammaticus is travelling on the 8.20 CrossCountry train from Aberdeen to Penzance. (If you’ve never tried it, think twice before you do! – it takes almost thirteen and a half hours.) But for Jocelyn it’s more than a long sit – she’s facing the hardest ethical dilemma of her life when she arrives in Cornwall. To distract herself, she sets about writing a keynote speech due for a conference the following week, and all unwittingly the assorted passengers who flit in and out of Coach C give her food for thought. But four hours before she arrives a phonecall stops her in her tracks. Will she be in time? Will she have the moral courage to fulfil her promise?

Loads of people have asked me about the underlying theme, so if that aspect intrigues you too, it’s about informed consent. But don’t let that put you off if you’re just looking for a diverting read. Listen out for the manager who joins the train from Newcastle to York; I’d love him to accompany me! Listen to the chatter … listen to your own heart and conscience …

Oh and I should warn those of you who are familiar with my work, this book is different from my previous ones:
– it’s much shorter – classifies as a novella really.
– it’s only available in electronic form.
– we’re offering it as a FREE download. Just click here to start the process.

Do let me know what you think. I’d love to hear from you – no flannel, only honest feedback, please.

, , , ,

Comments

Real life ethical challenges – alive and well

Wow! The year has begun with a bang as far as medical ethics is concerned. Lots to challenge us.

Just in one day this week we had the news that …

Every secondary school in England is to be offered training to help them identify and support children who are suffering from mental illness – a government-led initiative. Mrs May describes it as a first step in a plan to transform the way we deal with mental health in this country. There’s a long way to go but this is at least a concrete measure. Is it the right one, d’you think?

A terminally ill man with Motor Neurone Disease who fears becoming entombed in his own body has asked judges to allow doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs for him without fear of prosecution. Sound familiar? Well, actually it’s the first case of its kind for 3 years would you believe – surprised me to learn that too. Should he be allowed this option? Is the UK ready for change? Where would it lead?

There’s been a rise in demand for live-in au pairs for elderly folk. It’s an attractive alternative for some to going into residential care. OK, I’m listening! And it comes amidst the controversies over standards in care homes and the soaring costs involved. But of course it comes at a price. And it inevitably excludes some people. Will it take off? Should it?

Viscount and Lady Weymouth have become the first members of the British aristocracy to have a baby carried and delivered by a surrogate mother. Apparently Emma Weymouth has a rare condition which puts her at high risk of having a stroke during labour; she suffered a brain haemorrhage and an endocrine disorder during her first pregnancy. This was deemed the safest way for them to ‘complete’ their family. But of course it has higher significance to an ancient lineage like the Longleat Bath family than to the average couple. Any thoughts?

After lengthy wrangling, judges have decided that a Gulf War veteran, policeman, and father of one, aged just 43, should be taken off life support and allowed to die, in line with his expressed wishes. His wife sees it as a final act of love. Others decry it as the thin end of the wedge to denying the sacredness of life. Where do you stand?

As I’ve said before, I shall never run out of material for my writing. And this ongoing interest in my subject spurs me on.

NEWSFLASH: Yesterday I completed the first draft of novel number 10. Wahey! Drum roll, please. It’s about a professor of Medical Ethics going on a train journey from Aberdeen to Penzance to deal with a crisis in her own family, but encountering all sorts of challenges along the way. The most fun of all my books to write so far, but I still cried at one point!

 

 

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Spinning out of control …

Eebie jeebie! Life’s on a steep slope and gathering frightening momentum this week. Where are the brakes …? Anyone seen the safety nets?

Path to Straiton Pond

Outside, hard frosts have made works of incredible beauty out of ordinary spiders’ webs around here, and I couldn’t help but feel an affinity with them. Unbelievably strong, amazingly intricate, yet so fragile if touched carelessly. A bit like the ideas the brain conjures up in creative mode. So, why is the writing life more than usually frenetic at the moment?

Well, to begin with it’s Book Week Scotland; I’m doing a couple of author events locally for that. Lovely to go out there and meet real live people who read my books, and want to know about why and how I do what I do, and wonderful librarians who are so enthusiastic and dedicated to their task of encouraging reading, but space needs to be found to prepare mentally for each one.

Web wrapped around finialI’m also writing not one, not two, but three books simultaneously right now. Three, do I hear you shriek? Yep, three. Completely unprecedented, as regular followers will know. Madness, probably. So why break my own rules?

Well, Christmas is fast approaching, so I absolutely MUST complete the grandchildren’s annual story/play due to be enacted on 28 December to a full house. I need to order props and make costumes before then, and allow for postal hiatuses, so first I have to finalise the text to be sure about what I still need/want. In spare moments, and by way of light relief, I’m also making monster heads – details are top secret (suffice to say that hair and glitter and strange white particles linger stubbornly in the warp and weft of certain carpets). And one whole room is definitely off limits to all, no exceptions.

Frosted cobwebThen my ongoing novel, Killing me Gently, mustn’t be allowed to lose momentum. Pleased to say I’m still with the thriller genre on that one. However, as a safety valve, I’m letting the back burner dictate the pace of this book at the moment, only sitting down to actually commit words to the document when they’re too insistent to ignore, or jotting down thoughts that wake me in the night.

Web tailored to fence postAnd the third book? It’s brand spanking new, jostling for attention at crazy o’clock, keeping me at the desk long past the witching hour. It’s got a working title of Listen and is designed as a shorter story in my usual vein (contemporary fiction set in the world of medical ethics) which can be offered as a free download to give potential new readers a window into my books. I’m having a ball writing this! It’s about a Professor of Medical Ethics who goes on a train journey from Aberdeen to Penzance where a crisis awaits her … I now know some amazing statistics about high speed trains! And about atrocious experiments performed on black people in the 50s in America. Intrigued? Watch this space.

I keep reminding myself … this is all entirely self inflicted!

 

, , , , , , , , ,

Comments

Previous Posts