Review: ‘Start’, by #Graham Morgan,#FledglingPress, #LoveBooksGroupTours

9781912280070

Published By: Fledgling Press

Publication: 1 October 2018

I.S.B.N.: 9781912280070

Format: Paperback

Price: £11.99

ISBN 9781912280087

Format: Ebook

Price: £5.99

Blurb

Graham Morgan has an MBE for services to mental health, and helped to write the Scottish Mental Health (2003) Care and Treatment Act. This is the Act under which he is now detained.

Graham’s story addresses key issues around mental illness, a topic which is very much in the public sphere at the moment. However, it addresses mental illness from a perspective that is not heard frequently: that of those whose illness is so severe that they are subject to the Mental Health Act.

Graham’s is a positive story rooted in the natural world that Graham values greatly, which shows that, even with considerable barriers, people can work and lead responsible and independent lives; albeit with support from friends and mental health professionals. Graham does not gloss over or glamorise mental illness, instead he tries to show, despite the devastating impact mental illness can have both on those with the illness and those that are close to them, that people can live full and positive lives. A final chapter, bringing the reader up to date some years after Graham has been detained again, shows him living a fulfilling and productive life with his new family, coping with the symptoms that he still struggles to accept are an illness, and preparing to address the United Nations later in the year in his new role working with the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Start-Under-Compulsory-Community-Treatment-ebook/dp/B07JBCVK54/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542728968&sr=1-1&keywords=start+graham+morgan

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NaNoWriMo – I’m trying again this year

I had planned to post this on Thursday, when I wrote it, but the WordPress App on my phone wouldn’t play nicely, so I’m posting it now, while I have access to the internet on my laptop.

‘Last year I participated in NaNoWriMo but didn’t make much progress, so this year I’m trying again. I think the problem last year was that I didn’t prepare well enough. Or at all actually, so this year I have. I’m going to use the month to work on the idea that first arose in my short story ‘Summer Wine’. I have made some plans, plotted it out, made notes of ideas as they’ve come to me, and so this month I will finally be putting it all together to get the first draft written.

I normally write short stories; I start longer works but don’t seem to finish them, so that’s the goal – get it finished.

Wish me luck. And good luck to everyone who is taking part in NaNoWriMo, and any of the other writing challenges taking place this month.’

I’d like to add that I will be updating about my progress every Sunday.

Bye,

Rose

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