The Writer’s Gauntlet with Sadie Kaye is a regular column at The Hooghly Review. This article is being reprinted with The Review’s permission.
SK: If a detective looked at your browser tabs right now, would they arrest you, call an exorcist, or buy you a weighted blanket?
KF: Honestly? All three, and they’d need to flip a coin for which one goes first.
The arrest case, honestly, writes itself. Fourteen tabs on “signs of a narcissist,” a Reddit thread titled “AITA for telling my father his love language is control” (Am I The Asshole), and a search history that includes “how to tell someone gently they’re the problem” run back-to-back with “how to tell if YOU’RE the problem.” Out of context, this is a person building a case against someone. In context, it’s Tuesday.
The exorcist gets called for the tabs with no context attached at all — an open Google Doc titled simply “patterns,” a search for “why do I feel nothing at funerals,” and four different articles on dissociation that I definitely opened for “professional reasons” and definitely also read at 1am for personal ones. A detective would take one look at the tab just called “the thing” and back slowly toward the door.
But the weighted blanket wins, because underneath all of it is the real evidence: a DSM-5 open to the same page for three days, a half-drafted blog post titled “why ‘just think positive’ is where hope goes to die,” six tabs on compassion fatigue that I have not had the capacity to read, and a Google search for “is it normal to cry at your desk between sessions” — asked, suspiciously, in the first person.
So, the detective’s verdict: not a criminal, not possessed — just someone who spends all day holding other people’s chaos and has nowhere to put her own except forty open tabs and a slowly dying laptop fan. They wouldn’t arrest me. They’d sit down, ask if I’m okay, and then quietly close the “is it normal to cry at your desk” tab so I don’t have to see it later.
What’s a word you’ve used in a draft that you definitely don’t know how to pronounce?
Vulnerability.
Not because it’s obscure — because I have typed it into blog drafts probably four hundred times, and I am now convinced that if you asked me to say it out loud in a session, I would freeze like a Windows 98 computer and produce some horrifying hybrid like “vulnerabuh — vulner — you know what I mean, the feelings word.”
Runner-up is hyperbole, which I used in a draft with total swagger and would say out loud as “hyper-bowl,” like it’s a sporting event for people who exaggerate.
And a special mention for epitome, a word I have silently read as “EPI-tome” in my head for a decade, and which — if forced to say aloud in front of another human — I’d pronounce with the confidence of someone who has never once been corrected, right before being corrected.
The real twist is that I probably use bigger words in writing specifically because I don’t have to say them — the page doesn’t judge my vowels…
Would you rather your protagonists sue you for emotional distress and gross negligence or be sentenced to life in a Happy Ending colony?
I’m a therapist. Emotional distress and gross negligence I can work with. Happy endings feel wildly outside my scope of practice.
If you could magically delete one trope from existence, which one are you throwing under the bus with zero regrets?
Anyone described as “a narcissist” because they behaved badly once. Some people are just arseholes. We used to have a perfectly good word for them.
What font do you write in and why is it superior to everyone else’s?
Helvetica. Clean, controlled, emotionally contained. Basically everything the writing isn’t.
Oxford Comma: Life-saving necessity or pretentious clutter?
Life-saving necessity. I can tolerate ambiguity in the consulting room. Not in a list.
What’s your writing ritual and why is it a cursed superstition?
I start with coffee and a vague intellectual premise. Several hours later I’ve excavated a childhood wound and made it content.
One word that makes you go feral every time you see it misused?
Narcissist. Your ex was selfish, Karen. The DSM need not be involved.
What non-existent job do you wish existed?
Director of Things That Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. I have extensive personal experience and could start immediately. Responsibilities would include reviewing regrettable relationships, ill-advised purchases, catastrophic haircuts and decisions made after the third glass of wine. No judgement, obviously. Just a thorough post-mortem and the occasional reminder that, given exactly the same circumstances, we’d probably do it again.
What cartoon character best represents your ride or die? (Alternatively explain why ‘ride or die’ makes you go feral)
Kenny from South Park, no contest — because “kill Kenny” isn’t a punishment, it’s a running gag with no severance package. He dies constantly, nobody mourns him, everyone just steps over the body and carries on with the plot, and by the next scene he’s back like nothing happened, unpaid and unbothered. That’s ride or die: showing up dead and still on time.
As for the phrase itself — “ride or die” makes me feral because it’s usually said with pride by someone describing their worst enabling instincts. “I’d do anything for her” is not automatically romantic; sometimes it’s just “I have never once said no to this person and I’m calling it loyalty.” Real ride or die should come with a follow-up question: ride to where, exactly? And are we sure this is a good use of car?
Which creature adds more joy to your world: butterflies or geckos?
Geckos, unapologetically. Butterflies get all the poetry — metamorphosis, delicate wings, main character energy — but they last two weeks and spend most of that time looking mildly stressed. A gecko just vibes on your wall, eating insects, occasionally detaching its own tail as a personality trait, and for me, that’s the more emotionally regulated creature in the room.
Also, nothing says “I have healthy boundaries” quite like an animal that will straight-up leave a body part behind rather than deal with your grip. Weekly reminder to my clients, honestly.
If you could teleport, but only to places you’ve tripped and fallen, where are you tripping?
Mumbai, without question — specifically, to the exact patch of pavement where I once tripped and landed face-first into a pile of cow poo so substantial it honestly deserved its own postcode. My core muscles offered no assistance whatsoever. I went down like a felled tree and came back up smelling of exactly what that sacred cow had had for dinner.
And that’s when it hit me — somewhere between the horror and the flies — that India is, without irony, my spiritual home. Not because of the ashrams or the incense or the Eat Pray Love of it all. Because nowhere else on Earth has humbled me quite so completely, quite so publicly, in front of quite so many amused onlookers who did not offer a single tissue. That’s enlightenment. That’s ego death. I went in looking for meaning and left covered in it.
So yes — teleport me back. Same spot. I want to relive my most spiritually significant faceplant in full, high-definition, methane-scented glory.
Cursor status: blinking and judgmental or solid and reassuring?
Blinking and judgmental, always — that steady little flash isn’t a cursor, it’s my conscience with a pixelated face, keeping time with every sentence I almost commit to and then delete. It doesn’t nag out loud. It just blinks, patient and unimpressed, like it’s already seen the first draft, the second draft, and exactly how this is going to go.
Some nights I swear it blinks slower right after I delete a good line, like it’s disappointed but not surprised — the digital equivalent of that inner critical voice saying “that’s the best you’ve got?” and then just watching, arms folded, while I prove it right.
What’s the last thing you researched that has probably put you on a government watchlist?
Coercive control, Borderline Personality Disorder and whether you can freeze hummus. Admittedly, only two of those were work-related.
Drafting fuel: coffee, tea, liquor, Haribo or the tears of your antagonists?
Coffee. I like my writing fuel the way I like my therapeutic interventions: strong, slightly bitter and liable to keep me awake at night.
Stinky Books: old library vanilla or fresh-off-the-press chemicals?
Old library vanilla, obsessively — that specific smell of slowly decomposing paper and other people’s marginalia, which scientists will tell you is just lignin breaking down and releasing vanillin, and which I will tell you is the smell of literary main character energy.
Fresh-off-the-press chemical smell is exciting for about four seconds, then it’s just glue and regret, like inhaling a new IKEA shelf. Old library vanilla, meanwhile, smells like every person who’s ever cried into that book before you did — which, as a therapist, is honestly the most on-brand olfactory experience I could ask for.
Your author’s bio as a clickbait headline?
Woman Trains for a Decade to Understand Human Behaviour; Remains Completely Baffled by Her Own.
Describe your latest WIP using three emojis and no context.
One word you’ve banned from your vocab because you’ve overused it?
Honestly.
Honestly?
Honestly. I say it constantly — in session, in drafts, in texts nobody asked for my honesty rating on. It’s become such a tic that I once used it three times in one paragraph, which is ironically the least honest thing a word can do: repeat itself into meaninglessness until it’s just throat-clearing with a moral costume on.
I’ve banned it. It sneaks back in anyway. Honestly, recovery seems unlikely.
‘Chaos Desk’ or ‘Aesthetic Nook’?
Chaos desk, unquestionably — a landscape of post-it notes (four of which say “??”), a cold cup of coffee I made three weeks ago, three books I’m in the middle of that haven’t been touched since spring, and a candle I lit for ambiance that has been silently judging my life choices for six weeks unlit.
Aesthetic nooks belong to people who photograph their workspace before they use it. My desk gets photographed by accident, usually because someone’s trying to find the pen they left there, and the photo becomes evidence in an ongoing investigation into whether I’m a functioning adult.
Would you prefer a 1-star review that says ‘This changed my life for the worse’ or a 3-star review that says ‘It was fine’?
Frankly, either would be a landmark event, because most of my readers don’t so much as like a post, let alone review it. My analytics page is less “engagement metrics” and more “proof of life:” — I refresh it the way you’d check a pulse.
So “this changed my life for the worse” is basically a five-star review in disguise. It means someone read the whole thing, felt something, and cared enough to be furious about it. “It was fine,” meanwhile, might actually kill me — three stars is the review equivalent of a shrug, and I did not spend four hours agonising over a semicolon for fine.
In a post-apocalyptic world, is your primary contribution navigating by the stars or knowing which snacks stay edible the longest?
Neither. I’ll be helping everyone explore how the apocalypse is landing for them while contributing absolutely nothing practical.
Who is your ultimate nemesis: the person who types ‘K’ as a full response or the person who leaves 1 second left on the microwave?
Both. I’m reluctant to diagnose strangers, but these people clearly have issues.
If you had to turn into an animal for an hour every day, are you a Majestic Hawk (great view, very cold) or a Fat Housecat (great nap, very judged)?
I’d actually turn into a Chihuahua. Small, highly strung, unnecessarily confrontational, shaking for reasons nobody fully understands and happiest under a blanket. I’m not sure anyone would notice the transformation.
Is ‘breakfast for dinner’ a symbol of freedom or a sign that society has failed?
Freedom. If I’m old enough to pay a mortgage, I’m old enough to eat Coco Pops at 9pm without defending myself.
What’s the most useless talent you possess that you humblebrag about?
I can identify emotional unavailability at 50 paces. Historically, this has not prevented me from walking straight for it.
KELLY FIELD – YOU HAVE PASSED THE WRITERS GAUNTLET!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR WIT AND WRITERLY WISDOM!
Think you’ve got what it takes to ride The Writer’s Gauntlet? Email or (preferably) DM Sadie on IG @KayeSadie @TheHooghlyReview
Kelly a former TV creative who spent years developing formats and non-scripted television, with a string of credits she’s now only slightly embarrassed to admit to. Ten years ago, she retrained as a Gestalt psychotherapist and now work with individuals, couples and creative groups. When she’s not in the consulting room, she writes as Hackney Therapist on Substack: personal essays about the messier parts of being human, usually viewed through a Gestalt lens, with a wry eye, a darkish sense of humour and a possibly pathological commitment to oversharing. Her own life frequently provides the evidence.
substack.com/@hackneytherapist
https://www.instagram.com/kellyfieldtherapy
https://www.facebook.com/kellyfielduk
Sadie Kaye is a writer & performer from Sai Kung, Hong Kong. Her humour, fiction, rants & reviews have appeared in the South China Morning Post, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Hooghly Review, Buzz & many anthologies. Her humour column for RTHK Radio 3, Sharp Pains, received nominations for Best Comedy from the New York Festivals Radio Awards and Moment of Comedy Gold from the International Women’s Podcast Awards in 2022 & 2023. She won the Comedy Women in Print Prize for Flash Fiction in 2024. She’s a producer for Contro Vento Films. Her most recent film, To Love A Narcissist, was released in North America on 19 May 2026 and will soon be available worldwide.
Her life motto is you’re only young once, but you can be immature forever.
She can be found at https://sadiekaye.tv
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