July | 2017 | Graphomaniac – A. Elizabeth West

So I’ve been busy/not busy.

You might know (or not) that I’m still not working at the moment. Most of my time has been spent job hunting, and while that’s not entirely a full-time job, it does occupy a lot of head space.

Assuming your head is this big.

Image: superheroes.wikia.com

July is a Camp NaNoWriMo month (also April), the summer version of NaNoWriMo. Since I’ve been scouring job listings and writing cover letters until my face bleeds, I missed it. My intention was to use it for something, but that did not happen. I tend to actually work better when I have something else going on. Like you know, a job.

I’ve got five queries out for Tunerville at the moment. A couple of them don’t look like they’ll garner any results, but you never know. The period for a no reply = no isn’t up quite yet. Should someone decide they want to represent me, one of the first questions they’ll ask is “What else are you working on?”

I realized I have no answer for that question.

Secret Book is finished, but it’s such a hot mess that it could take me years to work it out. Not only would I have to do a ton of research I’m not ready to do, but I screwed up so badly that it requires an extensive rewrite. That’s okay; it happens. The book failed in its first iteration, but even if I can’t salvage it as a whole, it contains a ton of well-written prose I can cannibalize for something else.

That’s how you learn, grasshopper.

Image: imdb.com

Rose’s Hostage is so old I don’t know if I can even sell it. I’d like to, but it probably needs another edit. I don’t have time for it right now.

Tunerville’s first full manuscript was rejected in September and I was so disappointed, but I received a (rare!) critique. I’ve done some revision and I’m editing it now to reduce the word count again and clean it up a little more. I thought it could be a stand-alone or the start of a trilogy.

In keeping with the great maestro Ludwig van Beethoven, I thought of a really cool way to carry the trilogy idea forward while on a daily walk. Beethoven was big on taking long walks, but of course he had the Vienna Woods for that. I get to walk among discarded liquor shots and condemned houses.

That’s the only thing we have in common, as Ludwig was a genius and I am decidedly not. (Confession time–I used to have an ENORMOUS crush on the guy.)

You know what they say about musicians. ;)

Image: allmusic.com

The entire month of August, I will be writing. In between job hunting, interviews, studying, and a total eclipse of the sun for which I have a front-row seat, Book Two is going to blast out of my computer. First drafts suck, I hate writing them, and sustained torture seems to be the only way I can do so.

Should I bother? I don’t know if anyone will ever publish Tunerville. People have told me they’d like to read it. People who have read it liked it. Industry folks have said I’m very close. Either way, I’m a writer and that’s what I do. I won’t get any better at it if I sit on my arse and click hearts underneath pictures of cats on Twitter all day.

So I’m gonna sit on my arse and write. I’ll try to stay up-to-date on social media (I have to, as a member of the #Resistance) and keep you informed here as much as I can. Don’t expect any word count posts. I’ve placed a widget on the main page, at the top right. I’m shooting for 80,000 words or until I’m finished, whatever comes first.

Do expect eclipse photos and video, assuming it’s not cloudy that day. If you need anything, follow me on Twitter at @DameWritesalot; that’s the best place to catch me.

*sigh*
*deep breath*

And here we go.

Recently, a friend posted one of those articles on Facebook. I’m sure you can guess by the title of this post what the subject was. She asked for opinions, so here’s mine. If you see a link, click on it–you might learn something.

I take issue with this whole vaccines-cause-autism thing, for the following reasons:

1. Vaccination has over 100 years of research behind it. It’s safe for most people. Someone not believing a fact that is backed up with direct, observable data doesn’t automatically make it untrue.

2. Clinging stubbornly to a discredited study by a guy who faked most of it because of special interests (re: money) is the height of ignorance and willful stupidity, and it bugs me to see it coming from otherwise intelligent people. It’s a mark of gullibility, pure and simple, as well as a frightening symptom of the lack of critical thinking skills in our society as a whole.

Scientists were rightly alarmed by Wakefield’s claims, and so they checked his data. It was bad. It was wrong, and they found no evidence to back it up. Because that’s what good science does–it checks.

3. Nobody is quite sure what causes autism; it seems to be genetic. Spending time and money constantly debunking this crap takes valuable resources away from someday pinning down that cause and / or finding new treatments.

4. Being autistic is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. I have a friend who has two children, both of them autistic, and they are doing very well, in part because we’ve gotten better at diagnosis and understanding how earlier intervention benefits autistic kids.

Being autistic isn’t fatal. But whooping cough (pertussis) can and does absolutely kill infants and children. So does measles and other diseases vaccinations prevent. So does flu, when people don’t get their shots. In fact, one of the worst epidemics ever was the Spanish flu in 1918-1919. Scientists think they’ve figured out why it was so deadly. But if it ever comes back in a form we’re not prepared for and people are not inoculated, the public health costs could be unimaginable.

Herd immunity protects most people who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons–but ONLY if everyone who can gets vaccinated. And while it’s not a perfect defense for all diseases, it can reduce the incidence and severity of them.

Do you want these diseases back? I don’t. VACCINATE YOUR KIDS. Either that, or move to an island somewhere, because I don’t want to be around you or them.

This ridiculousness makes me seriously angry. I want to be a mum more than anything right now, and I would far rather have an autistic child than a dead one.

You asked.

Cheers!