I'll write this fucking book if it kills me.

Kinda like...

So, I'm finally writing this book that I've been carrying around in my head for awhile (as in, forever) about the toxic confluence of religion and politics in the US, and how it's had a hugely negative impact on peoples' lives. Not just on those they target -- the gays, the women, the libruls, the "woke." But also how this sick marriage of religion and politics affects the very people trying to codify their religious beliefs into civic law: the god-fearing mother with an ectopic pregnancy, who now can't get medical treatment. The virulently anti-gay legislator with a gay son. 

I'm fascinated by people who consistently vote against their own interests, as long as they think their enemies will be treated harshly by the incoming regime. 

It doesn't matter, for example, that here in Florida the GOP has turned down Medicaid money the state desperately needs, year after year after year, so long as Ron Desantis continues rooting out the rampant scourge of transgenderism in school sports. 

It doesn't matter that kids & old people will be denied medical care they need, as long as it's still okay to beat up a drag queen.

*    *    *

It wasn't until Covid struck, and I started to see the similarities between how the AIDS crisis unfolded in the 1980s, and how Covid was being mishandled more recently, that I realized the time for this book was now. 

It was one thing for Ronald Reagan to pretend AIDS didn't exist; it was only a bunch of queers dying, after all. In those days, it was bad enough that the problem was aggressively ignored while thousands of "undesirables" died. It was quite another thing to see, during Covid, the Trump administration actively try to kill "regular people" with Ivermectin and bleach injections. 

I will never, for as long as I live, forget watching Sean Hannity and Donald Trump explaining that Covid was a hoax and, later, that the vaccine was dangerous -- all as my Fox News-addled parents lay gasping for air.

*    *    *

So. Yes. I'm about a third of the way through the initial draft, and working on it every day. I had a target date of March 31 to complete the initial word-dump, then three months to rewrite, engage some beta readers, final edits by fall and out the door by end of year. 

That schedule is feeling a bit... aspirational? at this point, but if I go full balls-out for the next few weeks I can stay on track. 

Writing is always an act of faith, it's always done "on spec" to some extent. This is particularly true with a book, which requires a huge investment of time and effort. It's asking a lot to keep hope alive long enough to see it finished.

But this one? I'll write this fucking book if it kills me. It doesn't even matter anymore if anyone reads it. I just need to get it out of me.