WWP: Writing While Pregnant

I've never tried to write while pregnant before this year. My daughter was born just months before I published the first Raina Kirkland novel, Fatal Retribution... But the novel itself had been written for years before that point. December 2011 was just when I gave up on traditional publishing and took my life into my own hands, but I didn't write a word of Fatal Retribution while I was pregnant...I was too busy working two jobs for most of the pregnancy.

I started writing the 5th and final Raina Kirkland novel, Toxic, in November 2014 and by January 2015 I was nearly a quarter of the way done with the first rough draft. Then I found out I was pregnant. Then 3 solid months of sever morning sickness. I lost almost 30lb through starvation and vomiting. I was good for a couple months after that. I got to the halfway point, chapter 20....Then the cramps and cervix pains began around the 5th month and have steadily gotten worse and worse. I'm at week 31, just 8 more weeks of pregnancy and I'm still on chapter 22 in Toxic...I am fully sure I will not make my publishing deadline of Winter 2015. Sadness

Not only am I in pain and near constant discomfort, but I'm terribly scatterbrained as well. I've spent 4 books setting up all the pieces. This books should be the easiest to write. I'm simply knocking over the pieces and watching them fall. Fun! But, no. I can't focus well enough to actually write well or much. I'm very very certain that once my brain chemistry calms I'm going to have to do a lot of rewriting. The new deadline for Toxic is now Summer 2016...Sorry guys. 

A Thought on The American Prison Industrial Complex

This idea hit me hard after seeing so much suffering first hand. I've seen lives destroyed by our prison system. We must acknowledge how very broken it is. When 1 in every 100 American's is in jail or prison, it's no longer a public service. It's a privately own money making machine in which men and women get in too easily and are terrorized, raped, beaten, belittled and dehumanized for years on end!

Prison should ONLY be for violent crimes. Murder, Rape, Torture, Assault, Armed Robbery....shit like that. All other crimes should be dealt with according to their wrong doing.

A thief should pay for what they took out of their paycheck and do community service on their weekends, like working in a community garden, giving back to the community to make up for stealing from it.

An Alcoholic or drug addict should be forced to seek medical help for their addiction and do community service, like work in a soup kitchen to teach them to not be so selfish.

And no one, not a single person, should be put in jail just because they can't afford bail or some stupid traffic ticket. That shit is outrageously fucked up! Jailed because you're poor? Really?

When we put nonviolent people in jail or prison, we aren't just punishing them. We're punishing their families, anyone who depends on them, and we're pretty much destroying their lives. These nonviolent people are getting beaten and raped brutally every day and night, and for what? Pot possession? Illegal gambling? Stealing? Speeding 10 miles over the limit while being poor? And when they do get out their lives are an uphill battle. They still have to pay restitution and court fines...But how are they supposed to get a job? Not to mention deal with the PTSD they got while in the rape-mill we call the Prison Industrial Complex.

We need a system overhaul. We need to deprivatize prison