San Antonio and Mental Health

I'm flying to San Antonio today to learn more about their approach to mental health. My hope is that I'll find three things.

1. Efforts pre-crisis to prevent people from going into mental health crisis.
2. Policies to insure that mental health professionals have command over mental-health-crisis incidents, rather than lightly or un-trained police officers (even the 40-hr CIT training is not, for example, comparable to a 2-year degree or years of professional experience.
3. Efforts post-crisis to provide structural care to prevent future crises.

Here's the NPR reporting on their policies.

• 8/19/14: Mental health policies help reweave the social safety net.
• 8/20/14: Reforms help San Antonio safe millions.
• 8/21/14: Mental health meets moneyball.

I'm also working on a big piece about criminal justice and disability this week, so much more to come.

The material from this will be in Part IV of my book, which is coming along, if slowly. 

Book Accountability Post #17

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Daily word count: 2371

Chapter word count: 2371
Chapter goal: 8000
Total word count: 18962
Total goal: 70000

Wrote the intro to part III, a large chunk of chapter three, took part of that chunk and moved it to chapter four, then wrote more of chapter three.

Tomorrow I travel around New Hampshire and see presidential candidates, so unlikely to write. But you never know.

Book Accountability Post #16

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Daily word count: 1565

Chapter word count: 5410
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 16581
Total goal: 70000

That's a draft, people. I put in DISCUSS BOOK A HERE, and DISCUSS LITERATURE C there. I'll get to it, but not until I have a full draft. 

Chapter 3 is on disability and the School to Prison pipeline.

Book Accountability Post #15

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Daily word count: 702

Chapter word count: 4945
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 15016
Total goal: 70000

Just barely keeping to my 1000 words a writing day goal. It's good. Onward to finish most of chapter 2 tomorrow, I hope. 

Book Accountability Post #14

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Daily word count: 708

Chapter word count: 4243
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 14314
Total goal: 70000

I lost a week teaching, doing my administrative job, and then writing some other pieces. I will have to figure out better book focus as I go forward. But I'm back writing now.

Book Accountability Post #12

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Daily word count: 1098

Chapter word count: 2311
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 12383
Total goal: 70000


Mostly wrote on Sandra Bland and edited/expanded earlier sections..

Book Accountability Post #11

See here for primer on these posts. Today I drove to UW-Whitewater and gave a workshop on public writing. Then I drove home and skyped to participate in a panel presenting on disability rights and police violence to Berkeley law students. But I knew how Chapter 2 should start, so talked it out voice-to-text as I drove, and edited over the last few hours. 

Daily word count: 1293

Chapter word count: 1293
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 11364
Total goal: 70000

No book work over the weekend. I'm going to finish In a Different Key and then write a review of it.

Book Accountability Post #10

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Daily word count: 811

Chapter word count: 6870
Chapter goal: 8500 but calling it a draft, because reasons.
Total word count: 10071
Total goal: 70000

I think chapter 1 is drafted. I need to add a few paragraphs on Disability Incarcerated, which is a terrific book, and there will be more expansion. Next chapter is on the cult of compliance in policing and is a big meaty one, so saving some words here is probably a good idea.

If I write at all tomorrow, I'll be doing it voice-to-text as I drive a lot. We'll see!

Book Accountability Post #9

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Daily word count: 1148

Chapter word count: 6059
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 9260
Total goal: 70000

Semester starts tomorrow. May slow me down.

Book Accountability Post #8

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Daily word count: 1328

Chapter word count: 4911
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 8112
Total goal: 70000

Wrote about Philip Coleman, Laquan McDonald, Quintonio LeGrier, and Betty Jones. Then wrote about Assertive Community Treatment vs the Murphy Bill's priorities. May add a touch on Assistive Outpatient Treatment as coercion tomorrow, before moving on from mental disability for now. 

Book Accountability Post #7

See here for primer on these posts. I did no writing over the weekend. Instead, my son turned 9. Read about it here. I did a few edits on a Hillary Clinton and autism piece.

Daily word count: 1378

Chapter word count: 3583
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 6784
Total goal: 70000


Summarized history of deinstitutionalization in a few paragraphs, talked about the death of "Africa" by the LAPD, and discussed criminalization of homelessness.

Book Accountability Post #6

I did no writing on Saturday. Was I supposed to write on Saturday? I played with the kids, cleaned the house, made food, put away holiday directions, played a show that night. We needed the time together during the day.

Also I finished my final edits on a CNN piece about Clinton's autism plan. And here it is!

I'd like to get to 7000 words today, but it's also my son's 9th birthday (celebrated. Tomorrow is the actual birthday). So we'll see.

Book Accountability Post #5

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Daily word count: 973

Chapter word count: 2205
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 5406
Total goal: 70000

Did a lot of general "here's how I'm going to talk about disability" stuff today. Identity first. Social model.

Book Accountability Post #4

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Daily word count: 1232

Chapter word count: 1232
Chapter goal: 8500
Total word count: 4433
Total goal: 70000

I also wrote a 1000 word essay for CNN earlier. I'm now through the opening section of Chapter 1 and ready to get into the meat. 

Book Accountability Post #3

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Daily wordcount: 372

Chapter wordcount: 3201
Chapter goal: 3000
Total wordcount: 3201
Total goal: 70000

Finished the Intro draft today, did a quick revision and cleanup, and began organizing the first chapter. I keep changing my mind about the opening anecdote, but am leaning towards the death of Quintonio Legrier. 

Book Accountability Post #2

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Daily wordcount: 1792

Chapter wordcount: 2829
Chapter goal: 3000

Total wordcount: 2829
Total goal: 70000

I just wrote, "PUT SOME KIND OF CONCLUSION TO THE INTRO HERE AND CALL IT DONE FOR NOW" but did not count those words. So I might come back to it later and do that. 

Book Accountability Post #1

I'm writing a book. I spent the fall finishing most of my research (still a few research trips this spring for specific pieces of specific chapters), writing a relevant white paper (more to come on that!), and otherwise prepping for ... today.

Today my kids went back to school and I started writing. My goal is 1000 words a day. I wrote many more than 1000 words today, but deleted many and dumped others into my scraps file. I am starting at the beginning and proceeding to the end, which is not how I've written in the past, but I think it'll work this time around.

I'm going to post about my writing process so long as I think it's helping me stay focused. If it becomes a distraction (to me!) or otherwise becomes unhelpful, I'll stop. I plan to keep this up until I have a completed draft.

So, here we go.

Daily wordcount: 1037
Total wordcount: 1037
Chapter goal: 3000
Total goal: 70000

See you tomorrow.