After I read this piece (see below) by another writer, it really struck me how strange it is that we seem so unwilling to talk about this big giant well armed elephant in the room. It's downright weird.
I have a completed novella that I will soon be publishing as an e-book. An agent just told me a few days ago that no publisher will touch a book about dead children and that no one wants to read anymore about Iraq or Afghanistan. My story about men, and guns, and a school in America may be America's dirty little secret. But it's not a very well kept secret. Everybody knows it. And it is kind of 1950's martini-induced repression to so very actively not talk about it. I'm talking. My story is, I hope, just part of what will become a conversation.
And I hope the writer of this piece gets to have a conversation too. One without censorship. I'd like to respond now, and tell him that I agree with him on all points except the strong role that video games play. I'm sure that they exacerbate the situation, especially when played excessively. Nothing done excessively is good for you. I'll admit my bias, as I am the mother of a young man who has been a gamer most of the years he's been alive. He lost his Dad at 9, had many troubled years as a teenager, but the games didn't make him violent, and he was never obsessed with weapons. He is also a pacifist. Personally I think the big difference for the writer was nature as he noted, but most of all the support system of involved adults. That I think is the essential difference between tragedy and salvation when the mental health of the individual is tanking. The Lakota call it tiospaye, being part of a strong circle of support that prevents failure. It's absence, and what can happen thereafter, is what I have written about, and frankly, what we have all read about already.
Here is a link to the other writer's blog post, he says was censored by the Huffington Post.
http://peterbrownhoffmeister.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/on-school-shooters-the-huffington-post-doesnt-want-you-to-read-this/
I have a completed novella that I will soon be publishing as an e-book. An agent just told me a few days ago that no publisher will touch a book about dead children and that no one wants to read anymore about Iraq or Afghanistan. My story about men, and guns, and a school in America may be America's dirty little secret. But it's not a very well kept secret. Everybody knows it. And it is kind of 1950's martini-induced repression to so very actively not talk about it. I'm talking. My story is, I hope, just part of what will become a conversation.
And I hope the writer of this piece gets to have a conversation too. One without censorship. I'd like to respond now, and tell him that I agree with him on all points except the strong role that video games play. I'm sure that they exacerbate the situation, especially when played excessively. Nothing done excessively is good for you. I'll admit my bias, as I am the mother of a young man who has been a gamer most of the years he's been alive. He lost his Dad at 9, had many troubled years as a teenager, but the games didn't make him violent, and he was never obsessed with weapons. He is also a pacifist. Personally I think the big difference for the writer was nature as he noted, but most of all the support system of involved adults. That I think is the essential difference between tragedy and salvation when the mental health of the individual is tanking. The Lakota call it tiospaye, being part of a strong circle of support that prevents failure. It's absence, and what can happen thereafter, is what I have written about, and frankly, what we have all read about already.
Here is a link to the other writer's blog post, he says was censored by the Huffington Post.
http://peterbrownhoffmeister.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/on-school-shooters-the-huffington-post-doesnt-want-you-to-read-this/
