Video Games Inspire Violence in Little Girls

The Newtown shooting, a national tragedy, is the stuff of nightmares for anyone but especially for parents with young children. We send our children off to school every day because that's what expected of us, and we hope that, in return, they learn to be productive members of society. It didn't take the media long, of course, to blame video games for the violence. Of course it was video games!! 

Let me share with you our own experiences with video game induced violence. We had a beautiful day of snow over Winter Break. On the first day, we just played. On the second day, we went sledding. It was amazing! We loved zipping down the perfect hill and crashing into various things. We vowed to do it again the next day as the sun went down. On the third day of snow, the temperature went above freezing, and the sledding on slush does not produce the same epic results as sledding on soft powder.

Both my little girls and I play video games, so of course, we resorted to violence. EPIC VIOLENCE. We invaded my parents' backyard with an army. Our anger had to go somewhere, right?

That's right. We built an army, and we made sure that they were armed with dangerous weapons a la Plants vs. Zombies. I'm telling you that our hours of playing PvZ drove us our great rage to new extremes. How dare the snow melt before we were ready?! We had to strike back at the world.

Our army moved relentlessly towards the stairs. They brought fear with them. This particular guy was totally inspired by hours of killing gems in a most brutal manner in Bejeweled and aggressively creating cakes in My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party Parade. My girls have been inundated at a young age with this kind of stuff.   It's no wonder they're acting out with this army. 

The coup de grace is our headless snowman. It's all the Pokemon games we've been playing. I don't think it could possibly have anything to do with their curiosity about the guillotines used in the French Revolution as I was telling them the story of the Scarlet Pimpernel and discussing Les Miserable with them. That's classic literature, so seriously, it's either Pokemon or Spore that must be to blame. I haven't decided which yet, so we'll just say it was both.

Despite the fact that my ten-year-old spent the whole time talking about how this was just like Calvin and Hobbes the entire time we were building our snow army, I'm convinced that it was video games that inspired such violence in them. I should say that my mother is a culprit, too, since she provided the flowers that were used as "guns". I'm pretty sure that their reference to plasma rays must have come from overhearing something from Mass Effect and probably has nothing to do with Stitch shooting up Lilo's house from Disney's Lilo and Stitch.

And ultimately, I would like to remind everyone that this violence must be the fault of video games, and of course, I can't be held responsible, being their mother and all. After all, it's really not my responsibility to take them outside, to play with them, to engage them in new ideas and introduce them to art in all its forms. It's really just those darn video games.

Writing Until My Hand Falls Off

Okay, so I'm resurrecting this poor blog again. Since I write so much for a living, it's hard to put even more time into writing. Sometimes, I just need a break! My kids, however, are gone for ten days on an Alaskan cruise with my parents. This may be why I started blogging again. I have a false sense of my free time. Actually, I know this to be true because I also finished three articles for Bright Hub, a site that I normally don't have a enough time to write for even though I get decent hits on my articles. It's nice for extra income, but again, it's writing.

So, you may wonder what I spend all my time writing. Let me make a nice little list for you:

1. I write stories and descriptions for Threshold RPG. (This is a text-based game, so you can only imagine how much writing goes into this. I have to describe every little thing just so players can read it once and ignore it forever more.)
2. I write stories and descriptions for Primordiax. (Again, this is a text-dominated game.)
3. I write 90% of the design documents for our latest project that currently has the code name of CoW. (We will be releasing this game for beta testing in about a month.)
4. I write articles for Bright Hub whenever I can. The extra income is nice.
5. I am currently working on a novel based on Norse mythology. I have no idea if this book will ever be released because sometimes I go months without having time to write on it.
6. I have a short story that I am completing for one of our games. Really, that may never get done either, but I add a few paragraphs here and there.
7. When I'm not working, I am writing up specs for games that I am currently not working on. Yes, I am developing and designing games even in my free time!
8. When the kiddos are in school, I write a lot of letters.
9. I write emails to all sorts of people in regards to our business and our games.
10. I write all sorts of presentations. This is not a favorite past time of mine, but I use the presentations every time someone asks me to speak at a school or a gathering. They're useful!
11. I get a ridiculous number of chat requests from our customers and sometimes from friends. That's a lot of typing! I don't know if that's really considered writing, but I usually think out my replies before I send them. I think it should count.

Okay, that's a short list. I should add blogging to the list now as well. I'd add Facebooking for our business, but that's just getting a bit ridiculous. My whole life would be writing then, but it really isn't. I spend a good deal of time playing games with my kids, playing games with my husbands, and playing games by myself. Okay, so maybe my life is writing and games. How cool is that?