Planned to write about murder plot, but San Bernadino changed my mind

I was all set to write about how I developed one of the murder plots in my latest novel tonight, but San Bernadino changed my mind.

I have no taste for it right now. The latest mass killing in this country cooled my desire to write casually about murder. Not now. Too many dead. Too many injured. Too many lives changed forever as a result of another bloody rampage.

We still don't know the motive for the San Bernadino slaughter, but the reason for it doesn't really matter. What could possibly justify or rationalize this kind of killing?

They seem to be happening more frequently in our country, and they are occurring in almost every walk of life. Social services center, women's health clinic, movie theater, school - K through 12 - college, post office, military base.

No place is safe. Not even the boondocks of Michigan where I live. The nut jobs, disillusioned, and disenfranchised are everywhere. They seem to have no trouble gaining access to weapons and our country gives them the freedom to roam unchallenged.

Mass shootings are becoming so commonplace that any author - of all genre - could easily add a bloody rampage as a subplot to a story and it would be completely plausible to any reader paying attention to the headlines. I find that sad and quite disturbing.

But I won't be among those authors. Not tonight.