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BACKGROUND
At nine years of age I decided to commit suicide. Given what I knew then, it was a logical
decision. The stone bridge shown in the above photo was to be the scene of my fatal 'accident.'
I was well aware that it had to seem like an accident.
Suicide had no bragging rights, then or now. That was one of the reasons I adopted a smiling
face and apparantly cheerful outlook. You may notice even today that when a kid commits
suicide, those who thought they knew him or her are apt to say, "It doesn't make sense. He (or
she) was such a cheerful kid."
I kept my secret well. Only twice in the past 70 years did I feel obliged to discuss it. Both
times, as at present, I could see some value in revealing how the suicide thinks and what parents,
other relatives, and friends might do to minimize the risk.
By the age of thirteen, my major reasons for wanting to commit suicide had largely faded, but it
continued as a possibility to be considered until one bleak winter night on army guard duty I
realized that it had become a crutch and I was never going to do it. I was 21 by then and much of
my personality had been shaped by the thought that I wasn't going to live much longer anyway.
My working title for this memoir, WNS, stood for, Why Not Suicide?, but I've since decided that
Surviving Suicide is a better title. When or whether it will find a publisher is still in doubt,
but it won't be posthumously, because I'm going to live forever. (Okay, I've gotten sort of
optimistic over the years.)
In this instance, I decided to seek an agent rather than a publisher. Having by now collected
rejection slips from 70 agents, I'm leaning toward the conclusion that, partly due to the distresed
economy, it may be easier to find a publisher than an agent. Agents tend to be free lance people
who don't get paid unless they're especially good at choosing and selling winners, so they may be
'running scared'. I might be lucky enough to find an editor who feels secure enough to take a
risk that an agent won't. Contrary to what agents may think, suicide is a subject that's 'coming
out of the closet' to such an extent that even the military admits it's a problem; something they
wouldn't have done a few years back.
Stay tuned.
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