Titanic

I just watched Titanic and, as predicted, I cried like a baby. But, then, I realized what it was that made me cry.

It wasn't only that Cal lived and married and made millions and then shot himself, proving that he shoudl have given up his seat on the lifeboat for Jack so that he and Rose could be together forever instead of Jack dying a cold, soaking death and sinking to depths to rest with the ship and leave behind a forever-changed Rose.

Not only that.

I realized how attached I had become to the characters and how James Cameron spun the tale to make it that way. How he used such a sad time in history to show that love is strong and can come from anywhere. I realized that the novel and short stories I have recently completed don't stand anywhere near that area.

They are miles away.

I realize how proud I was (sort of still am, but to a lesser degree) of these two short stories is sadly overstated. I have to do much better to be that proud of something I wrote.

I am not saying that I think I'm a horrible writer and that I am going to quit that "career." Quite the contrary! I am going to write with renewed energy and try to do better than I ever had before!

Thank you, James Cameron, and all the actors in Titanic! You have pulled out another layer of the authoress inside me!

Pitch

For the ABNA (Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award) contest, we had to create a pitch for our novels. The first round winners are decided on these pitches. Here's mine:

At night, when we fall asleep, sometimes we have strange dreams. Usually, we don't think anything of these dreams. They are irrelevent to our life.



But Harlow Castleberry's dreams are a different story.


Harlow's dreams began a while ago, but they have started to get worse as time progressed because her father made her stop writing them down. Now, she is seeing her dreams come to life when she is not asleep. She doesn't know what is real and what is fantasy.

And now, there are secrets coming to the surface, floating there, waiting to be overturned so their identity will be revealed. They are calling to Harlow, and she can't resist them.


Harlow's sister, Lee-Elba, knows about these secrets. One is not a secret to her anymore. She wants to tell her little sister everything, but it isn't until her parents begin to act strange that she does. She tells her about their parents, the club, the Hate Crew, Catastrophe, Exodus, and Armageddon, and the mysterious deaths surrounding their family.

Harlow doesn't know what to do. Her brain is filled to the brim with questions, and she has to replace them with answers, before it's too late.

In Memorium

A few hours ago, I got back from a memorial for a friend of our family. She died on the last day of January, succumbing to cancer after a long fight. She was a nice woman, always with a smile. She used to swing her arm around my neck and say, "Hey, Shrank, how ya doin'?" I cried when speech's were being told, though I did not know her well. I can't believe how much I cried. I think it was my cousin that went up and talked about how they used to go mushrooming that really did me in. Thanks, Kolter! Anywho, we love you, Carla, until our dying days.

In memorium - Carla Arbogast (1968-2011)