Holiday Greetings

Hi everyone,

Follow me at the Six Sexy Sirens blog! I'm not the world's greatest blogger (haha), so once a week blogging at the Six Sexy Sirens is just right for me. Someday, I may come back to this blog and add it to the list of blogs I maintain, but at the moment, I'm afraid I have to take a long leave of absence. Just from this blog though. :)

Hope to see you at the Six Sexy Sirens where I blog every Friday or at the Goddesses of Storytelling where I blog on the 25th of each month. See you there!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Honoring the Goddess

Ellora's Cave has a offered me a new contract! Such a wonderful Christmas present!

More on this in the coming days. :)

Happy holidays to everyone!

Pleasure Trap

I'd like to share my sumptuous cover! In the meantime, I'm still doing edits.

Aren't men faithful anymore?

When news of his accident shifted to allegations of infidelity, Tiger Woods admitted of his personal failings. So what else is new? I had almost expected that there was another woman involved, despite initial denials and silences.

Am I cynical or what?

I guess all these celebrities--sports, entertainment, politics--have temptation throw themselves in their faces everyday. However, there is such a thing as restraint and morals. If you're single, that's one thing. But if you're married and with kids...well!

MOVIE REVIEW: If Only (2004)

Originally, I hadn't wanted to watch this movie. I thought it's something like Groundhog Day, a movie I watched in my youth, wherein the day keeps repeating itself until the hero get things right. He had to learn some things, you see.

Anyway, it's not like that at all. If Only stars Jennifer Love Hewitt (Samantha) and British actor (I suppose, from his accent) Paul Nichols (Ian) as lovers. Samantha was in London for music schooling for three years now and Ian is a successful executive. I'm not sure how long they've been together, but their relationship is at the stage wherein they know they love one another. (Okay, not exactly a good indicator as love happens in different ways and times to people.)

When the movie starts, Ian is inattentive to Sam and he doesn't value what she values, and so Sam's unhappy. Yet, he's confused as to why he can't make her happy. He then meets a cab driver who tells him to just love her and to appreciate her. However, they quarreled during the dinner after her graduation ceremony, and she rushes off to ride a cab, after which she met an accident and died. So he grieved.

And the next day, he woke up and Sam was still alive! That scene was laugh-out-loud funny! And Ian tries to change the day's events in a bid to cheat fate...

Okay, I can't discuss what I want to discuss if I don't write about the ending, so if you don't want to know, stop here, go watch the movie then come back to read. It won't do to skip to the end because I have a question that I'm interested to know the answer to, and from the question, you'd get a hint of what the ending was. So...you're duly warned.

I believe this movie is more about Ian than about Sam. It's about how his outlook on life changed when he tried to live the second day in a different way, and of course, that's also the time when he opened up to Sam and they connected in a way that I believe they hadn't connected before.

"It doesn't matter if you have five minutes or five years, as long as you lived life to the fullest." (sorry, not exact quote. If I watched it again before this entry goes live, I'll make the correction.)

"Love doesn't end with death."

I think even up to the point wherein they had dinner at another restaurant after the graduation, I was still hoping Sam would be saved. But death seems inevitable, because all the things that had happened the previous day also happened on the second day, just that the timing was different. There's a nice message here about not being able to cheat fate. Fate claimed one soul the other day, and it shall have it again the second day.

I had also expected this to be a chick lit romantic comedy, but it's not. It's so much more. And every time I thought about it, every time I think of the ending, I want to cry.

So, anyway, after dinner, it was raining, so Sam wanted to ride a cab home. After Ian tells her he loves her and how his entire life changed because of her, a cab came up, and Sam gets in. He's standing outside like he did the other time, and she asked him, "Are you coming?"

And in that moment, I think he knew. He made the decision. It was there in his face, and in his voice. If he got inside the cab, he would die. He'd take Sam's place and die in her stead so that she needn't have to die. And he answered, "Of course."

And all I could think was how much he must have loved Sam to be able to say those two words. Because he knew.

I cried buckets that night. Though it's a tragedy, I love that movie on so many levels, but mainly because of the love he exhibited toward Sam. And I think that ending has a greater impact on the audience than if Sam and Ian had a happy ending, and that's saying a lot for a woman who loves her HEA's.

So, what I wanted to ask, coz I'm just curious, do tragic romances work for you? As a reader, would you be willing to invest your time and money on romances (I'm talking about books, not film) that don't promise an HEA? For me, I think so, but I'll read it more for the journey of the characters' development and if it's a good story. Oh, and if it has the same life-defining moment as the ending in this film.

I believe I had also wanted to write a teary, heartwarming story once, but the heroine ended up blind or disabled in some way, and someone told me that's not HEA and just won't do for the romance genre. (Maybe it'll be ok for general fiction, sort of like Nicholas Sparks' A Walk to Remember?) Anyway, that story's shelved for now. So, authors, will you want to write one?