Friday, November 18, 2011

Is Bigger Always Better?

A new author is taught many tools to attract a potential reader’s attention.  After the book is written, comes the sometimes difficult and time-consuming task of making your book stand out among the many other selections available for readers to choose from.  Careful planning and attention must be given to every aspect of the book’s packaging.  Finally the title is intriguing, the cover looks great, and the blurb is set to entice.  Then comes the big reveal.  Page one, chapter one, and paragraph one.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Kim Kardashian...Heartbreak Or Scam?

By now we’ve all heard about the demise of the marriage of Chris Humphries and Kim Kardashian.  But what is a little surprising to me is that some media outlets are implying that the whole thing might have been a scam.  Many are saying that Kim orchestrated the whole thing in order to have a huge wedding celebration as a ploy to continue garnering hefty ratings for her family’s reality show.    She has been accused of using her wedding to attract sponsors to pay for every flower, napkin and decoration in return for their names being featured on the wedding show.  They say she got married for any reason you can think of, with the exception of true love.  Well I believe there’s a possibility that Kim may be getting a bad rap.

Just think about it. If Kim were as coldly calculating as she is being portrayed, none of this would have played out to be the public relations disaster it has become. A shrewd businesswoman, such as Kim has proven herself to be, would have considered all angles of the situation and played it in her favor.
If Kim had considered her marriage a “project” there are many ways she could have handled it. She could have had a $10 million engagement party extravaganza. She could have stretched the engagement over two or three seasons of her show. She could have exploited family relationships on both sides. She could have engineered adventurous plots featuring the besotted couple gallivanting across the globe and encountering all kinds of sticky situations. Then, when the novelty of that wore off, cap it off with a wedding that would have put Cinderella and her prince to shame.

Instead she has almost become a laughingstock, trying to dodge the same answer-hungry paparazzi she’d brilliantly courted for years. I submit to you that I think Kim was in love. She’d been exposed to whirlwind courtships that turned out beautifully. Her own mother Chris Jenner married Bruce Jenner after an admittedly short period of time and their marriage has lasted over twenty years so far. Against strong opposition from many, including Kim, her sister Khloe and Lamar Odom met and were married in a matter of weeks. And even I must admit, they seem to be one of the most loving couples you can find on television right about now.

That being her experience, and we are all shaped to an extent by our environment, Kim had no reason to doubt that true love can happen hard and fast. Now it takes work to sustain a marriage, but no social scientists have come up with concrete proof that it takes “X” amount of time for the feeling of love to be deemed real.

Another of my favorite couples, Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey, fell in love almost immediately and are now reveling in the joy of their beautiful twins. By all accounts, their love is growing stronger each day. I think Kim fell in love, but unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. So, dear readers, what are your thoughts on this issue? Can true love happen in an instant? Or are whirlwind courtships products of lust and doomed to fail?  What say you?