Un-Valentine's Day

Not feeling the love.
Not wanting the love.
Not needing the love.
Valentine's day is all about love.  The love you have for your current partner, an intimate kind of love.  The love where you want to share your very being with someone else.  Valentine's Day is not about the lasting love you have for your children, family, friends, pets.  The love you feel for your city when the plane touches down and you see Table Mountain before you.  That love is not celebrated.  Instead we give cards and gifts to lovers who slip in and out of our lives.  Fleeting moments we try desperately to hang onto.
I have never been lucky in that intimate kind of love.  Bad choices, never choosing someone who is good for me.  I accept all the blame for that.  Loving someone so much that you lose yourself and who you are is not love.  My grandmother always used to say that you can't be loved until you love yourself.  When you forget who you are and try to be someone you're not then you are not loving yourself.
My last relationship was the final straw for me.  It made me realize that I am not relationship material.  I let the other person become all-consuming so that I forgot who I was.  That is not good.  I'm not sure if it was that final relationship and final betrayal which killed that ability to love another intimately or if it was the scalpel which cut out the cancer which cut that kind of love out of me, but I just know that I don't feel it anymore.  I don't even miss it or long for it.  That part of me has gone.  Dead and dried up.
But this isn't sad, it's good.  It means that now I focus on me and my children.
Cindy Vine is the author of Survival Tips for the Suddenly Single and Fear, Phobias and Frozen Feet - both are available on Amazon in kindle and print format.

Introducing Guy Magar

It always interests me how people get into the writing business.  Because writers can be anybody.  Teachers, firefighters, film makers, housewives and house husbands.  They can come from all sorts of backgrounds, little or no education to being highly educated.  But they all have one thing in common besides a creative writing streak.  They all have a strong desire to share their message or story with the world.  Guy Magar was a film maker.  Here is his story.

Kiss Me Quick Before I Shoot is an unconventional memoir because it deals with diverse topics such as the magic of making movies and the magic of finding true love. I’ve been blessed to have had such a kaleidoscope of experiences starting as a child in Egypt and immigrating to America, growing up in New York and learning to speak English, going to college at an incendiary political time in the country (late ‘60s), and then setting myself on such an unlikely journey to become a film director in Hollywood. That career adventure was a story I always wished to share because it’s been rich with wild and crazy experiences such as my first producer turning out to be a Mafia assassin, almost decapitating Drew Barrymore right after ET, and coming close to derailing James Cameron’s career though he is so talented I doubt anyone could have altered his storied destiny. Everyone loves to look behind the curtain of the movie world and this memoir takes them there.

Finding true love for me is all about falling in love with Jacqui, and having a Camelot wedding where I got to duel for her hand (a la Errol Flynn) in a romantic union that has blossomed to this day, and this journey was also worthy of telling especially with the extreme dramatic turn of Jacqui suddenly being diagnosed with leukemia three years ago.

That unique medical journey to heal her through a cutting-edge clinical trial was definitely a triumphant story of the human spirit - of her great courage - that deserved to be shared with the world. Everyone knows someone with cancer, and so I wanted to write a book about our experience that would inspire folks to get through their illness. For me, the grateful feedback from caregivers and cancer patients has been the most emotionally satisfying response to this memoir and the 18-month writing journey it required. It took me longer to write this book than any movie I ever made.

I wanted this book to be a good friend with which you curl up with while sipping a hot chocolate because writing this memoir was a celebration of life. For me, it’s about following your dreams and making them come true. And that’s magical, as it is for all of us, and I was hoping to share that universal commonality. I encourage my readers who share my story to be inspired to celebrate their own unique life experiences. It was my desire and hope that by sharing my magic it would inspire folks to reflect, to take the time to appreciate their own great life journeys. We are all so busy living life and dealing with our big and small daily challenges that most of the time we don’t take a time out to celebrate our own magic of being alive.

This is why the last parting line in my book is “Dare to dream…I did. From one magician to another: Peace.”

I invite you to http://www.kissmequickbeforeishoot.com/media/book-excerpts/ to enter our weekly contest and win a signed paperback and all you have to do is pick your favorite excerpt.
Thank you Cindy for having me as your guest.