Month: August 2019

amwriting

You’re Invited-DFW 2019 Author Gala

Reba Nietert

On September 27, 2019, we will be hosting the largest Author gala where all literary professionals come together for one social event. The idea is to encourage, inspire, and lift up a fellow author by sharing his or her work. In turn, they will share yours.

Our mission is to be the number one resource for authors in DFW.  Our platform is designed to provide authors with connections to contractors such as:

  • Illustrators
  • Editors
  • Cover Designers
  • Formatters
  • Coaches
  • Publishers
  • Agents
  • and all literary professionals.

Our goal is to connect professionals with the authors who need them. In addition to networking, we have designed fun, intellectual gatherings for like-minded individuals in social typesetting to interact, share, support and encourage.  We will host a variety of events including networking, “tea-time,” one on one meetings to face challenges head-on, instruction, and all kinds of support.  Our annual Writer’s Retreat is not to be missed. Please feel free to check our online calendar to see the upcoming events, and if at any time you would like to participate in the festivities please subscribe to our email and consider becoming a founding member.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/networking-with-the-author-gala-tickets-70017970635

amwriting, books, Human Interest, Inspiration, Opinion, politics, Reflection, Revelations

An Army Family Now – Momma’s Tears

Reba Nietert

The other day I watched my 24-year-old independent son join the Army. I watched him realize he had a fully successful independent life that he was giving up, to be owned by our U.S. Government for our freedoms. I watched the pride in his eyes. I felt pride in return, and then I cried… for days.

 Today I am better. Filled with some purpose for my own life. 

I keep thinking about him and the last moments that we talked about. I replay every conversation, everything he said to me, and why he chose to go into the Army. 

I suppose to some, I seem ungrateful, maybe not appreciative of his own choice. You need to know that I am very proud that my son would give up his freedom for mine. That in and of its self is honorable. 

I cannot completely identify the pensively, the apprehension, the fear, the understanding that not all boys go in and come home; and I suppose it’s because of the things I have seen and the things that happened to me, that has not happened to the majority of people. I, more than anyone understands how quickly a life can be over and how quickly life can leave you devastated in despair! 

I’m not clear on why the tears continue to fall… I just know that I can’t stop them on my own, but what I don’t need to be told is to shove my feelings aside or be told my feelings shouldn’t matter or be told that I have no right to feel the way I do. I keep thinking of the Bible passage about God forcing Abraham to sacrifice his son on the alter because to me, that’s what this feels like. My faith needs to be as strong as His! 

We are an Army family now and as such, there’s a reality we can’t lie about. My good friend, Dennis, said to me, “He is defending an idea. An idea that is enshrined in the Declaration of independence and the Constitution. The idea that we all have the same inalienable rights. He is there to defend our way of life. Only two people in history to offer their life for yours are Jesus Christ and the American Servicemen.”

I used to believe in idealism too. Sadly I believe and this is just my belief that Americans have moved so past “inalienable rights“ and become so incredibly selfish that I have no faith the president who is our commander-in-chief above all others, will have any less regard for the American population. I digress because this is not about my pride for him, his pride for his country, the idealism of America nor even the pompous jackass who runs it. This is about my love for my boy, plain and simple.

Human Interest

When Is Enough – Enough?

Reba Nietert

I’m up late again, with worry running through my brain. It’s not enough to worry about my son going into the Army or even the relationships my kids have. Add bills, commitments, interpersonal workings, cultivating relationships, a marriage, ailing family members and animals and a whole slew of stressors and you have one wide-awake woman!

It’s not really my fault. I wasn’t taught how to manage my fears. Just to submerge myself in the worry of it all until I have just had enough! Then and only then does courage take a foothold. The cycle is similar to passive/aggressive but offers more angst along the journey.

Life I have learned has a funny way of smacking you right in the face when you least expect it. Sometimes it hurts so badly that it shakes the very will to live and other times its just movement to get you pointed in the right direction. Either way, to most, including me, sometimes change can be downright painful.

The question is what to do about people within a company who go out of their way to hurt people for selfish reasons? What makes someone want to hurt another person? Why do they do it and then hide behind others to get their way. Why do some people initiate harm and then are surprised by the outcome? My son says it’s a ‘disconnect’ with people. That they haven’t learned to be compassionate.

I have to ask, where did parental teaching go? Surely every mom wants their child to be kind? Was that not instilled or did a collective group of kids become of age, and decide amongst themselves that rules of logic, kindness, respect no longer matter? Have the Kapernicks of the world tainted the general public to the point where there is no sense of independent intellectual thought and thereby believe it’s okay to act like a two-year-old? This question plagues me. Why do people find joy in harming others?

I ponder these questions. I stay up late at night wondering what on earth I can do to make an impact. Call out a false prophet? Call a manipulator one to their face? Hold someone accountable? What if one does that and all that does is cause the offender more anger and more brokenness? Do we just ignore it? Leave it alone? Move on? Please, tell me if you know that answer because when I point it out, I seem to be the only one burned.

Today someone sent me a horrible email. I wanted to make sure I felt the weight of his ability to bully me into compliance for posting a bad review. Yet, HIS company keeps contacting me! Threatening me! Proving my point how unbelievably inept they are. I just don’t understand people. Someone could have reached out, solved the problem, but nope. Just more intimidating tactics. It makes my stomach ache for a time when people were plainly civil to each other.

Well, I have written it down. Caused my brain to rest so late at night I will fall asleep. G’night y’all. Sleep well.