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By C.E. Rohsner

Margot DeRieux and Vivian Turner find themselves on the Chesapeake shores in human form after Hurricane Irene sweeps them far from their royal home in paradise. They have no choice but to attend the boarding school where providence has given them lodging.

But something isn’t quite normal here.

The mermaids-in-disguise cannot fully hide their strangeness, yet they are not the only ones who hint at the odd. Through various adventures, mishaps, and occasional near-death experiences, Vivian and Margot discover that life around them is not what it appears to be.

This book was devised in June 2012 by me (C.E. Rohsner) and my friend Rachel Lent.

Get your copy from Amazon now!

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Mamma bear and baby bear love spring. Pappa bear is a little squeamish about it.

Read why!

By purchasing the book when in a few months.

Watch here for the launch!! Prizes give-a-ways and all kinds of fun for this launch!! Subscribe and be on top of the action!

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Another poem is written today.

It’s words are great and have much to say.

But I don’t know where this poem will end,

It just needs to be longer and somewhat blend.

How’s that??.

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Twinkle twinkle little star

How I wonder what and where you are.

Up above the sky so high.

Are you there or are you nigh?

I don’t know the rest of this.

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Mary had a little lamb

Its fleece was white as snow!

it’s fleece was white as snow.

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It is thanks to a renewed sense of getting back into artistic projects and such that I am perhaps here again after so long, and it is thanks to a friend who shall remain here unnamed that I got into reading again and was thus propelled to finish reading Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

It took me about a year exactly to read Gone with the Wind from start to finish, but I remember stories pretty well, so I was not really lost each time I picked it up again. I read it in spurts with long days and months passing between each go, but from part-way through Part 4, I managed to read it more consistently.

This massive book has five parts, and each part could perhaps been published by itself as a book in a series. I feel the same way about Lord of the Rings. The book it is most similar to, however, would be Wuthering Heights, as the romantic relationship between the protagonists is practically the same. Two black sheep of the family are made for each other but are generally manipulative and somewhat nasty to each other the whole time. I don’t think that’s spoilers. Anyhow, I can see why my one friend hated the movie, as this American saga is basically just as pleasant as Wuthering Heights, but it did end more pleasant and hopeful than I had expected.

The character of Scarlett O’Hara, the protagonist, confused me at first. The book seemed to seesaw between two different interpretations for her mean ways. My preliminary conclusion was, “Is she evil, or is she Irish? The world may never know.” By the latter half of the book I did know: she’s evil. But understandable. Even so, I did get mad at her at one point and didn’t care about how she got on with her financial success; she’d gotten into that subplot by ill gains! According to the “About the Author” section at the back of my edition, the story is about characters that have “gumption” and those that don’t. She is ultimately a likeable character because she has the ability to make it through tough times of all kinds, including the Civil War and the struggles of the Reconstruction era.

It was interesting to read this Civil War era story after having read the Elsie Dinsmore series years ago. Both are fictional works set in the same era and both feature the Ku Klux Klan in very, very different ways. Gone with the Wind also has non-Christian characters while Elsie Dinsmore has a deeply Christian protagonist. It makes you wonder what the authors’ perspectives were and what really happened, in a sense.

The part of history that Gone with the Wind certainly got wrong was tightly-laced corsets. The historic costuming community would sigh over how this novel was one part in promulgating the wrong belief that women constantly couldn’t breathe and nearly fainted because of their corsets (although there are working scenes with no trace of tight corsetry.) It’s also ridiculous that a 20 inch waist was considered stout. That’s just not reality; the waist measurement of your skinniest adult friend would show that.

The introduction written by Pat Conroy described how his mother (and surely many others) loved this novel ardently, and mentioned how many have pointed out its flaws. I read it with the expectation that it wouldn’t be perfect, as no book except the Bible is, and was subconsciously swept up in the drama of the emotions and trials of its characters. I couldn’t move on to another book without letting its effect linger and fade first.

Other books on my reading list:

• Kuutei Dragons
• Business for Authors by Joanna Penn
• The Songkiller’s Symphony by Daeus Lamb
• Is Atheism Dead? by Eric Metaxas
• Holes by Louis Sachar
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
• Persuasion by Jane Austen

I am also working through reading the Adelaide Literary Award 2020 Poetry Anthology, of which I am a Shortlist Winner Nominee. I have a poem I wrote recently that is a good sequel to that, which I hope to send to them at some point. I am also waiting on feedback from beta readers for my WIP, Portal to Japan, and am in the middle of painting a red onion, among other projects.

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¡Hola! If you haven’t noticed, the past year and a half has not been one necessarily of fulfilled hopes. Many have had hopes fulfilled, such as marriage, new jobs, new education opportunities, newborn children, etc., but others might tell a different story. A hope deferred makes the heart sick, and over time, it can begin to feel as if one should be more expectant of hope deferred rather than a happy ending. But one can still be joyful in everything and hope always abounds.

One can always dream, and if anything, one should keep their dreams. If they are put inside of you, they belong to you and you should claim them. If it turns out that something else arises, who knows, it could be even better than what you dreamt or thought of. And if it is, you would know.

Meanwhile, there is a time for planting and tending, a time when it seems you are simply just working the ground without enjoying any fruit. There’s a time when it seems you are in the dark, being faithful to what you feel you should do. This season might feel like it will never end, but the best policy is to keep going, little by little every day, if not more.

A dream I have is to create an interactive website someday. I thought it might be neat if someday, in the distant future, I might be able to have portals into the different worlds of different books or book series I would have published by then. My presence there would be very limited and I might be presented as just another character, albeit a real one. The website’s backgrounds and the portals to the books and the book covers would all be works of art. I want to immerse the visitor into worlds, not just say, “Here’s my book. Buy it.” We shall see.

Onward!

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So, I thought it is best if I at least give a brief update on my current work-in-progress, especially since I still have it listed as “Coming September 2021” in my other website, cerohsner.com, which has been very sadly neglected as I still figure out how to present my work online and stuff.

Anyways, even though I do not blog as often as I used to, that doesn’t mean I am not working as hard on my book as ever. Yes, I’m still working on Portal to Japan after finishing the first draft on June 1, 2020, and it is almost 2 years since the idea for it came to me in October 2019. I have now discovered better who the ultimate protagonist is, as opposed to just knowing the ultimate villain. I know how the time dial that sets the time travel machine’s arrival and return times works. I know the two specific points where my book is notably weak. I made a huge dynamic shift in understanding what my book is about, and I’m currently working out the puzzles that my characters have to solve, knowing what the end goals are.

I also discovered recently that this story is very Professor Layton-esque; in fact, the Professor Layton game walkthroughs hosted by Arglefumph on YouTube are what inspired the very existence of puzzles in the book. Not to give too much away, but I realized recently that my WIP is basically “Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy” but scrambled, less sad, and hopefully more cohesive. I doubt that puzzles are very definitive of classic literature (or are they?), and yet they are there.

It is very clear and very disappointing to me that I fail in delivering Portal to Japan by September 2021. It ain’t coming. Not so soon, anyway. But this project continues to give me joy.

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It has not been an easy last few weeks, to be honest. Personally and corporately, tough times can come and go. I was given an encouraging and timely word yesterday from one of the YouTubers I watch, who said something to the effect of “You’re still here; God has a purpose for you; don’t give up.” “For God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7.) Just let that sink in.

As one can see through my blog posts, I am a Christian, which means that I confess that Jesus is Lord, and He is my Lord and Savior. There is no one and nothing else that can save me from my sin and make me clean in God’s presence. It is a truth I have been growing in for years.

I am aware that should the current climate persist, I will not be allowed to write books from my worldview in the future. I will not have the freedom of speech or religion, because I will have to only say what is allowed to be said and believed. I am aware that the current power that is attempting to increase its reign over the United States and the world hates Christians and aims to get rid of them, frankly. Many people may think this is a ludicrous statement, but many also know this to be true.

Even so, I have absolute confidence that we will see a better future to come, a future where I and others will be able to be free. This doesn’t just apply to Christians, but to everyone. Do you know what I mean? How do I know that the future looks so bright? It is a matter of faith and discernment. I know that God has sent encouraging voices to me to show me that there is a hope and a future, and should we perish, heaven is not a place where I would want to leave. But there is work to do and things to be done. Lord’s will be done.

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