Monday, October 7, 2013

What Would You Do...

I thought I'd cross-posted this, but as I'm as smart as a pickled onion, I didn't.

I was sitting with a friend of mine and we were laughing about stupid stuff that’s happened to us. This got me thinking, which always scares the one cell in my head masquerading as a brain. I bring you Hayson’s Dilemmas. Basically, a ‘What would you do?’

Dilemma.

You’ve just worked a crap night-shift at a bank. It’s midnight and you’re at Central Station, reading a book waiting for your train. You don’t notice the homeless, drunk man wandering your way with his peen flapping in the breeze, until your shoes fill with warmth.  

Horror hits your cheeks as you realize what’s happened. People shuffle away from you, because you’re the chic sitting frozen in place whose shoes are filled with pee. To add to the dilemma you’re wearing stockings. Worse dilemma is you freaking love these shoes. These shoes are like slippers. The shoes you’ve gone the yards with, broken through the blisters, limped your way to a glide. Your feet rejoice when they slip into them.


Do you?

A. Pretend walking around with pee in your shoes is an everyday occurrence and act like it never happened?

B. Lose the shoes and stockings in a bathroom at Central Station which is frequented by people loitering by doors with crazed eyes begging for a dollar. Do you risk hypothermia and people staring in horror at your winter Hobbit feet?

C. Step onto the train, hoping you don’t slosh pee over the floor, abandon your foot-friends at the station near your house, say a few kind words before running home?

That my friends is what I was faced with. I should preface this that a tiny sob escaped me before I made my decision.

Be honest, tell me what you’d do? Would you choose A, B or C from above or would you do something else.



Monday, September 9, 2013

Release Day for Winning the Boss's Heart


Much excitment and 80's style Hammer dancing sans legwarmers and funky parachute pants, here at chez Manning, as my second Entangled Indulgence released today.

If you have a minute and feel the need to be bored to death I'd love if you could stop by: Oh, there's giveaways!






September 11:  Long and Short Reviews Long and Short Reviews
September 14: Just Contemporary Romance
September 18: Farm Girl Books Farm Girl Books
September 25:Regina May Ross's Books Regina May Ross's Books
September 25: It's Raining Books It's Raining Books
October 2: Reading In Twilight Reading in Twilight
October 9: Simply Ali Simply Ali
October 16: Lisa Haselton's Reviews and Interviews Lisa Hasselton's Reviews and Interviews
October 23: Ramblings From This Chick Ramblings from this Chick
October 23: As the Pages Turn As the Pages Turn
October 30: Harlie's Books Harlie's Books

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Words I cannot and will not use in a manuscript.


Before you read on, I’d like to mention that there is some crudity ahead. Please stop here if you find genital slang offensive.

I’m loving my mandatory reading period every day, because it makes me a better writer (hopefully) and, well, I just love to read. I came across a sentence that just made me shudder and whisper ‘No,’ loudly to the room. This got me thinking of phrases or words I can’t type.

I'm sure there’s a few here that have come up in lists before. But here’s my starter for ten.

Yeast
Or any forms of the word. I read a description of a man thinking a woman smelled all yeasty. Yeasty! My first thought was ‘Oh, dear lord the poor thing. She’s probably itching up a storm right now.’ If hub’s whispered that I smelt ‘yeasty’ I’d be down at the CVS in the feminine hygiene aisle, buying gallons of flower scented fluid. I’m sure the writer probably thought crusty just baked bread, but that wasn't my first impression, so yeast and all its forms. Goneski.

Anus
A perfectly normal part of the anatomy, but I can’t think of a way to make that sound remotely sexy. I have to say in one of my many typos, I sent out a family email mentioning that I’d taken hubs and the kids to Anus Steak House and we'd had a ball.  Go the missing G. Yes, I'm still living that down.

Panties
I know, I know. Love it, hate it. It’s one of those words and I read it a lot, I just can’t use. I never think to myself ‘I have to go pantie shopping,’ or ‘those panties would look awesome on my ninety year old nan. Good Lord! No. For me, no, no, no. I have a perfectly good selection of underwear.

Come for me
Uttered by a man in the throes. If I was told to come for him on demand, I couldn’t. Then I’d get anxious and we’d still be there fifteen hours later, which in our advanced years is never a good thing. Every time a man whispers this, whoop, off she goes and collapses around him a second later. I've never read where a woman whispers that to her man. I wonder why?

Canal
I once read ‘he placed himself in my canal.’ My what? My canal like I’m the Suez? That’s about as romantic as taking me to where Dexter buries his bodies and asking me if I’d like to do a spot of snorkelling. He placed himself  for me is actually just as hideous. Does the writer mean all of him or is the himself another word for the good old bloke. Speaking of the good old bloke. The following will never make an appearance in any of my books. There will be no Giggle-Sticks, Tallywhacker's, Mr. Winky’s, Big Dick and the Twins, Russell the Love Muscle, Bobby Dangler and Purple-headed Womb Broom will never see the light of day.

 While I’m on a roll, Lady Garden will never be typed nor will Squeeze Box, anything related to a tunnel,  canal or cave. Cha-Cha, Bat Cave (how I ask does bat get a look in?) Bald Man in a Boat (really…), Mossy Cleft, Ba-chonka, Poontang or Quim.

Are there any words or phrases that make you cringe?
Mmmmm.Yeasty



Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Would you rather stare down self-defeat or clean the oven?

An incredibly clean oven at Chez Manning

Do you have days when you realize you've achieved nothing. Zip. My ‘to do’ list sits forlornly on the counter top with not one thing crossed off. This is me. Pretty much every day. I look at my list and there’s thirty-three things on it. Why? Even if I could whip up a cloning machine and have seven useless copies of me running around, I couldn't cross off thirty-three things unless all of them said, ‘cross this off.’ One of the things I didn’t achieve today is ‘get cat food.’ Any minute now my ears are going to be assaulted by the wails of a cat who is going to go into cardiac arrest unless I feed him right now.

I've decided to go a bit Freud on myself. Stand back, it could get uglier than me trying to eat  peas (those things are evil and were put on this planet to taunt me). I called up my version of Sigmund and Sigmunded myself (that’s an awesome name, is Sigmund,) and talked to myself for ten seconds before I got bored. I came to the crashing conclusion that I’m a self-defeatist. I can defeat myself into anything. I could put it down to coming from a family where you only called attention to yourself if you were on fire, had a bone sticking out – and it had to be a femur, or a strange man wearing a trench-coat was chasing me offering up sweets if I’d help him look for his lost puppy. But I can’t blame my upbringing. Sigmund said non in a cool French accent. No, the sad truth is I always think I’ll fall flat on my face or will look ridiculous or will fail so I don’t try. Okay, so the session with Siggie went on for a bit longer and we're now besties, hence the name Siggie. So, instead of making myself write ten pages of my current WIP, I tell myself it will be so woeful and bad that I’ll come to the crashing conclusion that I’m a terrible writer and I should have abandoned this years ago and taken up composting. Take my blog. I literally stare at my computer every Monday, determined to write something awesome only to run from the room to clean the self-cleaning oven.

So.

I've decided I need to beat down the demons in my brain and get out there and make myself do things. Like this blog. I’m going to post regularly and I will most likely bore my three followers including Uncle Lennie (Hey Len! How’s the pumpkin growing going?) but I am going to post regularly and I am going to make myself write every single day. I have to because Siggie said it’s the only way to defeat the demons.

Do you have any tips for a serial self-defeatist to break the cycle? I’d appreciate any before I go and clean the oven. Again.


 Philbert the cat who does not take politely to being denied food. 

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

$50.00 iTunes giftcard up for grabs peeps!

Check it out.

To celebrate my baby, Wife in Name Only I'm offering up a $50.00 iTunes gift card. Come and check it out. 

http://www.entangledinromance.com/2013/04/24/wife-in-name-only-gift-card-giveaway/

Thank you all for entering! We have a winner and she's now trucking some ABBA. Yay

What's your happy music?

Hayson




Monday, April 8, 2013


Habits

I sit here staring at the empty bowl of goldfish crackers (for those not familiar with the tasty morsels they are tiny crackers that come in awesome flavors such as Xplosive Pizza and Nothing Nacho.) They are not supposed to be shoveled into my mouth but the mouths of my children, Sloth 1 and Sloth 2. This got me thinking about what habits I should be changing.

What I eat
Clearly chowing down on crackers in the middle of the afternoon is not good when there’s a perfectly good looking apple with my name on it. If I root around the fridge behind some science experiments that are currently working their way to explosive stage, there should be a stick of wilted celery calling my name. These are all far better alternatives to really tasty crackers.

Exercising
I promised myself when I set up the shiny, new elliptical that I would use it every day. I battled through the cobwebs on it yesterday and I swear I actually heard it tell me to get off. I wish I was one of those people who got runners high or skipping rope splendor, but I'm not. I'd rather eat my own cooking, and that’s saying something.

Doing something I love every day
I love to read and I used to read all the time, but then I felt guilty about taking the time to do something that wasn’t child, house, husband related. As I get older and crankier, I've decided I'm taking Hayson time to read, every single day. For forty precious minutes I don't care about Sloth Two’s lost shoe that somehow I've lost. I do not hear the groans about ‘not that again for dinner,’ and I ignore the cat who if he doesn't get fed this very second will expire on the spot.

I’m keeping the list to three at present, there’s another forty thousand things I need to work on. But it’s a start.

Do you have any habits you want to break or ones you want to make? I'd love to hear from you.



Monday, April 1, 2013

Release Day

After the longest book pregnancy in the book world,  I'm happy to say that Wife in Name Only or WINO as he is affectionately called is finally here.  Much nerves and excitement at Camp Manning.

Wino's journey (I love that acronym by the way. How could I not love a book called WINO?) has been  filled with tears, heartache, laughter and more angst than both of my children put together.

I have an amazing team that I couldn't do this without. I love all my besties with a fierce mother love.

My mother isn't here to see this day but I know any success I may have she would have contributed directly to her. This one's for you mom.

Happy Birthday WINO.


Monday, February 4, 2013

Firsts


Ah, the world of firsts.

First blog post.

First book.

First time saying I’m an author.

But I digress. Firsts. We all had them and hopefully will have tons more before we, you know, check out.

First kiss? Mark. I was six and he had no say in the matter. I cornered him in the room where we left our school bags. I can still smell his fear, stale sandwiches and squashed bananas.

First date? Easy. Fenton. Ah, Fenton. I have no idea what movie we saw but we were thirteen and we kissed for forty-seven minutes straight without coming up for air.

First breakup? Oh, those teenage breakups. I honestly thought I’d die. My internal organs would fail and I’d be nothing more than dark matter roaming the universe. I also begged my parents to let me go and live in Djibouti and practice my four words of French. They being parents said no.

First time falling in love? That marrow sapping feeling of hanging up the phone and not speaking to him until, like, Oh My God, tomorrow. When your heart literally beats out a lonely tattoo on your chest wall thinking about your wedding day.  

First Hate? Crickets. And not the Jiminy kind. I got swarmed by a black plague of them when I was little. They were stuck in my hair. I swore I inhaled one. Their little hooked legs on my scalp. If I think about this too long I’ll need to go and lie down in a dark room, so I’ll stop.

What firsts do you have?  

I’m so happy to say I’m a love addicted author who hangs out with sloths (more on them later) who has managed to write her first blog post. I’m thrilled my first book Wife in Name Only is my first.

Thank you to all you lovely people for being my first blog and website visitors.