Hayson Manning's Blog, page 7

Words I Can't and Won't use in a Manuscript.Before y...

Words I Can't and Won't 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.
YeastOr 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.
AnusA 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.
PantiesI 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 meUttered 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

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

An incredibly clean oven at Chez ManningDo 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. 

$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. 
What's your happy music?
Hayson

HabitsI sit here staring at the empty bowl of goldfish cr...

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 eatClearly 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.
ExercisingI 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 dayI 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 thatagain 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.

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.

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.  

Coming soon

Stay tuned!