Summer blovel is about to begin!

Thanks to everyone who voted on what I should write for my Summer Blovel. It's the 1930's moody gothic suspense, and I've just started writing it. I'm going to post a few pages starting today. You may decide to hold off reading for a bit until there's more, or maybe you want to try it bit by bit. I'm not sure where the piece is going, but I have a couple of guesses. Try to give me a few posts to get it going.

I'll ask for more input later on. You can help me title it, name characters, decide what happens next. Like I said, it'll be like Choose Your Own Adventure...only the adult version.

And, yeah, there's a good chance it'll suck. But I'm going to give it a decent try, and already the characters are starting to form. This week, you'll find the Prologue and then meet Dr. Kinney, a new doctor at the Norethern Michigan Insane Asylum (its original name before becoming the Traverse City State Mental Hospital). Hope you like what's coming. I hope I do too.

Best,

Tanya

Top 10 Fun Things I Can Do With This Cast

Top Ten* Fun Things I Can Do With This Cast

1)   Fearlessly stomp on spiders should they be stupid enough to approach me.

2)   Imitate Frankenstein more convincingly.

3)   String leg with lights, stand in front of window and wait for neighborhood to admire my shapeliness.

4)   Practice being in zen-like position called “Flamingo” .

5)   After drinking a gin and tonic or two,  extend leg into air and convince people to “Limbo!!!”

6)   Cover cast in hair-like fabric, wear a skirt and go to bar and try to pick up guys. I’ll tell them I’m from Canada.

7)   Use cast to set drinks, glasses and books on if I can’t reach an end table.

8)   Paint face on toes, hide behind couch, lift leg and entertain kiddos with cheap improvised puppet show.

9)   Cover leg with enormous stocking and then let Santa fill stocking with PRESENTS!

10)  Invite friends and family to my house for holiday festivities and make sure they don’t confuse my leg with the piñata.

*If I had a boyfriend, I might be able to think of a couple of other fun things to do.

20 Beautiful Things

This is the free write assignment for my class yesterday. I've been feeling grumpy and very blue lately, so I needed to remind myself that there are a lot of beautiful things in life, even when things maybe aren't going the way you hoped. Here are my20 Beautiful Things

1) When I come home from teaching and my kids are waiting for me, jumping up and down, pleased just to see me.

2) The sound of rain on the roof.

3) A first kiss.

4) All the kisses that follow.

5) That golden kind of light filtering through orange or red leaves.

6) when the moon is out at the same time as the sun, making me feel (even if only briefly) that I am on a new planet.

7) laughter. Real laughter. From the belly laughter.

8) People are beautiful. All people. Their faces, hair, bodies. If you stop and look, really look, you can see it.

9) My friends are beautiful. The way they talk to me, listen to me, shake their heads at the ridiculous things that happen.

10) A chocolate volcano cake, warm from the oven, topped with slowly melting vanilla ice cream.

11) Lake Michigan in a storm. Lake Michigan sleeping. Lake Michigan in winter, waves frozen mid-turn.

12) A tiny Indian restaurant in NYC, with ceilings and walls covered with teardrop lights.

13) Sitting in a bar listening to live music, any live music, but mostly jazz.

14) Someone rubbing their hands through my hair. This will make me love you a little bit.

15) Going out with someone for the first time, not knowing if anything will happen, just seeing endless potential before you.

16) Saying good morning.

17) Quiet mornings, awake before everyone else, drinking coffee and listening to the house.

18) Holding my kids’ hands when we walk to school.

19) The words ‘bubble’ and ‘love’ and ‘poppy’ and ‘hyperbole’.

20) When someone says “I love you” and you know, without question, that they do.

Dog Story Theater Monday Sept 21 8PM

Local writers Keeley Geary and Tanya Eby present a double feature for your listening (and watching) pleasure. Enjoy two good-old-fashioned radio dramas with thoroughly modern wit. Radio plays in production: Rex Alter: Space Explorer and Ladies' Man, Pierced Hearts: Love Stories of the Medical Community, Boy Models: I want My Dream, and Hot Summer Cool Breeze: a takeoff on 1950's melodrama in technicolor. Watch as a cast reads the radio dramas for you complete with someone doing the sound effects. At the end of the performance, you can also give suggestions for shows you want to hear in the future.

This Monday's Details:

I know, I know, I keep going on and on about my radio plays....but they are so much fun! And with a writing partner like Keeley Geary for the medical comedy-drama "Pierced Hearts", how could it be bad? Oh, it's bad, but in a good way. There's Dr. Pierce, as arrogant as he is masculine: which means a lot. There's Mrs. Hathaway who knows every secret. A random old woman in the cafeteria with a soft soul. And plain Nurse Darla who burns with a mild case of love for Dr. Pierce. Trixie, the buxom candystriper, with dreams of Hollywood. Mr. Corn, who serves up wisdom along with salisbury steak. And poor little Timmy. What can we say about little Timmy? He gives everything to the medical community of St. Mary Paul John Ignatius Bartholomew Medical Center. And we mean EVERYTHING.

On Monday night, September 21, 8-9 PM, Dog Story Theater...you will hear their story.

AND THEN

(Because it's a double feature)

The Amazing Rex Alter and Cast of Thousands (er...6 or 7) returns in

Episode 2: Drippy and The Great Escape.

It's fun. It's cheap. It's real, home-cooked writing with rockstar actors.

Come and join in. You can even help out with the sound effects.

Cheers, Tanya

STARRING: Joe Anderson, Tanya Eby, Keeley Geary, Justin Kilduf, Todd Lewis, Ralph Lister, Janelle Mahlmann, Amy McFadden, Laural Merlington, Noddea Moore, Greg Rogers, and Calin Skidmore.

You can now order Easy Does It

"Easy Does It" is now available to purchase.

I'll post a few more chapters here, but if you've read Blunder Woman, if you like my work, one way to help out is to purchase the book. Just check me out on Amazon by searching for "Tanya Eby".

And if you can't do that (money is money after all) then tell a friend about my work. Send them to my website, or have them buy YOU the book. 

At any rate, thanks for your comments and support. Look for new projects coming soon as I get back into the swing of things and return to my writing life.

As ever...

Cheers,

Tanya 

I Still Want Your Real Blunder Woman Story

I Want Your Real Blunder Woman Story 

 

 My friend Dionne posted a hilarious update that went like this:

From Dionne Thornton, New York City:

I was almost a victim of a Nigerian dating scam! My life simply kicks ass! I mean really, who, but me???. This "great guy" had to fly to London for a business trip, but BA lost his luggage and now he's stranded. His "friend" is trying to send him money, but needs my credit card to do it. Of course his cc was in his luggage... Ugh...I'm I supposed to be that gullible???

She said it her story should be another chapter in Blunder Woman. 

It occurred to me that we all have Blunder Woman (Or Blunder Man) moments in dating. We do stupid things, we love the wrong people, we wear ridiculous get ups, we cook fresh crab rangoons while wearing an apron at a keg party because it said to bring a dish to pass even though everyone else just brought chips and salsa.

Er, that last one is mine. 

Here's another true story: I really did wait outside a Brooklyn apartment for three hours in the rain because the guy I was dating said "I'll be there in just a minute" and I didn't want to hurt his feelings by leaving when he'd called to say he was running late. 

Sad, but also a wee bit funny.

So send me your Blunder Moment with your name as you want it to appear and I'll post it on the site. After all, sharing is a bit of therapy, really. Here's a cheap way to do it. And who knows? Maybe I'll write a sequel to Blunder Woman using your story for inspiration. 

Tanya

  

Send Blunder Woman stories to:

heyblunderwoman@gmail.com .

It can be long or short. 

A Thank You to Blunder Woman Readers

Blunder Woman Readers, 

You've stuck with Chloe through a horrible Kentucky Derby party, her attempt at running a half-marathon, girl fights, a fundraiser under the stars, and numerous digressions. And I can't thank you enough. A special thanks to all the people who sent me comments, encouraging me to go on. Here are their names, in no particular order. If they give me permission, I'll write their full names:

Molly Kelly, Denise, Beth, Katy, Renee, Kelly, Diana, Tessa, Bronwyn, Rodger, Brynn, Connie (My Aunt), Pat, Sheila, Missy, Sharon, Jason, Curlista, Randy, Lili, Vicki, Caitlin Eby (my friend and niece), Joe, Anne Bancroft (My mom), Tracey, Brendan. And to Cory Young...the best Turtle Racer on the Planet. 

And to TM Camp who created the site and without whom, I'd never have been able to post anything.

Blunder Woman might be done, but there are other things in the works, including publication of "Easy Does It" my first book. But that's another story. Literally.

Thanks for reading,

Tanya

Notes on Blunder Woman So Far

It's Friday and I've finished another week of daily posts to Blunder Woman. I'm pleased to hear that a few of you are sticking with Chloe, waiting to find out what will happen next. 

If you've read this far (through 44) then you are at the end of Part Two. On Monday, I'll begin Part Three, the final leg of Chloe's journey. I'm a little ahead of the posts in terms of writing but I know a couple of things: Chloe isn't finished yet with Matt, and she's about to take on a big challenge which ends in a night of motorcyclists, high wire walking, and a very strange public display.  She's also going to meet a couple of new 'friends'. We'll see what you think.

Thank you for reading, and for your encouragement. Whether you realize it or not, just having a group of readers has helped me so much. I'm going to finish this book and then begin the long quest for an agent. Or maybe I'll just publish this and my first book "Easy Does It" on my own.

Thoughts or suggestions? Always happy to hear from you. Let me know what you think. (And if you don't want your comments posted on the website, let me know that too. I can keep a secret.)

See you Monday with the beginning of Part Three and Chloe's final (mis)adventure.

-Tanya-

PS Like what you're reading? Please tell a friend. I don't make money on this, but I am trying to build a readership for this book & whatever comes next.

A Recipe for Flaming Turtles

If you're reading Blunder Woman, you may have wondered, wow, what exactly is Hippie Hash? Or what's arecipe for a Flaming Turtle?

The answer? No one knows. They're both products of Tanya's twisted Fantasy World. But that doesn't mean they can't become reality. 

To make her fantasy a reality, Tanya contacted her friend EZ (aka RBJ aka Russell Belvadere Johosafat Parsimion III) to see if he could actually create a real, live flaming turtle...that is a drink and not an actual reptile set aflame. Here is his delicious response:

"My thought on a 'turtle' is that it is a slow drink. Something warm on a winter's night. I sugar the rim of a brandy snifter (cinnamon and sugar works better) and then add a half shot of Contriuea. Contreau? Cointrieau? The French orange liquor. Contreau is flamable where Grand Marnier is not....

Light the liquor, swirl the flame over the sugar cinnamon until it carmelizes on the rim... then you can add Godiva for the chocolate....

As for mixers.... Hot chocolate, coffee, or half and half ought to work nicely. The coffee version with whipped cream is actually one of my specialties.

I don't know if you can float Cointrteaiu or not, thus allowing you to serve it "flaming"... But flaming the rim works about as well...

Or you can float brandy and flame it as you present.

The hint of orange with the chocolate would be sensational."