Megan Hart

This morning, just before I woke, I dreamed that I was in a small grocery store, looking in the freezer case. I found a package of hot dogs called BROKEN FINGERS. It had a picture of my book on the front. I was very excited and posed with the small weiners. HAHA! Okay, that was better than the dream I had a few nights ago about gay Spanish dancers on a TV show whose outfits exposed them rather inappropriately! Or the one in which someoned to tried to stab me in the heart (he only bruised me — don’t think I can’t read the exact interpretation of THAT dream)!

I haven’t started writing BLACKBIRD just yet, but I intend to, soon. I don’t intend to rush it, though. I planned to “relax” this summer and dangit, I’m gonna. Though relaxing seems to mean running around like a crazy person.

I was going to write a whole entry about how writing erotica is not a reason to behave without class or taste in public, but hey, you know what? What I consider classy and tasteful might be someone else’s wild and outrageous, so I guess what I consider tacky and distasteful could be someone else’s classy and tasteful.

And I just wrote a whole ‘nother bunch of stuff about it, but meh…I have other things I have to do right now.

Just because you write erotica doesn’t mean the world needs to know every detail of your sex private life, that’s all I’m saying. And the internet IS the world.

M

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Thirteen Ways to Drive Megan BATCHIT CRAZY 1. Say my name over and over, not necessarily with anything following it. Also say my name in front of every statement. Or just say my name randomly, until I scream “WHAAAAAAT DO YOU WANT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY WHAAATTTTT!!!!” 2. Ask me the same question more than once. Oh, you can try to change the wording slightly to try and trip me up, but if it’s the same question, I’m still going to know. Ask me that question more than four times and I will probably refuse to answer it again. 3. Be unable to find something. “I can’t find it!” If I walk to where said item is lurking and either lift something up or move something to the side and find it immediately, I get to smack you. If I have to look a teeensy bit harder, say, oh, in a couple of places, but (here’s the trick) I KEEP LOOKING UNTIL I FIND IT — I get to smack you. The next time you ask me to find it, you’re on your own. 4. Make me ask you to do something more than once. Or maybe twice. Just because you ask me the same question over and over doesn’t mean I like to repeat myself. If I ask you to either do something or NOT do something, you’ve got two times to make it happen (or stop doing it) before I get testy. After that, the more times I have to ask you to finish the task or to stop doing whatever it is that’s making me nuts, the more ticked off I’m likely to become. It ain’t pretty. 5. Give me no space. Physically, emotionally, whatever. Cling to me like a limpet and I’m going to scrape you off. Hugs are fine from a select few and have a time limit. Don’t hang on me. Give me room to breathe or I get cranky. And I don’t mean just physically, as in personal space, I mean all around. 6. Talk to me when clearly, I am writing. I won’t pay attention to you anyway, so just wait. 7. Ask me to do something for you when clearly I am in the midst of doing something else. I am only one person. I have only two hands. I am a champion multitasker but I have limits. 8. Expect me to serve you. Umm…no. Seriously? No. 9. Try to manipulate me by being passive aggressive AND think I won’t notice. Yeah. I’m smarter than that. Ask me straight out what you want to know or what you want me to do: it’s not a guarantee you’ll get it but at least I won’t be twice as determined not to do what you want. 10. Touch my face. Just don’t do it. 11. Eat off my plate or (even worse) drink from my beverage. Unless I offer (which I probably won’t!) 12. Expose your intolerance through crude jokes or statements and expect me to go along with you. 13. Walk very slowly in front me while I’m trying to get somewhere. Stop frequently. Man, I feel cranky today! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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Yes. I am tinkering with my blog.

And in other news, I have the first line of BLACKBIRD.

Bridie Dawson ran down the hill.

Trust me. It gets better.

M

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Dirty (with the nifty other cover) has two reviews in German!

Wish I knew exactly what they said…

:)

M

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So I finished up and sent off my final contracted thing today. Gilt and Midnight is a Spice Brief and *bites nails* I hope my editor likes it because it has…some things…in it…that I never wrote before…

EEP!

Anyway *I* liked it very muchly. ;)

So what next? What next? Tonight is the last baseball game for the summer and that will be good. Probably will have ice cream later but OMG I’ve gone back on my diet and well, it will be hard to deny myself that treat. Remind me that I don’t like the bulge in my bathing suit.

I have some magazines and stuff to read and a bunch of books. Finished all my library books so have to go back for more. Of course I have a really really high TBR pile anyway but I need something that’s not erotic/romance etc. to keep me from overdosing.

I like to read SF/F and horror most of all. I finished Ender’s Game, a classic I enjoyed but I liked Lost Boys better. I also read Dirty Job and thought it was fantastic. And I read the last two Sookie Stackhouse books bam bam, right in a row, realized I missed two in there somehow but managed to figure out what was going on.

I’ve got Raven Hart’s book right now that I got at RT and it’s very good so far but I’m worn out from vampires, really, so I’m going to take my time with that one, I think. It’s very well written but I’m just tired of fangs.

So anyway, I’m going to eat and get ready for baseball and think about what I want to write next!

M

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All righty. Well, we spent most of the week at Cedar Point and it was a lot of fun. It’s about a six hour drive from my house (supposedly!) but it really took closer to eight, what with the stops and all. That was okay. The kids were all set up with their DVD players and there was no vomiting (thank god!) and I worked on my Alfie.

You see how tired I look? It’s because we got up at the butt crack of dawn to get on the road.

We drove. And drove. And drove. Then we got there, hurray! We checked into our hotel, at the Sandcastle Suites. And shall I say we were pretty much underwhelmed? I mean, for the price and all I’d have expected something a teensy bit nicer, but whatever. It was fine. It wasn’t the Ritz (as we are fond of saying around my house. Not that we’ve ever stayed there, you understand. We just like saying it.) but we are simple people with simple needs.

We had some twilight passes and since we got there before five pm (courtesy of the getting up at the buttcrack of dawn) we decided to go!

And I got to ride my second favorite ride!!

DISASTER TRANSPORT!!!!

You can see how excited I am!

We rode some other rides, too, including my OMGALLTIMEFAVORITE ride, PADDLEWHEEL EXCURSIONS!!!!!!!!

See? See my glee?

A bit of history, here. I loved that ride not for its corny jokes or tranquil path through murky green waters while watching somewhat creepy animated figures. Oh, no.

It was the Captains.

Ahhhh…in the good old days the captains wore actual Riverboat Captain outfits. (and they were…guh!)

So…wait for it. Wait for it, I said!

THEY DO NOT DRESS LIKE CAPTAINS!!!! They wear…polo shirts and…shorts…

*DIES*

Oh, Captain Alex, why didn’t you warn me? Did you know of this travesty? Did you? DID YOU!??

*weeps and gnashes teeth*

On the upside, we had a girl captain. *rock fingers* I would’ve been a great Paddlewheel Captain. That maroon vest would’ve looked hot on me, too, way back when.

But I digress.

Yeah, I was super sad but I guess this way my previous Paddlewheel experience remains untainted.

Eventually we went back to the room. It was about midnight. Everyone was tired. And the leak began. Torrents of water pouring from the light fixture in the bathroom, obviously coming from the shower in the room above.

There was a bit of a kerfluffle about it with maintenance but it was midnight. We were tired. We put towels beneath it and went to sleep. The next day they gave us a new, “remodeled” room and all I can say is this:

This was our old room:

and this was the new:

Yeah.

I won’t get into it but we won’t be going back to that hotel…for the price the service was pretty bad and really, I’d rather save some cash if we have to stay in a room that’s worn and torn.

Tuesday the weather was bad so we went to the movies and to the Sandusky Mall, which looked a lot different than I remember it, but we checked out the bookstore…

Wheee!

The upside to staying onsite is you get in an hour early to ride a certain few rides — which was great. On Wednesday We got to ride The Maverick which WAS FREAKING AWESOME! and The Skyhawk which holy crap…watch the videos on the site. Oh, man. My necklace was flying up off my neck and just hovering. I was really scared, not just thrilled.

We rode it three times. :)

We went on most of the rides, missing only a few. The lines weren’t bad and the weather was really great. On Thursday we went to the beach and the pool in between thunderstorms and Friday we hung out at Soak City all day long. Good times were had by all.

Look at the beautiful sky:

Oh, I have other pictures but they’re of me in a bathing suit and you know, not for public consumption.

The other negative thing about the trip was the food experiences…every single on-site restaurant we ate in was terrible. Food was expensive, service was absolutely TERRIBLE!!! We waited 45 minutes for our food at TGI Friday’s and then another ten minutes for the meat for our fajitas. And we’re pretty mild mannered people, so when we get all up in arms about waiting and complain about not getting our butts kissed enough, it’s pretty bad. We at at Famous Dave’s barbecue one night…bad! BAD BAD! Had a cute emo boy waiter who was very apologetic, but “sorry ’bout that” doesn’t make my chili hotter or the beer colder when it’s been sitting on the bar instead of in front of us. It was all around awful every place we went. Slow, slow, slow service and overworked staff.

Famous Dave’s where I had wings (not that great, either!) and a salad and cold chili. I could’ve sent it back but whatever, by that time we were starving.

NACHOS in the park!

We had one great food experience, OFF SITE!!! At the East of Chicago pizza buffet.

The Wrath of the Gorgon…snakes will soon to fly out of my head…

All in all? The parks both rocked, the hotel wasn’t worth the price and the food was bad, but we had a great time. I was ready to come home, though. As always. I love my family but sharing a room with three other people for a week –and a bathroom!!! — wears me down. I was ready to come home and sleep in my own bed, pee in my own toilet and eat some food that didn’t cost too much and taste too bad.

Came home to find out my final edits for Tempted had been delivered whilst we were gone. The neighbor picked up the package and I got it last night. Started on those. Finished Gilt and Midnight on the trip, have to polish it up and submit that. It’s going to be a busy week.

And, today is the day that twelve glorious years ago I bound my life to that man I live with.

Now, I really don’t like most of the professional pictures we had taken (if I were to do it again I’d hire Scott Church) but this is one I like and have hanging on my wall.

And in a strange twist of fate, I’m actually wearing those boxers today.

So there it is, my vacation story and a picture of me in my pajamas. Does life get any better than that?

M

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Woo hoo! We are going here and it will be much fun, I am sure. I worked at the Point the summers of 1991 and 1992, oh good times. Good times! I haven’t been back since ‘93 so I’m looking forward to it. Should be fun.

I *am* taking along a project to work on because, of course, I fooled around too much on the internet and didn’t to it, but that’s okay. I have a car ride to fill and yeah, that man I live with likes to “talk” to me (god knows why, I’m a very dull conversationalist) but he’ll have to deal. Child number two tends to vomit on long car trips which really isn’t much fun, because guess who gets to deal with it? Yeah. Me. But I’ll endeavor to work around this and finish up my second Brief before I get home. It’s almost finished, so, no worries.

I intend to have a very good time and read a lot by the pool and enjoy not working (when I’m not working) and to not stress (well, I am going to try. I am going with that man I live with and those children who live here, too…the combined forces of their need can be overpowering at times, but I shall gently and repeatedly remind them I AM ON VACATION TOO) and all in all, we’ll have a good time.

So, catch you all next week some time! Try not to get up to anything naughty while I’m gone.

M

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No doubt about it. I hate the phone. I don’t like talking on the phone and I suffer from severe phone anxiety. I don’t like to answer the phone, I definitely do NOT like to actually dial the phone, and will go to great lengths to avoid it. I don’t even like ordering pizza!!!

I do, however, ADORE e-mail and instant messaging is my darling. Love, love, love. I email whenever I can. I instant message my friends and talk to them more often than I would if we waited to call each other — I talk to my sister almost every day and we’d never do that if we just talked on the phone.

So I love email. Really. And I’m going to own a bit of an addiction — I not only like to sort of just email randomly to say “hello” once in awhile to people (sometimes I have a reason beyond that but not always) but I like to actually, you know…”talk” to the person. I like to email people and say “how’s it going?” I like to email them and say “Hey, I really liked your latest blog entry” or “congratulations on your new book deal” or “it’s been a long time since we talked, what’s up?” or “check it out, I’m number one at iTunes” or “hey, I need to know something about x and you happen to be an expert, can you share?” or “you know, I really enjoyed meeting you and I think you’re pretty cool.”

Just before I switched from wordpress.com to this blog here, (same content, I just transferred it all here) I had a few people comment to me — strangers, who’d read my books and took the time to comment. I always commented back but I didn’t know if they were checking back. My old blog didn’t allow you to subscribe to comments. Well, I also finally figured out that I could email them directly, and I did, to one, to say thanks for writing.

So, thanks, Kendra, for emailing me back! *waves*

Anyway, bottom line is this: I hate the phone but I love my computer with a passion that is pure and incandescent, and I love meeting people and keeping in touch with old ones, and I’m going to do it as long as I can.

See, I do understand that really famous people can’t keep up with all their fan mail. I understand that at some point it gets to be out of line to answer every email personally (esp. since email is sooooooo easy to just hit “send”) but I’m not there yet. And if someone takes the time to write to me, I’m pretty good about answering unless I’m not actually AT my computer. Yeah, that happens sometimes. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true.

And I have emailed people who don’t reply, so I know that it’s not fun. :( But I guess I’ll keep doing it, because the worst that can happen is that I send off a message that’s sincere and feel like a total ass when it’s not answered (because I’m a big dork like that) or I send off a message that’s complimentary and feel snubbed when it’s ignored. I’m human, you know. Even understanding the whole world isn’t as much in love with email as I am, I’m still a fragile, emo flower.

Ok. I’m not.

Haha! But if you email me, I will do my bestest to email you back.

M

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Thirteen Things about my current favorite lines from songs 1. A thousand miles seems pretty far, but they’ve got planes and trains and cars…I’d walk to you if I had no other way. ~ Hey There, Delilah The Plain White T’s 2. You have stolen my heart. ~ Stolen Dashboard Confessional 3. When you run into my arms, we steal a perfect moment. ~ Life is Beautiful Vega4 4. Our lives remain in these small hours, these small hours, these twists and turns of fate. ~ Little Wonders Rob Thomas 5. Oh, you touch my tra la la. ~ The Ding Dong Song Gunter 6. Here by my side, you are destruction. ~ Weapon Matthew Good 7. There’s really no way to reach me, I’m already gone. ~ Vienna The Fray 8. He tastes like you, but sweeter. ~ Thnks Fr Th Mmrs Fall Out Boy 9. I can’t sleep, I’m going crazy with love…over you. ~ Oh No The Commodores 10. Play me a song, your newest one, please leave your taste on my tongue. ~ Paperweight Joshua Radin and Schuyler Fisk 11. Because you fill my heart with joy, and ‘cuz you made a man out of this boy…and because you will forever be on my mind and because you will forever hold my heart. ~ Without You Jason Manns 12. When everything’s made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am. ~ Iris Goo Goo Dolls 13. Everybody’s going to the party, have a real good time. Dancing in the desert, blowing up the sunshine. ~ B.Y.O.B. System of A Down Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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Today we all went to the dentist. No cavities, yay!

I finished my story yesterday, also yay! Now I have a bit of work to do on the other one, no worries. Vacation coming. Time to read, relax…when I come back, I’ll start heavy-duty on my next big project. That man I live with wants a biiiiiig shed and I guess I’d better buy him one or else he’ll get cranky.

I’m very very tired today. *yawns*

I forgot totally about Thursday Thirteen, too! Guess I’d better do one!

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