Author: valmanwill

Valerie Manwill writes coming of age novels and stories with quirky twists. She is an award-winning playwright and has a handful of stories published in varying anthologies. Other braggadocio includes being fluent in both Spanish and Golden Era Vines. Valerie melts in the Arizona sun with her two baby boys and snarky husband.

Novel Update Also New Blog Schedule

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Hey there, hi there, ho there.

So I’ve been writing a book, which you may have already heard about. If you were wondering how that is going… Ummmmmm… THIS GIRL IS ON FI-ARE!!!

Like I’m not even sure what is going on. I wrote the entire first draft in twenty freaking days. And I guess that wasn’t over-achiever enough for me because I revised and rewrote the entire second draft the following month. So that means, that from the 1st of November to the 28th of December, I wrote, redrafted and rewrote a 200 page novel.

While also designing covers. While also being a mom of a toddler. While also holidays and stuff. Whaaaaaat even happened? Like maybe I’m actually a cyborg or something? Because I don’t even know how that could have actually been a thing.

But yeah! That happened. Will that happen again in my life? I doubt it. But right now my little book is pushing right along. Only three people have read it so far, but the numbers are adding up quickly. Right now, I have two critique partners scrutinizing their way through it, as well as an editor lined up. Even though this process is going quick for me (NOT NORMAL) I’m still trying to be thorough and am planning on a few more drafts (Started draft three today WHAT EVEN). Depending on what the editor says I’ll likely be sending it off to agents in the summer. (AAAAAAAAAAAAH!)

So that’s crazy.

 

Also a while back I posted a survey asking what I should do with the blog in 2018. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF YOU requested that I please keep the embarrassing stories segment… which I have tons of material for so that’s not a problem. I was glad to see that the “story time format” was so well loved, because I have soooo many stories outside of the embarrassing realm. Which brings me to this…

I am adding a second monthly story time called “The Craziest Things That Have Ever Happened to Me”

You can expect the first installment of that next Thursday, where I tell you something that happened to me just last week. Very exciting. Subscribe so that you don’t miss a single ridiculous story.

Here’s a visual representation of the 2018 schedule:

Week 1: Mommy Post / Family Things

Week 2: Embarrassing Stories

Week 3: Writing Updates / Samples / Various Essays

Week 4: The Craziest Things That Have Ever Happened

Occasional Week 5: Lazy Recipes

The Time I Took An Awkward Selfie

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I was in the Arts Building at the University of Utah. I had just come out of a meeting with my supervisor and decided to hit the restroom before class… when I decided to do something very stupid. Typical, typical Val.

There are two types of people in this world: people who play on their Smart Phones while doing their biz on the can and LIARS.

So I’m on the toilet, probably taking a quiz to find out which salad best suits my astrological needs. My best friend Kayla sends me a Snap Chat asking me what I was up to.

Oh ho ho.

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In case you haven’t read about it already, I am essentially a 10 year old. My sense of humor is SO stupid that the trailer of my life would probably have multiple fart sounds and record scratches.

So I’m all, “Guess I gotta show her what I’m up to then”. And I take a picture of myself sitting on the toilet.

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Wow. Jeez. Val. Yuck. Yeah. That’s pretty embarrassing. NO! THAT’S NOT EVEN THE EMBARRASSING PART.

The embarrassing part was that I forgot that my phone was set to atomic blast sound level. The fake shutter click just like BOOMED out through the public restroom. There were at least two other girls in there who now knew that I was in there… taking pictures of … whatever.

I literally had to sit on the toilet for another fifteen minutes, just to wait for them to leave so I didn’t have to look them in the eye.

You think that would deter me from toilet selfies, but not at all.

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Here’s one from when I had actually put make up on that day, but never got a chance to leave the house. You wanna judge me, that’s cool, but make-up is expensive! Couldn’t let it go to waste.

… Get it? Couldn’t let it go to waste. *fart sound* *record scratches* *canned laughter*

 

 

The Worst Christmas Present

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You know that person that never wants or needs anything so they’re impossible to buy for? That’s my brother. I never know what to get him, so instead we came up with a beautiful Christmas tradition…

To try and get each other the worst Christmas presents possible.

 

Here is what I managed to get my brother this year:

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An instructional DVD of how to become a Mary Kay consultant

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A VHS of the classic hit “Crawlers”

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Party Cheetos

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Pete the Repeat Parrot, which is a repeat gift of something that we treasured(?) from our childhood.

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An outdated Algebra textbook for a class he’ll never take

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A Blockbuster membership card

 

Here’s what he got me:

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Fist of all this is the box it came in.

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A DVD to entertain our cats when we’re away… we do not own a cat

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A buttload of expired groceries from my mom’s food storage (that I was told he wrapped the day of)

… Also dehydrated water (which my mom demanded back for some reason? Not pictured.)

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The coup de grace, an actually DVD copy of my number one worst movie I’ve ever seen.

Beautiful.