My Convo with the Chicken Soup Guy

My eye cream has been gently massaged around the eye area and I've let Leo Van Meow Meow go out on the balcony so he can see that the weather has not changed much since this morning. I've set up the heater in front of the expensive chapel chair that is now his and I've bid him a fond good night.

It's time to join Felix, already fast asleep in our comfy King size bed. Soon I shall slip into that state of bliss we call sleep, content with what I have accomplished on this uneventful but not unpleasant Wednesday -

Wednesday? Why, that means I'm supposed to have a new post up tomorrow. I faithfully promised my fans new posts on Monday and Thursday. It's already g.d. Thursday in the UK, where both of them live. Oh fer the love of Mike!

Power up, oh keeper of promises. Draw from the mighty imagination that has conjured up three entire erotica novels and countless, that is if you count on your fingers and toes, sexy short stories. Write something and throw in some pictures and go to bed. It can't be all that hard . . . can it?

Can - didn't I have an idea earlier in the week - something about a can - a can of soup - a can of chicken soup? I did. I do. I remember now!

My Correspondence with the webmaster for Chicken Soup for the Soul

Subject: Submissions: Hello Chicken Soup. Your Submission Guidelines neglect to indicate the amount you pay for the stories you include in your books. Please tell me: What do you pay? Warmest Regards, Madeline Moore

The reply:RE:Submissions Dear Madeline: Thank you for your inquiry. If your story is selected for publication in one of our Chicken Soup for the Soul books then you will receive a one-time fee of $200 and ten free copies of the book your story appears in (worth more than $100) for the rights to print your story. This information is included on our website. We look forward to getting some submissions from you. Sincerely, Chicken Soup for the Soul

Hmmm. I go to Amazon and try to count the number of Chicken Soup books. I quit counting at two hundred. I get irritable. My reply:

I am afraid that a payment of two hundred dollars for inclusion in a franchise that is making millions for its editors would cause this writer's soul great pain.


I start thinking about this issue. After all, what does Reader's Digest pay its contributors? Well, while it still pays Americans real dollars, Canadians contributors are now paid with a subscription to the magazine.

I start checking out the authors with contributions in Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul. Some are: Ernest J. Gaines, Terry McMillan, Sue Grafton, Steve Allen, George Plimpton, and Ray Bradbury. I found Gloria Steinham's name as a contributor to another of the Chicken Soup books, I don't remember which one, but that was when I stopped searching authors and sent this reply to the webmaster:

On Second Thought: Me again. Having visited Amazon and admired the many, many pages of Chicken Soup anthologies, as well as noticing that Gloria Steinham has contributed to one of them, I have changed my mind. Perhaps what I should do, instead of whining at you, is purchase Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul. It isn't easy being a writer but it's harder to be a bitter writer than a hopeful one. I must try to stay on the hopeful side. In case I haven't made myself clear, I apologise for my response to your polite reply to my initial inquiry.

The final reply from the webmaster:
Hi Madeline Many people are interested in being included in one of our Chicken Soup for the Soul books. We get more than a few thousand story and poem submissions for each book title we publish. We do hope that, after reconsidering, you will submit your work to us. Chicken Soup for the Soul

So there you go. Of course now I'm trying to think up my own franchise. Something like Borscht for Bitter Bastards or Minestrone for the Miserable or Stone Soup for the Stoner or Lentil Soup for Losers but mostly, I'm just thinking I did the right thing. Do you?

Nightie night. Mad.

Eye Candy Monday - Spartacus - Gods of the Arena

Are you watching this series?

If not, you are missing a show that guarantees sexy men in loincloths battling to the death in the arena:

or mouth-watering sex scenes:

Most of the time, you get a great big hunk

or two:

or more:

AND sex with one (slave diddling Lucy Lawless doesn't count):

or two:

or more:

If you missed Season one: Spartacus: Blood and Sand
then you're in for a double (triple?) treat.

Just doin' my Monday Morning job - bringing you eye candy to make you drool.

xoxo Mad

Cut Up Poetry

I have been inspired by Kristina Lloyd's post on cut ups, (which you might wish to check out after you read my post) to create a cut up poem of my own. A word of explanation: as a gift to Felix I took the poems he had written for me and cut lines from them. These were collected in a box so that, should he ever need inspiration, he could pick a slip of paper from the box and read his own marvellous words. I'm sorry to say that the original poems are lost, so these cut ups are all that are left. This is particularly unfortunate as he wrote an entire sonnet for me.

I've taken the slips of paper and created this cut-up poem. Cut-up by Madeline Moore. Words by Felix Baron. Printed, of course, with his permission.


In my youth I hunted for that impossible woman
the one I desired above all things, to own.
I grew weary; the hunting stopped.
You came and lay your head in my lap.

I will make love to you forever,
my sweet, deliciously depraved, slut.

You are imprisoned in my palace,
where you reign under my foot.

I value your pristine beauty
and deface it in proof of its infinite worth.

When your mind is blank
You are sagacious beyond natural wisdom.

You have no defence but your vulnerability
So your armour is adamantine.

Without your neck beneath my foot, I am unbalanced.
Without you riding me, I am weighed down.

When my cock isn’t in you, I have no cock.

Your serenity inspires in me such cruelty
that if I could reach so deep, I would mark your soul . . . but I need not.
It is branded already, by your own hand
and the smouldering scar spells out my name.

Alas, all that remains of the Sonnet:


So deep is she that ‘humble’ seems like ‘proud,’
So lovely, Aphrodite bears a frown
And Her divine form shamefully does shroud,
Deep in the folds of Her celestial gown.

But mine is wise, as wise as she is brave.
Surrender brings her all that she could crave.

Photo Credits:
lion:dominance - sonja anderson fineartamerica.com
resting lions: http://www.zazzle.co.uk/lion_lioness_resting
Aphrodite:by Lenasharmen Photobucket.com

Eye Candy Monday - Nicki Minaj

O.M.G. who is this beautiful beast? A singer, I gather, although I haven't heard her voice, yet. I don't know anything about her except this:

No wait, I know this about her, too: I know how to pronounce her name. Minaj (Me-naj)

I think she might like to drink champagne.

I'm guessing she likes to play with herself and if I were her I'd like to play with myself, too. If I were me, I'd like to play with her. Wait a minute, I am me! Nicki Minaj, come play with me. In your dreams, you say?
Okay. Nightie night.

And that's all I know. Except that in my opinion, she makes most excellent Monday Morning Eye Candy and if you don't agree with me, well . . .

I'll let her tell you what I think of that.

pictures: http://www.anorak.co.uk/

Grammar Updates

Yikes. Over on Linked In I entered into a discussion on Grammar and was shamed by my two pet peeves, which turned out to be erroneous. So, fellow authors, I share with you my errors to save you from making the same ones in your work.

1) none: My understanding: none means 'not one.' It is, therefore, always singular. An example:

"None of the actresses' noses was real."

For this I was trounced. None, it turns out, means not only 'not one' but also 'not any.' Usage depends on which one makes a more pleasing sentence.
And so this sentence is grammatically correct.

"None of the actresses' noses were real."

I stand, trembling at the knees, corrected.

From the grammar goddess: Indefinite pronouns by definition reference nonspecific things or people. Most of these pronouns take a singular verb, some are always plural, and a few may be either singular or plural. Take a look at the lists below, and you'll notice that most indefinite pronouns are singular.

* Singular: another, anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, many a, neither, no one, nobody, nothing, one, other, somebody, someone

* Plural: both, few, many, others, several

* Singular or Plural: all, any, none, some, such



2) they: My understanding: The word 'they' is plural.

"They sure look like they're having a lot of fun."

Again, I was trounced. It turns out that 'they' has been used, since Middle and Early Modern English times, in both plural and singular forms. In the Eighteenth Century, singular 'they' and 'he or she,' were replaced with 'he' in an attempt to stress male dominance.

From The Vocabula Review:

But even an Act of Parliament in 1850 England, which banned official use of the expression he or she in favor of generic he , didn't affect the spoken language (Bodine 173).

So this sentence is entirely correct:

"I can't tell from this picture if the person is male or female but they sure have a great body."

I am no longer able to stand corrected, but must sit. I must sit and ponder this: Shakespeare used 'they' as singular as well as plural. If he did it, I'll do it. At least, I'll give it a try.

Picture credits:
Jennifer Grey: plasticsurgerybeforeandafter.blogspot.com
Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf: listal.com
Scarlett Johanson: thehoesofhollywood.blogspot.com
gitls having fun: sucksorrules.com
androgymous person: sleevage.com
Shakespeare:shakespeare2006.net