Penny scribblings: extended edition

I dunno, you leave your blog alone for five minutes and a little brat comes along and trashes it with a pink felt tip! It took me ages to get the place all clean and tidy again. Still, I rather think the naughty girl responsible will be a little more careful with other people’s things in future, if the timid and tearful little apology she made post ‘discussion’ with her Aunty was anything to go by. (It’s amazing what a good talking-to and a sound spanking can do for a mischievous miss’s attitude, isn’t it?)

Anyway, to more adult matters. Re my intention to write more, one of the things I’m keen to have a go at is a longer story: a novella, if not quite a novel. I love writing short stories, but I want to try stretching my wings a bit – I want to try giving my characters, and my prose, a bit more space to play within; see if I can’t manage a bit more depth and realism – and a longer form of course offers those possibilities. It will be quite a challenge, I think, as short story writing is a very different discipline to ‘regular’ story writing: it privileges concision and directness above all else, a compositional factor that doesn’t apply to the novel(la). It’s a bit of a switch, for me at least, to move ‘up’ to this more expansive mode, to get out of the writing habits I have got into, and I hope I can handle looking after a bigger plot of land than I’m used to.

I’ve actually started writing it already, but it isn’t in any kind of presentable shape yet (my writing process is a bit too much on the chaotic unorthodox side for that) so no teasing extracts to show you as yet. I don’t even have a title, so I’m going to use a codename. Let’s call it Project Summer. I’ll post about it every so often if I can and let you know how it’s coming along. If there isn’t a post for a while you’ll know it’s all gone a bit Don Music...

P.S. Oh yeah. It’s going to have spanking in it. Just in case you were worried about that. ;)

P.P.S. It’s my birthday tomorrow and I’ve booked both it and Friday off work and BH might take me here and there for a treat so I might not be around (in an at-my-computer, blogging nonsense, sense) for a bit. Sic transit and all that, but chin up, dear reader!

grown ups are silly! but im GREAT an CLEVER! :D

HI pennys friends!!!

daddy finks im playin wiv my ponys in my room but im on pennys computer while shes out an iv made her silly old page look much better! i did it wiv my pink felt tip. i like drawin, its fun. penny shud hav a drawin of a pony not a borin old pen! iv put a cupple of stikers on this letter to briten it up.

this is gonna be a FUN letter insted of the sort penny rites an i can rite it wiv no help from daddy or anyone (okay, mr hugs can help) cos im super clever! daddy always says so an mrs cooper next door does too wen she sees me an i can count ALL my fingers and toes AN say the alfabet all the way to the end. this mornin i made brekfast ALL BY MYSELF an i only got a bit of milk on the counter an i watched dora explora in my jammies then i ran upstairs an got drest.

im wearin a blue dress an its pretty like me an white socks an pink panties wiv kermit on. daddy brushd my hair which i like an he put a clip in wiv a pretend flower. i like flowers an i like daisys best.

penny is BORIN an she always rites about silly stuff like spankin an people come an talk about it an her poems are okay but still borin an i could do a better one.

daddy is fat!
he sat on a cat!
ow! meow! meow!
what a flat cat!

wen i grow up im gonna be a doctor or a famus actres an hav a big house like my barbie has, AN a swimmin pool AN a kichin but im not gettin marrid cos boys are silly.

kjasgeuebfioauayuiu437846723489jhsdhkakjhskjadkja!!!!!!

dats the longest word in the whole world an most people dont know what it means but i do cos im clever. it means...

mm...

its what people in the souf pole say wen they meet a pengwin. a man pengwin! they say a diffrent fing to lady ones. the souf pole is cold like it was here last week wen daddy said i had to wear a scarf an gloves an a hat an there was snow an i made a snowman. it was a snow daddy an it was fat like daddy! i like hot choklit even mor wen outside is cold.

anyway spankin is SILLY an i dont like it wen daddy or aunty andea spank me. they make my botty all hot an it stings an i cry an feel all sad. im not gonna be spanked EVER again cos im too big for it an imma princess an i DONT need it even wen they say i do an grown ups are silly an so THERE!

im gonna go play wiv mr hugs now an go into space an get saved by my pony from mean space pyrits an maybe jump on my bed.

rite if you like but dont rite anyfin SILLY !

i gotta go wiv aunty andea to her house now an i dont fink its for cookies.

Forgetfulness can have painful consequences

I’d never make a Mouseketeer... I completely forgot about Saturday Spankings last week. Oops! Can we move the calendar back seven days? No?

My six sentences this week :) are taken from one of my stories in Back to School, a short story collection centred around adults experiencing school-type discipline. The story in question, ‘Spanky Friday’, is a twisted variation on the ‘Freaky Friday’ scenario of mother and daughter magically switching places. Unfortunately for the mother in my story, Pamela, the switch between herself and her bratty teenage daughter takes place moments after she has finished enrolling said daughter at a strict boarding school. Oh no! ;D

In the scene that follows, Pamela is in English class. The teacher, Miss Preston, has just asked everyone to hand their homework in. To her horror, Pamela realises that she has forgotten to do hers. Having confessed as much to her furious teacher, she has been summoned to the front of the class. (Quite an appropriate extract, really, given my own absent-mindedness...)

Perhaps it was because she knew that a painful punishment lay in store, perhaps it was the belittling feeling of being told off by a woman younger than herself, or perhaps it was the cumulative effect of the time she had spent back in school, but Pamela, in stark contrast with her usual demeanour as an adult, fiddled nervously with the hem of her pinafore as she was scolded. Not for the first time at Shorecroft, she felt considerably shorter than the five feet three inches she stood, and decidedly less mature than her years. She was lectured sternly and at length on the importance of homework, and did not look up from her feet the whole time.

“Now, Miss Burrows,” said Miss Preston at last, pulling her chair out from behind her desk and sitting down purposefully upon it, “over my knee.”

The teacher’s command had left no room for desistance, yet, just as she had when confronted with her first classroom punishment, courtesy of Miss Miller, Pamela hesitated. Was this really happening?

Oh yes. It most certainly is! (I think that first sentence must break some kind of record for length, not to mention various grammar and style rules, but oh well!)

Here are all the blogs taking part in Saturday Spankings this week:

Draft like a butterfly, edit like a bee

A little post about writing today. Or about not writing, to be more exact. With a little bit of English class thrown in as a bonus!

First the English class. Metaphor, children, is a wonderful thing. It helps us to understand complex, often abstract, things by transforming them in our thinking into more easily-graspable things. And, because we can transform difficult concepts into simpler ones, we can talk and write about them as if they were those simpler things. Take emotions, for example: the most complex, diaphanous fings in the world, yet we can say “I’m feeling up,” or “I’m feeling down,” and what could be easier to understand than up and down? Exactly.

Now the bit about (not) writing. The thing is, I’ve been feeling for a long time that I haven’t written, and don’t write, as much material as I might like to. I know I post on my blog, and I know I pop up here and there with little guest scribbles, and I know I have a few short stories to my name, but I could do more, and I want to do more. Circumstances are part of it, of course: I’m only human and I do need to sleep some of the time, and I have a day job that takes up most of the day (hence the name, I guess), and I have a partner and a Doggie to feed and water and look after, and I have a social life, and daily chores like cooking and cleaning to do...

...even so, I do get some time for writing, and I always feel like I could make better use of it; I feel like I could, if I wanted to, be more of a writeaholic like some of my peers and less of a… whatever it is I am. (BH calls me a snurgle).

I like to think I have a pretty creative mind, and that I can write fairly well. Sorted then, right? Yeah... kinda. The trouble is, I find it hard to commit to the process of writing. No, that’s not quite right... it’s more that it’s not always easy to transfer the ideas that buzz round in my head to the page. No... it’s more that... that I’m afraid that things won’t turn out right, and I’m afraid to fail so I don’t try as readily as I could. The will is there, but it’s like there’s something holding me back... hm. It’s hard to convey precisely.

This is where the metaphor bit comes in again :) There’s an expression from the world of boxing, of all things, that really captures the essence of my problem and offers a solution. (Feel free to picture your humble scribe-ette as a not-very-intimidating featherweight at this point, pigtails bouncing as she hops from foot to foot, giant red gloves hanging heavily from the ends of her skinny arms). The expression is “let your hands go.” It means stop holding back, stop holding yourself back, stop being afraid of getting hurt, stop waiting for whatever it is that’s nagging at the back of your mind, making you seize up and keeping your hands pinned to your chest. Just GO for it! Start swingin!

I’m going to let my hands go. Metaphorically.

Won!

Modest to the point of invisibility it may have been, but my little contest had entrants and so it must perforce have a winner! (There’s a word you don’t hear much, ‘perforce’).

I can announce to a waiting world that the draw was made as promised on Friday evening, using an immensely complicated and expensive supercomputer with algorithms and stuff – and absolutely not a draw system based on Doggie eating treats laid out for him – and the winner is...

...stay calm, everyone...

Timmy! Well done, young man. You get an autographed copy of Spank! 2. I hope you enjoy reading it and that it stirs all kinds of naughty feelings.

Runners-up win two copies. ;)

Very real life

One more personal note before I get back onto the silly, kinky stuff.

I learned a few days ago that I am pregnant with my first child. To try to put how I feel into words, I’m thrilled and scared and overcome and overjoyed and petrified and elated, and I can only hope and pray (figure of speech: I’m agnostic) that things go okay and that I’m up to such a colossal responsibility if they do go okay. I haven’t always been the most together sort of person, and I hope I can find the peace and strength to give a new life the best, safest, funnest, most loving start in the world.

I’m not yet one month pregnant so things are still in the very early stages, and I just wanted to let you all know where I was at. I’m going to keep writing but my life is changing and will possibly change dramatically so I might not be around for a while, in a while.

Hugs, Penny xx

P.S. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!! OMG! OMG! :D

Under the night sky

I love my beautiful Doggie to bits but boy has he been driving me crazy this past week. A lady doggie in the local area must, I suspect, be on heat as he has been obsessively racing to the exact same place every time on our walks, going round and round (and round) frantically sniffing the grass when we get there, and whining and pestering whenever we’re back in the house between walks. Believe me, it gets old fast.

But I forgive him everything for tonight’s walk.

We began as usual by zipping to the well-visited spot and giving it a brisk but thorough sniffing, same as the last twenty or so walks, but then, as if Doggie knew that I needed a change, we abruptly left the obsession spot and made a beeline to a playing field half a mile away that we hadn’t visited for ages. (I might hold the lead but Doggie decides where we go on our walks... I’m cool with that, apart from when he goes through obsessional phases). Up the hill we zoomed (Doggie is really spritely for his age), through the dim, grimy streets of terraced houses (I’m not trying to be Dickensian: they really are grimy); I knew just where we were headed way before we got there. (Don’t dogs have amazing senses of direction, by the way?)

I had never been to the playing field after sunset before and as a lone woman, even with my brave Doggie to protect me, I was a little apprehensive about walking round such a place at night once we reached the gate and I saw that it was completely unlit. But in we went all the same and my fears were soon allayed as we were the only ones there.

I have been in a rather reflective mood of late, downbeat really: the cares of everyday life have been weighing on me and I do have a tendency to get down on myself and internalise everything (and let other people know about it... sorry to those folks).

But this particular evening, being in this calm, quiet, nature-filled space, I felt a sudden and much-needed ease, as if a weight had been taken off my shoulders, or as if I myself had been lifted up. I felt as if I had space and time to think.

And then I looked up at the sky. It was a breathtaking panorama, a colossal vision that spoke to my heart and cheered it. That it was being viewed from an unremarkable, muddy little spot only seemed to make it more profound, not less. There were clouds, but they were light, like silver, and they seemed, I don’t know, luminescent, not oppressive at all, and there was an equal amount of clear dark sky full of stars, and the two elements of star-dotted sky and peaceful white cloud seemed to combine magically, as if by perfect design. The sky seemed like the earth viewed from space; a mirror of the continents and oceans and all the beauty of nature. And I thought of the countless people under that same sky. The sight reminded me that there is a whole world beyond my own concerns; a world of hopes, and thoughts, and love, and beauty.

And then Doggie took me straight home, and I wrote this. (After giving him a treat).

Reflection

The woman smiles at the song

                    as it drifts through the air

                                    like the scent of flowers

        she closes her eyes and memories come

                    softly, like the turning of the sky

                              a girl in a blue dress on a swing

                              that hangs from the branch of an old tree

        she moves through the air and her dress flutters

                              like a lily in the breeze

                              bathed in the warm summer sun

        and the woman laughs

                    like the ripples on water that was still

before a leaf touched the surface

Win!

I know you’re all still recovering from the excitement of the blog hop, but I have another Terribly Exciting Thing for you: a contest/giveaway. No! you cry. Yes! I squeak. Yes! YES!

Sorry. Came over all wanton sexual abandon there.

But, um, yes. For the sum of zero dollars you can win your very own copy of Spank! 2, in the format of your choice, digitally signed by Penelope “no E” Hasler herself! (It was that or a pair of my school knickers, but I’ve been told I can’t send those to people). Of course, some of you might have already rushed out and purchased said book (thank you if that’s you!): should either of you such a lovely and discerning person win my little contest an alternative prize of similar value will be offered. (Like maybe a piece of nearly-new chewing gum).

The Merchandise
Here’s the object of desire you stand to win... a lovingly crafted collection of spanking stories with one of my close personal friends pouting from the cover and hinting at the saucy treats within:

Fed up of seeing this yet?

There are four stories by meee in this mighty volume, all of which are high in spanking goodness and vitamin C. Here’s an extract from one of them, a sordid little tale of a naughty domestic getting what she deserves...

The Earl smoothed his hand over the hot, tender skin that he had, only moments before, been beating. It was a lovely bottom, he thought. Ripe as a peach, feminine and, yes, insolent. It was an insolent bottom. And it deserved to be spanked. He gave the right cheek a squeeze, eliciting a little moan from the girl at his ankle. Nicely firm… just perfect. He would have to spank this bottom a great deal more in the future, he thought. The object of his ruminations lay panting, moaning, hoping that her ordeal might have been at an end, but not daring to venture such a thought out loud. She wished so very much to be able to rub her sore backside better, but she dared not move a muscle lest she displease her master still further. Her heart, beating furiously, skipped a beat when the Earl spoke. “Now, my girl,” he said, “it is time for you to receive your proper due.”

Poor Mary, so sad. Still, on the plus side it’s fun for us to watch :)

The Contest
Now, listen carefully because this is complicated and serious. In the extract above we learned that Mary had an ‘insolent’ bottom. In twenty words or fewer, tell me what colour socks her master was wearing and why he chose them that day rather than his usual black.

Kidding :P

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post: there isn’t a question so just write anything you like. Tell me about the weather where you are. Tell me about the last time you went trampolining. Tell me that you think I’m great and sexy and clever and funny and that you wouldn’t kick me out of bed even if I did eat biscuits and get crumbs on your side. Just write ‘X’. No blog hopping required. The editor’s decision is final, no responsibility will be taken for injury or death suffered by participants, and comments with rude words and/or sexually explicit stuff in them will be disqualified*. This contest is completely unaffiliated with the ‘Love Spanks’ blog hop, in case you were wondering: no chance of winning a Nook here!

The closing date is Friday 15 February, 10pm UK time. The instant that the ornate grandfather clock in the hallway of Hasler Manor finishes chiming I will select an entrant at random and bish, bash, bosh (as my brother would say): that lucky duck will WIN! (And as I generally get an average of 5-10 comments per post I think your odds are pretty good).

*Kidding again, of course. Swearing is an art form (I myself cuss like a sailor in real life), and I like it when people tell me they want to beat me, strip me, thrust my legs apart and defile me with a very large, very firm cucumber til my socks come off.

Lisa, 26, spank-curious

I'm a Saturday Spanker! Or rather I’m an official one now cos I’m doing the Saturday Spankings blog hop :)

(Is this like being a Mouseketeer? I’ve never been in a club before. It’s all very exciting!)

The idea is for kinky authors to post a few sentences from one of their stories in order to tease and tantalise potential readers. The ‘hop’ bit is that people can hop between the various participating blogs and read lots of interesting things at the click of a mouse.

My eight sentences are from ‘Like Mother, Like Daughter’, one of the stories in Spank! 2. The star of the piece is Lisa, a young woman who has never given spanking a moment’s thought. Until she discovers that her mother was once a spanking model, that is...

Lisa wondered why people allowed themselves to be beaten. What did they get out of it? It had to hurt, after all. She leaned over and took the magazine from her bedside cabinet and looked once more at the photographs in it. So many punished bottoms! So many grown women letting men – and sometimes women – pull their knickers down and smack their backsides as if they were naughty children. Why would they all do it if it wasn’t enjoyable in some way?

She wondered if she would find it enjoyable.

If you would like to find out where Lisa’s incipient curiosity takes her, press star on your telephone keypad. Alternatively, purchase this here Kindle e-buk:

Buy me or a pixie will cry.

Here are all the blogs taking part in Saturday Spankings this week: check them out to read more saucy snippets!

Blue-sky thinking and paradigms and, er, fings

My Marketing Synergy Consultant has advised me that I could do more to plug my books. Apparently, posting a photo of a cute rabbit in a one-off post and saying ‘take it or leave it, I don’t care’ isn’t the optimum way to build product awareness and create a buzz. Who knew?

Still, I’m nothing if not responsive to a PowerPoint chart and a smacked bottom, so consider me prodded into action. On with the Wonder Woman hotpants and whoosh, zoom, neeeow! to my, er, keyboard. (I span round on the spot before racing giddily to my desk, if that helps evoke a sense of dynamism).

First up on my book promotion genius master plan: the very opportunely-timed Saturday Spankings blog hop! Now, I’m not ashamed to admit that blog hops are one of those things that I have never quite understood (like trigonometry), but a bit of research and head-scratching later I think I might be able to take part and not screw it up. Yay!

It’s Saturday tomorrow so I guess we’ll soon see if I’m a champ or a chump (or a chimp)...

Does your husband yawn at the table?

Or, isn’t it great when you stumble upon a new thing? There I was, diligently researching matters of serious seriosity and deep deepness when, oh! Like a girl finding a gingerbread house in the middle of the forest I came across a Tumblr blog called Weird Vintage. I only meant to peek round the door... maybe just stay for a little teeny while... but bang went my afternoon!

The site consists of an endless array of imagery that, if nothing else, proves that the world has always been mad. There’s kooky stuff like this:

And this:

And of course the occasional bit of this:

But I think the artefacts that tickle/flabbergast/disturb me the most are the vintage advertisements... some simply have to be seen to be believed. (“For PEP and VIGOR – Vitamin Donuts!”) And oh, the misogyny!

There are lots of ads like that. This thing looks like fun, though:

Exercise, my ear! “Oh! O-oh! It-- it’s all right, darling, d-don’t come in-- I’m invigorating m-my vital organs!” LOL. And I bet it gave the Countess of Aberdeen complete satisfaction, the naughty girl.

Warning: as I mentioned in opening, browsing this site can be highly addictive. I spent ages on it when I should have been doing the housework like a good little Fifties girl... whatever will my husband Better Half say when he comes home?

With any luck he’ll splash out on a Horse-Action Saddle and put me on it to sort out my hysteria. ;D I do hope they still sell them someplace! (I reckon riding one of those with a freshly-spanked posterior would be orgasmically highly stimulating, and of course highly effective as a punishment... “Oh! N-not the g-gallop setting! Oo-oh!”)

A confusion of Haslers

Fresh from my discovery of a near-namesake I have discovered an even nearer one. And this PH is a scribbler like me!

I came upon the lady in question* when I clicked on my name on Amazon (I was curious as to what would happen) and found, alongside my own magna opera, a book with a scary-looking bull and a terribly arch title: Oxtale Soup. Lookit:

Slightly closer investigation reveals that one of the contributors to this Oxfordshire-centred fiction anthology is a lady by the name of Penelope E Hasler, hence the book’s appearing under a search for my name. I should just like to point out – for the benefit of the three people who may be wondering – that this is not me doing an Iain ‘M’ Banks with my un-kinky writings: the existence of Oxtale Soup comes as news to me, as does the existence of the (no doubt more talented than I) Penelope E.

As luck would have it the sampler on Amazon just about runs to the first page of my namesake’s co-authored story, ‘Three Ghost Jam’. It sounds kinda fun!

*****

The scene is a small village in the Oxfordshire countryside, a village dwarfed by the grand estate that outshines the houses along the few and crammed streets.

It is a nice enough summer’s day, grey sky, not too windy. The village fête is well underway, and a man saunters slowly up to a table laden with jars in different sizes and colours. Behind the table stands a woman, smiling.

‘Good afternoon, what can I do for you?’
‘Oh, hello. It’s a very nice kind of village fête you’ve got here.’
‘Well, thank you. It’s an annual thing.’
‘I’m new here, just moved in.’
‘Welcome, anyway...’
‘It’s a nice selection of jams there.’
‘They’re from the Manor. There’s a big garden there, a lot of fruits, and berries, and that sort of thing.’
‘They look lovely.’
‘Here, have a taste.’
‘Oh, thank you. Oh, what is this, quince?’
‘Yes, spot on.’
‘There is something more, I think, a kind of aftertaste.’
‘That would be the ghost.’
‘The ghost?’

:D

I wonder if we’re related? Could be... I grew up next door to Oxfordshire (but funnily enough have never so much as set one paw in the place).

*Said the bishop to the actress.