The 'Writing A Book' Diaries: Muhammad Ali

The 'Writing A Book' Diaries: Muhammad Ali: Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explor...

Fantastic Books and Where To Buy Them...At a Discount

It's the end of year. The one known as Dezember. When people spend money like there's no tomorrow and life is one long party...allegedly.

Everybody knows that Amazon is owned by an evil man who exploits his workers. However Amazon is also the number one source for readers. When you're a writer, you can almost not afford not to have your books on Amazon. But every once in a while, smashwords hosts discounts that are popular enough to attract the attention of a bunch of readers you might otherwise not reach. 

So while you're spending your holiday budget, I just wanted to give y'all a lil nudge to remind you that I have some books you won't ever regret reading...and they are 50% off on the smashwords end of year sale until Jan 1st. 

Don't say I never gave you nothin'. 

Here is a little bite of In the Shadow of the Styx, book one of the Child of Destiny series to whet your appetites and remind you that there's fantasy/gothic romance and then there's some crazy shit Annemarie writes. 

Chapter Nine: Casper

Twelve hours later, Bernard was talking to a black-cloaked figure at the end of the morgue corridor. It wasn’t the gatekeeper; this one was much larger and more terrifying. His hood completely covered his face, so they couldn’t see what he looked like, but he towered over Bernard like a basilisk over its prey. They seemed to be having an extremely intense conversation. Phil and Lillian clasped their hands tightly together as they watched. It had been really close, but the god of craps had been with them, and they managed to beat the house. Now they waited anxiously for Bernard to get them the dark papyrus, apparently from Mr Hooded Cloak at the end of the corridor.

Bernard was coming toward them, a package in his hands. He held it out to them, his face betraying some trepidation.

“Here ’tis,” he said sadly. “May it serve you well.”

“Who is that?” Phil asked curiously, reaching out for it, with a nod of his head toward the Cloak.

“He is a purveyor of goods. Nobody you should be worried about,” Bernard shrugged in reply.

“Good then. So, how do we get the flames?” Phil said.

“Back to Armand?” Lillian asked.

“Yeah.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.”

They linked hands and turned as one, headed for the top of the hospital.

    “Armand?” They called as they reached the dark attic. 

    They walked around, peering in dark corners, but the place was deserted.

“Now wot?” Lillian asked.

“Severin?” Phil suggested.

“Where would we find him?”

“Andy.”

“Right. Reception?”

“Yeah.”

They walked back down to reception but Andy wasn’t there. There was a commotion down the hall though, as if some emergency were taking place. Without consultation, they knew that Andy would be there. They might only have known him for a day or so, but they knew one thing about him definitely—he always wanted to be in the thick of things. There was definitely nowhere thicker than right in the middle of a code blue.

Nurses and orderlies were rushing past them, pulling the crash cart and looking frantic. A doctor was shouting, “Clear!” at the top of his voice from a room at the end of the corridor. As they walked toward the commotion, they saw a figure standing just outside the door, staring in horror at the commotion inside. There was a jagged gash on the side of his leg like he’d been gored open with a blunt object. Blood was everywhere.

Hope that got you going enough to ask the question....

"And then what happened?"

Check me and all your other favorite writers out on the smashwords sales page.

When Female Characters Do Stupid Shit

I wrote an article on substack but it's about writing so here it is.

Musings on Characterization by Annemarie Musawale

Spoiler Alert: This is also kind of a rant

Read on Substack

Freelancing Is Not For the Weak

 I. am. growling.

One of my clients, who I've worked with for years, is a publisher. While the relationship with the company is long, they keep changing my project manager. I don't know the inner machinations of that, I just work with whomever I am presented with.

My latest project manager is such a hot mess that I want to scream, cry, throw up and die. She's traumatized me so much that when I did another job for a different client, I expected some BS when they got back to me about the finished product. For them to say 'this is fine, here's your payment' literally rocked my world.

I've had nitpicky clients. 

This isn't that. 

This is giving me an outline, telling me to follow it and then telling me that the outline they told me to follow isn't working and I should change it but in such a way that it sounds like I should have known it wouldn't work and should have done something else.

Every single milestone, it was the same. Yeah  we told you to write this but now we see that it doesn't work even though you asked several times if we were sure this is the direction we wanted to go and we said no, now we're saying, do it differently.

It it wasn't for capitalism I'd insist on charging them for a rewrite because it certainly wasn't a revision. 

I want to tear out my hair. 

So finally, they send the work to the editor - after hanging about with it for a week. They stayed with it so long that upwork paid me for the job before they got back to me. And the editor pointed out every single thing that was wrong with the OUTLINE in their comments. My project manager acted as if it was just another revision that I should attend to.

I had to put my foot down and ask her, "So all this is in the outline - I don't understand what you want me to do. Spell it out." I want to see if she dares to say rewrite. 

I dare her.

She is literally making me think I'm crazy. At one point I had to talk to my kid about it - I was like, "Is this what microaggressions feel like?"

 He told me that I should tell my brain to just shut the fuck up because it's making things worse. 

I get it. 

Because my thoughts are certainly not helping. So I'm writing them here so that I don't go awf on Miss Thank-You-Very-Much-for-Your-Work-We-Appreciate-It-Now-Here-Are-All-The-Things-You-Need-To-Change-That-I-Previously-Told-You-You-Needed-To-Include.

AAAAAHHHH!

Now, a bit of housekeeping. 

My Books and Where To Find Them

So, I was looking through my data on D2D and I realized how little money I make on every book. There was this one month I sold ten print books worth ninety dollars and I only got fifteen of those dollars, after like, three months. Seeing it all laid out in black and white was really a wake up call to me. The way I do my writing, is more of a hobby than a profession because I still want to enjoy the process and they say monetizing what you love is a way of killing the joy. I don't know - so far so good. 

But part of the joy of writing is sharing my stories. I want you to read them. I want to make a difference in how you think and move in the world using my stories. So I do want to disseminate them far and wide. 

So they'll stay on D2D because they do have a very wide distribution but I will, from now on, be marketing only my kofi bookshop. That is where I will build my community and I hope you'll come over and follow me there even if you don't buy anything (right away). 

At this time of year, many do celebrate various holidays and for the bibliophile in your life, I have many an offering. And guess what? For the next month and a half, my books (on kofi) are 25% off. So take advantage of the offer, support small business and join a growing community of active thinkers (I hope).

Use the discount code below as you shop.

This is a Fund Raising/Book Boosting Post

 

I’m taking a leaf out of fellow single mother, Cardi’s book and flogging my own books on these internet ‘streets’. Ten dollars! Just ten dollars for a gem of a book filled with raw, unvarnished truth about the ups and downs of single motherhood. “I know you got ten dollars!” Find Single Motherhood Unplugged on kofi: https://ko-fi.com/annemariemusawale/shop. You can also purchase a print copy from the Nuria Bookstore or amazon sites: https://bit.ly/printbooksannemarie

- Annemarie Musawale

Read on Substack

Allow me to add a separate but related post.

This week has been a ‘promote my kofi bookshop’ week for a number of reasons. I’m tired of the middle man. He’s eating good from me and using the proceeds to burn the world to the ground. Yes, I am speaking of Jeff Besos. I hear there’s something called blackout which involves boycotting big business and buying from small, ‘black-owned’ businesses. I’m just trying to do my share in letting you know where you can get some good books without going to Amazon. I guess the above two reasons are connected but it’s not only sticking it to the man that motivates me. I want to grow my own community and this is how I choose to do that. So here’s a video of what I’ve been up to during the week. The captions I used were fire. You should visit my instagram at authorannemarie and see for yourself. Aside from that, I just really enjoy making the graphics. More to come.

- Annemarie Musawale

Read on Substack

Marketing Out of the Box

Solange or someone said how they cannot be confined to just one channel of creative outlet. That they were more than just the singing or the acting or whatever. Same thing with the Smith siblings. Just doing all sorts of creative shit.

It's inspiring for me because I'm a writer but I also dabble in other things - painting, drawing, graphic design, making videos, everything.

And all these things are not different parts. They're all part of the same whole. So I've recently come to discover focus videos and the fact that I might be on the spectrum. These two factors are related because focus videos actually help me to well...focus.

Now it's hop skip and jump from watching focus videos to thinking "Hmm, I can make those too."

But why just make the videos when you can also use the videos to post excerpts?

Utility and marketing. Out of the box thinking. 

THE Tea With Lesley

 

So I came to know Lesley from when I started a literati group. The purpose of the group was to be a place where writers could meet, collaborate and grow. I'm not sure how successful we were at it, but at worst we did get four anthologies out of it. 

When I saw that Lesley had pivoted from writer to virtual assistant, I just had to know more. It's not a very common profession in this Kenya and I figured that more people would like to know how she went about it and how she managed to penetrate this industry especially since in the remote world, they do love a virtual assistant from Malaysia or the Phillipines. 

Well, this is her story. 

We ended up going in depth on a couple of things including the how, when you want to get started - not just the steps you have to take (which are reproducable) but the mental preparation you have to go through.

All in all, I learned something new and I hope you do too. Enjoy.