Nobody Wins When the Family Feuds

I told you.
I was going to let the BDSM post end the year but apparently, Jay-Z and Ava Duvernay refuse to let me live.

Tidal is not available in Kenya so I have not seen the video in full yet; just snippets on Instagram and post upon post about it on twitter.

I can't emphasize how timely this video is as we close out 2017 and prepare to welcome 2018. I say this because it seems that we are all so easily triggered to anger these days. When traveling to Mombasa for holiday a few days ago, a fight broke out in the bus between the people sitting behind me and the people sitting behind them. The latter did not appreciate how far the former had leaned back her chair and the former was pissed that the latter kept pushing at her chair. So instead of discussing it like two rational humans about to embark on a fun trip to a coastal location, they were shouting at each other.
Not being one to tolerate noise at that level for very long I turned around and asked the girl sitting behind us, "Are you having trouble with your seat? Because my son can help you with that..."
While my son glared at me for involving him in the drama.
The girl took this as an opportunity to explain her problems to me and so on etc.
'I"m not interested in your problems Carol. I just want to solve them so y'all can shut up.' I thought to myself...
So I talked over her, asking again.
"Is there a problem with the seat?"
So that turned the conversation to defective seats and the bus hostess got involved and long story short, the shouting became disgruntled muttering and everyone went back to their business.
The point of telling you this story is to illustrate the hair-trigger sensitivity that can cause any little thing to erupt into a shouting match because people have so much to be stressed and unhappy about. Except me apparently, because I'm super calm these days.
Nobody wins when the Family feuds. Can the first go-to reaction not be to fight? Can we try to reason with each other?

Not that I'm totally innocent of clapping back. If you notice, one of my recent posts has had a rapid climb up the 'most read' lists on the blog. Cut your eyes right, you'll see it just under Voodoo. It passed my Rihanna post! And it's like less than a week old. You know how it got so many reads so fast?
Conflict.
You notice when an artist or actor has something new to release they're suddenly everywhere? Telling you their little family secrets and giving you dating tips? Or 'dating' someone new? Rappers start beef with someone.
Anyways, it's all about peaking your interest. I've always been against it because I'm playing the long game. I'd rather have one new follower in a month who is genuinely interested in what I have to say than fifty people who are just following the drama and will dissipate like smoke as soon as that's done. So this particular conflict was inadvertent.
I shared the blog post on a page of 'writers helping writers' mostly because I wanted to know if anyone else had ever encountered the same problem and what their solutions might have been. So one member of the group posts a comment about how badly written the post is, the font is all wrong, the gifs are distracting...she's totally disgusted, blah blah blah etc, amen.

Some days I just have time so I was like, "Sis, what is the purpose of this post of yours? I don't recall asking for your editing services, your opinion of how I write does not affect the price of sugar in Uchumi so what was your purpose in writing it?"
So she says, "My purpose in writing it was that I don't like it."
I'm a grammar nazi guys. I'm a stickler for accuracy. So I asked her about which part of that sentence stated her PURPOSE and could she not read? Perhaps reading comprehension was her problem? Did she feel the need to make herself feel better about herself by declaring my writing subpar to her so-called editing pen? Furthermore, she also seemed to have misunderstood the purpose of the post - she thought I was surprised that self-publishing is difficult...
Anyway, usually I do not like to debate people who are clearly dumber than me but she was asking for it...
So after that conversation, the view count just skyrocketed so A+B=C.
Don't try this at home kids, it's wrong.
Nobody wins when the Family feuds.

Speaking of celebrities and marketing, Will Smith joining Instagram has been the most lit thing to happen to me online this December. I find it so funny that his children's Instagrams are so angsty and his is just goofy and fun. Vintage Will Smith. I guess that's what adolescence will do to you. Hopefully, Jaden and Willow will find their joy later.
So I guess he did it in time to promote Bright. Have you seen it? A surprisingly controversial role for the usually politically correct Smith (I sound like a commentator in that sentence don't I?). He leaves the politicking to Jada. It was also surprising in another way. Because instead of him portraying the role of the Oppressed, he was actually the Face of the Oppressor. Quite the ironic twist there, that his partner was a member of the "black" race in that Tolkien-like, Harry Potter sprinkled world. An Orc.
Who is the Dark Lord?
Sauron?
Voldemort?
Donald Trump?
I don't think it's Donny. He's way too dumb to be a Dark Lord. In fact, let's just replace him with
Vladimir Putin.
Yeah, that's probably the dark lord equivalent in this world.
Bright was extremely clever in how it wove fantasy and reality so tightly you probably missed a lot of intricacies on just one watch. I plan to watch it at least twice more to really appreciate it. I love stories with layers. It's why I'm such a fan of Supernatural as well as of Child of Destiny. On the surface, the former is just a story of two sexy brothers fighting monsters, the latter, an infidelity romance. But then...

Nuances.
So enjoyable discovering them for yourself.
I'll let you do that then.
Happy New Year!

How BDSM isn't as Bad as You Think

This is very likely my last post of 2017.
Very likely but not definitely.
I'm trying to be a better planner but the truth is that I live and write by the seat of my pants and God's will so I can't say for sure. That said, I want to talk about something I recently learned about because I like to share my knowledge and opinions.
But y'all know that right?

Recently, I was tricked into writing a 12,000-word book on being a submissive in BDSM.
Tricked how you ask?
Well, it's simple really. I am registered on this site as a writer, filed under 'fiction'. Which means that on my work page, I can only see work available in the fiction category. But then one of the managers emailed me and said, "I have this piece of work that nobody has chosen and you're not doing anything - on the site - as far as I can see. Can I give it to you?"
Now, this site has filed me under fiction meaning that I can only access the work posted under stories on there. However, most of the work they get is non-fiction, and so they essentially lock me out of the larger portion of work available...until no one else is willing to do a certain job. Then suddenly they all up in my DMs like, "Hey Bighead."
It's cool.
It's alright.
People will use you if you let them.
I learned that lesson long ago.
So I only let them use me if it's to my benefit. And I figured I could do the 12k assignment and I'd get paid right about the middle of my holiday which means...

Yep.
I'd be rolling in it.
So I said yes.
And THAT'S when they told me the topic.
Now I'm not your typical judgemental whatever. But I don't hold with pain. And the fanfic I've read featuring BDSM is equal parts painful and just no. So I was not exactly happy.
However, I took it as an opportunity to learn something new, hopefully, and who knows? I'll probably be asked to write a BDSM romance sooner or later.
Right?
So, learning opportunity...
And boy did I learn!

First of all boys and girls, BDSM is not just about whips and chains. It's an entire lifestyle and personality type. As soon as I began learning more and more about what it takes and what it looks like to be in a dom/sub relationship I started looking at everyone around me differently. I noticed who had a tendency toward dominance, others towards submissiveness...Believe it or not, that was new information to me.

Take these two ladies in the lovely gif above for example. One hundred percent uncut, pure doms. Rob and Chyna's relationship might have worked out if Rob didn't bring a third dom into their relationship; his mama, Kris Jenner.
You notice that Rob and Chyna were fine and happy until he kind of reconciled with his family and was calling his mother every two minutes to ask for permission for this and that...Two cocks cannot exist in the same roost. One dom had to go and in this case, it was Chyna who stepped and got herself another sub.
Nicki also is such a dom, leading her men publicly around by the nose...remember how Safaree used to walk behind her? Dragged on stage at every award show to basically be her entourage? And Meek, so happy to have snagged those boobs and that butt. Just counting his blessings to be in the same room with her. Until they disobeyed. And then it was bye bye miss American pie...
You always know who wore the pants in her relationships. Probably why she and Drake have never quite gotten it together. He doesn't strike me as the submissive type...in spite of his softness.

Another obvious dom/sub couple is Rob's sister Kim and her husband Kanye. He literally tells her what to wear, goes so far as to dress her, basically, he runs her life. From what I've read of the dom/sub life, the first thing you need for success is a lot of trust in each other, because the sub completely hands her life over into the dom's hands.
Without trust, the dynamic can't work. With that in mind, I'd say that the Kimye relationship has the tools to last a lifetime what with her throwing away her sleuthing abilities because 'she doesn't need them with him', and he only having her number in his phone...they clearly need no one else.
Writing this book was not just beneficial in allowing me to see y'all in a new light. It also showed me things that I didn't know, I didn't know about myself.
I love when that happens.
When you discover something about yourself you didn't even think to imagine might be something to wonder about. It's the best. It's increasing self-awareness without angst and effort.
Shall I tell you what I discovered about me?

...
...
Bye Felicia, we not that close.
I will marvel with you at the marvelous possibilities of accessing knowledge and wisdom about absolutely any topic from the pages of a book. You might be reading it for entirely different purposes but then you come across something that makes you go like, "Hmmm...I did not know, I needed to know that."

I'm sure some of you would like to read the finished product on BDSM. Unfortunately, I have no idea where it will be published.
Hello, Annemarie, ghostwriter, pleased to meet you.
I will tell you where you can find a whole bunch of books I wrote...
Here.
Y'all come back and visit in the New Year y'hear?

Self-Publishing Ain't for the Faint Hearted

I am on holiday right now.
Outside of my window, the dark blue swimming pool beckons.
Or maybe I could be taking a walk by the sea.

But here I am, sitting.
Writing a blog post about how goddamn difficult self-publishing is.
You know why?
Because a self published author is not only the writer, they're the publisher, the marketer, number one cheerleader, publicist, distributor...okay maybe you're not the distributor, but you gotta keep an eye on them if you don't want any surprises.
Basically, you're running a company in which you're every single position including bottle washer, maintenance, and housekeeping. It's quite exhausting and it never stops.
Just now, I'm tackling an issue that came to my attention purely by accident. I bought a gift copy of Erase and Rewind from Amazon in order to enter the gift card into a giveaway on a readers' site. I did so because of a Facebook post where someone was asking about book reviews and the site put a link in the comments.

(So yes, while you're innocently browsing your facebook or twitter, you might come across something you need/want to act on because IT NEVER STOPS).

Well I went to Amazon to get the gift card number and I get a very disheartening message:
This book is not available in your country.
So...
I wrote a book.
I published it.
But it's not available in my country.
I had already come across this issue before with Child of Destiny when my son tried to get it for his friend. I'd already spoken to my distributor about it. They dismissed as a technical issue which would be sorted out presently.
It's a month later.
It's not sorted.

I miss Pronoun like the desert misses the rain. They had an Author Happiness Liaison. Them closing down has definitely been a step back for the self-published author.
So
1. I can't get my gift card for the site until Amazon sorts this shit out.
2. The distributor should have had this shit sorted on day one.
3. I'm now wondering where else my book is 'not available'.
4. Sigh.
I'm supposed to be on holiday!
If I had even a smidgeon less passion for my writing, I'd shut this shit down and go dispense medicine.
Speaking of passion, I recently accidentally opened an author page group on Facebook. Seeing as I didn't want to just close it without thought, I left it blank for a while but now I think I know what I want to do with it. I want to write stories from prompts. Which the group members will give me. So I'm urging you all to go and join it here so you can ask me for the stories you want to read.
Have you gifted my boxset to the bibliophile in your life yet? Happy Boxing Day.

Have you had a similar experience? Hit me up and let's share solutions.

DON'T Play Through the Pain

I've been pushing myself to work harder, to finish my work sooner, to take in more work...because I've been without work and now that I have it I want to do it all. Prove to myself and my mother probably that I can make it. I can do anything.
Well, I can't.
I can't miraculously heal myself from illness and I can't write more than I can write.
I'm only human.
What a stunning revelation.
I had a story all laid out for you, a great example of pushing yourself too hard while kidding yourself that you're not and it's horrible consequences. But I can't remember it. It could be the painkillers I'm taking. Or maybe I just can't remember.

I'm learning to just truly not sweat the small stuff.
Let it go like the blonde lady who makes ice sez.
So in my invalid state - and I mean it both ways; does that mean pun intended? - I'm just gonna leave you with an Instagram post I wrote about the vagaries of not taking care of yourself.
Can we take a vow not to work so hard in the new year? To take time for literally smelling the roses and baking cookies and whatnot?
And reading books of course.

 Life is about living.

#DeanWinchester has this philosophy. Play through the pain. And I too had unconsciously adopted this policy probably right from childhood. Yeah I have been feeling achy and unwell for a good long while but I always said, "I'll go to the hospital after..." After I finish this next assignment. After this batch of work is done... Just... after. Yesterday morning I knew I couldn't put it off any longer. I hurt too much. I was still shocked when the doctor said, "you have to be admitted." What? Me? I've only ever been admitted to hospital twice. One to remove my son and two to remove my appendix. I don't do hospitals. Luckily, or stubbornly I convinced the doctor to let me be treated from home. I talk about self care a lot. But I guess I haven't been following that philosophy myself too well. Shame on me right? Feels so good to be able to do nothing without guilt though. I love my stories, you know. But it's necessary to also love myself a bit more. I bet someone can relate huh?

A post shared by Author Annemarie Musawale (@authorannemarie) on Dec 15, 2017 at 2:04pm PST

My First Facebook Live

Hi. So I decided to do a facebook live in which I tell you guys about my brightest of bright ideas. I accidentally started a facebook author page group and I've been wondering what to do with it. So I got the idea last night to make it into a story prompt page. My dear followers are free to give me story prompts and I will write a short story for you using your prompt. I think the sound is pretty low but that's the gist.
What do you think?

Stagnation And Fatigue: Just in Time for the Holidays

There is this girl.
She's from Brazil.
She has several Supernatural-named accounts on Tumblr.
She uses them to beg the internet for money on the daily.

Now I'm not trying to poor-shame her or nothin'. God knows I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if I did. But every day for a year or more, she asks every day for money. She outlines her story; how she has no money for food, rent, her mother's medicines, hospital bills, her own hospital bills. It all seems very hopeless. Then I think in October or something her mother died so it was money for the funeral, for the pending hospital bill, for rent...
Then she let slip that she has a sister. She mentioned her in a "Please help me pay rent because I don't want to move in with my sister, I want to do it by myself."
But you're not doing it by yourself. You're asking the internet to do it for you.

So now that we know there's a sister (and a brother-in-law) instead of just her and her poor dead mom, then I wonder, so...how much did you actually have to pay for-
No wait, that's not even it.
My actual problem with her and her relentless posts is...there's never any change in the status. There's never any reports of job interviews, applications for jobs, a future plan that doesn't involve begging the internet to pay for every single expense. That's what bothers me.
There's an African saying about how if someone is carrying you, you make yourself easy to carry. You don't sprawl about in their arms like you're sitting on your throne. You try to take as much of your own weight as you can.
For this girl, nickname gadreelsam, it's all about sitting and crying and hoping that people will feel sorry enough for her to basically become her sugar daddies online. And that's annoying because of the entitlement of it. Because she's not making an effort. She wants to just take take and take, no expiry date, no specific plan for the future. Oh and of course we get the occasional, "I'm losing hope, I want to kill myself" message.

The thing that puzzles me is that in the midst of all this poverty she continues to have an unbroken internet connection, data to spend and a device with which to spend it on. And Tumblr takes so much data, hell I can't afford to be on that site every day. But there she is like clockwork, endlessly reblogging herself...I mean I don't know about Brazil. Maybe the internet is free? Maybe she borrows a laptop from...yeah okay that theory just died an ignominious death.
Why do I continue to follow this girl you ask?
Well, it felt rude to interrupt the whining you know? I was waiting for her to say thanks, guys, I'm good for a bit now before I unfollowed. Well, then I realized it was never gonna end so I just unfollowed.
So anyway I'm not saying she's lying or conning us. I'm not. But I don't even have donor fatigue; I have reading her whining fatigue.

Life is hard.
And when you've reached the end of your rope you should ask for help.
Please.
Ask for help.
But as you ask for help, also try to come up with solutions for your problem. Demonstrate that you are actively trying to get better. I want to cheer you on; I don't want to stay with you in a stagnating pool of self-pity forever, I'm sorry.
Speaking of stagnating, I've kind of been feeling like I'm doing that myself. I feel like I complain, to myself, to people who ask how I am, about how I'm not working as hard as I should. I feel like I'm trying to resolve it, but it's not getting resolved and that makes me feel discouraged. Then I start to feel like, "What's the point anyway?"
But my son wants to go on holiday for Christmas and enter a football tournament and eat lunch at Java...those things cost money mayne.

So that's my point I guess.
Is it a good one?
It certainly gets me up in the morning.
But I'd like my passion back, please.
Somebody make it happen.

Storytelling with Google

I just spent the last ten minutes scrolling through NASA infographics in order to find out what the interior of a spaceship is called. (turns out there's no particular name but flight deck would do nicely for my purposes). Like I'm just wanting to show two people giving each other the silent treatment in the er...place - *disembodied voice* - it was at this point that she turned to Google.

I use Google a lot when I write. Sometimes words just disappear from my mind so I have to use google to write a description in the hopes that it will turn up with the word. It's jarring to do so because it breaks up the flow of the story in my mind but needs must. I really wonder what people did before everything was literally at your fingertips (p.s. I just wrote fingerprints instead of fingertips...that's me nowadays). Diana Gabaldon says that when she's writing she has all these reference books that she gets plus reference people who help her with words and shit...I am one hundred percent sure that if I had to do that much study to write a story, the story would never get written. I am such a pantser it's not even funny.

Speaking of being a pantser, I was watching Insecure season 2 the other day and today while I was having my lunch and harassing the staff at Chicken Inn, I had an idea for a book. Because see Issa's friend played by Yvonne Orji (I can't remember the character's name) finally steps outside her comfort zone and dates this guy because 'he's funny and makes her laugh...' rather than, I guess his CV or whatever. But when she's telling Issa and her other friend about it, she seems to give the impression - without outright saying so - that the dick was not bomb even though she likes the guy. Anyway so what does she do?
 Has sex with the married man she was seeing before.

It gave me an idea for a non-fiction novel. I say non-fiction novel because while it would be in story format, the point of it would be to deliver facts rather than fictions. The premise of the novel would be a girl who finds a guy that is everything she wants and needs in a man, but his dick is not bomb at all. Like...at all. So she decides to be honest with him about it and let him know that he's not living up to her expectations. She doesn't want to cheat on him but she knows that she will in the long term if they don't address the problem. So her proposal is for him to take classes ideally from a lesbian, about how to pleasure a woman. And just so he doesn't feel like he's doing all the work in the relationship, she would be willing to take classes from a gay man about how to pleasure a man. So the chapters would just be different ways that the guy is taught to pleasure his woman. Then maybe one chapter at the end of what the chick learned.
Why go to the homosexuals you ask?

Because let's face it, who else knows what a woman likes better than another woman who has sex with women? Heaven knows if you asked me how to pleasure a woman I would not know what to tell you. And I'm a woman! All the magazines only seem to focus on "making the man in your life happy."
What about us?
It took this story premise for me to realize that I would not know how to pleasure me if my life depended on it. Innit sad? Is it my fault? Did I not expect enough from my relationships? Probably. But I just didn't think to. It wasn't on my radar. Am I alone in this?
I really do need to write this book and do interviews.
I still think that the best person to ask about pleasuring females would be a lesbian though. I feel like Portia de Rossi has that "I orgasm daily" glow. It's time to educate myself y'all, and give all the girlies out there some reference material.
Holla if you hear me!

I saw on twitter the other day that a girl pooped in the club. Not in the loo of the club. Like she had an incontinence moment and the poop just fell out of her as she was walking.
I have so many questions.
What?
What happened?
I thought the sphincter only loosened when someone died. What disease is this? Or did she hold it for just way too long and her body couldn't take any more? Did someone mix laxatives in her drink? I need answers. Is it drugs?

You guys know that I love Shadowhunters the TV show right? Okay, maybe not the show so much as Malec. Anyways, so Dominic Sherwood who plays Jace on the show said a homophobic slur the other day. He said it to Mathew Daddario who plays Alec, and who was on Facebook Live at the time.
Super awkward.
Okay so first I gotta say that this white boy is super idiotic. He must have known that it was a Mathew Takeover which meant that if Matt is talking into a phone, very likely he's talking to the fandom. So this brain dead individual yells, "Hey fag" at the guy. Like...even if by some miracle you were not aware that there was a takeover if someone is talking on the phone do you shout things that are best not overheard by anyone? It was so stupid I can't even.
So, of course, everyone got in their feelings and they want Dom to be replaced. On the one hand, I get it. On the other hand, lissen...

I compare it kind of to that situation where a white person does something racist because they are unthinking and unconcerned and safely ensconced in their privilege so much so that they can just afford not to care or to be aware of their actions. So they are uncaring and indifferent to the suffering of others. It's the way their life is set up. Can you blame someone for the way their life is set up? It's up to them to take the time to get out of their comfort zone and try to understand others' pain. It's not an obligation though. You can't make people care about your issues. And just because they are on a show where you are represented doesn't mean that everyone on the show is concerned with the issues that plague your community. I get it, for some people, celebrities are their everything. And I am sorry that they do not have role models closer to their real lives who they can glom onto. It makes it so much harder when something like this happens. It's important to remember that sooner or later, celebrities will let you down...
Except for Rihanna.

Speaking of racist fuckery, I would like to address the hoo haa surrounding Meghan Markle. See instagram post below for example.

Playlist gonna be lit 🆙🤣🤣🤣🔥🔥🔥 #YuhBumperReaaaal #MiWahPushSteeeel 👀😈 @_fake_smiles_all_round_ @realdealcomedyjam ⬅️

A post shared by Forgive My Fuckry 🙏🤣 (@whypree_tho_vip) on Nov 29, 2017 at 1:15am PST

Is Meghan Markle Jamaican? No, she is not. But she's black right? So we can just impose on her any type of black culture we feel like because all dem monkeys is the same right? BBC Africa had an article about how the "Royals fell in love with Africa before Harry fell in love with Meghan."
Okay first of all...
 Nope, I won't let Y'all make me 'first of all' you. Just a question. Giuliana Rancic is a first-generation Italian American right? But when discussing her wedding, did anyone mention Italy anywhere? About how Italy is the home of red wine and romance and that must have been why Bill fell for her? No, why? Because she's American now, he's American too and where they come from or their ancestors came from doesn't come into their Americanness. But Meghan, regardless of how her ancestors reached those shores; whether they were abducted and sold or emigrated of their own free will later; they are just as much entitled to be called Americans as Guiliana is. But no, her entire history and identity is erased so we can reduce her to this one aspect of her ancestry. That someone in her bloodline came from Africa so she will forever be your exotic little 'African' flower.
No fam.
She's an American of mixed race who is apparently not even black enough for some black Americans. Poor dear, everyone is so willing to disenfranchise her of her identity just enough that when she says 'her people' she probably just means her mom and aunties. But they're all very happy to say 'a black person' is joining the royal family. She's not even a person, not really. The only pertinent thing about her is that she has some black in her. That's the entirety of her importance to the world. So, by all means, let's talk about how extra her black relatives are gonna be at the wedding, blasting Jamaican music and how Prince Harry fell in love with Africa before he fell in love with her like he found her underneath a bush in the Sahara. Let's erase the PERSON that she is so we can find ways to diminish her. God sometimes y'all make me so mad.
However.
Her husband sees her.
That's who all she needs right?

Congratulations to the happy couple though. I know Diana would be so proud.
Also just to let you know, seeing as it's the season of giving, I got a great gift idea for you; the Child of Destiny box set! Get it here.