Missing Scenes as Marketing?

 Hi guys,

Having woken up and found my mojo again in this year of our lord 2022 I not only intend to finish writing Marcus Devereux - which is intimidatingly good FYI but also, give my already published books some love. 

Starting with In Search of Paradise, which is really, well, I won't say my best work because they're all good, but it does go its own direction right. Gay Africans, rugby, set in Nairobi but then also the apocalypse...it's real but also fantastical. 

Anyway, I'm trying a thing where I post missing scenes on my hub page.

I've just put up the first one. Go take a look and tell me how you like it.

Happy Pride Month!

"I am a dirty computer.
I am not ready to be cleaned."
In fact, I am reveling in all this dirt; discovering new textures and tastes...the thing about being in your forties that they don't tell you is; you can set yourself free if you want. Free of the assumptions that society puts on you, the ones that you put on yourself without even realizing, the ones that insistence has made you accept...
All of these can be thrown out as you embark on a real journey of self-discovery, fuelled by Janelle Monae's music of course. Don't believe me? Just watch Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk

So, of course, I support everyone else's journey to find themselves and be proud of who they are. This month, it's the LGBTQIA community celebrating the choice to stand up and be counted. To say, "Here I am. Take me as I am or leave me alone. What you won't do, is change me."
Isn't it a glorious thing to be? Proud of who you are?
The narrative these days emphasizes so much all the things we have to be ashamed of. Our electoral choices (booo!), the way too much weight we carry around (bleh) the mental health challenges we grapple with daily (Kanye, here's looking at you kid) our struggle writing (whose?) that we sometimes forget how truly awesome we are.
Yes, even you.
Yes, you.
Yeah, I'm serious.

Don't feel bad if you're not quite there yet. It truly is about the journey, not the destination. Why just yesterday I discovered something so interesting about myself that I had no idea was even in me. It was so exciting to know this new thing about myself. It was like falling in love all over again. Yes, me with my big age, still discovering new things about myself.
Too often, we look to other people to tell us who to be; who we are allowed to be, how we're allowed to express who we are. We live in prisons largely of our own making when the truth is, living for other people never made anyone happy.

What is happy you ask?
Gabrielle Union was on Jada's red table talk last Monday and she said that her life coach asked her the same question. The only answers she could give at the time were food related. And goddamnit, food is allowed to make you happy but many times we turn to food for comfort. So technically it's not making us happy. It's just helping us forget that we're unhappy.
Although, gah, homemade french fries are the shit. You cannot be unhappy and eat homemade french fries at the same time.
What makes you happy?
I'll tell you what makes me happy. Creating stuff. Be it a blog post, a story, a graphic, my child...I am a sucker for creation. Watching true love makes me happy. That's why I love Supernatural so much. It's great to see people who truly love each other interact. And the bonus with Sam and Dean is that they are soulmates and the actors who play them are soulmates. It just makes me feel soft and content to know that true love exists.
I have a thing to say about soulmates. I think many people confuse being soulmates for being romantically in love and that's not true. Being soulmates is a thing where one soul recognizes and connects with another. Both souls have to be open to it, to let each other into the very core of who each other is.
My son is my soul mate. I see him. He sees me. He knows who I am beneath all the masks, even the ones I am unaware of. And I know who he is. This isn't a mind-reading thing. It's not something that can really be explained. But you'll know it when you find it.

In honor of pride month, I'm gonna be highlighting some books I have written and read that depict LGBTQIA people just living and loving like the rest of humanity. I think we get so caught up in categorizing that we forget that we're all the same. Who makes your privates stand up and pay attention is your business. Do you even know for sure who rocks your boat?
Are you sure?
I'm in the questioning phase of my life so all bets are now off. For Ben and Anders the question wasn't who rocks their boat, it was, am I gonna be brave enough to acknowledge it? For Miles, there was no question. Small town living made it impossible for him to do anything but hide.
Are you wondering who the fuck those are? Well, Ben and Anders are our heroes In Search of Paradise, and Miles is the best friend in the Child of Destiny series. And that's all I'm saying about that.

Cheers.

graphic lyrics from Janelle Monae's dirty computer album.

The First of Its Name

I'm no good at introducing my books. When anyone asks me what my books are about, I always feel like slapping a kindle into their hands and saying, "Read it and see."
I try to think if anyone ever gave me a treatise on a book before I picked it up and I gotta say, no they didn't. Usually, I just pick up a book, read the blurb, read the first few pages and if they look likely that's it.
Sold.
Or not.

So I'm not going to give you a treatise on In Search of Paradise, the first of book of its genre...how do I know that, you ask? Well, in the process of submitting it for publishing, there is a step where you choose the category your book belongs to right? So I looked for "African, gay", also "African postapocalyptic"...
Guess what?
Those categories don't exist.
The closest I got was African American gay romance.
Why do you think that is? Well, of course, it's mostly the denial that gay Africans exist, I know that for a fact. Even my family, which is the most chill in existence has given me the massive side-eye over this project.
My sister put it this way, "Annemarie is writing gay porn now." huge sigh. What are we going to do with her?
Of course at this point eliciting that reaction is a way of life for me so...

Well, gay Africans do exist, gay Kenyans are out here trying to hustle just like the rest of us, and that's where the national gay and lesbian human rights commission comes in. I'll let them say it in their own words:

Founded by six young legal advocates, The National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC) announced its foundation at its inaugural Gay and Lesbian Awards in December 2012. Held in Nairobi’s City Hall, the Awards affirmed the Kenyanness of the LGBTIQ community while demanding for their inclusion in public and social organizing spaces. Since then, NGLHRC has been encouraging diversity and agitating for public dialogue on sex, sexuality, gender, and nonconformity.
Since 2013, we have been the go-to organization for LGBTIQ legal aid, including security response. We provide a greatly needed national legal aid response mechanism to help prevent and respond to discrimination on account of real or presumed sexual orientation or gender identity. We also engage in civic and public education on LGBTIQ identity, needs, and rights as we push for the full inclusion of LGBTIQ individuals and communities in Kenyan society. Through unique partnerships, targeted trainings and a responsive staff, NGLHRC’s services and resources are available to LGBTIQ individuals wherever they may be; in every city, town, rural area, and county in Kenya.

When I began to write this book, I didn't have any lofty ambitions in mind. It was a story, it came to me, it wanted to be written. LGBTQIA is not really my space - except in the laziest of terms, where I could probably be described as an ally, maybe. But I thought that since I have appropriated their culture for my book, it's only fair that they reap some of the benefits. That's why I decided to give all preorder proceeds to the NGLHRC to help in my own very small teeny tiny way to make it easier to be gay in Africa. That way, it won't take the goddamned apocalypse for people to come out of the closet.
Damn, is that a spoiler?
I think that's a spoiler.
Oh well.
 Speaking of the apocalypse, I wake up every day and the events I'm describing as fiction in my book seem about to happen in real time. You guys, I'm not ready to live in the Walking Dead. Can we all chill? Mother nature included.
What the fuck is happening though you guys?
Anyways, here is an excerpt from In Search of Paradise, read it, enjoy, go preorder the book, it's available from tomorrow.
Kisses.

IN SEARCH OF PARADISE: AN EXCERPT