Don't Worry Be Happy

Happy new month.
I shall be 45 years old in T-7 days.
When I got pregnant with Chris, twenty years ago, I made a vow that I would dedicate the next twenty years to him, and then when I turned 45, I'd be off to Jamaica to get my groove back. During his football years, we always used to say he'd go off to play for Manchester United and I would go open a bar on the beach in Jamaica. I would hang out in a sarong and a bikini and listen to people's problems in my role as bartender.
Of course, Chris did not join Man-Utd. Instead, he's a first-year student of Architecture and I am nowhere near ready to leave him - nor is he ready to be left. So I guess I'll defer the Jamaican bar on the beach until I'm 52; when Chris will join the workforce...
This umbilical cord thing guys...it's a trap.

In the meantime, I shall grow my dreadlocks until they're down to my butt and write a few more books. Maybe lose some weight so I have a so-called bikini-bod by then à la Gammy.

In the meantime, there's a lot to do.
The earth is being destroyed before our eyes. At this rate there really will be no earth for my grandchildren to inherit. Or they might be living in an In Search of Paradise world. Nobody needs that shit. My grandkids don't deserve to be foraging for water and clean air. Nobody does.
Why are we letting a bunch of idiotic white men destroy everything for the rest of us? The Internet has made it so that the myth of the superior white man is easily dispelled. Why are we still held in thrall?
Wake Up!

If Climate Change is too involved for you, well, there is always the Daily Mail which if we all stopped reading, stopped clicking on the untrue stories it writes about people, maybe they'd stop or turn their attention to something else.
People are dying because they surround themselves with negativity and then take drugs to escape from the negativity in their lives. How about just not seeking it out? How about, accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative?
I was watching the Happy video the other day and reflecting on how different the world was when it came out. Yeah, people had problems but the overall feel in the air was one of optimism...Yes, We Can and all that. I guess it's really true what they say; one person can change the world.
Now all there is, is the orange mosquito buzzing in everyone's ears and giving us all a headache; not to mention sprouting copycats everywhere on earth.
It's disheartening.
That's why I try as much as possible to keep my life free of Cheeto Mussolini.

But this is about happiness, and cultivating the happy in your life. You might think, "Oh you can say that, Annemarie, because your life is going great."
Actually, it's not. I have this neighbour that went from Ms Jeklyll to Ms Hyde in the blink of an eye. She wants to kill my dog.
Literally.
I've been forced to reinforce my fence just to make extra sure my dog can't go into her compound when it's loose in case she feeds it poisoned food or hits it over the head. I think she's the one who killed my other dog. This hostility coming out of nowhere like that makes no sense otherwise.
Of course, she could just be jealous of me because I'm fabulous and happy.
She's one of those "church ladies" forever quoting scripture and attending all the masses. But her heart is black as a witch's tit.
It's been a stressful time living in fear for my dog every night, the extra expense of reinforcing the fence...and at the same time, my son has started college.
It's hard, but I am determined to hold on to my happiness. Or should I call it peace? Whatever it is that makes me sleep like a baby every night.
Clean living and a clear conscience.
Looking for that higher self that I am and turning up as her...Her Grace, the Duchess of Sussex said that, not me.

Let's try to support one another to be happy as possible, no?
An announcement before you go: Marcus Devereux's release date has been pushed back to November 9th due to unavoidable circumstances. Please do continue to preorder. My beta reader told me it's a great story. My other beta reader said it's perfect.
Ask them.

Four Books, Four Days, Free

Try saying that fast four times.
Yes indeedy, four is the theme of this post.
I love marketing. It's so fun. You come up with creative posts for your social media, and catchy slogans so people will remember to do what you want them to. It's almost like procrastinating except without the guilt. Because you're still working, but it's fun. The returns might be far in the future but one thing I've come to learn is that returns are not the point.
It really is about the journey. I am not even being facetious.
It might be different if I was planning to live on the returns of writing. Maybe one day, but I'm not there yet. I won't get there without your help. So, thank you for reading and downloading and participating and engaging. I do very much appreciate it.

And that does not mean I am not super thrilled by every sale I manage to make. But unlike most people who are discouraged by slow results, I am zen. I am prepared.
That said, go to my author page and at least download the free books - I've gone a year when I've made at least one sale a month, and I mean for that streak to continue and grow. Help me out guys.
So anyway, to create super hype for Marcus Devereux what we're gonna do is help you to read the first four books if you haven't. Now I remember those days when I was too poor to buy books and I came across a good story in a series but it was book five...
Man, the frustration.

So I'm doing this for you guys who genuinely want to read but are financially challenged - the rest of you buy the boxset. It's like...the price of three beers or coffees and you get to enjoy them more than once.
So we're gonna start with In the Shadow of the Styx, which will be free from 1st to 4th April. Four days of free books for four months. In the Shadow of the Styx, The Swamp is Full of Mystery, Child of Destiny and Requiscant In Pace free for the first four days of April, May, June and July respectively.
(I admit, since The Swamp is Full of Mystery is permafree, May might be superfluous but it's the poetic symmetry of it, ya dig?)
Hov and B think that the number four is significant. Seeing their life, I'm gonna assume they are on to something. So I'm basing my marketing strategy on the number four.

Let's see what happens.
Here is an excerpt for your enjoyment.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

A Picumentary

Character Intro

In Search of Paradise is the first ever post-apocalyptic gay African romance that details the Struggle of being gay while attempting to survive the end of the world. You have been introduced to Ben, Anders, and Zawadi in other posts. Today we're just summarising what we know in form of pictures. Because otherwise there's just too much stuff to read.
Right?

Charity

You can pre-order your copy by going here, and hovering your mouse over the picture. It will give you options from Amazon to Kobo whichever you prefer, where you can pre-order In Search of Paradise at a very discounted pre-order rate. It's discounted because we want as many people who can, to pre-order so that we can raise a goodly amount for the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

The Book Cover

I want you to take a closer look at the cover. Look at Anders' face. Do you see it? His face actually spells LOVE. The black and white background behind Ben and Anders' silhouettes is actually a picture of Uhuru Park in Nairobi. The bottom colored portion of the book cover is shaped like a pyramid and shows the devastation of the Apocalypse. After you read the book you'll have even more appreciation of how awesome that is. 

And Finally

Pre-order period ends on 3rd November which is closer than you think. So hit that link today.

And the Winner is...

So I had this little promotion for;

The Post-Apocalyptic Demon Hunter’s Reintegration into Normal Society 

First of all, I gotta tell you about that name. See I was reading this fan fiction about Demon!Dean...or was it BoyKing!Sam? I'm old, it was a while ago. 

Anyway so in this story they were trying to get through the apocalypse and I think someone, my instinct is it was Crowley was making snide remarks about their ability to have a life after hunting....

And, he sarcastically said someone should write a book about it, with the above title.

So I did.

It's just a working title though. I'm not sure if it will survive final edits. I'd like to hear your thoughts about that. For one thing, it's a little difficult to remember no? Talk to me.

So anyway, I'm writing, and my beta reader is editing. And we're really enjoying ourselves as we race to that deadline at the end of this month.

Will we make it?

Will we fail?

Tune in next week...

So we had the small promotional competition where the reader was asked to reimagine what happened before the excerpt given in a picture. This picture.

The writing wasn't very clear, deliberately because I need to know that you love me enough to make the effort to read it. :)

I got a few replies. Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to write something. Most of them were one-sentence type things. I get it, it's hard to go out on a limb and just give a blurb on someone else's story. Which is why Lesley Awino wins. This is what she wrote.

The sun seemed to be scorching the life out of everything they had passed. People had been dropping dead since long before Kevin and Alec even thought to pass this way. Even here, in the Acadia National park, rows and rows of bodies with malformed skin lay everywhere, and the stench was unbelievable. None of these poor souls would have passed for a melanated child of the sun. And so the sun scorched them out of existence.
Kevin and Alec's story was wildly different. They were simply trying to get back home to Kenya. It had been bad when all this started, but now there was barely any way to go straight home. Every form of land transport with metal or plastic or rubber had rendered unusable because of the heat. And so the two walked. From New York, all the way to Maine. They had made it this far on the hope, no, belief that there had to be a ship they could use to get home. For now, they were both exhausted, and needed rest. And then Kevin spotted one of those rare pools of clear water.

I mean...you gotta admit, it's very good huh? The description almost has me dying of thirst and seeing rotting bodies everywhere. And it fits in the story except for the fact that they're on the wrong continent.
Can we all give her a round of applause?

 I almost feel shy to post what ACTUALLY came before...but here it is for your edification and comparison. Oh and p.s. on my beta's advice, I changed the names.

“Tell me you see those, too!” she exclaimed, turning back to face her brother and Ben.Anders squinted. “Looks like an oasis,” he said.Zawadi whipped her head round to look at him. “So, you see it too?” she said, her tone urgent.Anders nodded slowly. “Yah, I see it.” They stopped, staring at the oasis, waiting to see if it was a mirage or not. Then Ben walked around both of them, at a fast clip, heading for it. Anders and Zawadi followed reluctantly behind. So thirsty.So ready for something good to happen. The oasis did not disappear.As they drew nearer, the sand under their feet gave way to tufts of hard yellow grass, which became greener the closer they came to the oasis. The more they saw evidence that they were nearing a water source, the faster they walked.

As I write, I'm also looking for the right cover for this pioneering genre. The first two contendahs are below. Do tell me which you like. Or even if they both repulse you terribly...

This post apocalyptic gay African romance, named 'The Post' is slated for release in September. Sign up for updates to receive other excerpts, news, and information.

New Release: Child of Destiny

My book goes live tomorrow; happy birthday to me.

This is a typical love story. Boy meets Girl. Boy’s girlfriend falls in magic pool, almost drowns and has to be saved by spell done by Girl. Only catch is, Girl has to have experienced passion to perform spell so naturally Boy obliges. And they live happily ever after…or do they? A couple of snags are hit along the way including the fact that Boy’s girlfriend is a borderline sociopath who happens to have all the money Boy could want. Girl on the other hand, does not; furthermore she lives on the fringes of society and practises magic. In other words, she’s weird. Boy is not weird; he is popular and handsome and the star basketball player of the school. Under ‘Most Unlikely Couple on the Planet’ in the yearbook, is a picture of these two – Leo and Mya. Yet; where did the pool come from? How strange that a piece of magic involving this unlikely pairing had to be performed. Is everything as it seems or is there more bubbling under the surface than previously imagined? At the end of the day, the question on everyone’s mind is…’does magic really exist?’ Even more pressing is the question of the potency of that most mysterious and most powerful of all magic…Love.

Child of Destiny Release Date

Guess what! We have a new release date for this one. My birthday; 9th October. I'm excited, I'm nervous, I so want you to like it. Here's an excerpt.

When she walked out of the bathroom which was across the hall from her room, she copped a peek to see whether Leo had stirred. He was standing in the middle of the room, fully dressed to his black alligator skin boots. Leo’s family was in the alligator business – hunting them, raising them, and selling their various components; skin, meat or teeth-whatever anyone wanted. So when he wasn’t wowing the school courtside crowds with his basketball skills, he was at his uncle’s farm, learning the family business, or else canoodling with his girlfriend Charlotte in one of her various family properties and hosting exclusive parties for the ‘in’ crowd at her lake house. His life was pretty much set the way that he liked it; or so it seemed. ‘Do you have what you need now?’ he asked her, his voice slightly huskier than usual.

Uploading Your Ebook: It Can Be As Frustrating As Fuck

I'm exhausted. I finished my manuscript yesterday, thought about getting it critiqued further on scribdophile but then felt like I absolutely did not have another edit in me. So I shrugged my shoulders and began the process of uploading it on smashwords absolutely FILLED with excitement at how the story had turned out.

I upload it for the first time and it was smooth sailing until they emailed me to say, hey...we can't have you advertising other sites in your books. The distributors won't like it. I sigh...I have to go and remove all references to where a fellow author advertising in the flap of my book had put in her locations for where to buy her book.

That done, I re-upload the document. But wait, now it refuses to convert to kindle and epub. Bish whet?

Eight times I tried to upload; it rejected it every time. I tried contacting customer care but they have a 72 hour turn around time and I'm impatient as fuck. I tried removing the ad for the other author's book; I tried changing formats...no joy. It was sooo frustrating. At some point I considered just giving up on smashwords and going to lulu. (I actually did go to lulu) but I love smashwords; it's so hassle free. Ha ha! did I say hassle free? It was...

I finally go to bed having done nothing all day and night except try to upload this book and angst. When I wake up there is an email from smashwords waiting, telling me I'm running behind schedule on uploading my manuscript to fill the pre-order requirement. Now this makes me want to cry because I'd messaged them continuously asking for help with no reply. Nevertheless, I reply to apprise them once again of the problem and this time I get an answer. This is day two; I'm supposed to be doing other work but I'm still trying to upload my stuff...

Finally I get help from 'Kevin' from customer care. He tells me to remove my Table of Content tabs, any images (from the other author) and page numbers.
 'But I need a table of contents' I say.
 'Watch the youtube video  on how to insert one' the FAQ replies.
So I watch the video and make the corrections and voila! At last, 48 hours after I've started the process, The Swamp is Full of Mystery is successfully uploaded. And I need a drink.