How Are You So Sure? Because the Universe Provides

"How are you so sure?" I asked a friend that question, in awe of his certainty that he's where he's meant to be in life and will get every and anything he wants and needs.


He pointed to the walls of the studio where we sat and each poster on the wall had a story. He could recount all the laughs and tears and the gifts he received and things he lost. He expresses gratitude for all he has and goes through life fearlessly. Not to be confused with foolishly.

We were hanging out that day because I needed his energy. I always feel good in his presence. I feel heard and I'm guaranteed a piece of sage advice from him. 

I was on vacation a few weeks prior and questioning my direction in life. I was internalizing all the change in New York. There was this resistance in me against being the 'naked man photographer'. I was discouraged at my living situation and bank account balances. 

It's hard to look on the bright side at times and go forward knowing I will be taken care of. Even though I'm ten years removed, depression has rewired my brain. My usually optimistic, determined nature is sometimes shattered with hopelessness, despair and fear.

Interview about Writing and Self-Publishing a Book

In Las Vegas for my book signing, December 2015

You win some, you lose some, but in the end you can post it on your blog.


I was contacted by a women's blog for an interview about writing a book and self-publishing. That was a few months ago and it's safe to say that they won't be running the piece so I'm sharing it here:

Workspace Energy

Every once in a while I get stuck. It's not a writer's block because I kind of feel stuck in all aspects of my life - the writing, blogging, photography, journaling, working out, diet, sleeping - I even get stuck watching the same shows and having pointless exchanges of 'hey' 'what's up?' 'we should get together' over and over and over with dudes I really don't care for.


I'm a big believer in the power energy holds over someone. Stagnant energy in your home or office can also affect your day-to-day and your work. I was asked by WeWork what my ideal workspace would be like. Hmm...


Not sure about "ideal" but let me tell you about my current workspace: my room. I got my desktop, laptop, pens, loose paper, notebooks cause a writer gotta write and a writer gotta type. Two different things in my world. I have a stereo with speakers for ambient music and high-energy music blasting that fuels my photo editing marathons. My desk chair is a 65cm exercise ball. Ultra comfy. Great for bouncing and rocking when I get into my music and keeps my hips loose which is important since I'm sitting for long stretches sometimes. I have a big window that floods the room with sunlight. I need a window to gaze out of or  to open for fresh air. If I need inspiration, I can keep tabs on my neighbors. I have snacks and drinks at the ready too. Food is fuel and I'm a machine when I'm working.

The Darker Side of Lust A-Dollar-A-Day Holiday Sale

Between now and December 31, 2015, The Darker Side of Lust will be on sale. The price has been dropped to $10 ($9.95 to be exact)!


Each day after that, the price will increase by one dollar until it is back to its original cover price - $19.95 -which will coincide with December 31!


All copies of The Darker Side of Lust purchased through my website will be sold at that day's sale price. Multiple copies of the book can be ordered. No promo code necessary. Price is also valid on International orders.

My Writing Process - Blog Tour

It's unreal the number of notes that were passed in class between Glendaliz Camacho and myself between 6th and 8th grade. Not only the number of notes but the sheer volume of the written exchanges. Since then she's been published numerous times and is working on her short story collection ("La Baca" still thrills me) and will be included in an upcoming anthology. She's been a huge supporter of my blog and has wielded the red pen against my words. 

This is the cyber-version of passing a note -- Glendaliz asked me if I'd like to participate in this blog tour. It's good timing since my focus lately has been everywhere. Not in a bad way. Just that there are quite a few projects I have going on right now that are at different phases of development and taking some time to think about only my writing is needed.

Can't fight fate. We were destined to be writers. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

What are you working on?

I'm working on some stuff. 

I work to maintain this blog and it's many focuses -- the personal writing, the sex, dating and relationship writing, body image, rants on the idiocy of society, Ask Abbie, the guest posts, NY posts for my Native Creative Concierge business, Planet of the Apes -- there's a system to my Random Musings. 

I want a syndicated writing gig - a column. One that I get paid for. I need to do more work on getting that. 

The 5th anniversary edition of The Darker Side of Lust is also on my To-Do List.

Life Among The Barbarians

Guest Post by Cole Riley

When Abby invited me to do a guest blog on her blog, Random Musings, I leaped at the opportunity. The timing was perfect. This week, my novel, Little White Lies, was published by Zane’s imprint at Simon & Schuster, Strebor Books. It is causing quite a stir. It has already been chosen as the main selection by the Black Expressions Book Club for December.

As my friend Zane says, “Little White Lies is an amazing novel about how making one bad mistake can change your entire life. It gives new meaning to "being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” However, in this terrible age of Trayvon Martin and the stop-and-frisk epidemic, I believe its themes are deeper than that. It’s about an all-out war against young black males and their neutralization by the greater society. As a journalist and former long-time reporter with The New York Daily News, I witnessed how the plagues of educational, economic, and legal freedoms are denied them.

Le Flâneur Et Son Pain

Re-working of Paul Gavarni's Le Flâneur from 1842 by Spenot

Here's the latest vignette I wrote for my French lessons. I started early last month with I met Anthony Bourdain. He was bound to inspire me. A few years ago a friend was reading a book about a wandering man, le flâneur. It's stuck with me ever since, even if the term isn't a common one in French (according to my French buddy). My imagination continues to flourish. My French is... coming along.

Mon Amie With The Expensive Bags Et Non D'argent

Photo by Abigail Ekue Photography

Using a lot of the vocabulary I learned during my last French-English exchange, I forced myself to write in the past tense and to write questions  -- both things I haven't grasped yet. I originally intended this French lesson assignment to be a "see dog run" paragraph. It quickly devolved into a story. I'm a writer. I can't help myself. I have a flair for the dramatic at times.

My Progress With The French Language

photograph de mon livre

As some of you know, I've been learning French. When I have time, I do lessons on Rosetta Stone and I meet with a language buddy -- she's learning English and I'm learning French. I've done a worse job lately of making time for my lessons and I've had to learn to take à pas de bébé.


Last week, I wrote a paragraph in French. Using some of the vocabulary I'd recently learned, I embarked on the challenge:

He Made Me Do It

Back in the Saddle

I had an intensely charged encounter with a gorgeous man. We got as far as fingers and mouths. Lucky to even get that far, we continuously reminded ourselves not to get our hopes up. It quickly became our inside joke. We were parting ways when he told me he wanted me to email him what would happen the next time we saw one another. I protested that he was giving me homework and I didn't like it. He told me to include pics to help get my story across. I chuckled to myself because he had no clue what I could do with only words. What if I don't write it I asked. He didn't have a definitive response.

"No punishment?" I asked. 

Exhaust Pipes: A Mini Collection of Erotic Fiction

I wrote another book. Exhaust Pipes. The idea came to me late last month that a mini ebook released in time for Valentine's Day would be a great product for new and old readers of my erotic fiction. So with the support of my "market research division", I went to work.


Exhaust Pipes, is a mini collection that containing four erotic stories featuring car sex or anal sex. Originally it was going to be a mini ebook of only two stories but I decided to include two more that were "in the vault" and ready to shine. Exhaust Pipes is available on Kindle, Nook and Kobo. I'm excited to also be reaching new readers on Sony eReader and Apple iBooks with this release. You can buy the book formats for those readers on Smashwords. I'll have those direct links for you shortly.

The Delicious Nasty Bits

If anything can make you fall in love with a man it would be reading him wax poetic about the tastes, sights, sizzles and textures of food from around the kitchen and around the world. That's what Anthony Bourdain did to me. I recently finished reading The Nasty Bits (which I bought a few weeks ago). Good lord, he's diddled my culinary travel nub exquisitely. He doesn't consider himself a writer? Well damn. He must have really good editors. I watched old episodes of No Reservations while I read it, adding to the experience.


Food is wonderful. It's a necessity. Yet I also love the process of cooking and preparing, presenting and consuming. Sharing a meal with someone is so enjoyable and bonding. I'd recently met someone and I have yet to see him eat. I later found out he eats one meal a day or a little over every 24 hours. We may never be able to "go to dinner", "share a meal" and that idea physically upset me.


Bourdain: good food does lead to good sex. As it should. 


On an subconscious level maybe I'm anticipating my time in dry dock will continue. But consciously, I know damn well I like to eat with people I like. The way someone eats is as telling as what someone eats (remember the Neanderthal?). I'll see if I can have a meal with said male to figure out what, if any, attraction there is between us.


Anthony Bourdain is releasing a chocolate bar. If it's dark chocolate, I may jizz in my pants. Yeah, baby. The love continues.

*   *   *

A Random Moment with Glendaliz Camacho

Glendaliz Camacho, writer

I asked her to sit next to me in our 6^th grade computer/typing class and a friendship was born. That led to many novel-length notes passed back and forth during class (even if she doesn’t remember the details). Our paths diverged and converged a few years ago and she’s still writing. Perhaps a writer is born. I stopped by her office (the day job) at SHARE on Friday afternoon.

~   ~   ~

Well, my name is Glendaliz Camacho. I’m a writer, also an editor and a translator. I’ve worked in publishing, years ago, and magazine article writing and right now I’m working on fiction; on short fiction and a novel.

I’m sure there’s that one story that you haven’t shared. Which story is that? And why haven’t you shared it?

I don’t know that I only have one story that I haven’t shared. I think there’s a couple. I think they marinate in my brain for quite some time and then when I’m ready then I can kinda start working on it. Like even the story that I’m working on right now, it’s something that I’ve had in my head for a while that came outta a passing comment that my Dad made about my great-grandparents. So this one factoid that he gave me about them got me thinking but it took a long time. So that would be the story that I haven’t been able to tell, haven’t told. But I think I have a couple of them like that, usually if they’re not about myself and my more scandalous times, then they’re about family or something.

The Much Needed Book Job

It's been a long time since I've related to and enjoyed an episode of The Simpsons (I didn't even get all the references in "The Food Wife" and that's saying something). I've always loved the show for it's social commentary and satire. Being a fan of ensemble heist films (Ocean's Eleven and The Italian Job top the list), and a writer, I smiled throughout the entire episode, "The Book Job".


I don't read young adult lit and I don't like vampires but I know everyone and their nephew's half-sister's neighbor's uncle's personal trainer is into vampires. I had flashbacks to the Book Expo America and the world of book junkies and author groupies. And I felt Lisa's pain when she realized who was receiving book deals and writing best-sellers (a dog? Tyra Banks?).

A Clear & Lucid & Natural & Simple Conscious

Clear & Lucid & Natural & Simple by Conscious. It can be a quick read for instant "aha moments" or one that can take a few days to get through because his gems of wisdom will cause moments of contemplation.


While reading Clear & Lucid I had flashbacks to many of the conversations I've had with Conscious. Why won't he use revolving doors? He explained it to me in such a way that it's up to me to figure it out. That quote is on page 66 and it's written 6 times--there must be meaning to that as well. Sometimes what he (or Montag or the Bronx Über Villain) says doesn't hit me right away. I can see it now, I'll by lying (half)  awake, having a restless night, amethyst helping me none and something I read in the book will become clear. Seeing his statements in print made them real again. And there are times when speaking to Conscious and while I was reading Clear & Lucid that it's as if Conscious is reading my heart. "Bout to 'life' #unfollow some ppl." Yes! I've taken this step numerous times. Recent eclipses and constant growth as a person have made it easier. Certain relationships/people eclipse their way our of your life and we're the better for it.

Music, Inspiration And "Too Much Boogie"

I received goodies in the mail last week -- two erotic short story collections. I just finished reading one of them, Too Much Boogie: Erotic Remixes of the Dirty Blues by Cole Riley.

After looking over the "track list" on the back cover I immediately turned to "Effects of Moonshine" by Dorla Moorehouse. Due to recent happenings in my own life after drinking actual moonshine, I had to read this story. I wasn't disappointed. The heat, the dancing, the bodies...

The Darker Side of Lust: The Lost Interview

In August 2010, I was contacted by XI Magazine for an interview and book review for their Se-XI section. A few months after the piece went live, XI Magazine had server issues and lost tons of data, the interview and review included. Although the full piece is somewhere out there in cyberspace, I do have the interview portion.


In an email blast I sent to my mailing list, I included this quote from Managing Editor, Okema T. Moore:

Exploring various taboos like mulitiple partners, homosexuality and religion with regard to sex…the book has something for everyone! It’s well written, intriguing and a page turner. It explores lust and passion and even a little love, all while drawing you in deeper and deeper with the vivid language and very detailed descriptions of characters, positions and possibilities. I felt like a voyeur as I read it, because I could clearly see each scenario play out in my mind’s eye.

It takes a talented writer and an expansive amount of liberation and imagination to come up with something that is more sexy and passionate than raunchy and overtly extra. Abigail Ekue is all of that and more in my opinion.

And now, the interview where I discuss my loves, my lusts and my writing (September 2010):

The Facts About Fiction

I love fiction that's based on reality. Always have.

I recently had to find my fiction sea legs again. I've been working on a story for an upcoming anthology I was asked to contribute to (it's great to have Muchachas in your life who see your potential and push you). Up until a few weeks ago, I didn't know what to write about. I had stories in my notebook I could've transcribed and submitted but I just wasn't feeling those stories.

Then, I had a great evening earlier this month and it sparked a story--my muse had arrived in the form of a man (nothing new there). So I wrote. It was great to write to get the story down on paper, but after further review, it was just a fictional retelling of actual events. Yeah, that works when that's what you're going for but I wanted to write a work of fiction.

A story.

About the characters.

Characters make or break works of fiction. They don't have to be likable, but they have to be relatable. That's my rule of thumb.

Know The Past, Find The Future Book Launch

Monday, May 23, 2011 marks the 100th Anniversary of the New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (that iconic Beaux-Arts building guarded by Patience and Fortitude on 42nd and Fifth).


To celebrate the centennial a collection of 100 essays and memories of the library's treasures were compiled in Know the Past, Find the Future. The book launch was held on May 19, 2011 at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Terminal. It was the perfect location to hold the event according to Jay Walder, CEO and chairman of the MTA, because Grand Central and the NYPL are "architectural cousins".

Copies of Know the Past, Find the Future were given away, free, at the event. Penguin Classics printed 25,000 copies of the book at no cost to the NYPL. This is also the 65th anniversary of Penguin Classics. Kathryn Court, president and publisher of Penguin Books, felt it only right to marry the two. This book represents the democratic core of the library--it's accessibility to all. Readers are encouraged to pass the book along. Paul LeClerc, president and CEO of the New York Public Library, encouraged guests to leave it on the bus, on the seat in the trains. There's even a graphic on the inside cover where the library card would be,  for you to sign your name under "This book was read by:" The book is intended to be circulated.

Atria Books Literary Salon With Sister Souljah

As an exclusive blog partner of Atria Books, you can view the fourth installment of the Literary Salon Series LIVE from the LA Times Book Festival at 7:50pm EST/4:50pm PST on Random Musings!


This latest event celebrates the release of New York Times bestselling author Sister Souljah's newest novel, Midnight and the Meaning of Love, a story about young, deep love, the ways in which people across the world express their love, and the lengths that they will go to have it. The interview will be moderated by Jada Pinkett Smith.







The Atria Books Literary Salon can also be viewed on my website!

On Twitter? Tweet @AtriaBooks with questions for Sister Souljah and use the hashtags #sistersouljah #atrialive. Or you can tweet the questions to me @abigailwrites and I'll pass them along. Select questions will be answered live by Sister Souljah.


Click here to order an Autographed Copy of Midnight and the Meaning of Love~

About Atria Salon SeriesThis is the fourth installment of the Atria Literary Salon Series. The previous three celebrated authors were Lauren Weisberger, Nicolle Wallace and Jodi Picoult. Returning to the grand old tradition of places like the Algonquin Hotel where people would gather for stimulating conversation, Judith Curr, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Atria Books, launched the Literary Salon Series to bring together authors, editors and media for an evening of stimulating conversation and literary style.