Simone takes a trip to Antwerp, Belgium. Four out of Five diamonds come through this capital. Is it too much for this thief to take on the job she has agreed to undertake? Will she get caught? How do you hide that many diamonds?
The deadline to get your final application in for the 2020 Lesfic Bard Awards is rapidly approaching! Don’t delay! You have until midnight December 31, 2020 Central Standard Time.
Some of you may have noticed my absence (some didn’t or didn’t care) from the social media giant this week. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but after 10 years of social networking, building up my account, they suspended and then, with the appeal, I got the above notice. It’s depressing, demoralizing, and a little annoying…okay, a lot annoying after all my hard work.
Did I misrepresent myself? Nope, I am who I say I am, although many times people accused me of such. Don’t like me? Scroll on by, ignore, or unfriend. No skin off my nose.
Did I use multiple facebook accounts? Yep, I did and still do. Because, in the days when you could have funny names I had one that read Benefits Youknowit. That way you could be ‘Friends with benefits’ which I thought was hilarious. In lieu of the crackdown over there at FB Central, and the stalker I had who immediately reported me, I had to change the Benefits account to a ‘real’ name and identity, which I did. It was, and is, K’Anne without the apostrophe…so, it appeared I had two accounts with my name. Some caught it, asked me, others caught it and told me that someone was using my name that way and I explained.
You see, FB considers me an ‘influencer’. I don’t know how that came about and I never actively sought it, but I do have a lot of groups I am an admin for, active in there, and I do post, a LOT because as an author, we need to be seen and heard. I also have pages that I’m active on. Now…with all the times I was in FB Jail I got smart and started removing K’Anne (yes, I’m talking about myself in the third person, bear with me) from active rolls on these pages because FB was dinging me for literal years. I would go a day, a week, and months without them doing anything and then suddenly it was like three months, or in the case of about six years ago, three years of constantly being in and out of restriction. When they threatened to take away my account back then, I just stopped posting as much. But, it’s like an insidious worm and you start posting, a little more, and then a lot more without even realizing you are doing that. Not only posting about my books, but about the Lesfic Bard Awards and then the Gay Scribe Awards. Now, I’m not trying to say FB is homophobic, I AM SAYING FB IS HOMOPHOBIC and I’ve been dinged by them saying my posts were inappropriate, when I actually got some of the very same meme’s OFF OF FB! I can’t tell you how many times my posts about the Gay Scribe Awards got dinged, reported, and hidden by FB because someone reported them. Just the word ‘Gay’ seems to be a trigger. For some reason the word ‘Lesbian’ triggers them less (let me guess it intrigues the homophobes more?). Anyway…it is what it is, right?
This time, I got dinged for things I didn’t even do, it was things that happened in my groups by others, or, so I ‘think’ as they didn’t tell me exactly. Just that I needed to confirm my identification, and then, with their wonderful updates which don’t work, we all know that, it wouldn’t even ACCEPT my identification. I had to find a back door, and, as a former computer programmer, there is always a back door, and I found one. I was able to upload my passport to prove who I was. They took five days to refuse to allow my account once again as you see by the notice posted above.
Now, I’m not angry, I’m resigned. After all, it’s FB’s game and we’re all the pieces they need to play it. We are their product. Am I going to go off in a huff because they won’t let me play? Nope. I hope those of you who follow me here or on my pages on FB will find me there and befriend me again. I enjoy chatting with my many friends and I appreciate the fans who follow me as well. So, look me up, it’s K’Anne, without the apostrophe.
Look for the maskless lesfic author on social media near you….
Have you ever met a person that you just were in sync with? You knew immediately that they were someone special for you? Would you know how lucky you were? Would you know they were the one? What do you do when you fall in love with a woman, when you thought you were straight? Dealing with this unusual relationship brings a lot of “firsts” to Joan’s life. Joan is a world-renowned artist who has always identified as straight, has three children, and is content with her life when she meets Grace, a respected psychiatrist who also happens to be a lesbian. Joan is conflicted and has to deal with her feelings, the incredible woman she finds herself in love with, and the relationship that occurs over the next twenty-years.
In the fall of 2002, I was recovering from my cancer scare the previous year, getting back my strength, and watching far too much TV. I was fascinated by reruns of the TV show E.R. Something about the storyline between Kim Legaspi and Kerry Weaver (I still don’t even like that actress), was making me uncomfortable. Still, I watched it obsessively for the storyline and began to question my own sexuality when I found myself attracted to Elizabeth Mitchell who played Dr. Kim Legaspi. Did this mean I was a lesbian?
In January of 2003 I joined a bunch of chatgroups on AOL (remember the dial up sounds of AOL). Some of them were lesbians and butch lesbians (then) scared the bejeebers out of me. I did, however, have questions and made a few friends where I could ask them.
I was waiting for some of my favorite authors to release new books so I could voraciously read them, however, they were too slow. I began to wonder, could I write one? I’d had this thought before, in fact, I had started my first book at 18 and I found it the other day, laughing at its content, but wondering if someday I could modernize it and rewrite it again. That’s a blog for another day.
That’s where and when I began to write SHIPS. January 2003. I was not at that time, a lesbian. I didn’t even know very much about lesbians. I had had a few friends who were lesbians, but I had never asked the questions I was now asking in the groups. I thought, perhaps, I was bi-sexual. I thought I was just being curious. I thought I was being adventurous, after all I’d just survived a life-threatening illness and survived it. Maybe it was time to get out in the world and see what else it offered. I began to write SHIPS. Halfway through writing it (my first week) I met a woman through the chatroom who became my first girlfriend, my first love (I realized in loving her that I had never been ‘in love’ before, not really, not even with my ex-husband), and she became a good ‘first’ on many levels. Something about meeting her told me, I better finish writing this book, or I would never finish it. I wrote SHIPS, my first book, in two weeks. My relationship with that woman lasted five years.
I played with SHIPS for many years before finally self-publishing it. It got a lot of tweaks, but it wasn’t edited at that time. By the end of that summer that I published it, I was approached by a publisher to publish it for me and contracted with them for the paperback rights only. Boy, am I glad I didn’t give them the e-book rights. Turned out they were unethical. I never got paid a dime and it took me years to get my rights back from them. Even now, I occasionally see a $300 copy of that first unedited book available on Amazon.
Since those early days, SHIPS has undergone several transformations, different edits, covers, etc. Is it perfect? No. Is it the best book I ever wrote? No. It is however a fantastic first effort, in my humble opinion, a great story that I hope sticks with you and makes you want to go back to read it over and over again.
I’m pleased to offer it to you here in the audio version in December 2020.
I saw a short video on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. I thought that the idea of it was absolutely beautiful and wondered if I could make a ‘lesbian’ version of it. As it wasn’t my concept but these are my words I don’t plan to profit from it and I’m putting it out here free. I hope you enjoy my short story.
As Mada looked into the empty chapel she spotted her granddaughter sitting halfway down the aisle. She stopped for a moment to take in the beauty of her wedding dress, the fine satin of it contrasting beautifully with her tan skin and porcelain like features. Her dark hair stood out brilliantly against the startling white of the lace that surrounded her face and shoulders. Mada sighed blissfully seeing how beautiful she looked. Slowly she walked down the aisle…
My very first business was when I was 22 years old. I’d been working for R&J Corvette Parts, the Marketing division from the age of 19 and had started out as an account manager. I rose to the position of Marketing Director in two short years. The owner of the company was not a very savvy business person, a shyster, and the monies he made weren’t always put back into the company and were used in ways I prefer not to discuss here in this forum. It wasn’t my performance that slowly made the company go under. They decided to reabsorb the marketing division back into the parent company as well as the people in it, including myself. I was expected to do all the work I had in my old position, but tons of new stuff that I had no interest in doing. I decided, instead to give up my job as Marketing Director and go out on my own and start my own company.
It wasn’t going to be easy. I had a one-year old child and had just found out I was pregnant with my third, having suffered a miscarriage of my second just months prior. I was a wee bit hormonal. I couldn’t make the signs I would eventually expand upon with the chemicals involved at this time, due to my pregnancy. I could however sell them, market them as I had for years, and did. I also started a mail-order catalog that I got out within six months. My second son was born in December and three days later I was at the post office with bags of catalogs that were going out, toddler and baby in hand.
Within a year I was making the signs myself, having purchased some of the screens and equipment from the previous screen printer and many of the designs I’d been marketing under the R&J label. I took my rolodex and contacts with me when I left. They threatened to sue, blackballed me in the industry, lied about what had happened and what I did, despite all the signatures I had to prove my innocence, and it was hard going for a while, but I was determined and prevailed.
I went to swap meets, trade shows, anything to make a dime, both wholesale and retail. I have so many stories about both. Because of my youth, people assumed my mother was the owner (she was my only employee for a time) and referring them to ‘the kid’ that I definitely looked like with my baby face, didn’t set well with many of the people (strangely, especially men) I met in person. They couldn’t believe the professional woman they dealt with on the phone, was this young kid.
Over the years I expanded from a one car garage I had rented, to a warehouse, got my business out of my living room, started a second company just for the retail side to keep it separate, and grew to having several catalogs and over 5000 designs under the SignWerks International and D’Sign Studio labels. I worked with internationally known portrait artist Toreen West (she wasn’t that well known when we met, but that would change) to draw line art for my company to make screens and to make authentic looking novelty signs.
This business grew to the point where my accountant evaluated it at over one million dollars. At this point I had two homes in California and two cars (btw, you can only live in one at a time and drive one at a time). When I told my mother how much I had made she pointed out how hard I had worked to achieve this. I was working sometimes 16-18-hour days. Raising two children who I took with me to work, on fantastic trips all over the country, and even put to work at an early age to learn responsibility. I got a divorce during this time too and California, which is a no-fault state, tried to give him half of my income, half of my businesses, and half of my home (I’d parred down to one at this point), and even alimony, but I out-smarted the bastard who never paid a dime of child support and hasn’t seen them since as far as I know.
My mother passed away and I came down with cancer, which I have mentioned on this blog from time to time. In depression, I sold my house, one of my vehicles, and moved everything, lock, stock, and barrel back to WisconSIN, where I grew up. The idea was to protect my estate, worth more than a million, from my ex-husband that despite being divorced, could try for custody of my heirs, my children, and then squander their wealth. My brothers, I thought, would protect them in WisconSIN.
I moved into a converted barn where we could live in the apartment upstairs in the loft and had the big space downstairs to print in, have inventory and equipment, an office area, and a showroom. It was fun, but recovering from cancer, chemo, and taking radiation was awful for me. Hearing the phones go off downstairs, knowing work was waiting for me, always, was hard on the body and the mind.
A couple of years later I moved to another home and moved the business into a 1500sq foot warehouse, I rapidly was running out of space. I continued to do shows all over, driving insane hours, and setting up my booths, sometimes with my sons, sometimes alone. It wears out a body that is recovering from cancer. And then, I broke my leg and had to try to manage everything wearing a cast. They said it would be eight weeks with the cast, it was eighteen. Then, as I recovered from that blow, a couple of years later, I sprained my back and two weeks later, my ankle (same leg I had broken). The back sprain I will never recover from. To this day my back has a permanent sprain in it. I was also noticing the effects of chemo and radiation on my joints. Needless to say, the business started to wane and I put everything in storage.
I did try to sell it over the years, in fact several people on Facebook have seen my efforts to sell what had been a fun and thriving business. A few in the lesbian community even expressed an interest. I have had so many con-artists, both male and female try things on me that could be a separate blog for each. It still shocks me that a woman, another lesbian would try to pull that on me, but that happened at least 3x over the years alone! Not having it set up and operating fully was definitely a negative in trying to sell it. I even had in the back of my mind setting it all up again, hiring people to do some of the things I no longer could. My interest and enthusiasm weren’t what they were in my 20’s or even my 30’s.
Today I let it all go, not for the million dollars it was once worth, not even close to that, and I’m sad. I’ll miss the fun of it. I’ll miss the pride of knowing I made all this with my own two hands from the ground up. The creativity, the humor that had an outlet. I’ve put a lot of that into my books as I threw myself into that with my first book being written in 2003. I used to print and think about what I wanted to write, and then, when I was done printing, I’d type madly. I just recently threw out that keyboard, the keys worn through from the soy on my fingers. We used soy to clean the screens. Being unable to work or stand on my own two feet for those hours required to screen print was depressing and disheartening. I’m relieved that the equipment and supplies will go on to live in another screen printer’s business, that the signs will bring countless others joy over their detailed art-work and designs and the quality I put into them, the professionalism I took into making them, the humor that they could read on them. I’m glad to get it out of the barn I stored it in, out of my home as well, but I will miss a thirty-year-old business that I worked at for so many years.
I am looking forward to the next chapter in my life (get it? I’m an author and a publisher, so next chapter…).
To those of you in my immediate circle who have suspected that something was up, for months even, well, this is why I was secretive. This is why I was unable to answer certain questions, was unavailable at certain times. I didn’t want to say anything until it was all done. My superstitious feeling that I would jinx it after all the times I tried to sell the businesses. Now, you know.
Stay tuned to this space for what is coming next…it will definitely be an adventure.
K'Anne Meinel 