Kim Golden's Blog - Posts Tagged "kim-golden"
Something new coming soon!
After a long break, I will soon have a new ebook available. This time it's a Kindle-only novella called Choose Me.
It's a story about falling in love and regretting past mistakes. And like Linger and The Melanie Chronicles, this is the story of a young black woman trying to figure out who and what she wants.
It should be live on amazon.com in a few days. I hope you'll like the story as much as I do. :)
It's a story about falling in love and regretting past mistakes. And like Linger and The Melanie Chronicles, this is the story of a young black woman trying to figure out who and what she wants.
It should be live on amazon.com in a few days. I hope you'll like the story as much as I do. :)
Snowbound is now live for Kindle
Just wanted to let you all know that Snowbound is now available for Kindle. I am so happy that my first full-length novel is finally published.Snowbound will be available for other ereader formats but BN, iBookstore and Kobo aren't as quick about making titles available as Amazon. I think it will be another 2-3 weeks before it's available for Nook and for iBookstore it can take up to 6 weeks.
If you're interested in reading Snowbound but you don't have a Kindle, you can always download the free Kindle reading apps from Amazon.
To purchase Snowbound for your Kindle:
Amazon US: Snowbound
Amazon UK: Snowbound
Snowbound is now available for NOOK, Kobo and iPad/iPhone via iBooks
Coming soon: Maybe Baby!
My next novel--Maybe Baby--will soon be available! I've already set up a Goodreads page for it. Hope you like the sound of Maybe Baby. If you do, please add it to your Want to Read list. :)
Will keep you posted with the final publication date.
Maybe Baby and more
After a busy week, I am glad to say that Maybe Baby is now available for Kindle, Kobo and in paperback. Hopefully, the Nook version will be available soon. It's taking forever to get it online there.I'm also hard at work on two projects connected to Maybe Baby--Maybe Tonight and Maybe Tomorrow.
Maybe Tonight is--at the moment--an e-short that gives us a glimpse into Mads's life just before and just after he meets Laney. But here's the thing: this is just the beginning. Every few weeks, I'll be updating Maybe Tonight with new chapters, so it will grow to a full length-novel. So far, Maybe Tonight is only available for Kindle, but it'll be available for Kobo and Nook soon. And once the entire novel is complete, it'll be made available in paperback.
And then there's Maybe Tomorrow, the follow-up to Maybe Baby that follows Laney's cousin, Eddy, and what happens when she gets her own Danish surprise--not what she was anticipating, especially since she's moving back to New York. I'm nearly done writing my plot outline for Maybe Tomorrow and I hope to finish the first draft of it within the next few months.
Two Expats Talking Shop
A few weeks ago, fellow writer and former expat Emily Breunig asked me if she could interview me for her blog. We ended up having a great chat session in which we talked about Maybe Baby, our characters, the expat life and a whole lot more.One of the things we ended up talking about a lot was this idea of the disconnect and rootlessness a lot of expats feel. I've been an expat American for over twenty years now, so I can relate. I love the life I have here in Sweden. I sometimes miss my life in the US but I've been away so long that I feel like a tourist when I am there. It's disconcerting.
I think my character Laney feels a similar rootlessness. For her it is more pronounced: she has no family to go back to the US for--her mother is dead, her father abandoned her. Her only family now is her cousin Eddy, Eddy's mother and her Swedish boyfriend, Niklas. Is it any wonder she feels so confused about exploring the unknown? Well, that's for you to decide when you read Maybe Baby.
Emily and I have both written about the expat experience. Her novel, A Ghost at the Edge of the Sea, is out on submission and is represented by the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. And while Maybe Baby deals with the game of love and an expat woman at a crossroads in her life, A Ghost... deals with ghosts, parallel universes and the afterlife in modern day Shanghai.
I can't wait for Emily's book to finally be published. Or maybe she'll take the plunge and go down the self-publishing road.
Maybe Baby a Finalist in the 2014 Readers' Favorite Book Awards
Yesterday I woke up to the news that Maybe Baby was chosen as one of the finalists in the Chick Lit category for the 2014 Readers' Favorite Book Awards. I entered the contest a few months ago and then forgot about it. I didn't think I would make it to the finalist list. I'm really happy about it. I know Maybe Baby is not everyone's cup of tea. People struggle with the infidelity storyline, but I've said from the start I didn't want to write a sentimental romance or a story that followed all the rules. Love is messy and complicated and unexpected. Sometimes you do things for love that you know you shouldn't do at all.
But, even with some readers finding Laney infuriating or thinking Mads was a jerk for coercing her into an affair, there have been many others who understood their story and loved it and want more.
Thanks to all of you who've read Maybe Baby and supported it. And yay me for being a finalist! :D
So How Am I Doing? - NaNoWriMo Edition
I'm five day into NaNoWriMo and my total word count for Maybe Forever is 10,401 words.
Writing the new instalment of Laney & Mads's story has been interesting. After delving into what brought them together (from Laney's POV) in Maybe Baby and what they went through in the early days of being together (from Mads's POV) in Maybe Tonight--Maybe Forever deals with the problems they experience once Laney and Mads are married with kids... what happens when a couple stops focusing on each other and gets pulled in other directions.
As always when I'm doing NaNoWriMo, the rough draft versions of my chapters--yes, completely unedited and still in need of rewrites and revisions--will be posted on my author site. I'll leave all of the chapters up until the end of NaNoWriMo. Then, they'll be removed while I focus on revising in December + January.
I'm not sure yet when Maybe Forever will be published. Possibly February or March. I also need to decided a publication date for Maybe Tomorrow (which focuses on Eddy, Laney's cousin).
If you want to follow the progress of Maybe Forever in all its rough draft glory, head over to my my author site. You'll find the chapters listed under "NaNoWriMo 2014 - Maybe Forever".
Writing the new instalment of Laney & Mads's story has been interesting. After delving into what brought them together (from Laney's POV) in Maybe Baby and what they went through in the early days of being together (from Mads's POV) in Maybe Tonight--Maybe Forever deals with the problems they experience once Laney and Mads are married with kids... what happens when a couple stops focusing on each other and gets pulled in other directions.
As always when I'm doing NaNoWriMo, the rough draft versions of my chapters--yes, completely unedited and still in need of rewrites and revisions--will be posted on my author site. I'll leave all of the chapters up until the end of NaNoWriMo. Then, they'll be removed while I focus on revising in December + January.
I'm not sure yet when Maybe Forever will be published. Possibly February or March. I also need to decided a publication date for Maybe Tomorrow (which focuses on Eddy, Laney's cousin).
If you want to follow the progress of Maybe Forever in all its rough draft glory, head over to my my author site. You'll find the chapters listed under "NaNoWriMo 2014 - Maybe Forever".
Halfway through NaNoWriMo
It's the end of the second week of NaNoWriMo and--wow--what a week it's been!
After getting off to a turbo-charged start, my second week commenced with a few days when writing proved damn near impossible. Despite having an outline, my brain seemed unwilling to cooperate. I forced myself to continue writing, hoping the words would flow a bit faster. Still, I had those days when my brain would refuse to cooperate and grumble at me that it wanted to watch "Grey's Anatomy" or "Hela England Bakar" (the Swedish title for the Great British Bake-Off).
But yesterday my brain finally gave in and decided it would cooperate. I suddenly went from a sluggish 22K to 25K. I think it helped that i got through a hard-to-write chapter involving Mads and a woman who is trying to put the moves on him.
I am going to celebrate 25K with a nice cup of coffee and a Budapest pastry--I think I deserve it. And if you want to check out the story so far, don't forget you can read the (unedited and still very much in need of revising) chapters on my author site.
After getting off to a turbo-charged start, my second week commenced with a few days when writing proved damn near impossible. Despite having an outline, my brain seemed unwilling to cooperate. I forced myself to continue writing, hoping the words would flow a bit faster. Still, I had those days when my brain would refuse to cooperate and grumble at me that it wanted to watch "Grey's Anatomy" or "Hela England Bakar" (the Swedish title for the Great British Bake-Off).
But yesterday my brain finally gave in and decided it would cooperate. I suddenly went from a sluggish 22K to 25K. I think it helped that i got through a hard-to-write chapter involving Mads and a woman who is trying to put the moves on him.
I am going to celebrate 25K with a nice cup of coffee and a Budapest pastry--I think I deserve it. And if you want to check out the story so far, don't forget you can read the (unedited and still very much in need of revising) chapters on my author site.
30 Days, 30 Stories: Story #2
Story #2: Huckleberries
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We spent every summer in Virginia. There was never any question of it. As soon as school let out, either one of my uncles would drive up from Smithfield and take us there, or my mother would take us on either the bus on the train. My father never went with us to Smithfield. Sometimes he drove down to bring us back home again, but more often than not we took the train from Newport News back to Philadelphia. I don't think my father liked being in the countryside. He was too much of a city person. He always seemed ill at ease whenever he was there.
Though I know it isn't the case, I always remember those Virginia summers as being perpetually sunny and hot. My cousins and I explored every inch of the woods behind my grandparens' house on Scotts Factory Road. We tried to scare each other with creepy stories of axe murderers, escaped convicts and zombies. But mostly what we did was pick huckleberries.
Every morning my grandmother would spray us with OFF! and we'd head off to the woods, searching for perfectly ripe huckleberries. Nana would tell us not to go too far into the woods, but we rarely listened. As far as we were concerned, the woods were ours. We imagined ourselves to be adventurers as we scrambled over fallen trees and ran along the bumpy paths through the trees.
Sometimes we'd convince ourselves a bear was nearby. I don't think we ever saw one, but we were certain there surely had to be bears--and wolves too--in the wilds of Smithfield, Virginia. On occassion we spotted deer, hawks or possums. Sometimes an owl in the trees. Most of the time we heard frogs croaking in the foliage and we'd find toads and snakes and treefrogs.
And while we sought out those sweet, juicy berries, we debated which was better: Star Trek or Star Wars, the Jeffersons or Good Times, Scooby Doo or the Flintstones, Speedracer or the Monkees... or we'd make up goofy songs while we swatted away flies and mosquitoes.
At some point we'd realize our buckets were full to the brim with the huckleberries we loved so much. Instead of going directly back to our grandmother's house, we'd find someplace to sit or venture to a dilapidated shed we'd found and hang out there, eating handfuls of the berries while the blackish blue juice dripped down our arms and stained our t-shirts.
We always made sure we saved enough so that our grandmother would reward us with huckleberry muffins, huckleberry pancakes or--our favorite--huckleberry ice cream. Nothing compared to our grandmother's homemade ice cream. Not even the gelato I love to eat during Italian vacations compares.
Last summer I bought a package of huckleberries while I was in the US. Now that my grandmother is dead, no one in the family seems to know the recipe for her ice cream, but eating those berries on that sticky, humid day took me back to those idyllic summers in Smithfield and it reminded me of how much I miss my grandparetns.
I wish they were still with us.
------------------------
We spent every summer in Virginia. There was never any question of it. As soon as school let out, either one of my uncles would drive up from Smithfield and take us there, or my mother would take us on either the bus on the train. My father never went with us to Smithfield. Sometimes he drove down to bring us back home again, but more often than not we took the train from Newport News back to Philadelphia. I don't think my father liked being in the countryside. He was too much of a city person. He always seemed ill at ease whenever he was there.
Though I know it isn't the case, I always remember those Virginia summers as being perpetually sunny and hot. My cousins and I explored every inch of the woods behind my grandparens' house on Scotts Factory Road. We tried to scare each other with creepy stories of axe murderers, escaped convicts and zombies. But mostly what we did was pick huckleberries.
Every morning my grandmother would spray us with OFF! and we'd head off to the woods, searching for perfectly ripe huckleberries. Nana would tell us not to go too far into the woods, but we rarely listened. As far as we were concerned, the woods were ours. We imagined ourselves to be adventurers as we scrambled over fallen trees and ran along the bumpy paths through the trees.
Sometimes we'd convince ourselves a bear was nearby. I don't think we ever saw one, but we were certain there surely had to be bears--and wolves too--in the wilds of Smithfield, Virginia. On occassion we spotted deer, hawks or possums. Sometimes an owl in the trees. Most of the time we heard frogs croaking in the foliage and we'd find toads and snakes and treefrogs.
And while we sought out those sweet, juicy berries, we debated which was better: Star Trek or Star Wars, the Jeffersons or Good Times, Scooby Doo or the Flintstones, Speedracer or the Monkees... or we'd make up goofy songs while we swatted away flies and mosquitoes.
At some point we'd realize our buckets were full to the brim with the huckleberries we loved so much. Instead of going directly back to our grandmother's house, we'd find someplace to sit or venture to a dilapidated shed we'd found and hang out there, eating handfuls of the berries while the blackish blue juice dripped down our arms and stained our t-shirts.
We always made sure we saved enough so that our grandmother would reward us with huckleberry muffins, huckleberry pancakes or--our favorite--huckleberry ice cream. Nothing compared to our grandmother's homemade ice cream. Not even the gelato I love to eat during Italian vacations compares.
Last summer I bought a package of huckleberries while I was in the US. Now that my grandmother is dead, no one in the family seems to know the recipe for her ice cream, but eating those berries on that sticky, humid day took me back to those idyllic summers in Smithfield and it reminded me of how much I miss my grandparetns.
I wish they were still with us.
