Kim Golden's Blog - Posts Tagged "nanowrimo"

So Choose Me is finally live. It’s not the collection of short stories I’d originally planned. A few months ago, I decided I’d rather release a novella instead of more short stories. I figured it was time for a longer piece of writing and–let’s face it–I am a little behind schedule. I can only blame it on having a heavy workload at the office and the fabulous weather here in Stockholm. It’s not often we have a summer like the current one–hardly any rain–amazingly blue skies…yes, this is the weather that makes you fall in love with Sweden.

The idea for Choose Me first came to me back in 2007. I think that was the year I reluctantly decided to try Nanowrimo–thanks Rebecca F. for encouraging me to do it! In fact, Choose Me (which was called Horizons back then) is part of the Nanowrimo novel I *almost* finished on time. I was one day late meeting the deadline due to illness and teaching an insane intensive Business English course. Instead of finishing on 30 November, I finished 1 December.

Jessica and Chris’s story starts in Choose Me. The second part of their story will come soon. Possibly in October. And the stories I’d originally planned? Well, they’ll be released around November or December.

At the moment, Choose Me is a Kindle-only novella. I hope to be able to release it for Kobo and Nook very soon. There won’t be a print version of Choose Me but if you’d like it as a PDF, you can always contact me here and we’ll see if we can work something out.

Choose Me: a novella

Every year, I (and loads of other writers) go a bit bonkers in the pursuit of completing a 50K+ word novel in a month. Yes, I mean NaNoWriMo.


My 2011 NaNo novel became my first novel, Snowbound, which I published last autumn. I had a blast writing it and a lot of people enjoyed reading it, even though some people thought Mia didn't deserve an HEA. Well, I am already working on a little story about Mia & Jake so that might be a Christmas present to their fans. :)

My 2012 NaNo novel became my second novel, Maybe Baby/i>, which I published in March, ended up for a while in the Kindle Top 100 list for its genre and won an award. It also caused many women to fall in love with Mads, the Danish sperm donor/furniture maker. I don't blame them. I have a bit of a crush on my own creation too. ;)

Last year was not a good NaNo year for me. I managed to write a 25K manuscript, come to the realization that I hated what I was writing and couldn't muster the energy or resolve to finish.

But this year is different...I feel ready to write my heart away, and we'll be returning to Copenhagen for more of Laney & Mads's story. So this weekend, I'll be prepping an outline so I won't find myself sitting in front of my MacBook Air and wondering what the heck I am doing.

Come November, I'll keep you updated here and on my author sitewith progress reports. I'll even post excerpts so you can see what's going on--but keep in mind it will be a very rough draft and probably full of typos. :)

Only one more week until NaNoWriMo and I am nearly done with my outline. I'm getting really anxious to start. I don't remember feeling this excited last year--which is probably why I didn't finish my 2013 NaNoWriMo effort.

This year, as I mentioned in my last post, I'll be returning to Copenhagen and writing about Laney and Mads. We meet them four years after the end of and . I've made a vision board for the novel and it's been a great help during this outlining stage.

I wasn't going to share the plot just yet, but I changed my mind. Here's the gist of the story I'll be working on:

Now married with two kids, Laney and Mads are finding life together is not as simple as it used to be. Laney is struggling with juggling a new baby and her four-year old daughter, Liv, and pressure to come back to work early from her maternity leave. She's also worried that she and Mads are drifting apart. He's so caught up in his furniture making business that he's forgetting promises made to Laney and to Liv. And he's missing signs that all is not well with Laney...

When the pressure gets too much for her, Laney takes the kids and goes to the US, hoping to find sanctuary with her aunt Cecily, a former school teacher who now teaches yoga and meditation to pensioners and at-risk teenagers in Florida.

Will Laney and Mads find a way back to one another...or is it too late?

Next Saturday I'll be ready...and I will probably exhaust myself (and my fingers) the first few days, but I'll keep writing. I'll also have a temporary page here on the site where you'll be able to read the very, very rough versions of the chapters I pen. I hope you'll cheer me on. If you want to follow my NaNo progress, save this link.

By the way, the cover image is just inspiration. It's not the final cover. I made it just to keep me motivated. When it's time for publication, I'll be contacting Arijana at Cover It! Designs for another amazing cover. :)

I wonder how many of you will be joining me for the NaNoWriMo challenge...drop a line and let me know! :)

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".

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.

It's that time of year to sign up for NaNoWriMo again. and I am so ready for it!

I am trying to decide between two stories: a lite-sci-fi love story between a woman and an android, or a standalone in the Maybe... series featuring Mads's other cousin, Ragnar.

In the meantime, I'm reading voraciously, trying to put the finishing touches on Maybe Tomorrow so I can send it to the editor and watching lots of American football and getting annoyed that my team (the Philadelphia Eagles) is not doing well.

Over the last few weeks, I've read some pretty amazing books by authors I love. If you're looking for something new to add to your Kindle, consider:


Also, before I forget, I am going to attempt another Goodreads giveaway for the month of November. I will be giving away 3 autographed copies of Maybe Forever to celebrate NaNoWriMo month. Keep an eye out for it! :)

As of today, I am officially registered forNaNoWriMo.
I'm doing something a little different this year: a scifi-esque love story called Under the Milky Way. Check out the blurb here.

Are you going to do NaNoWriMo?

It's been pretty quiet form me, mostly because I spent much of October planning my NaNoWriMo novel (Imagine Me & You) and then I spent all of November working on it.

Today I crossed the 50k line and officially won NaNowriMo, but Imagine Me & You is far from finished. There are plot holes that need fixing, backstory to be fleshed out, a little more of the story to add.

It's a very rough draft, in need of much revision, but I love the story so far. Parts of it are very personal since I went through the same surgery that one of the main characters is preparing for and eventually has.

But the best thing about this year's NaNoWriMo is that I broke my three-year curse and finally managed to get to 50k by 5:30PM on the 30th.

I'll spend the next month or so finishing the story and then I'll get to work on the revision/editing process.

I can't wait to share Imagine Me & You with it. I'll keep you updated on the progress.

We're 13 days into NaNoWriMo and I have fallen behind but not given up. I started off ahead of schedule. But...just like *every* year, something work-related got in the way. This time it was two freelance projects that have fallen behind schedule due last-minute changes requested by clients.

So insted of being at 20k+ (which was my goal), I am hovering around 15.2k. Hopefully, I'll catch up over the weekend. If I can get ahead this weekend, it will give me a good margin just in case my clients suddenly decide to change focus or request even more copy changes.

In the meantime, I'm reading Talia Hibbert's brilliant Get A Life, Chloe Brown and loving it. If you haven't read it yet, then you need to 1-click it ASAP. It's such a well-written book with two very relatable main characters and an interesting storyline. I keep trying to read a little slower so that the book won't end too soon.

I’M A NANOWRIMO LOSER THIS YEAR
Today is the last day of NaNoWriMo, and, unlike last year, I didn’t manage to finish on time.

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, this has not been the best year for me: I lost several people who meant a lot to me, including my younger brother. His passing hit me hardest. For months after his passing, I was unable to write any fiction. The only thing that seemed to help me find my writing mojo again was grief counseling.

I was hoping that this autumn would be calmer than last year. I managed to finish NaNoWriMo on time last year–despite dealing with work-related stress and losing a close friend.

SO WHAT WAS DIFFERENT THIS YEAR?
Well, I was working this year and searching for a new job since the temporary position I should have had until February ended early due to the company going bankrupt and then being bought by a new owner who changed the company’s focus area. Also, I was working on a freelance project that ended up taking a bit longer than initially planned. So job hunting and freelancing ate into some of my NaNoWriMo writing time. Even though I managed to get my morning writing done, my evening sessions were not as productive because I was also revising my CV, updating and customizing cover letters, and then reworking copy for my freelance project.

I STILL FEEL LIKE A WINNER
But…despite everything, despite not being anywhere near done and being able to officially declare myself a NaNoWriMo winner, I still feel like a winner.

For the first time in months, I have managed to write every single day and make significant progress on a project. I have close to 30,000 words written. And I wrote them in thirty days. Sure, it’s super rough and needs a hell of a lot of tweaking to get it right. This time last month, I hadn’t written more than 2000 words in a month.

SO WHAT’S NEXT?
I will keep working on What Were the Chances…? It will be part of a new series, set entirely in Stockholm, called Love in Stockholm (which I’ve told you about before because last year’s NaNoWriMo-winning novel is also part of that series). Tomorrow I’ll continue working on the story and hopefully have a quick and dirty rough draft done by the end of the month.

Other projects that I am working on include finally compiling Near Enough to Hold into one volume. It’ll be going to my beta readers soon for feedback on how to finetune it before I then rework it, send it to my editor, and then publish it. In the meantime, the serial version of it will be leaving Kindle Unlimited very soon.

I’m also still working on finishing a couple of other projects which I’d started already back in 2017 but–due to all the shit I was going through at my previous job–I just couldn’t finish back then. My goal moving forward is to finally finish them. I am tired of having so many unfinished projects and feeling stalled.

I do feel like I’ve finally emerged from (or at least emerging from) the fog of grief and depression. Some days are better than others, but at least I remember what I love about writing, and I want to write again.

So, even though I officially lost NaNoWriMo, for me, I’ve won.