Monday 6 December 2010

If failure was a game, at least then I would win

Yeah, so NaNoWriMo didn't go as well as I'd hoped for. It was not that I wasn't on time, not that I didn't keep (more or less) to my schedule, it was just life that got in the way. When it was only a few days left I had the worst work period of my life. We're talking early hours, we're talking long days (around 14 hours), and we're talking every single last day of November, so there was no way that I was going to finish it. I manage to scrape together a few thousand words, but it was all in vain, because I was exhausted from work and had some easier work going the absolutely last day, so it was more or less screwed.

But I'm not sad. I dug my grave, being out a bit too much after work, staying a bit too many nights away from home, and now I live with it. Besides, there's always next year.

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Six days left

It's amazing how fast time moves. 24 days ago I started writing on a crappy novel without any idea where it was going. Some days I skipped writing all together, being far too busy with life to bother, and some days I just forced myself to write the missing words and then continue.
I am still doing exactly that, like life isn't moving forward during November, it just skips the month completely. First there's October and then all of a sudden it's December when you no longer have time for anything book writing related because of Christmas.

My newly acquired fondness for youtube (and youtubers) has been standing still. I still haven't come up with the perfect username, and the more time I spent just watching the piece of paper with names on it, the more hopeless it seemed. That dream is now on hiatus until I can figure out what to do about it.

My winter wonderland

Right now I'm all cosy in my duvet which I have mashed into the armchair in the living room. I have realized that sitting in my bedroom and trying to write doesn't really work for me. Too many distractions, really. And thanks to some really weird dancing Sunday night, my neck is hurting. And thanks to my neck hurting, I have a reason to wear the beanbag around it, which warms me nicely in the chilling cold that is my house at the moment. It's cosy of DOOM! (Although I do find it slightly uncomfortable when I try to sit properly, you have to crane your neck a bit weirdly for the full effect, and double discomfort when it's too warm)

But with the candles glowing in the dimly lit living room, the TV showing an old episode of Friends, with the smell of gingerbread coming from the gingerbread house we made last night (and by made, I mean we mounted it in position) and the snow falling quite miserably outside the window (as it has for the last days now), I can't help but feel that Christmas is coming.

Monday 15 November 2010

It's still on

I am a very bad updater, but to my defence, my other "normal" blog haven't been updated very well either, apart from the occasional "I'm still alive"-posts. And since this is a more defined blog, it feels ridiculous to just update a current word count and call it a day. But I am, in fact, still alive, and I'm still working on NaNoWriMo for all I'm worth. Truth is that I've only come to chapter five, but somehow managed to write 24.000 words. I am a bit frustrated because the story seems to move so much slower because of it, but at the same time I like that I'm, for once, is as detailed as I possibly can without making it far too boring to read.


At the same time I'm thinking about starting the path of a vlogger. I'm a bit infatuated with the whole concept (and a certain vlogger too), and I think that it would be a fun thing to do. But I'm hesitating for five reasons.
  1. I will probably grow bored with it and not update it as often as I should, or take it as seriously either.
  2. I have this dream that I will, one time in my life, be internet popular, and not being so will dampen my mood and having me make a fool of myself, which I don't enjoy very much.
  3. I can't come up with a good name. It's between two or three names, but the ones I really wanted are already taken (and I fucked up the one I actually got - booh!)
  4. Obviously my vlogs would have to be in English for maximum effect, but I don't like to talk English in public, because us Swedes have a very special way of talking English, which I hate and have adapted a fake British accent because of. Obviously me talking fake British and being random is not something people want to see.  
  5. I can't act to save my life. Most vlogs are for some reasons a lot about acting out different scenarios, talking to oneself and having multiple personalities. All of which require acting. I.am.not.an.actor! (Although I would like to be)
So I'm not really sure what to do. But I did get the idea planted in my head and I can't get it out of my head. So while I'm banging away at the keyboard, creating silly words for a silly story that's not about friendship, although it's supposed to be, I keep thinking about it, and about how fun it would be to make friends with some other vloggers and actually keep up with that electronic friendship. But I am way more awkward over the internet than IRL.

And that's all I guess.
Until next time
/Kim

Monday 1 November 2010

It has begun


Two hours and fifty-three minutes ago my November project started. NaNoWriMo begun and I started writing immediately. Thanks to a girl to the NNWM forum I found this new program called Liquid Story Binder and I spent the first hour before the start to make Character Forms to my four main characters, and I'm exploring some things on it. It's really everything a writer can need, built in playlist function, timelines, etcetcetc. It's really amazing.

I admit it, I had some written already so probably a third of the word count was already finished before NNWM started, but it was just a prologue part that I'd scribbled down then the idea came to me, and I liked it so I decided to use it, but I thought I would just stop dead end when the words in my notebook ended, but I just kept writing, and spent nearly three hours doing so. I'm finished with the prologue now and with 3088 words written on the first hours, I'm feeling proud over myself.

The novel is called Friends for never and basically deals with the fragility of friendship. Three friend's loses a mutual friend and vows to be friends forever, but that proves harder than expected when people choose to deal with grief in different ways, and life just moves on. People change and never stay the same.
I chose to write this because I've recently dealt with the trouble myself (and I do get my inspiration from my own life), and I realized how hard friendship is to keep. All it takes is one thing and everything can go away.

Well enough about that, I need a smoke and a bed, in that order and preferably not together.

Friday 29 October 2010

NaNoWriMo

First of all, I suck at updating this blog, but truth be told, I haven't been all active at all to be honest. I've been too busy working and drinking and doing things I probably shouldn't.

November, however, will be a different story. November equals NaNoWriMo, which is something I've done every year since I found out about it. This will be my third year, and this year I will win (I totally failed last year due to too much school and too much personal life). There's not much going on on work, and if it is, I'll find the time. I'm loaded, I have the story (I think) and now I'll have the discipline to do it.

It will also be more frequent updates, since it's a part of the writing experience and that's what this blog is for. Yay?

If you don't know what it is, just click the picture and it'll direct you to their homepage!

Friday 15 October 2010

Ownership

Ownership is the fan fiction/novel I'm currently working on, while I wait for NaNoWriMo to start. This is one of my favourite stories my head's ever told me, just because it's so different. It's more or less one of my many babies. Let me tell you about her.

Ownership is, as mentioned, an old fan fiction of mine. I wrote it after my friend Bella (who is also my only reader of this piece, so far), had written a similar story but never got around to finish it, and didn't post it on the McFly boards, which was my hangaround for a long time. So I started working on this, but sadly, I didn't finish it either. The boards got wiped, I lost interest and then just kind of put it in the back of my head for Future Kim to deal with. It was always still there though, and when I was finished with the first draft of Issues, I needed something to do to occupy my graduated arse, so I decided to try and make this into a full lenght novel with characters that wasn't based on a British pop/rock band (although Dougie got to keep his name, just because I didn't find any other name that I liked that suited him, and Jones is also a name I kept).

So far I've written eight chapters, all of which Bella has read through. After eight chapter (it took forever to actually get the eight chapter done, because it required some heave story telling and background search that I hadn't done before), I just kind of stopped for a while. Having gotten back Issues, and somehow ending up on the boards again and writing there, it felt like I didn't have time for it, but today I got it all back. Or some of it anyway. I'm right now sitting and writing the intro for chapter nine, and at the same time trying to come up with all my characters for my NaNoWriMo project.

That's all!
/Kim

Saturday 9 October 2010

Synopsis and query letter

I don't know why I've put this off for so long, I've known about it for about two months, and been so excited over it, but I've just never gotten the chance to actually start writing it. I'm not sure if it's because I'm too unfocused and too lazy, or if it's because I'm afraid. Afraid of rejection, and afraid of approval. This query letter have to be perfect, and the synopsis have to be even more perfect, because it's my future that's on stake. Everyone says that all it takes is one yes, and that's true, but that first no is just scaring me shitless.

But I have now!

Today after work I decided that it was time. I wrote it, edited it and wrote it again, and now I've sent it to Penguin. My fate is in their hands now.

Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best, shall we?

/Kim

Monday 4 October 2010

Editing day

My friend Alex made me this cover. Ain't it cute? :)

I am far too lazy for my own good. If I'm not inspired enough to do something, I just don't do it. Some call it a curse, I call it saving my time, although it's not like I do anything else either. Mostly I just bum around and watch telly, or hang around on Facebook like all the cool kids.

But today I decided that it was time to kick myself in the butt and actually do something about the situation. It's a little less than a month left until Penguin stop taking open query letters, and I still have to perfect my synopsis and my personal letter to them. I'm not usually a big perfectionist when it comes to things, but this is my future and my dream so it has to be absolutely flawless, then rejection won't sting as much cause then at least I'll know that I did my best with this one.

So today, except for helping my brother to get Spotify on his computer, I'll start editing the book for the third time. It's the third draft (feels a bit weird to say it like that...third draft) and this time I'll change things that's not supposed to be in the story anymore, and I'll change one of my characters way of talking, since I want him to sound more cockney.

Ah well, here goes. Wish me luck!

/Kim

Monday 27 September 2010

Books I can't wait to get my hands on

I love reading. I read way more than I write, and I gulp them down one by one! Everytime I go to England I take the opportunity to purchase as many books I can, since I only read in English. Last time I went there, in August, I came home with thirteen books, all of them are more or less finished.

I do have a few books that I haven't come out yet, books that I'm waiting impatiently for. These are;

Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick
My first encounter with the first book, Hush Hush, was when I had just finished Issues, and sat and waited for all the pages to print. In my hand I had a free sample of the book, in Swedish. I read it through and got hooked, despite it being in the wrong language. It didn't take long until I bought the book and plowed through it. When I read the first bit of the new book, I just kept waiting. I still am.

Crescendo gets out on October 19th



Forever by Maggie Stiefvater
This is a fanmade cover, the real one hasn't been released yet, that's how long I have to wait. The two previous books didn't take long until they were read and done, and even if I'm not the biggest fan of the second book, and how it all played out, I just have to know what's going to happen.

Forever gets out in July 2011
Torment by Lauren Kate
Another book I just ploughed right through. This one however, just left me annoyed at the lack of real love that was going on. There was always something there to ruin all the almost-moments, whereas most books let them have at least a few days in blissful happiness. I'm excited for this book because now they can maybe finally get a happy ending.

Torment comes out September 28th (tomorrow! but it's probably now coming to Sweden until a few weeks after)

The big writing day

One thing that defines me as a person is my laziness. So, to me, there's no surprise that I haven't gotten anything done in the past five days. Not writing wise anyway. I've been busy taking care of my family's new puppy, do a bit of working and just trying to figure out life. I got Issues back from Bella, edited and done, so what I really should be doing is working my behind of with that. It's my possible future that's in that bunch of papers.

Other than that I've been busy reliving my old life with the McFly-boards and the fan fiction writing I did like a drug for about two years ago. It's all amazing, but not the same anymore.

But today it's Monday, which means that a new week is beginning, tossing away last weeks mistakes to the side and throwing you into a new week's adventure. I tidied my room and then decided that it was time to do something about the situation. So today, I'll spend my entire day (and probably night, seeing as I'm an owl) positioned in front of my laptop just writing and editing away. Between taking pee-breaks, both mine and the puppies.

Until next time!
/Kim, currently dying from staring too close at the screen and new puppy owner

Wednesday 22 September 2010

Welcome to the beginning

Hello, and welcome to my blog. This is where I'll collect everything that has anything to do with my writing. I had another blog that was meant for this, but somehow it got my for-fun blog instead, so I decided to try again and succeed this time.

So who am I?

Well, my name is Kim, I'm 19 years old and I want to be a published writer. I live in Sweden with my mum and my siblings (who only come every other week) and my three mice, fish a hamster and in two days, a dog. This will however change one day, because since I graduated school earlier this summer I haven't done much else than just bum around at home, so if things go as planned I will soon move to England which, for unknown reasons, are the country of my dreams.

In my spare time I like to write (duh!), read, eat, sleep and play video games. I work too. At least a little, it's not a full time job, but I do get enough money to survive. And I'm beginning to learn how to drive, and study some math. Yes, my life is busy, busy!