first novel Archives - Kristen Helmstetter

Hello & Ciao, my friends.

I thought I would write a quick update on what’s going on in my life.

Writing Novels!

As you know I attempted my first novel in April and I finished it. I also started a second novel and finished it. And I am now starting my third.

I have found a true passion. As I mentioned before, in this piece, I never thought I could be a fiction writer. But I completely change my mindset and filled my head with the right affirmations and self-talk, and here I am banging out novels.

And, I absolutely love it. There isn’t anything I’d rather be doing. And I don’t just mean for work. Every chance I get, I want to sit at my computer and write, or walk and dictate. That’s what I’m doing with pretty much all of my time the past couple months. :)

I think my first romance novel will be available in the next couple days! My novels will be written under a pseudo name, and the cover for the first book will be ready to show you, maybe later today! Stay tuned.

ALSO! When I release my books, I will make them free for five days in the Kindle store so that all of my readers can get them.

Happy Sexy Millionaire Formula

Of course I still follow my Happy Sexy Millionaire formula! There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t do my Morning Mirror Magic or my Manifesting Meditations! Those are the first things I do every morning BEFORE I sit down to write.

They give me confidence, calm, and inspiration. Plus it makes me happy!

What about getting backed Italy?

Before we came back to America for a visit in February, we signed a long-term lease on an apartment in one of our favorite spots in Italy.

As you know, we have been staying in Arizona until travel becomes safe and we can get back to Italy. As of now, although we’re still watching it on a weekly basis, there is a good chance we can return in June. Italy lifted its lockdown last week. My goal is to wait and see how those first couple weeks in June go and if all goes well, we will go back to our home there.

Stay healthy and happy!

Hello, everybody!

I’m writing this by speaking into my digital voice recorder. Why?

As you know I’m writing my first novel this month (YEAH!), and one of the things I want to do is get into the habit of dictating because it’ll increase my word count rapidly.

So, here I am… practicing dictation by dictating my blog post to you. :)

How’s the novel writing?

The project is going really well. I continue to be over-the-moon excited about it.

I’m so busy thinking about my novel and imagining different scenes in it, doing research, reading tons of other novels that I actually don’t have time to do anything else! Definitely no time to watch the news.

I like this because it supports my blissed-out bubble during the pandemic conditions we’re all living through.

Working on this project is a mission and I love it.

As you know, I have set a goal to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of April. We have several family members and friends doing the challenge, too.

My daughter’s word count is already over 15,000 words with her children’s fantasy book (her goal is 30,000 and she had a little head start because started at the end of March). And my husband has written over 10,000 words of his — wait for it — pandemic apocalypse novel set ten years in the future. He has lots of book ideas, but he chose this one, aside from the obvious reasons, because it would require the least amount of research.

Our “CoronaWriMo” writing challenge is, by design, meant to get authors straight into writing, rather than procrastinating with stuff like research. (CoronaWriMo is our modified version of the popular NaNoWriMo challenge, or “National Novel Writer’s Month,” which happens every November.)

We have so much fun chatting about the experience and talking with each other. We go on long walks in the evening and talk all about characters, plot, and other writer stuff. It’s helped each of us figure things out as we grope our way through this unfamiliar process of writing fiction..

My Book: Romance!

I’m writing an “opposites attract” romance novel. The big question for me regards the sexy parts. How steamy do I go?

You see, my mom usually proofreads my non-fiction books because she is really good at finding mistakes (even when I swore there were none). But, uh… I can’t see myself letting her read a romance book I write with steamy sex scenes. Gulp. (Greg suggested I just take those scenes out of the copy that she proofreads. I might do that.)

And what about other people I know? Do I really want friends and acquaintances reading about all kinds of throbbing such-n-such? Yikes. I’m new to all this and unsure of how to proceed. I did, however, decide to publish my romance novels under a pen name, for marketing reasons. (Amazon’s algorithms can get confused when an author has books in multiple genres. If you’re not careful, sales in both genres can crater as a result.)

I’m well on my way. I’m actually freakin’ doing it!

Yesterday, I wrote the first couple chapters of my book. I had spent the first week planning: chewing on the outline, developing my characters, and creating the project in Scrivener. Scrivener is arguably one of the best software products for writing. I use it for all of my writing, including my non-fiction books and blogging.

WRITE WRITE WRITE!

I admit that I find it easy to get distracted with other things like reading other books (research!… right?), studying the craft of writing, and even blogging, watching Netflix, etc.

But I know that the only way I’ll be a great writer is to write. Getting my ass in the chair and the word count up. Pushing my way through, figuring out things on my own. So, that’s what I’m doing.

I like my system.

I’ll share my approach to how I’m writing in future blog posts. For now, read this post that explains how I realized I could even write a novel (we all can!), and buy this book to encourage you starting now (No Plot? No Problem)

Love, Kristen

first novel

Going Back to Italy, Writing Novels, Happy Sexy Millionaire