Cosimas Lounge

My dears :)

Everything was said concerning my way as a writer... I THOUGHT ;) But as so often in life, there always comes a surprise around the corner when you would expect it at the very least :) In this case, even a highly enjoyable one :)

Some of you will have seen on my blog, that there are now also Ebooks available from me.

That's funny in even two ways, because 1. it came to these publications in a hurry and 2. I was so very skeptical about the media Ebook ;)

But first things first :D

Thanks to a crazy coincidence, I came across the so-called self publishing. I had to deal with that kind of stuff in the past on several occasions, but it was then all about, as mentioned in some columns before, "real" books that would have been an enormously expensive thing with printing subsidy or self-buying costs.

But in this Ebook-Self publishing area I read my eyes sore, looking for something small printed, which also just wanted to pull out money from my pocket.

When I found nothing of the sort, despite intense round reading the terms on and on, I had to wrestle down the next bastard: my antagonism towards ebooks.

Call me old fashioned, call me not compatible with today's time, but as far as books, I am a very puristic person who needs the feeling of paper between her fingers while reading. Not to mention the feeling of an OWN book, made of flesh and blood, or in this case, made of paper and printer's ink to hold in your hands.

In short, I was a little worried again, coupled with doubts, but what did I have to lose?

So I plowed my way through the self - publishing process until I had finally made it :)

And what can I say? Already the 2nd Ebook made everything much easier to work on :) When I published my first big novel, which firmly set one day my reputation as a kitsch auntie, it was still a different feeling, because this one had a whole lot of heart and soul in it :) And if it reaches at the free ebooks place number 14, I think that it wasn’t a so stupid idea to include eBooks to my repertoire ;)

In this sense I wish you lots of fun (even with my ebooks ;) ) :-*

Best wishes from your Cosima :)

Dear honeys :)

Column-time is here again ;) Today I want to share how I faced bravely another challenge in writing.

As the title of my column implies, some time somebody came up with the crazy idea that I should try to write a fantasy or mystery story. Because you know me by now, you know accordingly exactly how I have dealt with such a crazy suggestion - RIGHT! I broke into laughter, which alternated with pointing my finger to my forehead into the direction of the one who had the idea ;)

But seriously now: Fantasy? Mystery? Where you much, much more must be careful to logical storylines and the awful feeling of not contradict 2 pages later what you wrote before to avoid being the target to some Mr. Know-it-all-and-know-it-all-much-better who can rip the whole thing apart in 3 minutes? Do I wanted to do this to me? NO! Well, not really, but in principle ... . So it was here again as it always was: at first complete rejection, then awakened ambition and finally trying the impossible ;)

So I went to my first fantasy-story, but it should be different stuff than I thought.

I had looked for a contest with the subject and began to write. Oddly, I noticed that it was surprisingly easy to me writing it, at least for a subject I had always rejected.

However- the easy going of the writing of course, had its price: 30,000 character limit for characters including spaces! I could definitely not follow this rule, as I had built up the novel, but now I fell in love with the story and wrote it on. However, I did not want to miss the competition. So I quickly wrote the next story, but again I was too extravagant for the character limit.

After some cuts, although I disliked them, but it was necessary for the observance of the delivery date, I had managed to have a printed short story in 2 versions: the original "director's cut" as I since then call my first try and the shorter version for the contest :)

In the end, the story did not make it into the anthology, but I actually didn’t really care, because I was too proud and happy that I had overcome myself again, against my own principles, to take the step into a new literary world :)

It was also certified to me that the story may not fit into the anthology, but had received much positive response for an independent publication and this point is pretty high on my to-do list ;)

Thank you for your kind attention, my friends :)
Take care of yourself and feel embraced by your Cosima :)

My dears :)

This time I want to tell you about the immense suffering to tinker a kitschgirl into a passable thriller writer ;)

As mentioned in previous columns, I started my writing in the romantic-naive area.

I don't know why, but somehow it remained until today that love stories still go out of hand much more easier than anything else.

It must probably be due to the incorrigible romantic-kitsch-chick who I am, still, despite some setbacks, deep down in the heart ;)

Maybe it's because a love story doesn't need to be 100% logical and you don't have to constantly pay attention to not contradict what is written 2 pages before.

Yes, I think exactly this convenience made me rest quietly and contentedly on my pink cloud of turtledoves lovey-dovey, kitsch and heartbreak, early in my writing ;)

But in the family was stirring resistance. "Now stop this love drama and stuff to write something cooler, an exciting thriller!", I heard my mom say one day. Whew, touchdown! As usual, when I was facing new challenges in writing in my way, I turned to be deaf and stubborn. "Me and crime? NEVER! There will be so many nerds and extra-clevers to rip my story apart in 5 seconds, no thanks!"

But basically my mom had achieved her goal; sure she knew me quite a while ;) She knew that my ambition and my will to fight has always been greater than anxieties and insecurity.

So I sat down at my first crime story, however, as a compromise (or out of spite, who knows ;)) settled in figure skating AND still had a lovey-dovey-part as a side story to the content. It was still very subdued, but at least the criticism in the family stopped - temporarily ;)

That's why I wrote my first short crime stories, and also tried to install from there in my fan fiction more criminal elements.

In September 2009, it was done: my first short thriller was released :)

In a writing competition to 20 thrillers from 200 submissions had qualified for the publication and one of them was me :)

That was one of the best days of my writer existence, for Top 20 out of 200 is already really great for a newbie I was back then :)

It took a while to overcome the radical change to another genre , but now I have arrived and I feel comfortable with that, especially since I see it as a compensation to still writing my heartbreak fanfiction, so I do not quite unlearn ;)

Motivated by this success and inspired by the divine Dan Brown, who shaped my writing tremendously in that time, I sat down and wrote sometime even a really big thriller, not only the short form.

The writing gave me so much fun, and I also didn't care anymore about that a professional affected probably would have found one or the other weakness in the chain of reasoning, which was enormously liberating.

So my most absolute best work was created (yes, there speaks the vain, prejudiced artist and also when self-praise stinks, I can bear the smell so happy ;)), which so far is unfortunately still unpublished, but hey, what would life be without dreams and goals?

Thank you for your kind attention :)
Take care of yourself and feel embraced by your Cosima :)

Dear friends :)

This time I would like to tell you why fanfics will ALWAYS remain an important part of my life :)

It is often said that the first book that you read, the first movie to be seen, the first theatre play experienced on stage, always measures everything that's following. This is actually true, and perhaps some of you can confirm that.

In particular, however, this is also true in the writing for me. As mentioned in my first column, my writing career started with a fanfic, which was located in figure skating.

It should follow 2 more, in which I ventured, however, somewhat bolder ahead with thriller elements, but about this part I tell you in detail in a forthcoming column ;)

Due to issues concerning topic specifications in tenders, I must confess, that the market for figure skating stories was sown extremely thin, in other words, figure skating didn't take place in any of the tenders.

So in the meantime I had moved away a quite bit from fanfics in general and figure skating fanfics in particular.

Until I discovered how much fun writing brings when you stretch the fanfic-area from sport to movie, television and music :)

It was in 2004, when the wave of enthusiasm about the LOST series got to me quickly and soon a "victim" was found: Dominic Monaghan was the first non-figure-skater, immortalized by me in a fanfic :) It made mad fun designing a completely made-up scenery that even included his fellow hobbit Billy Boyd in a supporting role.

The really great thing about writing fanfics is that you dive into the scenery while writing the story and see everything from the perspective of the protagonists like a movie played in your mind.

From then on, I had decided to dedicate to each star, who is able to arouse my greater interest a separate fanfiction. Knowing that they never will appreciate these efforts, let alone learn about them anyway ;)

In this way, I developed for example fanfictions with Shah Rukh Khan, the great Bollywood star (even as a serial novel, but part 2 loses to Part 1 and Part 3 I have not finished because it was just too bad - YES, I can even criticize myself ;)), David Caruso (Horatio Caine from CSI: Miami), Colin Firth, the stunning Mark Darcy from the Bridget Jones movies, Naveen Andrews (also an actor from LOST, who later shared another fanfic with Dominic Monaghan), Josh Groban, the great baritone (unfortunately unfinished yet) and Simon Baker (The Mentalist, but unfortunately unfinished yet, too), Daniel Radcliffe and Brian Joubert.

The two last ones again even with enormous penchant for figure skating ;)

It is also irrelevant for me to write in the knowledge that I may never publish these novels due to personal rights, because I like to write them for myself.

As I said, many things will never let you go when you get a taste once.

And I'll probably still enjoy this indescribable feeling to be writer and director of the cinema in my head to the written word at the same time :)

Thank you for your valued attention :)

Take care of yourself and feel embraced by your Cosima :)

Hello my dear friends :)

It's time for column again and of course, I don't want to deprive you how setbacks happen in a writer's life :)

Once you have determined that writing is fun indeed and it is a useful pastime, one begins to get hungry - hungry for recognition. You want that many people read what one has formulated in months of self-torture, and after countless writer's block of the soul. You want the people to feel the same when reading what you felt yourself when writing.

I had, as already mentioned, started writing in 2002, but until I found the courage to send one of my novels to a publishing house still nearly 4 years had to go by. My 3rd novel seemed worthy to try it.

Of course, I didn't pick out a big publishing house because I considered to get an rejection reply anyway and this hadn't to come from a corner where only celebrity-books were published with huge names.

Full of hope I sent my work to a publishing house I had found on the internet and tried not to expect too much. After a few weeks there was a letter in the post box - oh my God, from the publishing company! Calm down, old girl, that's only the negative reply!, whispered the pessimist in me. But perhaps you are now at the destination of your dreams arrived!, whispered back the incorrigible optimist inside of me. With shaky fingers I opened the letter - and did not believe my eyes! They liked it! MY novel liked someone outside of my family and circle of friends! Of course, I danced like a rubber ball through the house with joy ..... well, until I looked at enclosure 1 of the letter a little bit closer ;) Suddenly it struck me like dandruff from the hair! THEREFORE, the publisher was so excited and praised my novel to the skies! The enclosure 1 consisted of a "super offer" for publishing my book: EURO 8,000 I should pay for the all-inclusive-carefree package, including the costs of printing the first edition as well as marketing and promotional materials! :( I had picked out with instinctive certainty the underdog among publishers. A subsidy publisher, as I learned later.

And since there were no one in my family with the name Rockefeller, Bill Gates or Kardashian, I buried deeply saddened and disillusioned, the dream of a breakthrough as a new star in the sky of writers :(

But after the first depression I continued, according to the motto: now more than ever :)

It should take another two years until the first publication, but in the meantime I also made a little discouraging experience of another kind.

A competition was proclaimed to come up with an animal inspired crime story. Said and done and not even the character limit put me off to send in 2 short stories, from which one of them made it into the planned anthology. Of course, the joy was again huge - the disillusionment was still greater a few months later, when the organizers of the competition had to cancel the project due to organizational difficulties :(

Another setback for my tortured writer soul :(

To anticipate one sure thing: NEVER it will be easy to accept a NO for something you have put down your heart's blood in for months or weeks!

But you learn to get up again and again after the first uppercut. Even today there are still one or the other rejections but after the first sorrow is gone, you dust yourself off and say: New opportunity, new luck!

And most importantly - THIS isn't the end of the world ... really ;)

Thank you for your kind attention :)

Take care of yourself and feel embraced by your Cosima :)

My dears,

I thought I simply tell you how it went on after taking the first obstacle in writing :)

Back then after finishing my first novel I was like HOORAY, I am the queen of the world, everything’s super, everything’s great, this is what you do from now on regularly…but nearly everything happened nearly totally different ;)

It was a hard, stony way from writing a lot to writing spontaneous short poems but let’s keep it sequentially.

Of course, in the beginning figure skating had grabbed again such a strong hold on me that the first 3 novels of course all played in that kind of sport…and likewise of course they were fanfictions with my heroes from then starring in the main- but also in the supporting roles and I had started to choose songs as the leading motive which became the title of my story.

For saving my honour I maybe should add that soon I reduced the amount of my stories to a normal size. While I didn’t gave the reader half a chance for own fantasy by completely to the detail formulated thoughts, situations and other circumstances in the first novel the follow-up was only a good one-third of the first one :)

Nevertheless, I must admit that until today I still have problems with character handicaps which means when my vocabulary is limited right from the start and I have to write a good story with a restricted amount of letters.

A frightening example is one of my short-stories which I wrote down just like it entered my mind, as usually and while counting the letters there were nearly 20.000 characters too much :( I was up the creek without a paddle because in my opinion the story was absolutely worthy taking part in a competition but what should I do with the characters I had too much? And what did a newbie like I was back then? Right, I did the WRONG thing :( I cut everywhere I could in my story until it fit with the demanded amount of characters…but meanwhile I didn’t fit with my own story anymore :( But the deadline was near and so I sent it on its way though there wasn’t much left of the charm it had to me before :( Of course it came how it had to come…a few weeks later I received the negative reply :( But also stuff like that you have to face and you learn for the future :)

I try to get back to the actual point ;)

The score so far was: first novel done…CHECK! Writing shorter novels…CHECK! Never again trying to cut a short-story from a novel…CHECK! But now I ran into the next level of a seemingly invincible obstacle in my way: Write a poem! HUH???? Poem? Me?? NEVER!! A poem has to rhyme in best of all cases, for heavens sake, I CAN’T DO THAT!!!

The problem was the time. I had found a competition with the topic environment and you could even choose if you wanted to write a short-story (of course again with that unholy limitation of characters) or a poem.

Well, there isn’t much of a choice if you refuse writing a story due to a lack of time, is it?! ;) So I sat down and hatched my very first poem :)

But the sweetest reward was the reply that this from necessity born piece of work had made it into the anthology and so I was very proud of my very first publication which landed 6 years after my first steps as a writer on my bibliography :)

Ever since then many of my poems made it into anthologies and this is kind of surreal sometimes when I think of how I refused writing poems at the beginning…oh well, actually I just stayed true to my principles because at the start I also thought that I couldn’t write a whole novel ;)

And this showed me, at last concerning writing experiments, one sure recognition…DOESN’T WORK DOESN’T EXIST!!! :)

Thank you so much for your valued attention, my dear friends :)

Take care & feel embraced by your Cosima :)

My dear english-speaking friends,

today I want to tell you how I got into writing :)

It all began in 2002. I had just re-discovered my love for figure skating on TV and became, head over heels of course, a huge fan of Alexei Yagudin ;)

Nearly everyday I searched through the internet to find out EVERYTHING about him…for those who are nowadays a fan of a star I probably should add that it wasn’t that easy (at least at my side) to get those information in the year 2002. The older ones of you will certainly remember the exhilarating sound of a cute little 56k-modem trying desperately to catch ANY connection to the internet ;) That was far away from sooper-dooper-mega-giga-DSL-highspeed, that was all really time-and money-consuming because back then you had to pay via phone bill for every started minute you spent in the internet and talking on the phone at the same time was truly science-fiction.

But I digress into nostalgic times ;)

Anyway, while having one of those surf-trips I discovered a figure-skating-fanfiction-site where I immediately started to look for an Alexei-Yagudin-fanfiction…of course there were countless of them including the Superstar on ice of those days back then and all in different languages. A german one raised my interest the most and after some days of reading I wrote some time a feedback.

So a loose acquaintanceship started to develop which lead into going together to a figure skating-gala.

During her stay at my home my acquaintance kept talking me into trying to write a figure-skating-story myself since I was always whining: “Oh, if I just could do this, too…oh, I don’t have a talent for that…Gosh, if I could just write THAT good!” Because of her persistence and to prove to her that the word “talent-free” was just invented for me it all came how it had to come…on September, 6that about between 5 pm and 6 pm I put the very first time my ink pen on paper to write my very 1st novel “Just the way you are” :)

A fanfiction about, what else?!, figure skating, starring Elvis Stojko, Stephane Lambiel and Jeffrey Buttle :)

Maybe you wonder now why I didn’t write an Alexei-story but I guess it was because of my respect to all those other uncountable fanfictions which were way much better written than mine in my opinion. Likewise encouraged by my acquaintance I even translated the story into English to post it at that forum.

What followed then was simply overwhelming :) Countless feedbacks reached my inbox, countless impatient readers whining for a fast continuation (I always posted in parts, mostly with really mean cliffhangers *harhar*) and that was the point where I said to myself: Hm, so your writing style can’t be sooooooo abysmally bad ;)

I read the story every now and then again and always have to smile. A lector probably would throw these 130 pages (printed, mind you, not handwritten!) to my head and say: “What kind of stylistic Super-MCA you have produced?!” but I think of this first writing attempt as my firstborn, my baby :) And you wouldn’t cut a baby’s finger off because it’s maybe a little wrong grown; that’s why I refrained from changing around the novel to kill the worst stylistic disasters. I love it the way it is but I’m also very happy that I could improve my writing style and that I turned a kind of “forced” hobby into a wonderful way to spend my free time which shows me with meanwhile over 30 publications that I can’t have done everything wrong ;)

The acquaintance is since a long time out of my life but the love for writing remained and always will stay :)

Thank you so much for your valued attention, my dears :)

Take care and feel embraced by your Cosima :)