I’ve just gotten the news from the VG Wort literary copyright collection agency that my project report has been approved. That means that I’ve officially completed my grant project and will receive the outstanding €500 for reaching my goal. Thanks to the German government for supporting the GRIM DEEP project with a €5000 grant as part of the Neustart Kultur pandemic recovery programme! It made it possible for me to invest a whole month in finishing the book.

Today, I’m starting a month of doing nothing but trying to finish the first draft of my novel. Something I’m calling Grim February.

Some of you might know that I work as a freelance journalist and podcaster to make my living. And in the months since finishing NaNoWriMo 2021, I haven’t gotten much work on the novel done, because I’ve been very busy with assignments. Therefore, I’ve taken the whole next month off from my other work to concentrate on GRIM DEEP in the hope of bringing my government grant to a successful conclusion.

I will keep you updated on this blog and my Twitter account as to how this effort is progressing. My current manuscript stands at 11 chapters and 73,103 words. I have no idea how long the novel will be, I don’t even know the details of how the story will end yet. But I will give my best to finish it in February. Wish me luck!

I’m happy to announce that this project has received a grant from the federal government here in Germany. The German copyright collection agency for writers, VG Wort, and the Commissioner for Culture and Media of the federal government have created the programme Neustart Kultur to promote writers in the wake of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. As part of this programme, I have received a grant of €5000 over four months (the grant period started on 30 October). More specifically, I have received €4500 now and will get another €500 if I reach my goal for the grant, which is to finish the novel. I think it is pretty cool that they considered my project, even though I’m writing the novel in English and only plan to translate it to German later.

In order to facilitate me reaching the goal under this grant, I have joined NaNoWriMo again this year. It perfectly fell together with the start of the grant, after all. In case you aren’t aware, the National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is a global community of people trying to put 50,000 words to paper during the month of November. I won it once in 2011, while still at university in Bonn, and binned the novel. I entered GRIM DEEP in 2018 and in 2019 and failed miserably both times. Maybe this year, motivated by the grant and the ten-year-anniversary of my original win, I can pull it off. If you have a NaNoWriMo account, you can follow my efforts on my profile on the website. I also plan to provide updates on my progress via my Twitter account.