Go bashing

There's a hilarious thread on Absolute Write about the age-old problem with discerning between literary fiction and genre fiction. You have the usual verbal bashing where presumptuous and trash define the radicals of both camps, and of course there are the usual attempts to verbalise definitions.

Why not simply accept that literary fiction is a language-centric fiction genre, where the words are more important than the story? At least if you browse the shelves -- when story becomes as important as words then the books tend to get slotted in among general fiction anyway.

In print

It took a while, but now it's available for download. What is? Well, the non-fic project that ate so much time earlier this winter. In Swedish, but for those who want to give that language a try feel free to read a handbook in how to run a gaming championship in Sweden.

PC or not PC

I read an interesting article in Aftonbladet about political correctness in children's literature. As usual my source is in Swedish, so a minor explanation may be in order. Basically the article concerns older works, and how time has made them politically incorrect seen from a Swedish point of view. Mostly it is the ethnocentric angle that is touched upon, be they ethnic minorities in Sweden or simply people from anywhere else.

The author points out that the world will hardly go up in flames merely because your children read a story older than a few decades including terminology and views reflecting the time when it was written, but she also advices parents to use those very books to base a conversation about uncomfortable topics around.

Today I am ashamed of being Swedish

One of our commercial TV-channels has sold out to censorship for money. An article in DN tells the sorry story of how TV4 chose to accept delays in the broadcasting of the Nobel prize ceremony in order to enable censorship. The linked article is in English and lacks some of the content of the Swedish original.

Live well

Nothing about writing here, but a fun reunion we had. You're never too old unless you feel too old. So, courtesy of someone borrowing my camera for a short while, I raise one for you.

Another giant passes away

Arthur C Clarke has died at age 90. See New York Times for a longer article.

A matter of direction

I have finally started placing characters on paper. Well, on hard drive anyway. That a matter of direction should take me a year to find out is disturbing, but maybe those changes are the ones most difficult to see in advance.

Four years ago I started out writing the story of a visitor to fantasy land. Makes sense? You've read them. One or more persons from our world end up in magic place where adventures occur. Mixed in with adventures you, the reader, get to know this magic place through the eyes of your peers. So, I twisted the idea a bit, but basically it is what I wrote.

Looking in. In order to ensure familiarity you place a character the reader can easily identify with in a strange environment. Some of you have probably even been given the advice to do this. My problem was that it simply didn't work out very well.

Now I'm rewriting that story, but this time is is about people living in fantasy land being visited by strangers from the outside. Mixed in with adventures you, the reader, get to know how strange some things we take for granted can be for someone who belongs to a different culture.

Looking out. In order to focus on the strange you highlight the normal as abnormal and gloss over the fantastic. I believe this will work a lot better for me. To begin with I have a much easier time creating a fantasy feeling rather than a science fiction one.

It will be an interesting year to come, one where I will look out from the world I have created.