The Weave of Ljiid

Selfnecroing

2011-09-07T01:24:00.001+02:00

A necro, in the context of forums, is when you respond to a topic thread where there have been no posts for a very long time. Basically you're reviving a dead topic.

Adding a post to a blog which has been silent for over three years should qualify as a pretty nice necro as well.

I won't promise that I'll return with new posts here in a regular manner. In fact that's highly unlikely, but I felt a need to revisit the old place.

Since my last post I've gone over to the side of evil. With my BA in comparative literature I now qualify for the league of the bads. It's a well known fact that no-one with an academic exam in anything literature has even the slightest ability to produce the literature they study. Umberto Eco would be a good example, I guess.

That said, I've seen my daughter grow from toddlerhood to the points where she's tentatively taking the first steps at being a consumer of literature. I've also seen the birth and death of my son, and he spent too much time trying to learn to live to have a shot at anything literature at all. Well, I guess he was a tad young for such a taste to begin with. It is, after all, supposedly an aqquired taste.

I have also, rather obviously, read a bit. More theory than fiction I'm afraid, but given the state of some of the theory I've read I'm now very much in a position to share a secret with you -- the difference, all too often, between literary theory and the fiction it pertains, is that the fiction at least has a semblance of relation with reality.

The underlying reason is mainly that adacemics in the field of humanistics share a pathologic fear of anything which can be measured, extrapolated, described in a commonly agreed terminology, or simply be understood at all. If there's a perfectly sound way of telling something in a few terse sentences, rest assured that it can be told in obtuse academese lasting a full page or more.

Oh, I almost forgot. In the field of humanistics it is considered ethically correct, from a scientific point of view, to collect a single data-point and draw far reaching conclusions concerning an entire field of knowledge from it. Coming from the field of science myself I can tell you that while there certainly is a lot of academics about humanistics, there's absolutely nothing scientific about it at all. It fails, and explicitly so, to survive any of the standard requirements for science.

That said, I can't wait to continue my studies in the field. While too many active within it have lost touch with reality, the field as such lends itself to vast oceans of knowledge and thinking. Maybe not science, but definitely knowledgeable thinking.

Well, this is me signing out after a session of random ramblings. Enjoy your day. I will.

Go bashing

2008-06-24T13:55:00.003+02:00

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

2008-06-11T20:42:00.002+02:00

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

2008-05-27T20:50:00.004+02:00

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

2008-04-26T10:22:00.002+02:00

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

2008-03-30T23:15:00.002+02:00

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

2008-03-19T10:02:00.001+01:00

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

A matter of direction

2008-03-11T23:40:00.003+01:00

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.

Death of a legend

2008-03-04T20:04:00.001+01:00

Below copied from the USENET News group I frequent as part of my gaming interest. The importance of the role playing games cannot be overestimated for the fantasy literary genre.

Ernest Gary Gygax ( July 27, 1938 - March 4, 2008)
is best known as the author of the well known fantasy role-playing
game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), co-created with Dave Arneson and co-
published with Don Kaye in 1974 under the company Tactical Studies
Rules. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of the role-
playing game

He was diagnosed with an inoperable abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Gygax died on March 4th, 2008.

He passed away at 1am in his bed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gygax

While not technically about V:TES, the world of gaming and game
conventions owe a tremendous amount to him. I've had a ton of fun and
made a lot of friends playing D&D, and by extension all of the other
games I've played and the other people I've met as a result. Many,
many thanks, Mr. Gygax.

- Ben Peal

New battery

2008-02-17T13:21:00.002+01:00

Now, what kind of a title is that?

It is the kind that makes me a happy writer. Refusing to turn my home into an office I write in pubs, cafes and other waterholes. Now, plugging in my laptop is more difficult than what I had expected, and with only the one battery the computer came with I was down to just over two hours' worth of work. That, to put it mildly, limited my workload in the negative sense of the word.
However, a couple of days ago the spare battery I ordered arrived, something which ought to at least double the time available for writing.

Now, writing output, at least for me, is not a linear function of time. Four hours are easily worth three times as much as two, for the simple reason that each writing session involves a rather convoluted set-up. I guess it is a mental deficiency of mine, or maybe it is something rather normal.

No matter what -- new battery!

Language and style

2008-01-31T10:04:00.000+01:00

I recently read an article about the Swedish. By Swedish I refer to the unique attributes of Sweden.

Among comments I saw one about the Swedish silence, and this should be read in a social context. Another concerned our language and its ability to give colour to our surrounding nature.

The reason I bring this up is a number of conversations I've participated in, digital as well as over a beer on a pub. People from here, here being Sweden, find it hard to accept that there should exist unique aspects of our language, ad that it therefore lends itself better or worse to certain types of expressions.

Now, with the supreme arrogance only the ignorant can afford, Swedish people feel secure in their absolute knowledge that only they are able to find, and refute, nuances in a language they've grown up with since birth. A foreigner noticing the stark contrast to another reality taken for granted is either blind, deaf or otherwise linguistically deficient. Or, maybe, we just happen to be blind ourselves.

So I once again state my opinion that different languages work best with different styles of stories, and every story has a style, and every translation is, for that reason, either a transformation into an environment where that style is lost or misunderstood, or an interpretation where the translation is no longer entirely linguistically true to the original.

When you can, read in the original language, because language has style. Whether you like that style or not is, of course, entirely a matter of your own personal taste.

Rewriting

2008-01-23T22:27:00.000+01:00

So I am back to rewriting.

Having stated earlier that I prefer plot over character, if I have to choose at all, I will remake the novel to reflect this better. Rather than being the story of a person I will write a story of events, ie plot.

Needless to say the working title needs to be changed as well. Instead of being about Arthur it will concern itself with what happens around him, and in his wake. Should paradoxically enough give me more time to flesh out a few other characters.

New workspace

2008-01-10T02:03:00.000+01:00

Or rather a renewed one. I've spent the last day migrating my laptop from Win XP to Kubuntu Linux. There were a few mishaps, mostly a result of my not having touched a Unix system these last two years, and one major one resulting from brain dead information.

After spending a couple of hours clicking right and left, watching in fascination how everything went up like a breeze with little or no problems, I was left with convincing my laptop to communicate with our networked printer. That might seem like a minor issue, but I write for pleasure, my dream of authorship and mandatory assignments alike. Being unable to convert digital data to paper is therefore a rather major dilemma.

Enter brain dead. After scouring the web for information and installing all kinds of defunct software as well as redundant, but perfectly working, ones I ended up with the knowledge that I was supposed to point my web browser to my own laptop in order to get to an installation interface. Now, the interface was by no means difficult to use -- if you knew beforehand what you were supposed to do. This was later proven by the five minutes I needed to add printing capacity to another laptop. Of course it helped that I am more than a little bit familiar with computer networks and therefore no stranger to force the necessary information out of a router, after which identifying the printer server became a lot easier. Static IP on said server and I knew I would not have to hunt the printer down like an elusive prey every time the DHCP server decided to assign a new address to it. Opening a socket to a remote unit is also something I have done quite a few times, which ended up, implicitly giving me the correct protocol, and I was set to go.

Now, what in all bleeding hells would have been so difficult about making a small setup software that scanned the local network for potential networked printers? After all, all other magic with the installation, some of which I had never expected to see working, worked like a dream.

Brain dead!

End rant.

Second draft subbed

2008-01-04T22:16:00.000+01:00

It took a while longer than expected, but finally the second draft of our little non-fic project has been submitted. Now we have to wait for customer feedback and make changes accordingly.

Stereotyping as a stereotype

2007-12-27T15:52:00.000+01:00

I joined an interesting conversation at my usual hangout on-line. As it turned out we were chatting, quite literally so, about character creation, and one of the participants had problems with female characters. The troubleshooting soon turned into a topic of stereotypes.

Even though this particular article is about gender it could be used for any labelling of a common occurrence. We even touched slightly upon the matter of culture possibly being a case of stereotyping. Now, be aware that I'm pushing forward my own thoughts and reasoning here. What makes sense to me could be an utter lie to someone else. Also bear in mind that this is a article about stereotyping, not about the stereotypes mentioned.

Back to the topic in question. Problems with creating female characters. There is a stereotype, or at least an archetype, to begin with. No matter how much we would like to argue that each person is a unique individual there was never much of a problem accepting the concept of a female character. From there goes that it should be equally easy to grasp the concept of a male character. That, in turn, should have us accepting that we do indeed play around with stereotypes far more easily than many of us believe.

The interesting here isn't if there is an implicit femaleness or not. What is worth taking note of is that there is an expectation of an expectation. What I mean with this is that we tend to expect others to be prejudiced, or at least to simplify reality by attaching labels to it. We, you and me, are of course far too tolerant, knowledgeable, understanding or intellectually advanced to fall into that trap. Or maybe not, even if it hurts to apply the negative to ourselves. Anyway, as a writer we cater for a reader. An average reader at that. At least if we aim at commercial writing. We write for a stereotypical reader of the stereotypical kind of writing we produce, and for that very reason we adapt our writing to handle expectations. Those expectations are in itself models of the real expectations. We simplify and use templates, no matter if we are aware of them or not.

I believe that this simplifying can be put to good use for a writer. In order to create the unique we need to be aware of the template. We don't have to agree with it, but we ought to recognize it and respect that the reason for the template is that it makes people comfortable because the familiar is comfortable. At the other hand, if we want a character to make a short appearance then it makes sense to stick to the stereotype unless we want to place ourselves in a situation where we need to explain the deviation from a stereotype. Mind you, the stereotype doesn't have to be true. This is not a matter of truth or right. It is only a matter of accepting a stereotype for what it is -- an oversimplification that has its grounds in an overall truth, a partial truth, a false prejudice or a mix of them all.

Now for the header. Falling back to stereotypes whenever a character has a very minor role in the story is, of course, a stereotype in itself. The less we see of a character the more we expect him or her to lack original individuality. There you have a useful stereotype if any.

New project

2007-12-22T04:28:00.000+01:00

Rather unsurprisingly there are news of Peter Jackson adapting Bilbo to the white screen. Two films with the usually absurd budget, but after the success with the ring trilogy maybe the budget isn't as absurd after all. Especially as fantasy as a genre seems to be associated with children's literature, and Bilbo should fit right in there, hefty body count notwithstanding.

First reviews

2007-12-18T18:20:00.000+01:00

And now the very first reviews of Arn, the movie, are out. I have found one in Aftonbladet and another in GP.

The first gave the film a pretty average review, main complaint being that it was too compact a representation of the trilogy on which it is based. The latter went more in the line of kill, main and destroy, as in kill the producers, main the actors and destroy the copies of the film.

Arn

2007-12-17T15:03:00.000+01:00

And now the most expensive production in Swedish film history hits the white screen. Arn, a historical, albeit with fictive main characters, novel has been adapted for visual consumption.

News can be found at DN and of course SF, Svensk Filmindustri.

Potter mania is over -- almost

2007-12-13T15:27:00.000+01:00

I found this little gem in DN.

Apparently Rowling is about to publish another Potter book, if publish is the right word. Seven copies total, all handwritten and all but one gifts to people involved with the other books. The seventh copy is to be auctioned for charity purposes.

Title: The Tales of Beedle The Bard.

Terry Pratchett

2007-12-12T23:45:00.000+01:00

Seems to have come down with some bad luck according to Daily Mail and Paul Kidby.

Thanks to a fellow member at Forward Motion for finding the information.

All in all Pratchett seems to take it more like a Twoflower than a Rincewind.

On science fiction and fantasy

2007-12-09T19:44:00.000+01:00

I found this article which ties in nicely with my reflections on Swedish fantasy earlier.

Interesting to see how the author makes the claim that while fantasy is well received it is considered children's literature. I see a shadow of Rowling lurking in the corridors.

A classic read

2007-11-29T13:10:00.001+01:00

What can you say?

Here it is.

Everything you didn't know that you needed to know to be in the know.

An interesting read

2007-11-28T17:43:00.000+01:00

This post is basically just a link to what I found to be an interesting read.

As Abraham states, the definitions are his, and so we are all free to disagree with him. However, as he also points out, in order to have a conversation about a topic it is important to agree upon the content of definitions, even if we don't agree with it, so as to enable us to talk about the same thing.

It is, after all, quite simple. I define the basic short distance as a metre, but you disagree because you feel more comfortable with a foot. As long as we both stick to using one definition, no matter how much we disagree with it, we can have a sensible conversation about distance travelled by horse in a given type of terrain. If we do not, well then at least one of us is three times removed from a viable reality.

Back to square one

2007-11-22T13:22:00.000+01:00

I've come to realize that the weave needs to be told from the beginning. At least from the beginning of this particular story, which means I have to revisit The Taleweaver once more. Of course an edit, no matter how major, will be insufficient, and so I find myself facing a total rewrite of a story I abandoned well over two years ago. Do I find this daunting? Yes. Do I find it abhorrent? No.

There was a reason I began a story where I once did, and another that I chose to tell the story I told. That reason carried over into Frays in the Weave, and was explored further there. Still, Frays depends too heavily on Taleweaver to be told independently. Too many causes remain unclear for any reader unfamiliar with the abandoned story, and too many effects make no sense for such a reader. The reason being they aren't seen as effects at all, but rather has events free from the laws of causality, something that was never meant to be.

Now, do I retell the old story in new words? No. That would place me in the very same dead-end which caused me to drop the story in the first place. Do I write an entirely new story? No. That wouldn't solve the problems with Frays.

I believe I need to tell the story around the story. That I need to shrink the original story to the degree where it becomes but one small, albeit important, piece in a larger puzzle. That I by doing so can create a new story which incorporates the old and introduces a new, a more vivid and enchanting one, that will properly pave the grounds for Frays. Frays needing a rewrite as well notwithstanding, but that, as they say, is a later problem.

There are characters and events in Taleweaver that starved for want of attention, and nourishing them should better explain and make believe the characters, the events, and the world shaped from their interaction, both in Taleweaver as well as in Frays.

I believed I wove, but with but one strong strand all I did was to string myself a rope. Rather than making a noose I will untwine it, save the strands that can be reused, spin new ones of my imagination and make another attempt to weave.

Spekulative fiction in Sweden

2007-11-08T19:42:00.000+01:00

In an article Johan A points out some aspects of the problematic life speculative fiction has to endure in Sweden.

In as much as new titles in these genres are covered by our media at all they tend to be regarded as children's books, or possibly YA. Considering the enormous popularity of the Harry Potter books this tendency has by now become cemented here. Adult fantasy is like those white spots on old maps where be dragons.

Add that the so called literary elite in Sweden has decided that speculative fiction is not proper literature at all, but rather a sub-standard substitute for proper literature. Pulp fiction of the original meaning. They prefer not to be reminded of sub-standard authors like George Orwell, H G Wells, Aldous Huxley, William Golding and Doris Lessing, which should go a long way towards exemplifying the enormous difference with which the genre is looked upon by English and Swedish eyes. Ironically enough the Nobel Prize is a Swedish prize.

However, one problem with the article is that the author tries to prove that adult fantasy in Sweden is on the verge of dying because Swedish publishers are vary of placing their money in that field. Nothing could be further from the truth. With over 80% of the population labeled as knowing English, speculative fiction lives a healthy life here. Speculative fiction written in Swedish, or even translated into Swedish, well that is another matter.

Another downer

2007-11-07T18:08:00.000+01:00

What is it with returning to old acquaintances? Brave New World. Another classic, another downer, and this time in a favorite genre of mine.

The core is still as fantastically dystopian as I recall, but now I see how dated the novel is. The total absence of POV-discipline doesn't help neither. Head-hopping galore.

Diminishing pleasure

2007-10-31T12:33:00.000+01:00

I returned to Jane Eyre after a quarter of a century. Sad to say the novel didn't age well in my mind.

Of course I am aware that the work is over a century and a half old, and I know that I need to take the peculiarities of that time in stride. Still, arcane social ideals and ethnocentrism typical of the age apart, the style of the novel was what turned me away. Repeated breaking of the fourth wall and undisciplined use of tense apparently have become something I really dislike, and this is a pity as I recall liking the novel very much when I read it first.

In a sense I guess my personal development as a reader mirrors the development of authors as a group these last 150 years.

A Swedish event

2007-10-11T22:34:00.000+02:00

One of the few literary events in Sweden that claims world status has just made the news. This year's Nobel Prize winner is Doris Lessing.

In case anyone managed to miss

2007-09-25T11:33:00.000+02:00

The author known as Robert Jordan is dead.

I guess I'm the last of latecomers to flag this event.

On thee and thou

2007-09-24T00:14:00.000+02:00

A fun piece of knowledge for an avid reader of fantasy. Thee, thou and thine are popular in stock fantasy. They are, apparently, almost always incorrectly used.

Even though Wikipedia should be used with care, this article conforms with the literature I have available.

Primarily used to denote familiarity, or by a superior to an inferior, the usage of these words in fantasy becomes rather hilarious. Rather than use the formal 'you' our heroes deliberately insult kings, queens and fair ladies all around them.

I can only quote Sir Edward Coke: "I thou thee, thou traitor!"

ME, or it finally makes sense

2007-09-12T19:58:00.000+02:00

I'm studying, among other things, a little bit of how English has changed as a language over the centuries.

Finally the atrocious spelling starts to make sense. Middle English, when current spelling was phonetic spelling. Sure, that's a simplification, but still.

Of course the spelling is still as atrocious, but at least I'm starting to understand why.

Why a shovel is better than a bulldozer

2007-09-05T02:28:00.000+02:00

When you have the need to get rid of a little dirt, use a shovel and not a bulldozer.

Other wise the result can be appalling as SFWA found out. Now it should be noted that, for example, Jerry Pournelle believes that bulldozers are indeed viable replacements for shovels. The problem with that stance is that you attract far too visible problems, just as John Scalzi noted. Needless to say this sorry affair has made the blogosphere, which is bad enough, but also into Slashdot, which is just about as bad as it can possibly be for genre SF/F.

That is why, when your hands ache from using the shovel, you should still abstain from powering that bulldozer up.

Shakespearean sonnets

2007-09-05T01:02:00.001+02:00

Just read one. Peculiar one.

She looks like a goat, walks like a goat, bleats like a goat and smells like a goat, and still I love her.

Now, which sonnet is it?

Planning

2007-08-28T21:45:00.000+02:00

Planning, profiling and disposition. Bea is preparing for interviews and I have just finished moving all questionnaire answers to a digital format. Isn't it great fun writing non-fic? Eh?

Marking up chapters and creating sub hierarchies, but not a single word of content yet. This is a far cry from the writing I am used to from the last four years. All in all it very much resembles the way I had to put words to paper during my days in IT.

Non-fiction

2007-08-20T13:49:00.001+02:00

Is what I am going to write for the near future. Not because I have always dreamt of writing non-fiction and neither because I suddenly found a fountain of wealth. It is all a side effect of the championships in the card game we play. The main gamer's organisation in Sweden hired our club to write a handbook in running this type of events, and as both Bea and I have rather extensive experience in the area we agreed to the task.

It is definitely a paid for writing project, but our non-profit organisation is the recipient of the money, so I am not entirely sure that it counts as a writing credit. Well, it is a job that needs to be done, and honestly, someone ought to have written this several years ago, so I guess I could just as well, be one half of that someone.

One rather funny aspect of it all is that the sum allocated for this is more or less dead on the average advance for a new writer in speculative fiction, an eye opener in itself.

On the market of short stories

2007-08-13T00:48:00.000+02:00

Another blogger, author and (I believe) editor has an article and a suggestion. Heeding it might just be a good thing for us aspiring writers, and published writers for that matter as well.

Redirection

2007-08-13T00:38:00.000+02:00

I see from my statistics that a few of you come here in search for information on the European Championships in V:TES held the first weekend of August. Heading over to ec2007.blogspot.com should give you the information you want.

For the rest of you, I'm still slightly comatose from a week of games. A few days more and I should have caught up with documentation and much needed sleep, and after that I'll reactivate both my regular writing as well as this blog.

Busy elsewhere

2007-07-31T16:15:00.001+02:00

For a stiff week I'll be rather busy with the EC.

Neat Potter sales

2007-07-25T03:25:00.001+02:00

US sales at 8.3 million copies the first 24 hours according to this article in DN. I also read in an old fashioned paper newspaper that British sales were almost 3 million copies sold during the first 24 hours. Back here in Sweden the book has sold out.

Minor madness

2007-07-25T03:06:00.001+02:00

Just added an RSS feed for this blog. http://feeds.feedburner.com/twl

More Potter madness

2007-07-18T00:43:00.000+02:00

Reading an article in DN I saw how the Potter fever has struck Sweden as well.

The book will e released at 1 am, which corresponds to midnight UK time, and there are book stores which will be open at that time.

Several stores plan to lose money on their initial sales of the last book in the series. Prices have been cut to below half of the recommended one.

All this for a YA book in a foreign language. That says something about how widely spread basic mastery of English is in Sweden.

Characters and words

2007-07-15T13:10:00.000+02:00

I just noticed a minor, yet interesting, difference between Sweden and the English world. Places asking for short stories here in Sweden give the maximum length in characters whereas the English speaking counterparts give them in words.

I wonder about the reason for this peculiar difference, not that it matters much for practical purposes.

Plotting the good lie

2007-07-12T17:50:00.000+02:00

Your hero triumphs over his his/her antagonist, or fails horribly. No matter what, in a story the conflict should be resolved within scope of the conflict itself. That is good story telling. An example of not so good story telling would be a deus ex machinae resolution.

You probably recognize this and acknowledge it as well, as do I. Still, this is only a matter the good lie. Herein lies an interesting conflict. Where character focus has shown a tendency to go as far as making realistic characters more important than interesting characters the same can not be said for plot. Realistically the unexpected, the god in the machine, happens all too often. Still, you know that the reader will be aghast if the last chapter ends with the hero or villain getting killed accidentally in a car crash.

Episodes should lead to episodes which lead to a resolution, and the as sudden as late introduction of an event, outside the scope of the story, which takes it into a totally different direction is not popular.

So we force the plot to stay within the boundaries of the good story, telling the reader the good lie. Obviously the same should be done with characters. Plotting the good lie has to be followed by telling the good lie in order to give the reader a good read. In fantasy character and plot need to be lied well; setting to a certain extent less so.

The truth

2007-07-08T20:28:00.001+02:00

The truth, the realistic truth or the experienced truth? That is the question -- for a writer at least.

The truth is absolute. It is the kind of objective truth we seldom encounter, and in as much as it is there at all to begin with it is also rather uninteresting.

The realistic truth is the objective sounding version we agree to accept, either by embracing it or by being dragged screaming and fighting until we face it. It is, however, not the truth. The realistic truth can be truthful or an outright lie, but it has the ring of truth to it, and we tend to accept it as such for that reason. It is also one of the tools of the trade for a writer needing to suspend disbelief.

The experienced truth is the one each one of you take for granted and makes each one of you roar in frustration when you are faced with it in another. At least that frustration comes in full strength when that other person doesn't share your experience of truth. The experienced truth is also the only one that matters. It is what the realistic truth becomes if ruefully accepted or the one it already is when embraced. It is the version you believe in, for whatever reason, valid or not.

The experienced truth is also the most interesting one for authors willing to face their own darker sides in order to write a better story.
It is the kind of truth that makes us assume that dictatorships spew out propaganda and democracies provide objective information.
It is the version of the truth that has been manipulated whenever a great book comes with a great message, because great messages are always manipulations of the truth, and no one is interested in the truth.

Realistic characters

2007-07-06T16:44:00.000+02:00

I've been following, and participating, in an on-line discussion on books. A specified series of books in this case, but I'll abstain from identifying it.

People have exchanged opinions about the contents; mostly about characters and their corresponding characterisation. Whereas one set of opinions complain about characters so boring to read about that the plot dies the other side states that characters must be realistically depicted, and if the plot suffers as a result, then so be it.

Now I'm admittedly subjective, advocating plot before character as I do, but it would seem that non-writing readers tend to prefer the fun story over fantastic characters.

It should be noted, however, that readers of speculative fiction are to a great extent writers themselves. By writers I include anyone writing stories no matter whether they have a publishing history or not. The group of people who talk about writing but seldom put words to paper is even larger.

Again I see how the modern mantra of character above all gets in the way of an enjoyable story to read. Flat world with a generic plot is all fine as long as the author concentrates on creating a very small number of fantastic characters. You see, the current vogue is that there be only one main character. At least according to tips on writing from professionals and semi professionals.

Strangely enough the titles with a multitude of characters, where it is debatable if a main character can be identified at all, continue to book the slots for best sellers. It would seem that readers aren't as easily educated as writers and continue to shop for the fun story where action and pace require several viewpoints from which to see the story unfolding -- and with them the need for several characters. With several characters come, to a certain extent, the need for economy, which in turn translates into thinner depictions and more unrealistic portraits. There is little room for navel gazing when the plot needs to move forward.

So there is a thing as too much character after all. At least in my opinion.

More critting

2007-07-04T15:08:00.000+02:00

I'm doing a few crits, slowly admittedly, and jumping between languages is starting to have me see why some things work in English but not at all in Swedish. Scope and bombastic seems to be two easily identifiable themes.

I assume I'll learn more as I go along, but as of now I have only managed to see these two stylistic details that work better in English.

Slow Monday

2007-07-03T12:31:00.001+02:00

A mere three of us meeting up for the weekly pubgame. Exactly one too few. Well, it is part of summer and has been every year. Pity that it's been raining more or less constantly the last two weeks. That is not part of a usual summer here.

Götheborg

2007-07-02T13:17:00.001+02:00

Ships from the age of sails are a not too uncommon feature of today's fantasy.

Götheborg, a replica of an East India sail ship, was a fantasy of her own. Here she's back home in Göteborg after a return trip to China.

Deadline met

2007-07-01T10:13:00.000+02:00

So I did deliver the short story with a few hours to go.

A more down to earth approach took the language and sound of the story in a more preferred direction. Swedish doesn't lend itself well to the bombastic, much less so than English. I don't know exactly why, but I believe it has something to do with our language being developed with lots and lots of nature and very few people around.

Midsummer

2007-06-25T12:48:00.000+02:00

The midsummer's weekend has come and gone. All in all a enjoyable experience, even though the midsummer's day was a rainy one.
We got a party tent, erected it and held the party inside while raindrops kept hammering down. Midsummer and people here is a special thing. It is like being outdoors in one wan or another is mandatory. Well, luckily enough Saturday and Sunday turned out to be two lazy days in the sum just perfect for some barbecuing and chatting.

Slow writing

2007-06-19T11:28:00.000+02:00

One stag night, one wedding, the hottest days in sixty years, day care closing for summer and planning for midsummer haven't helped my writing. I manage shorter paragraphs of changes and outlining, and the occasional sketch for a future idea. Still, all in all, I haven't put many words to paper this month.

Two weeks from now I have another deadline for a short story, but at least I'm pretty clear about the story by now. Remains to put it down on paper, but I doubt I'll start that work until after midsummer.

Incluing

2007-06-15T10:31:00.000+02:00

Yep, that was the correct spelling of the word incluing. I found this little gem at Absolute Write. In one of the forums to be more exact.

So, do we prefer incluing rather than infodumping? I think we do, to a certain degree. Sometimes a solid chunk of data feels good. There's no absolute truth here. Still, on average having the setting and its peculiarities sprinkled into the story in such a way that we don't realise we have been given information until after we read the passage is indeed elegant.

More Swedish sales

2007-06-15T08:27:00.000+02:00

Another article, this time in SvD.

More numbers:

Audio books market 185 million crowns

Non-fiction 825 million

Fiction 904 million

The Swedish total market is estimated at seven billion.

Swedish sales

2007-06-13T22:01:00.000+02:00

This article in GP is an interesting exercise in numbers.

We're enjoying an all time high in sold fiction. Sales totalled 1.9 billion crowns, somewhere around $280 million or so.

Keep in mind that numbers below only concerns titles printed in Sweden. The direct import of English (as in the language) titles are as high as 20% of all mass-market paperback sales according to information I have read earlier. Unfortunately I can't quote those as they came from a printed excerpt which I have since forgotten where it came from originally.

The total number of titles last year was 4278, down by 2.2%. That number includes non-fiction, translations and audio-books. The last category increasing its percentages by 89% in the number of titles and 20% in revenues.

4278 titles. Almost one for every 2000 persons living in Sweden.

More Potter

2007-06-13T12:52:00.000+02:00

There is an interview with Daniel Radcliffe in today's DN.

This is mostly about the actor even though the interviewer makes more than a few attempts to merge the actor with the character.

All in all a rather cute summing up the past year's Potter hysteria and some questions about Radcliffe's planned future.

On blogs on books

2007-06-12T17:24:00.000+02:00

In a long article in SvD Lina Kalmteg makes a comparision between literary blogs in English (USA) and Swedish.

No, that wasn't entirely true. She refers to how critical voices have been raised in the US against blogs as the only sources of literary reviews. In Sweden some blogs have come to be just another part of the public room for conversations on literature. The voices here, including those of professionals from the publishing industry, be they publishers, authors or reviewers, are in general positive.

Blogs supposedly fill a slightly different function than reviews in newspapers. The latter don't invite to a conversation whereas blogs do.

Warning!

2007-06-12T12:57:00.000+02:00

It would seem some of the less appealing facets of US publishing has reached naive little Sweden. This article in DN tells of a publisher demanding money from the author.

Those of you familiar with the US publishing industry probably hear the warning sirens wailing by now. Sadly enough you're right. This is a local version of Publish America, including never releasing the rights back to the author, never printing more than a few token copies. The possible difference possibly being that the Swedish scammers charge a hefty upfront fee. Prices quoted vary from 2000 to 6000 US dollars up to the unhappy fool who has dished out in the order of 35000 US dollars for nothing.

The name of the "company" is Härjedalen litteratur och text (HLT).

The sheer extent of our local naivete shows in extracts from interviews done with people from our publishing industry. They show surprise and express ignorance of this peculiar type of publishing model.

Bad, very bad.

Dictionary

2007-06-12T12:51:00.000+02:00

There is a new dictionary for SF according to this article in DN.

Titled Brave New Words it should appeal to readers of speculative fiction. The subtitle is The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction and it is indeed published by Oxford University Press.

On genre

2007-06-11T10:13:00.000+02:00

I found this little gem thanks to AR Yngve.

A fun article on what defines a genre and divides from another. Five elements of writing and what priority they are given.

Feeling a bit lazy

2007-06-08T20:32:00.000+02:00

Or maybe I was merely born thoroughly lazy. Who knows?

I've spent another day in the sun with my daughter. Well, mostly in the sun, anyway. The streets have been crammed with sun starved northerners, and with some kind of medical convention going on the usual splash of English is being heard on the streets in a way that has me thinking of late July rather than early June.

Apart from enjoying summer and the company of my daughter I've also had time to indulge in reading book after book. Wonderful, and awful. There is so much good fantasy out there, and so much, well, not so good. Unfortunately too much of the latter come from the hands of well known authors, including the occasional atrocious writing.

I can give one review at least. If you plan to read David Edding's last quadrology -- don't.

Still enjoying the novelty

2007-06-07T12:47:00.000+02:00

Spent yet another wonderful day in the sun. Yesterday was our rather recently instituted national day.

Coming back home from a picnic in the park we passed one of my waterholes.

It is situated dead center in the main street for thirsty tourists and us locals as well.

Just prior to taking those last steps home we headed to another place for a beer and a bit to eat. With ample help from my daughter I got this amazing shot of her.

Even more reviews of fantasy in Swedish

2007-06-04T14:11:00.000+02:00

There has to be some kind of Potter-effect going on here.

Today another reviews popped up in DN. This time it is Ursula K Le Guin has her latest, Gifts, given a very positive review. Literary experts in Sweden should start frothing in rage soon, and their deceased predecessors turning wildly in their graves.

What is the world coming to? Should this continue fantasy might even receive the status of literaure over here. Strange days.

This is more like it

2007-06-03T22:00:00.000+02:00

And finally summer arrived for real.

We spent most of the day in Liseberg, an amusement park in Gothenburg. Should you ever visit the city during summer I can recommend it for children of all ages.
No, I did not try this stunt by remote. It is my wife doing the honours behind the camera.
The main reason for perspectives being so strange is the location. Amusement park. You do the math.

Partial of Götaplatsen. The single monumental square in Gothenburg. Normally a shot from where I stand would be directed at the center piece statue.

Instead I took that photo from a slightly different angle.

Maybe summer after all

2007-06-02T15:33:00.001+02:00

Now when it is officially summer here we peer out through our windows in hopes of watching anything but grey skies and rain wet streets.

My window shows me partially blue skies. So maybe, just maybe, we will get some proper summer here.

Another contest

2007-06-01T14:04:00.000+02:00

After a long delay I finally sent a submission to the short story contest with a deadline today. A flash rather than a proper short, as I realised yesterday that the story I was writing simply didn't cut it. Now, don't you start reading any words of mine that this flash would do, because I didn't write that.

Sometimes we simply have to give up a path taken and return back. The story I wrote in Swedish might have worked in English, but the languages are simply too different to be used for the same tale. Things like melody and rhythm differ, as do vocabulary of course, In the end what is pleasant for they eye and your mouth, when you silently whisper the story in your head, in one language becomes clunky and unwieldy in another.

We'll see what happens.

Another literary world to explore

2007-05-31T19:53:00.000+02:00

I thought it was funny when I dumped a short note here about experiencing the world of an author. But why wait over a hundred years?

Florida, USA, plans to host a theme park based on, you guessed it, Harry Potter.

Head like jelly

2007-05-30T21:29:00.000+02:00

Spent the day with my daughter outdoors in a drizzling rain. That translates into half good -- she loved it and I, well, didn't love it as much. It also translated into a happily sleeping kid and a father too tired to think straight. Not the best of situations for finishing up that short story which deadline looms closer and closer.

Another string of reviews of fantasy

2007-05-29T14:37:00.000+02:00

This time by Kajsa Öberg-Lindsten in the newspaper GP.

Two Swedish original novels and three translations. It is a bit peculiar how the reviewer sees five male protagonists out of five possible as a way to adapt to the market.

Had it been Science Fiction I might have understood the idea, but claiming that the authors need to adapt their fantasy novels to a male readership is more than slightly peculiar considering the vast amount of female readers of that genre.

A set of choppy reviews is ended by politicising feminist roles versus male ones. We have the usual rant about all men depicted as knights in shining armour and all women as stupid, goodlooking or motherly, submissive wenches.

In the end the review itself manages to become more stereotyped and clichéd than genre fantasy has ever been accused of.

Erkateren, summer 1642

2007-05-29T13:42:00.000+02:00

Mindwalker, mindwalker walking my mind. So pretty and shiny those golden eyes. Beautiful hair and those lovely hands. Wonderful one get out of my head! I can't sleep I can't wake. You have stolen my dreams. Please walk elsewhere and leave me alone! I promise I'll worship I promise so please!

Yes, yes, whatever you say. I'll do your command as long as it's not thought inside my mind, so yes, yes if that's what you want I'll do it for you if you just leave me alone. Please leave my head! I can't be two inside here, please!

A chair and a table, will that be enough? Thank you, thank you, thank...

#

Neritan turned her eyes away from the farmer dangling from his ceiling. Unthinking now he was of no concern to her, but there was still more to be gleaned and she needed to know. She turned her attention to the housewife bound and gagged in a chair. Another mind to be walked, to promise and threaten. She would get the secret still, and if not from this woman, before she screamed herself to death, then more lived in the village. All sleeping and dreaming in a night not as quiet as Neritan led them to believe.

It took some effort to force them all to stay dreaming, but she reveled in making it look effortless, even if no one but she was there to admire her skill.

She bent over the woman and placed long, slender hands over a sobbing face. She loved her hands, wonderful hands. She didn't really need to touch before walking a mind, but it felt so good, so very good.

Smiling, Neritan gave the woman a stare, scaring her into silence. The sobbing was ungraceful. Shortlives were ungraceful, and yet they had the audacity to call themselves humans. A disgrace as well.

She pushed, hard, and was inside the meaty, soft complexity shortlives called a mind. Nothing like the brilliant metal sheen and order of true human thoughts. Then she started walking, delving deeper among secrets and forgotten memories. Dirty threats and broken promises, and it was astonishing how much filth the shortlives managed to amass in a mere thirty or forty years. She took a shortcut through a few layers of hidden emotions, hidden by an almost overwhelming sensation of raw fear and disgust at not being alone, and there something lay dormant.

Neritan spat with frustration. Not the secret as such, just a trail ending with another villager. She withdrew, but not until she had created a recess of guilt and self loathing.

She unbound the woman and left into the night. The housewife was asleep now, and first thing come morning she would hang herself aghast at having murdered her own husband. A giggle dropped from Neritan's lips. So good, she was so good at knowing how the shortlives thought, and she had such wonderful hands.

Race for Potter

2007-05-29T11:59:00.000+02:00

According to this article in DN between 150 and 200 K copies of the English print have been ordered by Swedish bookstores.

Most authors would be happy to see one of their books sell a total of those numbers.

Reviews of fantasy in Swedish media

2007-05-28T12:50:00.000+02:00

Wow!

And it is basically positive. Ying Toijer-Nilsson has written a review of Ursula K Le Guin translated into Swedish. Whereas sales of Swedish original fantasy is abysmal the translated counterpart lives a healthy life.

New deadline

2007-05-28T11:29:00.000+02:00

Only three days left to finish that story I have to send in for the first competition. Well, why sit back and enjoy the days when I can stress instead?

At least I'm done writing to order for the time being.

At least it looks like summer

2007-05-27T14:04:00.000+02:00

Fantasy is partially about illusion, but we do not need to enter the realm of the fantastic to experience illusions.

Just look at these shots from Slottskogen, the main park in Gothenburg, and at least pretend it's proper summer. The park used to be royal hunting grounds a few hundred years ago.

Fun for the kids.

The smell of barbecue spread across the lawn.

Linnegatan, named after the recently celebrated Swedish botanist, ends at Slottsskogen, but the greenery continues nonetheless.

Having spent a few hours in the park I really wanted a beer.

On time is not early enough

2007-05-27T09:08:00.000+02:00

Just like films novels have release dates. Just like with films publishers may or may not become quite irate should a distributor release a novel too early. This seems to be exactly what has happened here.

Food chains Ica and Coop have dumped the last (being dead it is unlikely that there will be any more books by the author) novel by Stieg Larsson. As we are talking crime here, with close to 300 K copies of the novel printed, this is a major release in Sweden but it would have been a big one on any market. His previous books in the same series are up to a total of around 800 K copies sold.

So, this is enough to make book store owners pissed off, mildly put. Less known to the Swedish players is that this episode echoes disturbingly like the English speaking markets where food chains and supermarkets stacking up with huge amounts of copies of a minimum amount of titles. Good for sales, bad for writers and, in the long run, a disaster for book stores. Squeezed in between cheese and sausage the next best seller is unlikely to come with attached personnel who can help a customers with tips. To be frank, the personnel is unlikely to be familiar with the concept of reading at all, but with so small a number of titles it may not be needed.

Cavalry and no fun

2007-05-26T12:17:00.000+02:00

Sometimes you think, and sometimes you simply don't think enough.

I have since long decided that Keen, the empire where most of the events occur in the novel I am writing currently, has a military structure based on horse power. Cavalry and dragoons mostly. So far so good.

Now, imagine a powerful state with horses in abundance. Horse drawn carriages, uniformed riders, farmers on horse -- and not a single horse race. No chariots speeding down the race way to the thunder of a cheering audience. No riders fighting for a sack stuffed with cloth which has to be thrown into a basket. Nothing.

Why? Because sports and leisure seldom furthers plot, and so the people I depict become automations who never cry themselves silly over some favourite team. And they are no longer people. Just background on two legs.

That said I am not planning to make myself three full chapters of horse racing. I just need to be aware of what people want and need. Aware enough to throw in the odd comment from time to time, or to set a conversation to the backdrop of, well, fun.

Writing for readers

2007-05-26T09:51:00.000+02:00

Sounds like a peculiar notion, doesn't it? In act it is. According to the literary elite writing for readers is the sign of the rank amateur, the writer lacking in ability or even the functionally illiterate. Real writers only write for writers.

Does anyone wonder why so called real writing needs subsidiaries? The morons producing the unreadable cry out their despairing protestations about the need for culture, as if incoherent random letters should constitute culture. For some reason it is important to remember that if a novel sells then it can not be culture, because the words that someone actually wants to read must be bad words indeed. Idiots!

See Ulrika Kärnborg's commentary on a similar vein in DN.

Subgenre or crossgenre

2007-05-25T13:37:00.000+02:00

I quit giving the genre of my writing much thought after I accepted that a definition may be dated and still valid. When asked I answer science fantasy. Think spaceships and wizards in the same story and you're pretty close.

That said, if I land my work with a publisher they're going to stuff it wherever they see fit anyway, and from that day on it is going to belong to whatever genre they decided was the proper one.

Anyway, when I browse the book cases of my favourite book store, which happens to be SF bokhandeln, a local player, I find lots of SF and lots of fantasy, but the true cross genre that once was labelled science fantasy is absent. Or at least absent as far as I am concerned.

You see, when I think science fantasy I think fantasy with strong elements of SF in it. That is what I write and it is also the main reason I don't find it in the shelves. SF with strong elements of fantasy in it is more common. At least if it includes sound and moving pictures. More or less all science fiction TV-series released the last quarter of a century fall solidly in the cross genre called science fantasy.

Zaps one space ship across the screen, blasts one energy gun in the corner, arrives technicians who talk made up techno language in the background and you think you are watching SF. Halfway into any season you have seen gods, wizards, ghosts or whatever you would normally associate with other brands of speculative fiction, but it doesn't registrate as cross genre. We have become so used to this blend that we tend to think of it as natural -- as long as it moves and sounds. I am not so sure about those who exclusively read SF.

As for my linking to a book store here. Either you know the treatment speculative fiction gets in Sweden, and you understand why we need to protect outlets of these genres from extinction, or you don't. If you don't. Think somewhere lower on the ladder than smut. Literary experts here are prone to praise pornography's literary value as long as speculative fiction takes a beating.

Is this a rant? Of course it is.

Modern definition of fantasy on-line

2007-05-25T07:29:00.000+02:00

In case you had missed it then the world of the ring, J R R Tolkien's Midgard, is available as an on-line game. Reviews are available in Swedish as well as English. Probably in several other languages I don't care about as well.

The adaptation of what is arguably the defining work of fantasy seems to have received generally good reviews. So, here's the opportunity -- if reading through a book is too much then running through one is another way of experiencing a little bit of the magic Tolkien created.

Potter news for our corner

2007-05-25T07:20:00.000+02:00

November 21 the Swedish translation of the seventh and last of the Harry Potter books will hit the local market according to this article in DN.

The Potter books deserve their very own special status, if not for their outstanding quality, then at least for their outstanding sales. There isn't anything coming close in the fields of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Just a reminder...

2007-05-24T11:25:00.000+02:00

... of what we all ought to do more often. At least those of you who are wired the way I am.

It will be proper summer soon. Repeat after me: it will be proper summer soon.

And, in passing, hi guys, smile to the camera.

Experience your books

2007-05-24T11:16:00.000+02:00

This is just hilarious!

Why read your Dickens when you can experience him first, well second, -hand.

One wonders, the world shudders and I'm shaking with laughter.

The need for the taboo

2007-05-24T10:16:00.000+02:00

I sat browsing through some statistics a while ago. Enough time for me to forget the sources. Anyway.

In the US sexuality is bad, dangerous and will most probably make society go down in flames, so naturally the best selling genre is romance. I'm not an avid reader of romance, but the little I read sure is steaming with TABOO.

In Sweden violence is bad, dangerous and will most probably make society go down in flames, so naturally the best selling genre is crime. I do read some crime, and you can bet there is an abundance of TABOO there.

Should we take this as a proof that the best way to create a huge local market is to make certain the topic is socially unacceptable?

Need a platform?

2007-05-23T21:40:00.000+02:00

Several persons in the publishing industry have said that you need a platform in order to get a non-fiction title published for a larger market.

Platform is, simply put, fame. Either ordinary, everyday fame of the kind that makes you recognize a name when you hear it, or fame relevant for the field in which you are writing.

Or, you could borrow a platform. Never having heard of the newspaper before I verified the news at DN.

Important splash in a small pond

2007-05-23T11:39:00.000+02:00

Sweden is without doubt a literary pond, and a small one at that, lying off the literary waterways of the world. Still, a few authors made their names known to an international audience, and occasionally a moron gained those fifteen minutes of infamy.

Zapping through the net I came upon this piece of news from DN. Yes, that article is in Swedish. Just get used to that melodic language of ours.

There is a similarity to the Simon & Shuster idiocy here. Studentlitteratur, a Swedish non-fiction publisher, just lost their case in court over here. A quarter of a century ago two authors signed with them, but the book in question has seen mediocre sales, and they wanted out.
Studentlitteratur noted the lack of an exit clause and required the neat sum of aproximately $700 000 to let go of a title that didn't sell.
The court decided in favour of the authors and the publisher was left with paying all legal costs.
Let us hope it is contagious.

Waiting for summer, remembering spring

2007-05-23T10:34:00.000+02:00

After giving us record temperatures for most of the first months this year weather seems to have recalled that statistical average needs levelling to be, well, statistical average.

Even though the colours around me speak of late May, the need for heavy clothes disagrees. In fact it feels more like April, and that had me grabbing for a few photos from that month.

There is this brittle quality to the greenery before leaves take on their summer's shape.

Cherry blossoming, nordic style.

White, not pink like in Japan.

When historical fiction becomes fantasy

2007-05-22T23:43:00.000+02:00

According to this article in DN, one of Sweden's main newspapers, the Swedish production company SF has ditched out SEK 200 M, approximately 30 M dollars, to adapt a historically debatable but highly popular novel to the screen.
That would make it the most expensive movie production ever in Sweden.

Hubris gets a face. Getting that money back surely must require magic of the higher school.

Why we genre writers should stop obsessing

2007-05-22T19:49:00.000+02:00

You're happily hacking away on your story, and given a revision or fifteen it will be a enjoyable read as well. Now, however, close to those last two chapters you're stuck. While you wrote it something must have happened, and it is no longer pure fantasy.
Horror of all horrors. To define it you now need to define its sub-genre.

Science fantasy?
Romantic fantasy?
Historical fantasy?
Paranormal thriller?

The questions echo and you spend, first only the evenings, and then whole days searching for that elusive, absolute truth about your work. And in the meanwhile very little is written. It is as if the search for truth smothered the breath of fiction.

There is only one thing left to do: stop obsessing!

A different kind of writing

2007-05-22T18:52:00.000+02:00

It was some time since I last wrote to order. I had almost forgotten how utterly boring that can be, and an academic essay, even at the lowest possible level, is still writing to order.

At best I get to argue my position on a given topic, at worst there's an absolute truth that must be adhered to. I this case I have the option to void the topic where there is only one politically acceptable truth, and thus I still get to argue my case.

Well, it's good exercise if nothing else. Non-fiction is a totally different beast than fiction. And I did get the pleasure of seeing things from a different perspective. At some 600 words a piece those essays will force me to brevity, but I know people who find writing those pages a daunting task. The difference in opinion? One quarter of a million words of manuscript written.

For crying out loud -- works

2007-05-21T12:07:00.000+02:00

At least this time. The reactions to Simon & Shuster's contractual stunt were foreseeable, and loud. As several players in the publishing industry, namely those who are labelled literary agents joined in the outcry it seems that Simon & Shuster have remedied their previous position.

Crap contract

2007-05-20T14:04:00.000+02:00

It would seem that Simon and Shuster is doing a Mickey Mouse in reverse so to say. Sign their standard contract and, for all practical purposes, you've just lost your copyright to your own work.

That's crap.

There goes another one

2007-05-20T10:07:00.000+02:00

Yet one more of the high traffic blogs for writers is closing its doors. This time it's Miss Snark Central shutting down operations.

It seems when this kind of operation attracts enough interest it slowly drains the interest of the provider. Too time consuming I believe, and eventually the well runs dry, and what started as a fun thing is simply no longer any fun.

As she would have said: wtf, crap.

Doing something, doing something else

2007-05-18T19:32:00.000+02:00

Alas I didn't make it among the select few in the poetry for novelization contest. Well, it was fun to join the fray.

At the time being I'm polishing a flash I wrote in a slightly different tone than my usual writing. That means it's soon time to grab a firm hold of my laptop and start getting serious with the two Swedish short stories I need to have finished quite soon.

That leaves little time for my novel, but I'm learning so much now I'm not too sad to see it on a back burner for a while. I can see new flaws that were invisible to me earlier, and the least I need is to start sending out a proposal that is more flawed than absolutely necessary.

Some shots from Japan

2007-05-15T19:28:00.000+02:00

Why don't I just further the misconception that strangers just love to watch family photographies detailing mundane events they have never seen?

So here we go.

The master supervising her dominions at my relatives.

The traditional way to have your meals during a visit to an onzen, that would be bathing in hot spring water for those of you who have the sensibility not to know, is to eat in your room.
The picture is shot very early on during the dinner. More courses will arrive, some I suspect to be heated at the table.

The mandatory tourist shot. Taken at a temple dedicated to a couple of heroes from history or myth, or maybe a mix of them both.

Lastly a photo taken at my relative's home. Yes, that is a temple. They are a priest family.

Frantic week

2007-05-15T14:51:00.000+02:00

The second week of kiddie absence turned out to be a frantic writing experience. Some editing, work on two shorts in Swedish, a couple of pieces of flash and of course preparations for a few exams I plan to pass as I signed up for them earlier this year.

My daughter returned Saturday with my wife in tow, even though I'm certain Bea would describe it as being the other way around, but being the wife in question her point of view is of course skewed and highly subjective. Simone, that would be the daughter superior, flashed me a big grin, switched off her interest and started rummaging around for a snack. Jet lagged was something she forgot all about, and not until 3.30 am did she recall what her mental clock was. Don't we love parenthood?

These last mornings she's allowed me to sleep almost to six o'clock in the morning, and it is with some certainty I believe that my wife is grinning silently at the prospect of being the width of Sweden apart for a few days while she recovers a semblance of proper sleep.

To learn something every day

2007-05-08T20:25:00.000+02:00

I had those snapshots, stills from my world I just needed to get out of my head and down on paper. Nothing really edited, which you can see if you drag them up from the archives here.

And now I find out there are markets for this kind of work. I guess I'll simply polish those snippets and put them out on a market I didn't know existed prior to dumping them here. Just so that they have a chance to pass the formal requests for first publishing rights should anyone bite that hook. And if they bounce enough times I can always push them out in this venue to get a bit of scalding telling me exactly why they got rejected in the first place.

And yes, yes, I know. Those two stills already out here are disqualified, and for that very reason I won't put anything up here that lies in the submission pipeline.

Getting mauled

2007-05-08T13:34:00.000+02:00

After having written a stiff 1k on the second short story I went to our weekly pubgame to play some VTES.

I got mauled, badly.

There is a science to building the decks you play with, and there is another for picking your opposition for the day. I can safely say I failed horribly at the latter. Oh well, that's life. Maybe next week.

Strange writing

2007-05-06T22:12:00.000+02:00

I'm punching words onto paper, or rather into my hard drive to be exact, and there is the strangest of sensations haunting me as I read them back to myself.

For me fantasy and SF has become identical to novels written in English. It's not something I even bother thinking about, but this spring I noticed two calls for short stories written in Swedish. Two contests, and I simply couldn't let go of the opportunity to write in my own native language. So I do, and those words read stranger than fiction to me.

Poetry is one thing. I'm used to see my own creations in the language I think and live with, but a developing story? Strange indeed.

But I continue to hammer down those words, and I wait for them to echo in a melody I can recognise even though they're created using a different instrument.

Being behind on the news again

2007-05-04T18:04:00.000+02:00

Yes, I've seen this one floating around for a while now, but maybe one of you have managed to miss it.
If you enjoy your genre fantasy novels with a smirk on your lips, then this is a humorous way to waste ten minutes or so. I don't agree on all points, but, yeah, scoring too many points could possibly be bad for your story. Especially if they are of the bad kind of points.

Critters and crits

2007-05-04T09:26:00.000+02:00

I've been adding quite a few more members to our crit circle, and it would seem we're reaching stage one of critical mass.
Always an active submission in the pipeline.
Stage two would be when there is always an active submission of any member's preferred genre, but it will take some time before we reach those numbers.

In the meanwhile I have also submitted a few crits, an activity that some call a time thief but I believe are hours well invested in my future writing.
Analysing someone's text is perhaps the best teacher when it comes to identifying weaknesses, tendencies and strengths in your own writing.

I know some of my fellow writers frown on crit circles. They're bad. They're limiting the artistic soul of the writer, shackling creativity and an evil crutch only the unable needs.
I disagree.
Quite frankly I think those arguments are bullshit and the kind of narrow minded vitriol the sign of an embittered moron caught in stagnation.
Others still frown upon the circles because the activity takes too much time. I disagree, but that is an argument I have nothing but respect for.

We are humans.
Only by measuring our dreams and deeds against those of others can we truly find our future. The day we stop only our deeds are left, and others will measure theirs against them, and they will be surpassed, because we are human, and it is in our nature to change and develop.

All alone in the light

2007-05-02T12:16:00.000+02:00

With my wife and daughter just departed for Japan I plan to use the time for as much un interrupted writing as possible. The only thing standing in the way would be the light, the glorious light and warmth only a northern late spring can carry.
This is the time to venture outdoors and watch sun starved people drinking sunlight like refugees gathered around an oasis. I can infuse my characters with hope and newfound determination, something which leaves me with limited parts of my manuscript to work with. Still, two weeks only allows for so much editing, and I guess it can't hurt to run through the parts where optimism runs rampant in my story.
Well, enough of blogging. It's time to drink some sun and water a few characters.