Heat wave

I could always blame it on the warm weather these days, and say that this is the reason why my blog is so quiet lately. But the truth is; I can’t really do that. I live in a basement apartment, and I’m one of the lucky ones who live with a pretty constant temperature of 24°C not matter how warm it is outside. So as long as I’m inside I’m really not that bothered with the heat.
Still, I find I lack a bit of energy nowadays. The only thing I do manage to do is writing job applications, and that is almost a fulltime job in itself. Everything was supposed to become a lot easier when nothing was to be written on paper and only on the internet. Perhaps some day it will be easier too. So far however I find that most of the employers do want you to apply through the internet, and quite a lot of them have different systems to do so. This means that over and over and over again I have to register and fill in every detail of my CV, and by now that is rather long, so now it quite often takes me 1 – 2 hours to register my CV and then write the job application. But, fair enough, I have time to do this, so… it’s just… Oh well, today I’ve been on a job interview, and I was told they will let all the candidates know next week who they’re going to offer the job to, so I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed. 

On the creative side… I’m not completely “off”, but pretty close. Mostly jotting down words and thinking a lot. But that is how life is at times, you can’t always feel inspired and full of energy, I’m sure it’ll get better, eventually.

So far I haven’t got any big vacation plans this summer. I was supposed to go to England for a week in September, to see Michael Jackson… Now I still have some flight tickets to use, and I have been thinking about moving the vacation up, and perhaps go for a week late this summer. But right now I’m just waiting to hear back on some of my job application, when a new job is sorted out, it’s a lot easier to think about all the other stuff in life. 

This just makes me very sad...

On Friday morning I woke to the dreadful news that Våler church had burnt down to the ground. I am not a very religious person, and this isn't even our local church, but it still just made me very sad. I was baptized in this church, and two of my grandparents and lots of relatives and a few friends are buried here. When I read about it I instantly started crying. 

Today I went there, together with my parents, to see the damage myself. It truly is devastating. The police now knows that someone did this, someone intentionally set fire to the church, I really hope they get the person responsible for hurting so many people. 

The end for The Sword Woman’s kin

Another adventure must come to an end. I have now handed in book nr 12 of the series The Sword Woman’s Kin (Sverdkvinnens Ætt) to the publisher, and this will also be the final book in the series.

Those who have been following my adventure know that I have on several occasions claimed to have enough ideas to write 28 books – and this is still true. It is with the book market as many other areas in life; it is the money that rules. There is a tough competition in the series market in Norway, with about 30 series on sales in the stores today. Unfortunately my series, The Sword Woman’s Kin did not do very well in this competition. I have been told that those who do read my series really enjoy it, but unfortunately there aren’t enough readers who actually do read it – and thus The Sword Woman’s Kin can’t go on.

Am I sad? I will have to say, yes, in some ways I am. I still have many good ideas that I think would have made great and entertaining books for those who really enjoyed the series. But, I have known about this for a couple of months now, that there would only be 12 books, I’m learning to accept it. If there’s one thing I know about life it is this: nothing will get better if you spend your time thinking about all the things that could have been, you have to look to the future. If things don’t go according to plan – you have to adjust the plan.

At the moment I’m working on not 1, not 2, but 3 new ideas for series. One of these is a series set on a farm a bit back in time; the two others are taking place in our time. Because the competition is so hard in this market I don’t want to say anything more about these series right now, as there might be people out there shopping for good ideas for series. And I think I have some great ideas, it only remains to be seen if I can find someone who agree and wants to publish my new stories. Time will show.

Hopefully the story about The Sword Woman’s Kin won’t be the last you get to read from this author.

I am not only working on new ideas these days, I’m also applying for jobs. As you’ve probably guessed; I didn’t get rich on writing The Sword Woman’s Kin, and that means that now I have to find a more “regular” job again. I feel very blessed to have been given the chance to write full time for as long as I have, and I think it will be quite a transition to go back to a normal “day job”. But, believe it or not, even though there has been a lot of freedom in the life I’ve been living, I am looking forward to getting back to work. One of the things I have been missing is colleagues. Earlier I have worked in big places of work, where there have been lots of people and interesting tasks and problems – and that have been something that I have been missing when I’ve spent all my time in my “cave” in Solør, thinking up new plots for books. It will be both exciting and interesting to see what life now has in store for me. 

But, as I’ve mentioned earlier, for those of you who enjoyed The Sword Woman’s Kin and the others who read series – remember me – hopefully you will see me on the shelves again in a not too distant future, with new stories and new books. 

Eurovision Song Contest 2009

The day is finally here: today the huge Eurovision Song Contest Circus finally starts again. Everyone who knows me also knows that I’m almost a bit fanatical about this competition, and I am just SO excited about both the semi finals (today and Thursday) and the final on Saturday. 

Earlier years I have usually had a lot more time to listen to the different songs before the competition starts. This year I’ve had other things to do, but have managed to listen to about one and a half minute of every song, and on basis of that, my choice in Semi Final 1 of which ten countries should go on to the final would be:

Montenegro, Armenia, Andorra, Switzerland, Turkey, Iceland, Romania, Finland, Malta and Bosnia & Herzegovina.

This means that these are the countries that I don’t want to go through to the final:
The Czech Republic, Belgium, Belarus, Sweden, Israel, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Portugal.

I do fear though that many of the countries will give high votes to their neighbouring countries. That’s just how it is; we’ve always been doing that a lot in the Nordic countries. So based on this I’d say that the actual list of countries that will go through from tonight’s semi final looks something like this:

Montenegro
Armenia
Turkey
Belarus
Romania
Bulgaria
Macedonia
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Switzerland
Malta

And then there is Semi Final 2 on Thursday, - oh what an exciting night that will we, that’s when Norway’s very own Alexander Rybak will have to do his best, and… My wish for the outcome of the second semi final is this:

Poland
Norway
Denmark
Slovenia
Azerbaijan
Greece
Lithuania
Albania
Ukraine
The Netherlands

I truly believe in Norway and Alexander Rybak, but at the same time I fear the fact that there are in Semi Final 2 as many as 15 countries that are either former East Block countries, or neighbours to such countries. With a lot of votes from their neighbours, it might be that Norway will in the end not be one of the ten to go through to the final on Saturday, no matter how good our song is. It will be a very scary night indeed. 

But, today I am optimistic, and I still think that Norway will make it through to the final on Saturday, and I believe the end-result on Saturday will be this:

1. Norway
2. Greece
3. Turkey or Bosnia & Herzegovina

Based solely on my favourites the list would look something like this:
1. Norway
2. Denmark
3. Greece 

Back and off again!

I made it safe back from my vacation this time also. Had a great time, and will try to publish some photos and comments about the vacation here on the blog in the next couple of days. Now, how ever, I'm heading out the door again, off to Oslo, where I'll be seeing the musical Les Miserables this evening. Haven't seen it in about 20 years, so I'm really looking forward to that.

Off again

Tomorrow I'm off again on another trip, and will be away till Friday the 27th.

Tomorrow is also the day that book number 5 of my series is in the stores, and I'm of course eagerly awaiting some feedback from my readers. I have had quite a few telling me that book number 4 was the best one so far, so I hope number 5 will be even better.

I will mostly be vacationing whilst away now, but guess that I also will spend some time writing. I feel so inspired these days, and it just feels like the day hasn't got enough hours. Sure will be a fun couple of weeks though.

Work, work, work and...

I truly am sorry that this blog does not get updated more often, but what can I say, there really isn’t that much going on to write about. 

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve finished and delivered book number 12 of my book series to the publisher. Then I’ve worked on editing the first book in a new series, and I finished another draft of that one today. I don’t really feel like saying too much about this new series right now, but more information will follow shortly. 

Even though I don’t feel creative in the blog-writing kind of way these days, I do feel very creative in other ways. So not only have a finished the first book in a new series, and written out a synopsis on how the series goes for the first 12 books – I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about a third new series. In this third series I’ve still not written the first book, but I have written a very detailed synopsis for the first book – and a less detailed synopsis for another 5 books. It certainly feels like the day doesn’t have enough hours these days. I spend a lot of time working and not so much time playing… 

Feels a bit lonely at times, but, those who know me also knows how good I am at making sure then when I’ve had a long period with lots of work, that I also get to do something fun. I’m happy to announce that I’m going on another vacation, on Monday 16 March, for 11 days. You don’t really have to ask where, do you? You probably guessed it right; I’m heading back to Gran Canaria. It is an excellent place to go when it’s all snow and cold here in Norway, and we’ll be celebrating the birthday of one of my best friends as well – I’m very much looking forward to that. And as I’ve never celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, I’m looking forward to doing that in the Irish pubs in Playa Del Ingles on 17 of March.

But before that, I’ll be working hard every day, weekends as well, to make sure that when I go on vacation again – I can really feel like I’ve deserved a bit of relaxation.