Reading and stuff

I definitely have to get some sort of small recorder. It’s always when I’m in bed at night, in the darkness that all these ideas come to me about stuff I want to write, not only like short stories or novels but also what I’d like to put on my blogspot as well. You see I’ve experienced so many times, the minute I then turn on the light, find my pen and paper, it’s all gone. It’s like the daylight scares every creative thought out of my head, and I don’t now how many nights I’ve been lying in bed thinking all these fabulous thoughts and just knowing I can’t turn the light on to write them down because there’s not a chance in hell that I’ll actually be fast enough to write it all down before it’s gone. Then a small recorder would have been the perfect idea. Of course, it might actually be that the reason why all these great ideas from night time disappears in the sunlight is that they weren’t so great after all – but if I had them recorded at least then I could listen to them in the sunlight and decide wetter or not they are any good.

Last night I was thinking about all these things I wanted to say about the two most recent books I’ve read. They’re both Norwegian and very far from my usual genre of fantasy, horror and sci-fi, I’ve still enjoyed them though. I would of course never have bought them myself, because I never do that – I do realize that I really should by something else than my usual category of literature, sort of to broaden my horizon and get some new inspiration so that I won’t keep copying others when I try to write my own stuff. However, every time I’ve got my mind of buying something else, I just can’t seem to get it done, it all seems so boring to me. It’s like, the fantasy literature gives me a kind of high, kind of an escape from everyday life that other kind of literature don’t. It’s like this world, without magic and fantastic creatures is just, well, too boring to me, so that’s why I need to escape into another world where anything is possible. Anyway, so I got these two books for my birthday, and I have of course ended up enjoying them a lot, I find that I most often to the few times I actually get around to reading something “different”.

As I said, in bed late last night I was thinking about all the things I wanted to tell you about these books and what thoughts they made in my head and everything, and today, I just feel empty. Oh, yeah, the two books are: Tormod Haugland – “Inkarnasjon” and Heidi Linde – Juggel. Both are books of the contemporary genre. The first one “Inkarnasjon” is about a writer who’s struggling to write and keep in touch with the real world at the same time. The second “Juggel” is about a woman in her mid thirties who has to go back to her old home town for a funeral, the story is written partly in our time today when we learn about her life now, and partly as a flashback to the year she was 14 and the things that happened to her and her best friend then. I guess what I’ve really learnt from these two books is that a story doesn’t really have to be about anything out of the ordinary to be interesting, it is actually possible to write story about everyday life and still make it interesting. I would have to argue though that “Inkarnasjon” most be mostly interesting to those who aspire to be writers themselves, because they can sort of recognize the struggle that the main character in the story is going through, I know this is why I liked it. And it’s for some of the same reason I enjoyed the other book as well. The writer, Heidi Linde is a couple of years younger than me, and from the small city of Kongsvinger, which is about 60 km from where I live – and when her main character has these flashbacks to her teens, and these memories about talking about boys, and parties and stuff with her best friends, trying out alcohol for the first time, playing in the school band – I was thinking this is just how I remember it with my best friend at the time. That is probably how writing about everyday life can be made interesting; you have to write a story that many people can recognize themselves in, because if you feel that a story is somehow about you too, then it is interesting!

I’m sure I had lots of more thoughts about this last night, but as I said feel rather emptier now.

It’s Easter, which doesn’t really differ from everyday life for me now, since it’s not like I get time of from work and go on holiday or something. I’m off to visit my aunt and uncle in Son for a couple of days, on Saturday I’m hoping to have a little get together with some friends – and other than that – I’m just waiting for Wednesday 19th of April to get her so I can finally go on my holiday to Gran Canaria which I’ve been looking forward to for such a long time.

Happy Easter everybody!