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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

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. 

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

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