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Eurovision Song Contest: Germany and Norway

2011-05-09T16:06:00.003+02:00

Well, we've come to the very end of my posting of all the Eurovision Song Contest songs, when Germany and Norway are done, I've listened to, had an opinion about and graded all of this year's 43 contestants in the competition. Now I'm eagerly waiting for the semi-finals, tomorrow the 10th of May, and on Thursday the 12th - and finally the big finally on Saturday the 14th.

Here's what I think of the two remaining countries in this year's competition:

Germany
Lena Meyer-Landruth – Taken by a stranger
Germany would have been in every single Eurovision Song Contest since the beginning in 1956 is it hadn’t been for the rules that EBU used for the contest in 1996 when all countries had to go through qualification to compete in the final, Germany didn’t get enough points. Since then of course, the EBU has changes their rules, and Germany is now one of the Big 5 countries (together with United Kingdom, Spain, France and Italy) which are the countries that contribute the most financially and thus are automatically qualified for the final each year. Germany has won the competition twice, in 1982 with the truly excellent song Ein Bißchen Frieden sung by Nicole, and again last year with the also great song Satelite sung by Lena Meyer-Landruth.
This year Lena Meyer-Landruth is back again competing for Germany with the song Taken by a stranger. The first time I heard this it was not at all what I expected from Lena. I very much loved the happy-happy fun song she sang last year, and I guess I thought she would come up with something like that again this year. But this is very different, darker, a bit jazzy, a bit strange… and I quite like it. Don’t think it’ll do very well in the competition, but I still think it’s a good song, and I like Lena’s voice.
Germany – 5 points

Norway
Stella Mwangi – Haba Haba
Norway has also been a quite eager participant in Eurovision Song Contest since their debut in 1960, and only missed out on 2 competitions. They’ve… or rather, since I’m Norwegian I guess the right term would be: We’ve won the competition 3 times: 1985 Bobbysock – La det swinge, 1995: Secret Garden – Nocturne, 2009: Alexander Rybak – Fairytale (which also is the winner song that's received the most points all in all and the most 12 points in Eurovision Song Contest history), all really great songs. We’ve also done very poorly in the competition, even failed to qualify one year, in 2007. Norway also has the dubious honour of being the first country to receive no points at all in a competition, that happened with Jahn Teigen singing Mil etter mil in 1978, and 3 years later we did it again with Finn Kalvik – Aldri i livet. One of my personal favourites among the Eurovision songs is our entry from 1993 when Silje Vige sung Alle mine tankar and came in 5th place.
So, this year then, what can I say… this is the 43rd and last song I have an opinion on in this year’s competition and you all probably thought I was saving the best for last… no such luck I’m afraid. I’m not keen at all on the Norwegian entry this year. Stella is not a very good singer I’m afraid and the song’s just… old, that’s how it seems to me, nothing new happening here, old and worn. But I have to be a little bit of a patriot of course, and even though I’m convinced that Norway won’t even qualify for the final this year, I still feel I have to give Norway a few points, just because, well, I’m Norwegian and it’s the Norwegian entry so:
Norway – 3 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Finland, Bosnia & Herzegovina and France

2011-05-09T10:35:00.002+02:00

Finland
Paradise Oskar – Da Da Dam
Finland has only missed out on 6 competitions since their debut in Eurovision Song Contest in 1961. They’ve won it once, in 2006, with Lordi – Hard Rock Hallelujah, and they’ve failed to qualify for the final 3 times.
I really loved the Finish winning song of 2006. I admit, I never thought it would win, even though I loved it, because it just seem to be going too far, for Eurovision that is, but I was thrilled when it did win. For me Finland is one of the countries in Eurovision Song Contest that very often have strange entries, and except for the 2007 entry when Hanna Pakarinen sung Leave me alone, I haven’t really liked the Finish entries much.
And now, in 2011, we’ve got Paradise Oskar humming himself through a song, and I’m not a huge fan. This is not one of the strange entries though, to me it’s just a bit boring, but I do recognise that it’s not necessarily a bad song even though it doesn’t make it to the top of my list. Hard to say where this will end up in the contest really.
Finland – 4 points

Bosnia & Herzegovina
Dino Merlin – Love in rewind
Bosnia & Herzegovina has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since 1993. Their best place is as number 3 in 2006 and their worst as number 22 in 1996.
Love in rewind is a bit… curious… I’ve had a hard time deciding if I like this or not, and ended up thinking I mostly like it, at least I like it more than I hate it, not one of my top songs this year though. For some reason I keep thinking that I might have liked this more if it had been sung in Dino Merlin’s native language.
Bosnia & Herzegovina – 4 points

France
Amaury Vassili - Sognu
France is one of the countries that has been in the Eurovision Song Contest since the beginning in 1956 and since then they’ve only stayed away for 2 years. They’ve won it 5 times, between 1958 and 1977, and their worst place is number 24.
France is one of the big 5 countries, that is one of the countries that is automatically qualified for the final (together with United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Italy) because of their financial contribution to Eurovision.
Except for last year when Jessy Matador sung Allez Ola Olé, I’ve never really liked much of the French entries in Eurovision Song contest. This year I recognise that Sognu is a huge song, sung by a man with a huge voice and he deserves credit for that, and I quite like that he sings in Corsican as well. Not bad.
France – 5 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Serbia, Slovakia and Denmark

2011-05-09T09:57:00.002+02:00

Serbia
Nina – Caroban
Serbia has participated in Eurovision Song Contest since 2007 and actually ended up winning, with Marija Šerifović – Molitva, in their debut year. Since then they’ve ended up in 6th and 13th place and not qualified one year as well.
I didn’t really care much for Serbias winning song of 2007 and I’m not a huge fan of their entry this year either. I like the 60s inspired stage and clothes in the video, and the song’s not really bad it’s just not much else either. One of those middle-of-the-road songs, but they do sing in what I assume to be their own language so here’s an extra point for that.
Serbia - 4 points

Slovakia
TWiiNS – I’m still alive
Slovakia’s been in the Eurovision Song Contest only 6 times since their debut in 1994. They’ve never done very well, an 18th place being their best so far, and for the last 2 years they’ve not managed to qualify for the final.
The twin girls (I assume that they’re twins since they look so much alike and the group’s called twins) singing this year is quite beautiful, they’ve got good voices and the song is nice, but that’s also all there is. One of those songs that slip my mind the second it’s over, it hasn’t got anything extra, and I’m not sure Slovakia will qualify for this year’s final either.
Slovakia – 4 points

Denmark
A friend in London – New Tomorrow
Denmark has entered the Eurovision Song Contest 40 times since 1957. They have won the competition twice, in 1963: Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann – Dansevise, and in 2000: Olsen Brothers – Fly on the wings of love. Twice they’ve also not managed to qualify for the final.
I want Denmark to be good, as a matter of fact, after their entries the two previous year, I not only WANT them to be good, I expect them to be sensational, because in my eyes and my ears the 2010 Danish entry Chanée and N’evergreen – In a moment like this, is almost as good as it gets when it comes to Eurovision Songs, only topped by the 2009 Danish entry Niels Brinck – Believe again, which for me might actually be on my top 5 list of Eurovision Songs Ever! And even though they don’t rank as high on my list as the mentioned two songs, I also really liked the Danish entries in the 5 years previous to 2009, and of course the winning song from 2000 is just excellent!
This year then… I’m not impressed, it’s not a bad song, it’s quite good actually, but as mentioned, I expect more from Denmark now, they’ve spoiled me, and the song New Tomorrow is just good and nothing more, but perhaps that’s enough?
Denmark – 5 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Croatia, Bulgaria and The Netherlands

2011-05-08T13:54:00.002+02:00

Croatia
Daria - Celebrate
Croatia has participated in every Eurovision Song Contest since their debut in 1993. They’ve come in 4th place twice, and twice they’ve also not managed to qualify for the final. One of my top 10 Eurovision songs ever is actually from Croatia, that was in 2005 when Boris Novković sung Vukovi umiru sami and came in 11th place.
Celebrate is another one of the songs that is neither here nor there for me. It’s a fast, happy party-song, but there is something lacking. There are better songs in this category this year than this. It just doesn’t leave a lasting impression on me.
Croatia – 4 points

Bulgaria
Poli Genova – Na Inat
Bulgaria is fairly new to Eurovision Song Contest, first participating in 2005 and coming back for every competition since then. Unfortunately for them, they’ve only managed to qualify for the final once, in 2007, when they came in 5th place.
As with Croatia and their entry this year, this is one of those songs that I neither like nor dislike and one second after I’ve heard it I’ve already forgotten how it goes. But it doesn’t annoy me or torture me, and I will give it an extra point for being in what I assume to be Bulgarian and not English.
Bulgaria – 4 points

The Netherlands
3JS – Never Alone
The Netherlands is one of the countries that has been in the Eurovision Song Contest since the beginning in 1956. They’ve only missed 4 competitions in all those years. They’ve won the competition 4 times, the last time in 1975, with the great song Ding-A-Dong sung by Teach-In. Unfortunately The Netherlands has also failed to qualify for the final the last 6 years. Personally I think their 2003 entry was very good, when Esther Hart sung One More Night and came in 13th place, I also quite liked last year’s entry, Sieneke – Ik ben verliefd, which didn’t qualify for the final.
This year’s entry: now here’s a song that makes me happy, that I find myself humming after it’s ended and I want to hear it again. I don’t think it’ll win or even be in the top 10 though, it’s not that special, even though I quite like it, but I do hope that this will be the hear that The Netherlands finally again qualifies for the final.
The Netherlands – 5 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Romania, Iceland and Malta

2011-05-08T13:33:00.002+02:00

Romania
Hotel FM - Change
Romania first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 and has participated 12 times since then. They’ve come in 3rd place twice, in 2005 and 2010, and their worst place is number 22. My personal favourite from Romania ended up as number 10 in 2003, Nicola – Don’t Break My Heart.
This year’s entry for Romania is just a bit too naïve for me. It’s not truly bad, the song is ok and doesn’t hurt to listen to, but still, it doesn’t really do the trick for me.
Romania – 4 points

Iceland
Sjonni’s Friends – Coming home
Iceland’s first year in Eurovision Song Contest was in 1986 and they’ve only missed out on once competition since. They’ve ended up in 2nd place twice, in 1999 and 2009, 3 times they’ve failed to qualify for the final. I found it truly unfair that they didn’t qualify in 2007 when Eiríkur Hauksson sung Valentine Lost. I also really loved Iceland’s entry last year, Hera – Je ne sais quoi, and I thought it would’ve done a lot better than number 19 in the competition, what a voice!!
Being from Norway of course means that I am paying a bit extra attention to the participants from the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland) and often I find that I like them, probably because we have pretty much the same cultural background and history and thus also have the same music culture. And I also want them to be good! But Icealand, I’m sorry, this is probably a year when you won’t qualify for the final. The song is ok, but nothing more or less, even though I’m trying to like this.
Iceland – 4 points

Malta
Glen Vella – One life
Malta participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 3 times in the 70s, but after that withdrew from the competition. They had their come-back in 1991 and has been in every competition since. Their best places are as number 3, in 1992 and 1998, 3 times over the last 4 years they’ve failed to qualify for the final. One of my personal favourites is from Malta and was their 2001 entry, when Fabrizio Faniello sung Another Summer Night.
As usual I quite expected another huge ballad out of Malta, because quite often that seem to be what they do for Eurovision, and they really have some great singers on that tiny island. This year however, it’s not a ballad, and this is one of those happy, swinging songs that I quite like.
Malta – 5 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Poland, Ireland and Turkey

2011-05-08T12:54:00.002+02:00

Poland
Magdalena Tul - Jestem
Poland first appeared in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994, and has only missed one competition since. Their best place was actually in their first year, in 1994, when they came in number 2, in the last 6 years, they've only managed to qualify for the final once.
This year’s entry is one of those songs that I don’t hate, but don’t exactly love either, there are a lot of those this year. The song’s got a good beat and it’s just… ok.
Poland – 4 points

Ireland
Jedward - Lipstick
Ireland entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 1965 and has only missed out on 2 competitions since then. They have won the competition an amazing 7 times, 4 of these victories came in a time period of 5 years: 1992 – 1993 – 1994 and 1996, which also was the last time they won. In the last 6 years, they've not qualified for the final 3 times, and when they have qualified they have not done very well. Some of the best Eurovision songs have come out of Ireland, like: Niamh Kavanagh – In your eyes (winner song of 1993) and Eimear Quinn – The Voice (winner song in 1996). And of course, Johnny Logan, the most winning artist in Eurovision Song Contest history is also from Ireland. He won the competition for Ireland in 1980 with the song What’s another year, and then again in 1987 with the song Hold me now. He also wrote the winning song of 1992, Why me?, it was performed by Linda Martin.
Ireland is one of my favourite countries, and just not in Eurovision Song Contest, it just is a great country where I love to go. And so much good music, good IRISH music, has come out of this country. I guess that is why I've always got so huge expectations that we’re going to get something great and IRISH from Ireland, but quite often I am disappointed, which is what’s happening this year.
The first time I heard Jedward performing Lipstick I just thought. NO! I want something else from Ireland, I hate this. Well, I've come to realize, I don’t really hate the song, it’s not bad, it’s not half bad actually, but it still nags me that this is Ireland and the song is not typically Irish so:
Ireland – 4 points

Turkey
Yüksek Sadakat – Live it up
Turkey has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 32 times since their first entry in 1975. They’ve won the competition once, in 2003, with the excellent song Everyway that I can sung by Sertab Erener. They have never failed to qualify for the final, and their worst place ever is number 22. There has been some truly great songs that have come from Turkey in the contest: Athena - For Real (number 4 in 2004), Kenan Doğulu – Shake it up Şekerim (number 4 in 2007) Hadise – Düm Tek Tek (number 4 in 2009).
This year’s entry is also something I quite like. A light rock’n roll song, reminding me a bit about lots of stuff I've heard before, stuff I've liked, so that is maybe why I like this as well. Not the best song ever, but still something I can hear more than once:
Turkey – 5 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Ukraine, Italy and Armenia

2011-05-04T17:28:00.002+02:00

Ukraine
Mika Newton - Angel
Ukraine has been in every Eurovision Song Contest since their début in 2003. They have won the competition once, in 2004, with the truly excellent song Wild Dances sung by Ruslana. Their worst placement was number 19 in 2005.
As for this year, a bit too much screaming for my taste and a ballad that doesn't really give me very much, rather boring really.
Ukraine – 3 points

Italy
Raphael Gualazzi – Madness of love
Italy used to participate in most Eurovision Song Contest from 1956 until 1997, but after that they opted out of the competition, so 2011 is a come back for Italy. They have won twice, in 1964 and 1990, but the song I really want to promote when it comes to Italy in Eurovision is their act from 1958 which came in 3^rd place: Domenico Modugno – Nel blu, dipinto di blu. It is hard to pick my number 1 of all Eurovision Songs ever, but this would be one of the top 5 candidates. Love it! Love it! Love it!
As for this year’s song: Italy has so many good songs and good singers, and they have had some great songs in the past, so I had quite high expectations this year when they’re finally back in the competition. But… It starts out quite well, a jazzy, swinging thing in Italian, and I’m thinking I quite like this, but… about a minute and a half into the song, the singer switches to English and jazzes it even more up, and it just doesn’t work. Sorry, Italy, after having stayed away for such a long time, I expected a lot more from you:
Italy – 3 points

Armenia
Emmy – Boom Boom
Armenia first entered the Eurovision Song contest in 2006 and has participated in every competition since then. Their best place is number 4, in 2008, the worst is number 10 in 2009, which means that they have done fairly well in this competition so far. And I quite liked last years entry Eva Rivas – Apricot Stone, which had a very catchy refrain.
And that is pretty much what can be said for this year’s entry as well: I quite like it, and it has a catchy refrain. I would not be surprised to see Armenia ending up among the top 10 again this year.
Armenia – 5 points.

Eurovision Song Contest: Israel, Albania and Sweden

2011-05-02T17:31:00.002+02:00

Israel
Dana International – Ding Dong
Israel first entered Eurovision Song Contest in 1973, since then they've participated in the competition 33 times. 3 times they have won the competition and twice they have not qualified for the Final. This year’s artist representing Israel, Dana International, has actually won the competition before, in 1998, with the song Diva. Personally I think that the winning songs of 1978 Izhar Cohen & the Alphabeta: A-Ba-Ni-Bi and 1979 Gali Atari & Milk and Honey: Hallelujah were better. My all time favourite Eurovision song from Israel though was in 1987 when two guys called Datner & Kushnir sang a funny song and did a Blues Brothers act along with it.
But back to this year, when Dana International is once again entering the competition and the song is… ok… nothing more, nothing less, doesn't exactly bore me but doesn't exactly excite me either.
Israel – 3 points

Albania
Aurela Gaçe – Feel the passion
Albania’s first participation in Eurovision Song Contest was in 2004 and since then they've participated every year. Their best place ever is number 7, in their first year 2004 when Anjeza Shahini sang The Image of You, a song that I quite liked, twice they've not qualified for the final.
As for this year’s song, it’s one of those ok minus songs… Hard to grade because it obviously isn't good, but among those that are in the bottom half of the table, how bad is it really? When I first listened to it, I gave it 3 points, when I listened to it again today it just felt to noisy and annoying, so now I'm down to a:
Albania – 2 points

Sweden
Eric Saade – Popular
Sweden’s first time in Eurovision Song Contest was back in 1958 and since then they've only stayed away from 3 competitions. They have won 4 times, the first time with the extremely famous Abba – Waterloo in 1974 and the last time in 1999 with Charlotte Nilsson – Take me to your heaven, also an extremely good song if you ask me. Last year was the first time Sweden didn't qualify for the final, and I worry about them this year as well.
I always used to say that Sweden would always have a good Eurovision song, much better than Norway, but in the last few years, I've not liked at all the songs that Sweden’s come up with. The last time they really had a huge favourite for me was when they came in number 5 in 2006 with Carola and Invincible.
This year it’s Eric Saade singing Popular. First of all, I have to state the obvious, the drumming on this song is taken directly from Boney M – Rasputin, just had to say it, because for me, I think it is the drumming that is so attractive with this song. Ok, so the song itself isn't THAT bad, it’s a fast, party-song, and the guy is handsome, but… I’m not too keen on his voice. I keep thinking, this song would've been a whole lot better with a better singer. It is hard to predict if they’ll go through to the final, the song is not half bad, but still reminds me of so much that’s been done before – but then again, it is very catchy and even though it’s not one of my favourites this year, this is still the song that I keep humming to myself all day through.
Sweden – 5 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Belarus, Georgia and FYR Macedonia

2011-05-01T13:30:00.002+02:00

Belarus
Anastasiya Vinnikova – I love Belarus
Belarus had their début in Eurovision Song contest in 2004 and has been in every contest since then, though never done very well. 5 out of 7 times they've not managed to qualify for the final, but they did end up as number 6 in 2007 with Dmitry Koldun – Work your magic, which I didn’t find half bad at the time, I quite liked it. This year though:
The melody is not the worst I've heard, quite fast and rhythmic, but then the refrain comes... and honestly… I love Belarus??? What kind of a refrain is that for a Eurovision song, it’s just… I can’t see myself singing along with this song this summer, humming to myself whilst out walking I love Belarus…?? Come on! But as I said, the melody is ok, with some other lyrics this might have been a bit better, but for now:
Belarus – 3 points

Georgia
Eldrine – One more day
Georgia has been in Eurovision song contest 3 times since they first entered in 2007, and I must admit they haven’t manage to make a lasting impression on me so far. They have ended up as number 12 – 11 and 9, and the song this year I don’t even think will make it to the final.
It doesn't start out too bad, but then Eldrine gets to the refrain, and it just seems like they’re trying too hard, and then there’s the rap… it seems to be one of the huge things in Eurovision this year, so far I’ve counted 3 – 4 songs doing that, and I still don’t care much for it. This song ends up being a little bit all over the place, but it’s got its moments so:
Georgia – 3 points

F.Y.R Macedonia
Vlatko llievski – Rusinka
F.Y.R Macedonia first entered the Eurovision song contest in 1998 and has participated 10 times since then. Except for the last 2 years when they didn't qualify for the final, they usually seem to end up somewhere in the lower half of the final list. And this year, well, I do think they’ll make it through to the final, how far up on the final list they’ll end I don’t know, but I'm pretty sure they won’t win.
I always give at least one extra point to the countries that sing in their own language, as they do with Rusinka. Huge parts of this song is actually not half bad, there is a part about two thirds in that I could do without, but other than that I find this song quite catchy and I can’t help but mostly like it.
F.Y.R Macedonia – 6 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Greece, Latvia and Spain

2011-04-30T10:48:00.002+02:00

Greece
Loucas Yiorkas Feat. Stereo Mike – Watch my dance
Greece has been in the Eurovision Song Contest 31 times since 1974. They've won it once, in 2005 with Helena Paparizou – My number one, and their worst place ever is number 20 in 1998. In the last seven years they've always ended up among the top 10.
But me personally, I think that will end this year, because… Greece, I'm not liking this, and I’ll tell you the simple truth why. Including the above mentioned winning song in 2005 here’s a sample of what I've come to expect from Greece:
2004 Sakis Rouvas – Shake it
2007 Sarbel – Yassou Maria
2009 Sakis Rouvas – This is our night
2010 Giorgos Alkaios & Friends – Opa
And this year they’re doing a… rap, and that just isn’t my thing, and I certainly don’t want that from Greece. Watch my dance isn’t exactly bad, I can see that it has some good qualities, and the refrain isn’t half bad, and surely some people will like this, me… not so much… I want something fun, something happy, something Greek from Greece, that’s my opinion anyway…
Greece – 3 points

Latvia
Musiqq – Angel in disguise
Latvia first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000 and has participated every year since then. They've won it once, in 2002 with Marie N – I wanna (which I never quite understood, by the way, because I didn't care much for it at all), but they've also failed to qualify for the final 3 times.
One of my favourite Eurovision songs actually comes from Latvia, that in their first year in the competition, back in 2000, when Brainstorm sang My Star and came in third place. What a wonderful song!
But this year it’s Musiqq with Angel in disguise, and this is ok, but nothing more, and when they get to the spot when even these guys feel the need to do a bit of rapping… please, leave that to Eminem (whom I actually quite like, so it’s not that I don’t like rap, it’s just got to be done right). This song doesn't leave much of an impression on me I'm afraid, I get a bit bored…
Latvia – 3 points

Spain
Lucia Perez – Que me quiten lo bailao
Spain has been in every Eurovision Song Contest since 1961. They've won it twice, in 1968 and 1969 (in 1969 they had to share the victory with 3 other countries), and their worst placement came in 2009 when they ended up as number 23. In 1999 Spain became one of the big 4 in Eurovision, that is, the 4 countries that don’t have to go through the semi-finals, because they contribute so much financially to the contest that they’re automatically qualified for the final.
The first time I heard this year’s entry, I wasn't too keen, but the more I listen to it, the more it grows on me, it isn't half bad. It can of course not compete with earlier Spanish entries like David Civera – Dile que le quiero in 2001 and Ramón – Para llenarme de ti in 2004, but still, it is a quite good, happy, party-song, the kind we like in Eurovision, and it most certainly is Spanish. I quite often like it when countries sing in their own language and ad a touch that tells us what kind of culture it comes from. Don’t think Spain will win this year though:
Spain – 6 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Austria, San Marino and Switzerland

2011-04-29T11:02:00.002+02:00

Austria
Nadine Beiler – The Secret is love
Austria first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 1957 and has participated in the competition 43 times in the last 54 years. They have however not been in the competition since 2007, so this year is kind of a come-back for them. They have won the Eurovision Song Contest once, in 1966, but has also quite often not done it very well, and in 2005 and 2007 they didn’t manage to qualify for the final, which I thought was a bit unfair in 2007 because I quite liked Eric Papilaya singing Get a life – Get alive. This year’s entry however…
For me it sounds as if Nadine is in pain when singing this song, it’s as if every word coming out of her mouth must be forced out, in pain, and I don’t like it. And I know I'm repeating myself, but there are a lot of these songs this year: boring, it just doesn't do anything for me. So, I’m afraid this is another:
Austria – 2 points

San Marino

Senit – Stand by

San Marino

has only been in the Eurovision Song Contest once before, in 2008, and they did not qualify for the final.
This year they’re back with Senit and I’m sorry, but I don’t think they’ll make it to the final this year either. The ballad is ok, but… yes, you guessed it right: boring. The song does no impression on me what so ever, and I forget it the minute it’s over. And here’s something else you can probably guess:
San Marino – 2 points

Switzerland
Anna Rossinelli – In love for a while
Switzerland hosted the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 and also ended up winning it, since then they've been in all the competition except for 4 years, but they've not won it since 1956. The last four years they’ve not managed to qualify for the final, which is a shame, because I quite enjoyed both DJ Bobo – Vampires are alive, in 2007, and Michael von der Heide last year with Il pleut de l’or.
But this year it’s Anna singing In love for a while, and I like this. It’s a song that makes me happy from the beginning, it’s light, like floating on a cloud. Ok, so it isn’t good enough to absolutely love, but I hope it will at least make it through to the final.
Switzerland – 6 points

Eurovision Song Contest: Belgium, Lithuania and Russia

2011-04-28T11:44:00.002+02:00

Belgium
Witloof Bay – With love baby
Belgium is one of the founding members of the Eurovision Song Contest, and except for three times, it’s been in the Eurovision Song Contest every year since the beginning in 1956. They have won the competition 1 time, and failed to qualify for the final 5 times in the last 6 years. And I’m afraid they won’t do very well this year either. Not using any instruments is probably quite rare this contest, and I’m sure quite a few people will enjoy this, but for me, it just isn’t my cup of tea, at all. I can see that this song certainly has its qualities, but I don’t think they will go very far in Eurovision Song Contest.
Belgium – 2 points

Lithuania
Evalina Sašenko – C’est ma vie
Lithuania has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 11 times since 1994, and not done very well so far. Once they’ve come in number 6, but usually has ended up close to the bottom of the Final list, and 4 times they haven’t even qualified for the final.
This year’s entry, C’est ma vie, is an attempt to do one of those huge, powerful ballads, and Evalina sure has a great voice, but… to me this just gets a bit boring. There have been some huge, great ballads in Eurovision Song Contest before, but this is not one of them I’m afraid, despite the singer’s good voice. So this will probably be one of those years when Lithuania won’t even qualify for the final.
Lithuania – 2 points

Russia
Alexej Vorobjov – Get you
Russia first appeared in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994, and has participated 14 times since then. They’ve won the competition once, in 2008, and their worst placement has been as number 17.This year’s entry is a happy party-song sung by a quite cute, young man by the name Alexej, and I like this. It’s not one of my top favourites this year, but it’s not bad either. And I think Russia will do quite well in this year’s competition.
Russia – 7 points

Eurovision: Cyprus, Moldova and Azerbaijan

2011-04-27T17:36:00.002+02:00

Cyprus
Christos Mylordos – San Aggelos S’Agapisa
Cyprus has been in the Eurovision Song Contest 28 times since 1981, their best place ever is number 5, and 4 times they’ve not managed to qualify for the Eurovision Final.This year’s entry actually starts out quite nice, like a quiet ballad building up, and I’m thinking: hey, this could be one of the good ones, and then a woman starts screaming… And they’ve lost me, it’s all downhill from there.
Cyprus – 2 points

Moldova
Zdob şi Zdub – So Lucky
Moldova has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest every year since 2005, their best place has been number 6 and once they’ve not managed to qualify for the final. Incidentally the year they did come in as number 6, in 2005, it was the same group as this year that represented Moldova. That time Zdob şi Zdub sang Boonika Bate doba, and I loved it. Yes, I know, some people found that song a bit… noisy, but I thought it was excellent. This year’s entry, So Lucky, sigh… This just is a lot of noise, a lot of singing So Lucky over and over again, without the song really going anywhere. It’s only a 3 minute song, but after half a minute I’m already bored with all the noise. So sorry, but for me this is:
Moldova – 2 points

Azerbaijan
Ell & Nikki – Running Scared
Azerbaijan has a very short Eurovision Song Contest history, and has only participated since 2008. But despite the few appearances, they’ve done very well with an 8^th, 3^rd and 5^th place so far, and I must admit Azerbaijan is now starting to be one of the countries that I expect to have a good song in Eurovision Song Contest. I wasn’t too big a fan of the 2008 entry, but I’ve quite liked both Aysel & Arash – Always in 2009 and Safura – Drip Drop in 2010. How about this year’s entry then… I’m not disappointed! This is even better than the two previous years. It’s such a great ballad, good singers and so well performed. I would not be surprised or disappointed if this ended up being this year’s winner!
Azerbaijan – 10 points

Eurovision: Portugal, Estonia and United Kingdom

2011-04-26T12:07:00.002+02:00

Sorry about suddenly ending up with a week’s delay in my Eurovision posting, but Easter happened and… thank God I had better things to do than being on the internet every day. Actually, for the first time in very many I didn’t turn my computer on at all for 3 days, that’s a new record for me…

But now I’m back, and have found out that if I am to get this done before the first Eurovision song contest semi-final on Tuesday the 10th of May, I’ll now have to do 3 songs a day:

Portugal
Homens Da Luta – Luta é alegria
Portugal has been in Eurovision song contest 44 times since 1964, but their best place ever is number 7, and 4 times they haven’t even made it through to the final – and I think that’ll happen again this year. I can’t remember Portugal ever having a song that I liked. Now I’ve started to expect something weird from them every year, and I’m not disappointed this year either. I don’t even understand what this is supposed to be. I quite endorse it when singers sing in their own language, but then at least they’ve got to have a melody that makes sense. Could be that this song is funny in Portuguese, but for the rest of us it just sounds and looks really, really strange. I can’t stand this at all. So:
Portugal – 1 points.

Estonia
Getter Jaani – Rockefeller Street
Estonia has been in Eurovision song contest 16 times since 1994 and they’ve won once, with Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL singing Everybody in 2001. They’ve also not qualified for the final 6 times. As for this year’s entry: I simply just don’t like it. There’s something about the woman’s voice that just sounds completely wrong in my ears, it’s almost painful to listen to, but the song itself is quite catchy, so perhaps it would’ve been better off with another singer? Who knows. But it is what it is, and this year:
Estonia – 2 points

United Kingdom
Blue – I can
United Kingdom has been participating in all Eurovision song contests except the first year in 1956 and in 1958. They’ve won 5 times, the first time in 1967 with Sandie Shaw singing Puppet on a string, and the last time in 1997 with Katrina and the waves singing Love shine a light. Since they’re one of the Big 4 (one of the four countries that contributes the most towards Eurovision) they don’t need to qualify for the Eurovision song contest final, and this has for many years been fortunate for the United Kingdom. Over the last years they’ve become quite famous for having really horrible entries that ends up near the very bottom of the final list, and shouldn’t really have been in the final in the first place. Which has been a shame, because there are so many great artists and songs that have come out of the United Kingdom. They have huge success with several boybands, and perhaps that is the recipe? This year’s contestant for the United Kingdom is the newly re-united boyband Blue, who had a huge single together with Elton John back in 2002 with the song Sorry seems to be the hardest word. I loved that song, and I love Blue’s entry into Eurovision song contest this year. Finally, for the first time in years, United Kingdom’s got an entry in the contest that they can be proud of, so:
United Kingdom – 10 points

Eurovision Song Contest 2011

2011-04-19T12:25:00.003+02:00

Here we go again! The semi-finals and finals of this year's Eurovision song contest is coming closer every day, and I thought it was about time that I started meaning something about the songs. Those who know me also know what a huge Eurovision song contest enthusiast I am, and I have recently been asked why I'm not already posting about Eurovision so I guess it's about time...

For the next twenty or so days until the first Eurovision Song Contest semi-final on Tuesday 10 May 2011 I will try to post something about a couple of contestants in this year’s competition.

Yes, I have heard all the songs/watched all the videos, though not all of them in full. Some songs you hear immediately that it’s a big NO! Some of you might now ask: aren’t all Eurovision songs like that, but that is also a big NO! Mind you though, this is not a very good year for Eurovision. Some years I find so many songs that I really enjoy, it’s hard to land on a favourite, this year… not so much… I have graded the different countries and so far given out one 10 – 12 points, one 10 points, one 8 points, one 7 points, three 6 points, eight 5 points, ten 4 points, nine 3 points, seven 2 points and two 1 points. So we’re partly in for a rough ride, but I’ll try to present one country from the top of my list and one country from the bottom of my list every day, so hopefully it won’t be too bad… Here we go:

Slovenia
Maja Keuc – No One
Slovenia has been in the Eurovision song contest 17 times since 1993, 6 of those times they have not made it through to the final, their best place is number 7, and… I predict they won’t get through to the final this year either. Remember I said I’d given out to 1-points this year? Well, here’s the first.

The song is just boring, the singer is, to be honest, not very good, occasionally it sounds like someone moaning in pain in the background and in the end everyone’s screaming! The woman doesn’t look half bad though, so I guess she deserves a point for that, so:
Slovenia – 1 point

Hungary
Kati Wolf – What about my dreams?
Hungary has been in Eurovision song contest 8 times since 1994, the last two times they participated, in 2008-2009, they didn’t make it through to the final, and their best place ever is number 4.
Kati Wolf may not be as beautiful as the Slovenian singer Maja Keuc, but other than that she’s got her beat, because wow this woman can sing! The song is an up-beat, happy, party- and dancing song, and every time I hear it I just feel the need to play it really, really loud! I love this song, and predict it will do very well in this years contest. So:
Hungary – 10/12 points

Published translator

2010-01-19T22:46:00.002+01:00

Since last summer I have also been working a little bit as a translator, from English to Norwegian, for Harlequin publishing. The first book I translated was by Barbara Hannay called Blind Date with the Boss. In Norwegian it's got the title: Dans på Roser. It is fairly easy read literature, but I really enjoy the challenge that comes with translating, and making sure that I don't "ruin" the authors work in the translation. And I also think that there are a few things to learn when having to study someone else's work as closely as you must when translating a text.

Anyway, the book is in the stores next week, and it actually is an exciting feeling to see my name on a book again, even if it isn't my own: "Translated by Lena M Bakke".

Happy New Year

2010-01-04T17:21:00.003+01:00

New Year and new beginnings...

This blog has been awfully quiet in the last half year or so. I must admit life's been rather hard since the beginning of September when I started working in a full time "day job". It was tougher than I had expected to both be working full time in a regular job, and still find time to write books, do a bit of training, have a social life and such things. Right now the last 4 months feel like a blur and a thick fog.

But, the good news: I am a firm beliver that only I can make my life better, and because of this I've now cut back on my work hours in my "day job", it's now a 70% position. And already I can feel my energy levels rising, I think it's a mental thing as well. I've never been a morning person, and now I'll be working from 10 to 15 4 days a week, and 8 to 1430 one day a week. And this really helps. I felt my mood even was a lot better this morning when I got up at 0830 and headed for work around 0940.

I am quite proud that even though the time till Christmas was hard, I have managed to write 2 books in a new series. I still haven't got a contract to publish this series, but I have had some good feedback on it, that makes me really optimistic. And if this doesn't work out, I've got so many other ideas that I'm also looking forward to working on.

Hopefully, cutting back on my day job will also give me more time to write on my blog!

Hope the New Year will be a good one, happy and prosperous for all of you!

Wow, I can't believe it...

2009-11-08T19:58:00.003+01:00

I knew it was a long time since I last posted something on my blog, but 14 August? Seriously? Oh, well, what can I say, it's been a busy weekend. I started in a new job on 1 September, was on a 3 week course in September/October - and then was quite ill for 2 weeks. Nothing serious, just your typical flu/cold/sore throat thingy, but enough to keep me in bed for quite a long time. Now I'm back on my feet, still coughing a bit, but a lot better, and have actually been at work for 2 weeks again. And on Wednesday I'm going to Gran Canaria for 17 days, can hardly wait. We booked this vacation in April, so it has been a really long wait. This time we're staying in Puerto Rico for the first week, and I've only been there on day trips earlier, so I'm looking forward to examining that place a bit closer.

I have NOT stopped writing. Still busy working on my new project, and it seems very good so far. I have showed quite a bit of my work to a publisher, and they have shown interest, so I am fairly optimistic, but still haven't got a contract so will still have to wait and see. Will tell you all about it if and when I eventually do get a new contract to have something published.

What else? I might have mentioned earlier on this blog that I tend to watch quite a lot of TV-series, probably a bit too much but... And I'm always happy when autumn comes and all my favourite shows are one again: NCIS, Bones, Fringe, The Mentalist, Castle, Grey's anatomy, Sanctuary... just to mention some. And I've discovered a new series this autumn as well: FlashForward - just LOVE it so far!

This evening I'm busy packing for my vacation, will be tough, as always, to pack within the weight limits, but will do my best. And I will try very hard to not stay quiet on the blog for another 2 - 3 months as well.

Short

2009-08-14T14:44:00.002+02:00

I know I've been awfully quiet here on the blog for a while. I've been a bit "out of it" for a month or so, spending a lot of time thinking. I guess that was to be expected after I'd finished my 12 books series from the Viking age, and are changes happening in my life. I choose to believe that most changes are for the good: new opportunities, new adventures, new people, perhaps even new friends. But it is a challenge, and thus demands some thinking. So does my writing. I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about that, not so much writing, but making short notes about ideas, and thinking thinking thinking... Those of you out there who are creative in some way yourself knows how much time is spent thinking...

And I've got a new fulltime job, starting on 1st of September. I'm thrilled and looking forward to that, should be a great opportunity to learn something new from and/or about life!

Heat wave

2009-07-02T21:18:00.001+02:00

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...

2009-06-01T22:01:00.004+02:00

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

2009-05-26T13:14:00.001+02:00

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

2009-05-12T17:13:00.000+02:00

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!

2009-04-01T09:50:00.001+02:00

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

2009-03-15T19:28:00.002+01:00

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...

2009-03-04T15:52:00.001+01:00

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.

Back to reality

2009-02-03T12:52:00.000+01:00

A one week vacation to Gran Canaria is of course much too short, but still it is nice spending a little time with sun and warm weather. Sometimes it’s hard getting back to reality after such a vacation, but these days I am so eagerly working on my new idea for a series that it actually feels alright getting back to “normality”. I still don’t know if my new idea is publishable, first I have to see if I can manage to write that first book that I’m satisfied with. But I can tell you that I have a fairly detailed synopsis for as many as 12 books so far, so I’m pretty sure it is an idea for a series and not for one book only.

Since I came back to Norway on Saturday night, I’ve also gone through a final draft of book number 9 in the Sword Woman’s Kin series, and when I’m not working on this new project of mine, I’m thinking about book 12. It’s got a deadline towards the middle of this month, and I still got some research to do, because there are still too many things I don’t know about the Sami people. But this is one of the exciting things about working on a series like this, all the new stuff I have to look up and learn whilst writing.

Right now I’m going to keep working on that first book of the new series and hoping to have that ready closer to the weekend.

Vacation

2009-01-23T23:51:00.000+01:00

Very early morning, Saturday the 24th, and I’m off to a warmer place. I’m going on a week’s vacation to Gran Canaria, and I’m mostly planning on just enjoying myself. But know me, I probably will be working on some stories as well, both the Sword Woman’s Kin and other projects. But that is for enjoyment only, most of all this is a vacation. And the blog will go quite for a while.

Projects

2009-01-21T12:51:00.000+01:00

I handed in a first draft of book number 11 to the publisher on Monday. As always it was a very good feeling, and I really believe this is a good book, with a very exciting ending. I must admit, I’m not the best writer when it comes to the so-called “cliffhangers”. But with book number 11 I felt that I really got the hang of this, and whilst working on book number 11 a lot of the story for book number 12 has also come to me. For a moment I considered going directly from book number 11 to writing book number 12, but now I’ve found another project to work on.

A few weeks back I suddenly, out of the blue, came up with a new idea for a new series. For now I’m very much in the research part of this project; writing down lots of ideas, thinking about the characters and the story and so on – so wetter or not this is going to happen, is a bit early to say. And even if I should come up with what I believe is a good idea, I might not be able to find a publisher who believes that it is as well. This is why I won’t say much else about the project right now. Perhaps I will give you a little more information when I’ve written a first book in the series and have an idea myself wetter this is any good or not.

Besides this I’m mostly occupied with my one week vacation starting on Saturday the 24th. I’m heading to a place a lot warmer than Norway, and I think it will be excellent.

More book 11

2009-01-15T12:50:00.000+01:00

Book number 11 is well under way, and it seems to be a very exciting book. More elements have come into the story while I’ve been writing it than I anticipated before I started, and it’s always interesting when that happens. It is almost like reading a book myself for the first time, when the surprising elements suddenly turn up.

What I wrote in the blog the other day, about the findings in Denmark that seem to indicate that the Vikings sacrificed humans has really inspired me. And I am now pretty sure that there will be something about this in book number 12. The story in book number 11 seems to be longer than I predicted, and this has given me lots of inspiration and further details for book number 12. I already have a very detailed synopsis for this book now, but who knows, there might be surprising elements for me in this one as well.

I do have a lot of fun though, and the writing goes very well.
This weekend I’m off to a friend’s 40th birthday, and I’m looking forward to getting out of my cave for a little while.

The Vikings sacrified humans

2009-01-11T12:50:00.000+01:00

It is always very interesting when I find articles in the media about the Viking Age. Today there’s an article in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet about how evidence is now found that Danish Vikings sacrificed humans around year 1000. This has of course immediately inspired new stories in my mind. I am right now working on book number 11, and this story is pretty much finished, so it won’t be in this book that I use this new fact. But I’m pretty sure it will come up in one of my later books.

Last night I watched a program on National Geographic Channel called Barbarians. This is a TV-series about people who are traditionally viewed as barbarians, but when studied closer it is found that they are more highly evolved than anyone would have thought. And the program last night was about Vikings.

Book 11

2009-01-07T12:48:00.000+01:00

I am these days editing book 10, and I’m writing a first draft of book number 11. A fairly detailed synopsis of book number 11 is ready, but I need to do a quite a bit of reading before I do the actual writing. Book 11 will involve Sami people, and I must admit I don’t know much about the Sami people, their culture and their history. I have borrowed some books at the library, and slowly I’m learning something.

What I have found out is that there are even fewer written sources about how the Sami lived during the Viking Age, than it is about the Vikings. This gives some freedom to a writer who’s making up stories about that time, but at the same time it means that there are a lot of traps to fall into. I have earlier mentioned that I want my books to be as historically correct as possible. I am very much aware that some times I do miss the target a little bit, but I do my best to not miss it completely. Thus, I does cause me some anxiety to mix the Sami, their religion, culture and history into book 11, but my story seems to demand it – so I’ll just have to keep reading and hope that the final result will be pretty much correct.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T16:41:00.000+01:00

I celebrated the New Year with family and friends yesterday, and it was a very happy and fun event. I have to admit I am a bit tired today, and I’m taking the day off from everything. Tomorrow though I’ll return to work, and will continue with the translation of my first two books from Norwegian to English. I will also have to start thinking about book number 11. I have a synopsis ready for the book, but it’s not very detailed yet so I will have to spend some more time doing research and thinking about it before I start the actual writing.

2008 was a very exciting and interesting year for me, and I have big hopes and expectations for 2009 as well.

Happy new year everybody!

Inspiration and other ideas for novels

2008-12-14T16:21:00.001+01:00

Another few thousand words and I will have finished a first draft of book number 10. It quite often feels a bit unreal that I’ve written 10 books this year. Or rather, 9 books this year, and I spent almost a year finishing the first one.

As I have mentioned earlier, I sometimes miss having time to do more research. I want to spend more time reading books about the Viking Age, and the sagas of that time. But, the little time I do get to read teach me something new all the time. Some of it I can use in the books I’m writing now, but I also now that what I’m learning now will really be helpful the day I get back to writing full time on my “Dreamland” novel. This is a novel that I’ve been working on for quite a few years now. I haven’t actually written that many pages on it so far, but it’s been in my head for more than ten years. It is a fantasy novel that partly takes place in our world, as we know it today, and partly in another world that some people have the ability to travel to when they sleep. And this dream land is loosely based on how I envision that Norway was in the Viking Age, and also on Norse mythology and creatures of Norwegian traditional folk stories. The first time I thought of this idea I was completely taken with it, and since then it just won’t let go. These days unfortunately I haven’t got much time to work on it. I throw a few thoughts in its’ direction from time to time, but mostly this, and other ideas for novels, will have to wait, for now anyway.

I do though find inspiration in many places, often in the media. I found an article in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten interesting. It tells about how they’ve found Islamic coins from around the year 800 in the Eastern parts of Norway.

They’re going to excavate one of Harald Finehair’s farms

2008-12-03T00:12:00.000+01:00

The big national newspaper “Aftenposten” today writes that archeologists are going to excavate on of Harald Finehair’s farms at Avaldsnes on Karmøy. I find these news very thrilling because I am reading “the saga of Harald Finehair” these days as research for both book 9 and 10. The young king Harald is involved in book number 9, and for book 10 I can reveal that so far it looks as if the battle of Hafrsfjord might be involved. I can’t be completely sure though, I’ve only written the first 5000 words on book 10 so far, and even though I am pretty sure what direction the story will go, sometimes I get surprised.

The excavation is exciting news no matter how my own story ends up.

To read and to write

2008-12-01T00:04:00.000+01:00

Today I’ve spent most of the day reading about the Vikings: history, clothing, food, and society – all sides of life as it was back then. This has given me some ideas, not only for book number 10 that I will start writing tomorrow, but also for later books.

I have had most of my focus on the synopsis for book 10 today. For those who doesn’t know: a synopsis is kind of a detailed list that I write for the whole series and for each book. The synopsis for the whole series now is about 30 pages and keeps growing. Some of the future books have very detailed synopsises, while others only have a year for when it starts and perhaps the name of the main character. This morning when I got up I only had the main details for book number 10 on the paper, but after having spent the day really thinking about book 10, the rest of the story has also come to me. I now have a very detailed synopsis, and I’m really looking forward to starting writing the book tomorrow.

I hope the first 1000 words will come easily to me. In my writing I don’t always start at the beginning, sometimes scenes come to me in parts and I write them as I see them. But with all the books in this series, so far I’ve written them from the beginning to the end. Some times it does take me a couple of days to think and feel before I decide where a book starts, but when I’ve first found those first 1000 words, then the rest of the stories have been coming to me fairly easily.

I sometimes do find time to read other things than research too; yesterday when I went to bed I started on a book by Stephen King: Duma Key. It seems promising so far. Since I write books in the so-called “entertainment genre” many people might think that those are also mainly the kind of books that I read. There are a lot of earlier series that I’ve appreciated: “The Legend of the Ice People”, “Livets døtre (Daughter’s of life)”, “Ulveøyne (Wolf eyes), “4 søsken (4 siblings)”, and I have read the 3 first books in a current series: “Sønnavind”, and I quite liked it. But, I worry about reading books in this genre these days. Even though I write in another age than most of the other series, there are a lot of common things between books in the same genre. I am afraid that if I read other series right now, I might, even without knowing, end up copying things that I read that I like, and I really want to avoid that. Of course, most books written are at their basis copies of something that’s been written before, but I think it’s easier to write a new story, my own story, if I don’t read “entertainment literature” now. Besides, it’s not really a huge secret that my own true passion for literature is within the genres fantasy, science fiction, crime, mystery and horror. I have almost all of Stephen King’s books, and thus it is no big surprise that I’m now reading one of his books.

So, that was today, and tomorrow book 10 is waiting, and I’m excited.

Books, and life… and death…

2008-11-30T23:45:00.000+01:00

I’m sure that other people also have trouble settling into everyday life again after a vacation. And this three week vacation in Gran Canaria did turn out very strange too as I had to fly back to Norway for five days for my grandmother’s funeral.

It is still sad that my grandmother is gone, but life goes on. Death is after all a natural part of life, and we should appreciate it when people have gotten to live a quite long life before they move on. Someone asked me if I will be using my grandmother’s death in any of my books, and I said no. But what I probably will be doing is using my own feelings concerning this in some of my books. I have written diaries most of my life, and often when I’m working on my stories it is very useful to go back and touch certain emotions again. And I’m sure I will be doing that with this as well. Some times when I write it is hard to really get the right feelings for the story, and I need to feel it to really be able to convey it to the reader. When this happens I like to read my diary, and draw on parallels in my own life and situations I’ve experienced that remind me about what I’m writing.

Today I’ve finished a new draft of book number 8, and I think it’s a lot better than the previous. Tomorrow I’ll spend the day thinking about book number 10, and read some history and mythology. The main story for book number 10 is pretty much ready, but I still need some more details, and these details I often find by reading books from that age. I very often feel that there isn’t enough time to do research when I have to finish a new book just about every month, but some of the problem might also be that when I’m not writing or editing one of my books – I often rather spend time watching TV or movies. When I’ve spent a whole day (and sometimes evenings and nights) with the written word, I often get tired and rather want some “simple” entertainment, and then movies and TV series is just the right cure. But, I could’ve used that time to do research instead, so I do have a plan on becoming better at this in the future – even though I sometimes do get a bit fed up with everything written!

But, I guess all people are fed up with their job sometimes? Most of the time I am so happy and feel so privileged that I get to do this – and right now I just can’t wait to get started on book number 10.

A strange holiday… and hard days

2008-11-15T13:11:00.001+01:00

Whilst writing this I’m at home in my “cave” in Solør. I should have been at Gran Canaria on the second week of a three week vacation. I travelled down there about one and a half week ago, very much ready for a vacation where I would relax, enjoy life, perhaps write a piece or two for my blogs, and do a bit of editing on book number 8. On Sunday I got the tragic message that my grandmother suddenly and unexpected had left this world. Wednesday I travelled back to Norway and yesterday I attended her funeral. It was a hard day, as it most often is with funerals, but at the same time it is good to have such a ceremony where the family gets to getter and tries to comfort each other in the middle of all the sadness. My grandmother was nearing on 80 and was not a young person any more, but still it was such a shock that she was to leave us all so sudden. But grandmother also loved life, she loved to have fun and she loved to travel. Because of this I’m sure that she would approve of my decision to go back to Gran Canaria, on Monday, and enjoy a bit more of sun and warmth for the remaining 10 days of the original 3 week holiday. And I will get to spend some time with family down there as well, as my parents and my mum’s two sisters with their husbands also will be there.

While I’ve been back in Norway I’ve got some more feedback from various directions on book number 1 of the Sword Woman’s kin. Quite a few of them are actually quite good, but some are not that good. These are things you have to be prepared for as a writer. I’m quite sure that there is no book written in the entire world that all readers like. I know I’ve read books that have won prizes where I could not understand at all why, and I’ve read books that have been slaughtered by critics and others that I’ve loved. All you can hope for as a writer is that at least some readers will find in interesting and entertaining to read what you write. Still, it is strange, how we as humans so often see past the good stuff and focuses on the bad. I have had many more positive feedbacks than bad on my book, and still it is the bad ones that keep gnawing on me. I can’t seem to push them out of my mind. Hopefully there will be something to learn from this: some of the negative critic I take to heart, and other I just see past because I just don’t agree. And this is what writing has to be: I write to entertain, but I can’t always change my story to meet with the negative critic that I get, because then it would no longer be my story, and then someone else should write it instead of me. When you write you have to have the courage to show the story that you’ve come to love so much yourself to the world, and accept that there will be people who won’t like it as well – but still be confident that as long as you feel that it truly is your story, that you’ve done a good job – then you’ve done as good as you can.

And this was the very long blog post of today, from Solør, where I will spend another couple of days in my “cave”, editing book number 8, before once again returning to the sun and warmth on Gran Canaria.

Monday 27th of October just around the corner...

2008-10-25T16:14:00.000+02:00

These days I’m working very hard on book number 9, and when a draft of that is done I’ll be going back to editing book number 7. Hopefully all of this will be done by the evening of November 4th when I’m going to Gardermoen airport to fly to Gran Canaria the next day. I’m really looking forward to a bit of vacation now, it really has been hectic days.

Up until the last couple of days I have, believe it or not, not given much thought to Monday the 27th of October. But on Wednesday or Thursday this week I suddenly got a nervous feeling when thinking about the launch of book number 1 on Monday. There is of course already many people out there who’ve got a copy of the book since it’s been sent out to the subscribers of Allers, KK and Ute&Hjemme magazines, but it is first on Monday that everyone who wants to can get a copy of it. It feels a bit like either you’re it or not in this business, and I am very curious about what the readers will think.

I feel that I am within the ”boundaries” of the genre entertainment literature, but at the same time I do see that I also challenge these boundaries a little by having more action scenes in my books that I’ve normally seen in other books of the same genre. I hope the readers will forgive me for trying to renew the genre some what. It is of course important that the readers will not only be entertained, but that they also get what they expect when buying one of my books. I myself have, plenty of times, been disappointed with books in certain genres in the past, and I don’t want the readers of Sword Woman’s Kin to get such an impression.

On Thursday a journalist from the Norwegian National Broadcaster (NRK) district Hedmark/Oppland interviewed me, and the interview will be on the air on Monday. And today I’ve been interviewed by a local newspaper, Glåmdalen, and this interview will also be published on Monday. So it truly is exciting days. And now I have to get back to book number 9 of which I have so far written about one third. It too is very exciting.

The Graduate

2008-10-14T12:26:00.003+02:00

Graduation

2008-10-07T14:31:00.001+02:00

These are hectic days, and lots of things are happening at once.

I have slowly started writing on book 9 (the first thousand words) and I have made very detailed synopsis for this book. Now I pretty much know how it’s going to be. But, of course, some surprises will pop up when I’m doing the actual writing. I usually say that I often get very eager when writing because I’m curious too about all the details in the story. Usually I know where it starts, where it’ll end and the big major parts of the story, but the little things that’ll sneak their way into the story when I’m writing; they are often a surprise to me as well. But, book number 9 will have to wait for a little while, because there are actually other things higher on my to-do-list.

On Friday 17 October I have to hand in a large assignment on my Nordic language and literature course. It is a bit hard to focus these days, but I think I’ll make it this time as well. There are three different assignments to choose from and I have chosen to write about Ludvig Holberg and a couple of his essays. But, even though I am trying to focus on this, there are other things that draw my attention:

On Thursday I’m going to England for a long weekend. Friday is the day of the Graduation ceremony from the university of Chichester, where I earlier this year got my Master’s degree in Creative Writing. I’m really looking forward to this. It will be nice to mark that I have finished this degree, and it will be especially nice since my parents and an aunt and uncle are coming with me as well. Besides, it will give me a little break in an otherwise hectic time. And it will give me opportunity to meet with some very good friends that live in Worthing.

I assume that I will be photographed wearing the hat and cape, so you should expect to see a photo or two from this ceremony, on here, some time next week.

Almost finally weekend…

2008-09-26T18:23:00.000+02:00

Except that it doesn’t really feel like a proper weekend when you have to work for most of it. This time it’s my studies that will keep me occupied, but I will also have to give some thought to book number 6 and number 9.

I met with my editor earlier this week, and we talked about some things that I clearly see will make book 6 a much better book. So now I’ve got some redrafting to do. Some might think this tedious work, but it really isn’t. I know that there are some people out there who think that this kind of literature isn’t of the proper noteworthy kind, that’s their opinion – but there are a lot of people who really appreciate books of this kind, and they deserve my best work in every book I write. And it really is satisfying when someone points out to me things that will make the story better, all sorts of things that will make the story a more interesting experience to the reader. So that’s one of the reasons why it is kind of fun to redraft. Another reason is that the “anxiety” isn’t there when you redraft. I’m mostly not that anxious about my writing, but of course, occasionally the thought will also pop into my head: “what if I suddenly can’t do this?”. Especially when writing a new book this thought can suddenly appear, but when I’m redrafting I don’t have to worry, because the story is already there.

But, book number 9 is slowly rising on the horizon. During the last couple of days I’ve been making notes for this book. I rarely sit down to write the story itself till the last week or ten days before a deadline. I am a very fast typer, so when the story is firmly planted in my mind it is not a problem to write several thousand words a day. But before I get to the actual writing part I have to think, and research, and think, and research, some times even draw a little, make maps and sketches of houses – and some times I have to try things out with my own hands to see what works and no. All this is part of the process of getting a book down on paper. The basic story for book number 9 is already there; I know where it starts and where it ends, and much of what happens in between – but now I’m working on finding all the smaller stories and details that I ad into it to make it a good and interesting book. And that’s what I’m doing these days, next to trying to stay on top of my studies.

I am also trying not to think too much about the fact that the launch date for book 1 is drawing closer, it’s one month tomorrow to be exact. It is very exciting, a bit scary – but mostly feels so good!

Woop – there it is

2008-09-13T15:37:00.002+02:00

And finally my novel is now also to be found in book-version. Those who subscribe for the weekly magazine Allers received it in the mail yesterday (including my grandfather who is indeed very proud) – and for those who don’t subscribe, yet, the book is to be found in the stores on Monday 27th of October.

New Norwegian Blog

2008-09-10T16:45:00.001+02:00

I have today started another blog, in Norwegian: lenamb.blogspot.com

In this new blog I will mostly be writing stuff that is relevant to my series of novels "Swordwoman's kin", where the first book comes out on Monday the 27th of October this year.

I will of course also be translating most of what I write in my Norwegian blog to English and post it here.

Another interview

2008-08-28T14:58:00.001+02:00

There’s another interview with me, and a photo, in this month’s ”Flisa Bla’” This is a monthly free magazine that comes out in Solör and it’s mostly for advertising, but they also have quite a few articles about different local stuff in there – and this time I am among the local stuff.

You can find the magazine on www.flisa.no, you’ll see a photo of the cover of the magazine, and the title is “Flisa Bla’”, the little article about me is on page 18. The article is in Norwegian, and it pretty much says much of the same that’s been said in other interviews already. The title is “Writes 5000 words a day”. If any of you English speaking people want a translation, send me an email and I’ll try to get around to doing one.

Work, work, work

2008-08-26T18:44:00.001+02:00

There seem to be too much work and too little play in my life these days. This if of course not true. Granted, I do have a lot to do with my studies (a short course in Spanish and my correspondence course in Nordic language and literature) and writing (started to write book number 8 today) – but it’s not really too much. It’s just that when I was in a more regular job, I would go there every day and meet other people, and then socialize through work. Now I spend day after day, sitting alone in my basement flat, and most of the human contact I’ve got is through chatting with people on either MSN or Facebook. I need to get out more!

And I am now making arrangements to do just that. I’ll be renting a room in Oslo from a friend about one to two weeks each month, and this should give me plenty of more opportunity to get out and meet with friends since most of the now live in the Oslo area.

If you’re not happy about how you live your life, you’re the only one who can do something about it. A bit of wisdom there for you.

Days of our lives

2008-08-14T14:24:00.001+02:00

I woke up with a sore throat on Monday, probably due to the fact that for the last three weeks the weather has been changing a lot from cold to warm to cold to warm. Now this cold has developed into a proper cold, no fun at all, but that’s unfortunately not the worse that’s happened this week.

As most of you probably know, I live in a basement flat below my parent’s flat, and at the other end of the house there’s another flat where my grandparents (my father’s parents) live. Last night at about 1 am, my mother knocked on my door. She just wanted to inform me, just in case I was awake and saw the ambulance arrive, that my grandmother had had a fall on the living room floor, and they were now waiting for the ambulance to come.

When she got to the hospital they found out that she’d broken her hip, and the doctors will operate on her this afternoon.

Isn’t it strange how when one thing happens, lots of other things seem to happen at the same time? With my aunt’s heart attack on Friday, my grandmother’s fall last night, I’m really hoping that this is the end of it, but am now dreading what might come next.

A horrible end to a vacation

2008-08-09T11:01:00.001+02:00

On Thursday we drove from Untersteinach in Bavaria to Kiel in northern Germany, the drive took about 7 hours, we got on the ferry to Gothenburg at 7 in the evening. It was a nice crossing, we ate lots of food at the buffet, drank some beer and wine, my aunt Wenche and uncle Hans even danced a little.

On Friday morning we got up at 8. My aunt complained about stomach pain, and we teased her a little about having ate too much at the buffet the night before. We left the ferry at 9 and began the 3,5 hours drive back to my aunt and uncle's home in Son (about 70 km south of Oslo).

My aunt's stomach pains didn't get any better. Just before we got the the border to Norway she complained that the pain had spread to her chest and her left arm, and when we crossed the border she started throwing up and was in severe pain. She was having a heart attack.

I looked up the address to the nearest emergency room on my mobile phone, then programmed the address on my uncle's GPS. The unit said it would take us 19 minutes to drive there. I guess I don't have to say it was the longest 19 minutes of my life, so far.

The Emergency room in Sarpsborg is very hard to find. Even when we knew we were at the right address we could hardly find it, it was a little galas door that looked like the entrance to any other house, and it said with small letters on the door that this was the emergency room. I told my uncle to get my aunt in there while I took care of parking and paying for the car. When I got in there a few minutes later I was horrified to see that the nurse/secretary in there had my aunt standing on her feet, or rather hanging on the counter through a kind of glass window thingy whilst taking down her name, address and symptoms. My aunt could barely stand on her feet, my uncle had to hold her up, there was no chair in sight – and the young woman behind the counter was more busy with getting my aunt's name right than her condition. Finally she was allowed into a room where she could lay down on a bed. The doctor came shortly after, and immediately called for an ambulance. We were told that my aunt would be taken to the hospital in Fredrikstad, so my uncle and I (thank God for GPS) made our way there, only to find out when we got there that my aunt had been rushed to Ullevål hospital in Oslo. We asked the nurse at the hospital in Fredrikstad if she could tell us why, because as far as we know, people are only rushed to Ullevål in Oslo when it's very critical. She couldn't tell us anything, just told us that we would have to go to Ullevål.

It took us about 2 hours to drive there, another 2 hours that truly seemed a lot longer while we were talking about how bad this had become all so sudden.

The ambulance had made the trip from Sarpsborg to Oslo in 58 minutes, but the time we got there my aunt was already in the intensive care ward on a heart monitor, and they had also already un-blocked one of the veins to her heart.

We spoke with a nurse who told us it seems my aunt will get well again, because she got to the doctor as soon as she did. She will probably be moved to a smaller local hospital today where she'll have to stay for another 4 – 5 days.

Then finally we got to meet with aunt again. She was very tired, but alive.

In another time or place we might not have been as lucky.

What a horrible way to end a vacation.

Germany

2008-07-29T10:45:00.002+02:00

So, I'm in Germany. I've been staying with my friends Lone and Jana this first night, but today I'm moving on to my aunt and uncle's place in Untersteinach. A very nice little village outside Kulmbach, but unfortunately, with no internet (at least there wasn't the last time I was there two years ago). This means that for the next 8 - 9 days I'll be off the radar, and will have to manage without internet and email. It will be hard, I know, but if this is the hardest I'll be forced to endure in this life, I guess I should count myself lucky.
And it should give me time to focus on finishing that 7th novel in my Viking series.

Packing again...

2008-07-26T20:56:00.001+02:00

I've been in England, in Worthing, for almost a week and it's time to pack up those 30 kilos again to move on. Tomorrow I'll travel to Stansted airport where I'll stay till Monday, when I'll be on a morning flight to Nürnberg in Germany.

It's been great being back in England again. It truly has reminded me about all the things I love about this country, and how much I miss it. I've gone for several walks on the beach, I've attended my first ever aqua aerobics class (it was fun – can't believe it was 45 minutes!), last night we went to a wedding party on a river boat on the Thames in London, and today I've been to Chichester and met up with a couple of my friends from uni. All in all an excellent week in England.

But, as I haven't been to Untersteinach and Kulmback for 2 years now, I also miss that place – so I'm quite sure that it'll be great to go there – and there is of course also the bier fest!

England and Germany

2008-07-21T12:46:00.003+02:00

I’m off to England today, and next Monday I’m continuing to Germany where I’ll be staying for another 10 days. It will partly be a vacation, and partly a work-holiday as I will also have to keep writing on book number 7 for the deadline on August the 4th.

I’ll see if I’m able to take some photos and post here for you, but for now I’m leaving you with some photos that I’ve taken previous years, in England and Germany.

Road trip

2008-07-18T14:25:00.006+02:00

Can you spot the hotel on top of the waterfall Vøringsfossen?

Dawn and I went on a little three day mini tour of Norway from Monday to Wednesday this week. We went by car, and drove through Fagernes, Flåm, Voss, Eidfjord and Hardangervidda to Oslo. On the way we saw some amazing views of magnificent mountains and beautiful fjords, and we drove through the world’s longest road tunnel, The Lærdal Tunnel, almost 25 km long. And we saw quite a few stave churches.

And on Monday I’m off on another trip: I’ll be spending a week in England and then flying on to Germany where I’ll spend another 10 days. See you all back in Norway by almost mid August I guess.

Dawn is coming to Norway

2008-07-09T13:01:00.001+02:00

I’m so happy today because one of my best friends, Dawn, is coming over from England. This is her first time in Norway, and I can’t wait for her to see where I live and meet up with most of my Norwegian friends. And then next week, we’re going to be tourists and explore parts of Norway together, because I’ve never really been a tourist in Norway, so that should be a lot of fun.

And if you wonder who Dawn is, she’s the singer with the guitar in this YouTube video.

And then there were none

2008-07-07T12:19:00.004+02:00

At some point our family owned 6 lovely Holy Birman cats, but over the years, they’ve become older and some have become ill and eventually they’ve had to be allowed to leave this life. We had one left, Minas Tirith’s Darwin, he was such a warm, caring, cuddly cat, 13 years old – and today we had to put him down as well.

He got his first tumour last year, but has lived quite well with it since then, but now they had spread so much that there was nothing else to do, but what was right for the cat. It is a very sad day.

Baksjøen

2008-07-02T21:35:00.003+02:00

I went for a walk today, after having sent book number 6 to the publisher. There's a lake about 10 minutes walk from my home called Baksjøen. I took some pictures.

Book number 6

2008-07-02T00:59:00.000+02:00

It is done. The story of book 6 is ready and written down. There might still be some adjustments to do, there always are, but I trust that this is very close to what it will end up to be in the final version. I have struggled a bit with this one, it’s been hard to find the right words – but I also think this means that my language is a bit better than it usually is in early versions. So hopefully this means that I won’t have as much work to do when redrafting as I sometimes have had with other stories.

Right now I’m just happy, as I always am when another story is down on paper. It’ll be good to send it to the publisher tomorrow, so that my editor too gets to see what the new story is like.

And now I think I’d better try to get some sleep, and hope that the mosquitoes have left the flat – there were, for some reason, plenty of them in here last night, I don’t know why. But tonight I go to bed armed with bug spray, so let’s hope that’ll keep them away.

Lena on radio

2008-06-26T22:35:00.003+02:00

I was interviewed on radio for about five minutes by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) today. It was only broadcasted in my own region of Norway, but still I think it was interesting, and a bit fun, even though I was very nervous before I went into the studio as it was a “live” interview.

For those of you who understand Norwegian, you can find the interview on internet:

www.nrk.no/ho

My interview was at about 1638, so about half an hour into the program.

Writing

2008-06-23T11:42:00.001+02:00

I am currently writing book six in the Viking series "Sverdkvinnens Ætt”. And I thought I’d share some thoughts with you on writing.

This book has been a work in progress for a long time now, as they always are when it comes to the time when I actually put my fingers on the keyboard and start typing. At the moment I have a very clear idea about what’s going to happen in book seven and eight, and a more vague idea about what’s going to happen in book nine, but I have faith that this will come to me eventually, as it has with all the other books. It’s been many months since the first time I thought about book six, that was when I was planning out the whole series of books, and jotted down a few details for each book. Since then some things have changed, but my newest synopsis for the series still have things in common with the first synopsis.

I will admit, it is always a bit daunting sitting down by my computer on that day when I have decided it is time to start writing. If I can only find those first few words, and I am happy with those words, then I know that this will be another story that I can be happy with. Some times it takes a bit longer for that day to arrive when I can write the first words of a new book. I try not to stress about it. That just means that I need more time to prepare the story in my head. Because, when I sit down to write, I do know a lot of details about the story – and I also know that other details will come as a surprise to even me when I am in the process of writing. Some things just turn up, and pour out of my fingers almost without my brain noticing. It probably sounds silly, but that truly is how it feels sometimes. I’m surprised by the turn of events in my stories.

I did struggle with book 6 for a couple of days before I got to the stage where I could finally write those first 1500 words. One evening I realized it was because something was lacking from the story, and once that thought was in my head, a new development for the story soon came to me, and that’s also when I knew where the story would begin.

So, in the last couple of days I’ve been writing. On the first day I never write many words, probably 1000 – 1500, but when I am deep into the writing process I will on average write about 10 000 words a day. I am a very fast typist, and as I said, when I finally sit down to write I have given the story much thought. I have spent a lot of time jotting down details, and I have now also drawn three maps of the three places that will be involved in this book. On the maps I’ve drawn up buildings, and put the names of the different characters into those buildings. This helps me visualize the places they live, and hopefully makes me able to convey some of this to my readers.

I have a very good feeling about book 6 now, and I am (as always) very eager to see it through, and finally get all the details for the story myself. For example, at the moment, I don’t really know exactly where the story will end, I hardly ever know that. I have experienced some times that I think I know where the story will end, and then suddenly as I’m typing, I realize that the end is already here, that this would be just the right place to end the story.

Bon Jovi

2008-06-21T12:46:00.004+02:00

Wow, the days pass so quickly. I meant to be writing about the Bon Jovi concert on Thursday, the day after I’d been to it, but here I am, on a Saturday, finally getting a couple of words down.

The concert was awesome! Everything I expected it to be, and then some… And Jon Bon Jovi, what a man! It was a lot of fun, but, I don’t like it, but I have to admit that I’m now starting to get too old to be standing on my feet for six and a half hour. It was a killer on both my feet and my back, but still worth it, I guess.

I bought a new mobile phone the same day as the concert, a Nokia N82, so I’d be able to take some photos at the concert. I ended up taking about 70 photos, and a couple of short videos. Not very good quality I’m afraid, because it’s hard to keep the phone steady enough when using zoom. But, I’ve posted a couple of the photos here, and the rest of them are on Facebook for those of you who are among my friends there.

My life

2008-06-05T15:36:00.000+02:00

When I got up this morning I was very tired, apparently that’s what five days and a wedding in Ireland might do to you! Since the weather in Norway is so excellent these days, I decided I needed a walk to clear my head, so I put my iPod into my bag and set off in direction Flisa (for those of you who doesn’t know where I live, it’s aprox. a six kilometres walk from my home to the village called Flisa). I hadn’t walked very far, listening to music, before this feeling of complete happiness fell upon me. I felt a smile widening on my lips, it was so easy to walk in the sun today, it felt like walking on air. And while I was walking I just kept thinking about how happy I am about my life these days, and how completely blessed I feel. It’s as if the Norse gods themselves have reached out of their home in Åsgård and given me a favourable pat on the back, and I know I really need to enjoy this – because everyone knows how moody those gods can be!

There are of course also worries in my life, but I will try not to let them get any major control over how I live my life, and rather focus on all the good things that are happening. It’s like when I was walking today, and it was such a beautiful walk in the sun. I was wearing sandals, and from time to time there would be pebbles sneaking into them that would make me stop for a very short while to remove them. And I think my life is a bit like that now, an easy beautiful walk in the sun, but with the occasional pebble that I will just have to resolve every time it bothers me.

It sounds a bit too much of pink clouds, doesn’t it? But that is just how it is right now, today, I think I was grinning like a mad woman on that walk today – people that saw me might actually be thinking that finally I’ve now lost my mind completely. And who knows, maybe I have, but if this is what it feels like, then I don’t mind.

Have a nice day!

Back from Ireland

2008-06-05T00:06:00.004+02:00

I’ve been to Ireland for five days, attending a wedding in Castleblayney on the weekend and then spent a couple of days in Dublin. I’ve never been to Ireland before and I had a marvellous time, the wedding of my friends Dawn and Martin at Hope Castle was so lovely. And exhausting, but I suppose that is what Irish weddings are supposed to be – I certainly felt it on Sunday that I had been to a wedding for 14 hours, till very early in the morning on Sunday.

It was also fun to see Dublin for the first time. We made a couple of trips to the Temple Bar area and got to hear some good Irish music accompanied with quite a few beers. We also went to see Dublinia, which is supposed to be a museum or exhibition from the Medieval and Viking Age Dublin, but we didn’t find it very interesting. There was nothing real there, everything was fake copies, and they looked quite cheap as well, and it seemed more to be directed at school children than adults.

Got back to Norway this afternoon and tomorrow I’m going to start editing book 4 of my Viking series. And I guess everyone who knows me have now got themselves a copy of this weeks Allers magazine and seen the article about me? If not, GO – BUY! And for all my English speaking friends, I will email it to you eventually when I’ve had the time to do the translation, so you’ll get to read it and see the photos as well.

And oh yeah, found out today that I got an E on my first exam, which kind of disappoints me a bit because I thought I’d done better, but really, it’s not that important so I’ll get over it! Just curious now how I did on the second one if the first one went this bad!

Now I’m off to bed. Five days in Ireland can be quite exhausting.

Learning Spanish

2008-05-26T08:52:00.001+02:00

I was, for some reason, not accepted into the undergraduate course in “Creative Writing” at the University of Tromsö. This was something I had planned to do as part of my “study plan” with the Defence, so I had to think of something else that I wanted to learn instead. Today I’ve enrolled in a Spanish course. When I spent 6 weeks in Gran Canaria last year I was a bit frustrated at not being able to speak the language (even though, yes, you will get very far with Norwegian/Swedish in Playa Del Ingles too) and I’ve been thinking ever since that this is something I might want to learn. So when I’m not writing on a new book this summer, I’ll be trying to get the hang of Spanish. I’ve always like learning new languages so I expect it to be fun.

This week how ever, I’m finishing an early draft of book number five in my series of novels from the Viking Age, and on Friday I’m heading off to Ireland for five days, for a wedding. I’m really looking forward to that.

I won – and finally it’s pretty much official

2008-05-26T08:40:00.002+02:00

For those of you who live in Norway and have the possibility, you should pick up an issue of this week’s Allers magazine and flip to the second to last page where they have information about what’s going to be in next week’s issue. There’s a photo that some of you might recognize and a text that translated roughly says:

Lena (37) quit her job: won novel writing competition in Allers.
Lena M Bakke cried when she was told that she had won Allers' big novel writing competition and the first prize of NOK 150 000. Now her series of novels about the Viking woman Borghildr Sigurdsdottir will be launched big in Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

And for my Norwegian friends I’m including the Norwegian version as well:

Lena (37) sa opp jobben: Vant romankonkurranse i Allers
Lena M Bakke gråt da hun fikk vite at hun hadde vunnet Allers' store romankonkurranse og premien på 150 000 kr. Nå skal hennes romanserie om vikingkvinnen Borghildr Sigurdsdottir lanseres bredt i Norge, Sverige og Danmark.

I just found out, you can also actually see that very page on Allers’ website as well if you go here.

This is why my spring has been so terribly busy, writing and exams. I’m now working on book number five, and I’m so happy to be finished with my exams so that I can focus fully on writing.

It’s a great life – you gotta love it!

I’m done

2008-05-20T14:47:00.000+02:00

I had my final exam (this spring) today and I’m thrilled to be done with it. I’m not sure how it went, I don’t think it went very good, but if I’m at risk to actually fail it, I couldn’t say. I don’t know how much they demand of your exam to pass, but I did sit the full four hours, and I feel like I’ve put enough on paper that it should bring me to a pass – but I wouldn’t be surprised if they fail me either. But, you know what; right now I could not care less. I have taken the exam and now I can’t do anything more about it than just wait for the results.

It’s quite a good day actually.

One down – one to go

2008-05-15T13:00:00.000+02:00

I had my first exam today: ”Norwegian Dialects”, and I actually think I did well. I would not be surprised if I got a C or maybe even a B on this one, and that certainly gives me a good feeling. No way have I failed it. So, now I’ll just have to do my best to delete everything I’ve been cramming onto my mental hard drive over the last few days for this exam, so that I can make room for the knowledge that I need to pass the exam on Tuesday: Norse language.

But right now, I’m actually going to sleep for a little while. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and getting up before 7 in the morning, that’s really not for me!

Trying very hard not to be studying…

2008-05-02T12:03:00.000+02:00

I’ve got my exams on the 15th and 20th of May, and I am still a bit behind on my reading, and I’ve got plenty of time to read these days, the only problem is that I’m SO fed up with reading right now – it seems I’m doing everything I can not to be studying. Right now for example I’m writing a blog post!

And my brain obviously tries to make the things I read more exciting than it really is. Yesterday I was reading about Norse Nouns, and there was a sentence that said: “Here accusative and dative are composed without an ending in the plural forms.” Then I looked at the paradigm, but there I could clearly see that dative plural did indeed have an ending, so I read the sentence again: “Here accusative and dative are composed without an ending in the plural forms.” Another look at the paradigm told me that yes, there was still an ending to the word in dative plural. I think I did this about 5 or 6 times, cursing the book and the world for making this more difficult than it ought to be by clearly having things printed that were just wrong. Then, the 7th time or something that I read the sentence it suddenly said: “Here accusative is composed without and ending in the plural form.” For some reason, every time I read the sentence my brain had been adding “and dative” to the sentence. I don’t know why my brain wanted to do this, just to screw with me I suppose and then see me despair when I couldn’t understand what was going on!! So, that’s me reading Norse these days, another 18 days to go.

On the 15th I’ve got my “Nordic oral languages” exam, I’m pretty confident that that’ll be ok. I still haven’t read everything I’m supposed to, but with a grasp on about 75% of the curriculum by now, I should be ok on the day of the exam.

I will be very happy though at 1300 on Tuesday the 20th of May when I’ve finished my last exam, this term. Next term I’m doing Nordic literature before 1900, and that’s got to be more intriguing than this.

So these are my days right now, and it seems I spend most of my time hoping for my email programme to give a sound that indicates there’s mail for me (and something from friends, not spam!) – or for my phone to ring or beep or something – anything, that’ll give me a break from studying.

And now I’ll go back to trying very hard not to be studying…

Dunes & Tunes

2008-04-28T15:28:00.001+02:00

And now my favourite pub also has its' own website:

Dunes & Tunes

Dawn Kelly, Richard Durrant and Stacey Fuller at the Airport Club

2008-04-13T11:10:00.002+02:00

My friend Dawn Kelly has put a video on YouTube where she's singing at Shoreham Airport Club together with Richard Durrant and Stacey Fuller. And I really enjoyed it - so I thought I'd share it with you all here on my blog:

Look what I found

2008-04-11T12:23:00.001+02:00

I have noticed that I have had quite few hits on my blog lately from people searching for ”Dunes & Tunes” ”Playa Del Ingles”, so I did the search myself to se what came up – and there he was – one of our favourite musicians from Dunes & Tunes, on YouTube now. Archie is such a great and entertaining singer, and it certainly brought back some great memories, and quite a bit of longing to be in that favourite Irish Bar on the Playa once again. Fortunately I’m now planning another trip, in November. But just thought I’d share this short video with you, and funnily enough it was made on my birthday this year as well.

And for those of you who happen to stop by my blog on your search for info about Dunes & Tunes – if you’re on Facebook, I’ve now created a group on there for those of us who are fans of this bar, so do come and join us.

Winter’s gone

2008-03-16T12:59:00.004+01:00

Or at least, that’s what I like to think. I was sitting outside in the sun for about an hour today. The wind still has a chill to it, but the sun was quite warm – and the birds were singing, and in another couple of days, if this weather keeps up, all the snow will be gone as well.

For some reason spring reminds me of being in England. Even though I sometimes did miss Norway, I loved every minute of being there, and looking back I think spring in England was particularly beautiful, and now I miss it. Fortunately I have serious plans to go back to England around the end of March – beginning of April, and hopefully spring there will be every bit as beautiful as I see it in my mind.

Other than that: I’m working on my studies. My exams are on 15 and 20 May, and that still seems quite a bit into the future – but previous experiences have taught me that those days will be here a lot sooner than I think. And I’m writing of course. I am working on the next books in my series from the Viking Age, and I’ve also been doing some creative thinking around one of my older novels “365 Days” and how I can make that better, and I’ve got some very good ideas on how to change it. I’ve also been thinking of another opening to my fantasy novel “Dreamland” as it seems that I can’t get that story down on paper till I find an opening that I’m truly happy with. As I don’t feel I’m really able to work on three very different novels at the same time, both “365 Days” and “Dreamland” will have to wait for now, but I do think about them a lot and make notes on how to write or improve them. I’m very happy with how my Viking series is coming along.

And here are a few of photos taken in “my” garden at the house I rented in Chichester last spring. I miss that cottage so much, and I almost can’t believe it, but these photos were actually taken in early February – and even now in mid March the gardens are nothing like this here in Norway. Makes me miss England even more!

What are the odds?

2008-02-24T09:40:00.002+01:00

My study plan for this spring semester was to do the next module in “Nordic languages and literature” with the University of Bergen, and to do the “State Authorized Translator Exam” from English to Norwegian. These are three exams in total, and of course… two of them fall on the same day in May. So, now I’ve had to change my plan and I won’t be doing the translator exam this spring, I will have to postpone that for another year. But, because of the redundancy package I’ve got from the Norwegian Defence, I have to find another course that will make up for missing out on this exam. Now I’m applying for an undergraduate course in “Creative Writing” held by the University of Tromsö. This is a one year full-time course that starts in June this year. Some of the course is arranged as a correspondence course, but I will also have to go to Tromsö one week during the autumn semester and one week during spring – and for another seven weekends through the year. It probably sounds a bit backward doing an undergraduate course in creative writing after having been to England and done the Master in this subject, but I think it will be useful. For one thing, doing a creative writing course always means that you’ve got deadlines that push you to write, and it will also give me a chance to attend lectures by Norwegian authors and meet with people from the Norwegian publishing world.

Today I’m hoping to finish the first draft of book number two in my Viking series.

Busy days

2008-02-13T13:23:00.000+01:00

I have just finished a first draft of book no three in my Viking series. The first draft of the first book was about 56 000 thousand words when I finished it, this one is about 61 000 words now. The redrafted and so far final version of the first book ended up at about 76 000 words – I still don’t know on which word count this book no three will end. I have ideas about where in the story I need to put in more details and perhaps more scenes, I have ideas how relationships and people that the reader needs to get more information about. I didn’t know this when I was in the process of writing the book because I didn’t really have all the details on where it was going to end. I now have a ending, I’m not sure if this will be the ending in the final version, but for now it does seem like a good ending – but there are things happening in this final chapters that really truly calls for more insight into the different characters to believe that they will actually do the things they end up doing. Very cryptic I know, but as this is a first draft, I’m not really willing to share much of the story with anyone yet.

As always, when I type that final word and realize that I’ve actually sort of finished a new whole book, I get a feeling of emptiness. For a couple of moments it’s as if I don’t really know what to do next. I have of course big plans on what I’m going to do next: write book number two, and I’m very excited about that. I feel that this book number three is a good one, I’ve kept my writing style and the voice from book number one and I’m so eager to get to the stage where I can get someone else to read it to see if they can confirm my suspicions that this is also just as exciting a story as book number one. The problem now is that I can’t really show it to anyone before book number two is ready, so… Now I’m going to write a first draft of book number two, I guess I’ll be starting a little later today. And whilst I’m writing that first draft of book number two I might also occasionally take a break from that to do a bit of redrafting in book number three. Should really be an interesting process.

Exciting and busy days indeed.

30 300 words and counting…

2008-02-05T19:29:00.000+01:00

Yes, you guessed it right, since Thursday afternoon I’ve written more than 31 000 words on my new novel. It is so strange how the words just poor out of me now that I’ve started, if there are not too many interruptions I should be able to finish the first draft of this novel by the end of the weekend. And then I can start the first draft of the next book: number two, I’ve even got a title for that one now “The Dream”. Might not end up being the title in the end, but I always find I work better with a story if I’ve got a title for it, I don’t know why.

It is exciting days indeed, and this to me is also a bit like reading a book for the first time. Yes, of course, when I start writing I have a pretty good idea about what’s going to happen and where the story is going – but then very often I find when writing it that new things come up, things I didn’t know about till the second I write them. That is what I truly love about writing, that it can really surprise you, even in the smallest details when you work your way through it. So far it’s the story itself that I’m getting down on paper. By that I mean that all the historic details will come later. When I wrote book number one I very often got lost in research every time something came up in the story that made me wonder how things were back then. I would immediately get on the internet or dig out some books and start reading and then stop writing for several days because I did research. It is important to do research of course, but I think that it’s more important to get the story itself down on paper first. Writing this book I now put something in red letters in the story when there’s something I’m wondering about, or if I’ve got a scene in my head of something happening that will need some more detailed knowledge of that time. When I’ve finished drafting this book and perhaps the next one, I’ll go back and spend some days doing all the research. The first draft of “The Battle” was 56 000 words, and the final draft that I entered into the competition was 76 000 words – so it goes without saying that a lot of things happens to a manuscript between the first and the final draft. But – I’ll say this; I didn’t really change the story itself that much on “The Battle”. I added a whole new chapter, and I added lots of historic details but I had no major changes in the story. It does feel like it’s the same thing with this book because the story feels so right when I write it. Let’s hope it is!

Nöjeskryssen - and studies...

2008-02-05T10:11:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I was off on a booze cruise called “Nöjeskryssen” that goes between Gothenburg and Kiel. It’s become kind of a tradition, even though I did not get to go last year because I was so busy with my studies. It was very good this year as well, lots of good bands playing – and especially a group called Arrival was great. They’re an ABBA tribute band and I must say the two female singers really do look and sound a lot like Agnetha and Anni-Frid. The concert started at 1 in the morning when we we’re coming back from Kiel and I really enjoyed it, but then I’m also a big ABBA fan so…

The day before I left for the cruise I also received my books for this semester’s correspondence course that I’m doing with the University of Bergen. Some of you might remember that I’m doing this two year course in “Nordic languages and literature”. This semester we’re doing two modules: “Oral language” and “Norse language”. I’m very excited about that second course; I’m actually going to learn Norse, the language of the Vikings. I think this will bring me ever closer to that time and age, and inspire me in my writing. I’ve also discovered this two week course: “From Runes to Script, Orality and Literacy in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia”, that runs at the university of Aarhus this summer. I’m considering applying, it looks very interesting, and I think everything I can do now that can put me in touch with that time in history will be very helpful when I keep writing my Viking stories.

I’m writing!

2008-02-01T11:47:00.000+01:00

I’m most definitely back in the game again. For a long time I’ve been thinking a lot about the next books in the Viking series, and I’ve pretty much in detail known a lot about how they’re going to be – I’ve just not really been doing any writing. But these last days I’ve been so inspired and now I’ve written about 5000 words on book number two that for now has the title: “The Hunt”. I was worried before I started writing that even though the story was very vivid in my head that I might not find the words to put on paper, but that has not been a problem. It’s just like when I wrote the first book, the story is so present and so clear in my mind, and the words just flows out of me. I would have written more than 5000 words in the last two days but I haven’t got enough time, there are other things going on in my life right now that gives me a lot of chores around the house and that certainly takes up quite a lot of my time – but that will change in just a couple of weeks.

And for those of you who are not writers and don’t really know how much 5000 words is, my first Viking novel “The Battle” ended up at aprox. 76 000 words – so that should give you a clue about how much work I’ve done on the second book so far.

Something strange has also happened: I’m not sure if the book I’m writing now is number two, I actually think it might be number three. Because whilst I’ve been writing those 5000 words, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the story – and earlier today I wrote a short synopsis for another book that I think fits perfectly in between “The Battle” and “The Hunt”. How is this possible you might ask, that I’m now writing book number 3 before book number 2? Oh, what can I say, I don’t really know, it’s all in my mind and I’m sure it’ll make sense some day. I hope to be able to keep writing about 5000 words a day in the weeks to come, which should make it possible for me to finish a first draft of “The Hunt” in about two to three weeks – and then I can write a first draft of book number two, before I go through and redraft them both. Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it?

I’m so happy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: writing truly is the best highs of all.

And now I’ll make lunch for my temporarily handicapped mother and then drive her to the physiotherapist. Later this afternoon I’ll keep writing on “The Hunt”.

One year older

2008-01-24T16:55:00.000+01:00

Today I’ve added another year to my age, let’s hope that this also means that I’m one year wiser, or at least better in some way, any way…?

Books

2008-01-16T14:35:00.000+01:00

I got some books for Christmas, and I’ve spent the last few weeks reading most of them. Now I thought I’d share what I think of them with you, just in case you might be looking for something to read and need some recommendations, or not…

For my English blog readers: the books are all Norwegian and I’m not sure if they’ve actually been published in English yet, so I guess this might not be very interesting for you.

Ingvar Ambjørnsen – En lang natt på jord
I have quite enjoyed Ambjørnsen in the past, and I was looking forward to reading one of his books again, BUT I was disappointed in this one. I just did not get it. It’s about this character who is clearly a bit disturbed, and I have the impression he thinks that the people around him admire him a lot more than the probably do. He is old, and troubled by the fact that he is no longer as famous as he used to be. I did not like the way this story was written, in parts the sentences were way to long, and it made me lose where I was in the chapter and several times I had to go back to understand what was going on. Some books are worth the trouble of being really hard and difficult to read, I’m afraid this is not one of those books. I considered giving up on it half way through, but remembered that I didn’t really care for Babylon Badlands (by Levi Henriksen) in the beginning either – but by the time I finished the book I really liked it. En lang natt på jord didn’t have that surprise towards the end that could’ve made me change my mind about it. I’m sure there are people out there who might enjoy this one, but I certainly would not recommend this book to most of my friends.

Johan Harstad – Buss Aldrin – Hvor ble det av deg i alt mylderet?
This book caught my attention almost from the first page. You’re just gripped by the main characters struggles and difficulties in handling the world around him. It is quite a thick book, and it is really hard to put it down once you’ve started reading. This one really gave me some late nights (I always read in bed before going to sleep at night) because I just could not stop reading. This book is also written with some fairly long sentences at times, but in this book that really works, and it just makes the story better. I will make one complaint against it though: the author should have taken a longer time, more pages, more words to end it. It seems like 90% of the book is pretty much spent during quite a short time and in one place, and then during the remaining 10% so much happens in so few pages that I feel that that brings the book down a little. I was a little disappointed in that, but all in all – GREAT book: go – buy – read!

Erlend Loe – Muleum
Erlend Loe is a very good author. I’ve read quite a few of his books before – and I enjoyed this one as well. It is very short, I read it in three hours or something, but it is a very well told story – and very entertaining. Though it is quite a tragic story at times, I’d still say that this is the kind of book you should pick up if you don’t want to be challenged too much, just relax and be entertained. This book will do that for you.

Jo Nesbø – Snømannen
Can’t really give you a full review of this one, as I’m only half way through it at the moment – but so far – loving it! I started reading it yesterday, and it took some hours off my sleep last night – and I suspect it will be doing that tonight as well. Will, let you know what I think of it when I’m finished.

And just yesterday I also went to the local book shop and picked up the trilogy about Arn, written by the Swedish writer Jan Guillou. This story starts in 1150, and even though my Viking story starts just before 800, I’m thinking there might be things to learn from how Guillou tells his story set in that time. I’ve read books by him before that I’ve enjoyed so I’m looking forward to reading these.

I survived New Year

2008-01-13T16:24:00.000+01:00

You might have thought that I partied so hard, or something, at New Year that I didn’t survive and that this is the reason why this place’s been so dead lately. Well, as you can see, I’m still alive and kickin’… hmmm, maybe not kickin’ that much these days, but you know what I mean.

I have been very busy. Two days before New Year my mum slipped on ice while getting the mail in the mailbox twenty metres from our front door, she fell, on her hip, the hip broke and she had to spend the next five days in the hospital. She’s been home for about 1 ½ weeks now, but she’s not very mobile. Since I live in a basement flat in the same house as them, this means that I now have a lot of more stuff to do around the house than I normally do, since I’ve taken up her chores as well. My dad is also not on top form, since he slipped on some ice at his work place about six weeks ago and broke three ribs in his back. Those of you who know me also knows that I’m not so much housewife material, but I do the best I can in making sure that my parents get through this alright.

But all this means that my energy levels are very low these days. I’m doing a bit of writing, but not much – and I’m waiting for my correspondence studies to start again. I’ve know that the exams are in March so I’m eager to get started and try not to fall as far behind on my reading this semester as I did last semester.

Other than that, I’m going on Nöjeskryssen 2008. It’s a booze cruise between Gothenburg and Kiel, in the period 27 January to 29 January. It’s a great party and I’m really looking forward to that.

From all of us to all of you...

2007-12-24T15:39:00.000+01:00

I want to take this opportunity to wish all my family and friends an exciting, yet peaceful and happy Christmas.

Here is a photo of our Christmas tree this year, with all the presents (and yes, I have checked, some of them are for me, so I must have done at least some things right this year!) underneath. I'm really looking forward to opening them later this evening, but first, Christmas dinner - which in my part of Norway is very traditional with pork ribs, pork sausages, pork meatballs, potatoes and sauerkraut.

Once again:

A very - merry - Christmas!!

Hallelujah

2007-12-18T14:59:00.000+01:00

Believe it or not: I passed my exam in Nordic languages! I got a B on my assignment that we had to do at home before the exam, which counted for 25% of the total grade, and a C on the actual exam – and my overall grade then ended up as a C (for my foreign readers: the Norwegian grading system goes from A to F, where A is the best grade and E is the lowest passing grade). As I’ve told you before, I wasn’t even sure that I would pass this exam so I am thrilled about getting the C.

I’m not so thrilled by the cold that I’ve got these days though, but hopefully it will be gone by Christmas Eve so that I can really enjoy Christmas dinner. And I’m almost finished with all the Christmas presents. And now with this exam being done successfully as well, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Why I hate Apple/iTunes…

2007-12-12T14:02:00.000+01:00

… and other fun pre-Christmas stories.

This is the story of an iPod, to be more specific, and iPod Classic 5th generation, black, 80 GB. I bought it this summer, early July, at my local electronics store at Flisa, it cost me about NOK 2800. I had had it for about 1 month the first time it “hung”, this happened when I tried to recharge it, suddenly nothing at all would happen. I tried all only tips to reset it, but nothing work, I could do nothing else than just wait for it to be empty of power. When I turned it back on, it worked again. As all people who use these electronic devices like iPods and computers and so on will know, these things happen, and we move on. A month later, the same thing happened again, but when it was empty of power I could turn it on and it worked fine. Then I brought it with me to Gran Canaria. Two weeks into my holiday, the battery stopped working. I could still use it when it was hooked up to the power charger, but without it the battery went flat in about 15 minutes. By the time I got back to Norway THAT didn’t even work, the thing was dead.
The day after I got back to Norway I went to my local electronics store and explained the problem. The guy was really sorry, but he could do nothing else than give me a phone number to call. They had in the past taken the iPods that customers returned to them and sent them to Apple Norway, but they had only been returned to the store with the message “hands off, you’ve got nothing to do with this. Return broken products to customers and have them call us.”
So I called Apple Norway. And met a very young man who tried to be funny by saying that I should just throw the iPod away if it didn’t work. I wasn’t really in the mood for that kind of amusement I explained to him. Then I had to talk with him for another 20 minutes (during this time he actually tried to sell me a Mac laptop, where upon I asked him “I’m calling you about a product of yours that’s not working, and now you try to sell me a new product of yours. Really sure you want to get into this discussion?” He agreed that this probably wasn’t the right time to try and sell me something new) while he made me try different things with the iPod, all things that I had already tried which I explained to him, but he would not listen when I tried to explain that nothing would work simply because the iPod was dead.
Finally he got it! Then he said that this was no problem, he would just arrange it so that I could hand the iPod in at the closest repair shop. I had already checked online to see where this was, it’s in Oslo. So I told the young man, that’s not going to happen. I bought this thing at my local store, I’m not getting into the car driving for 2 hours, one way!!, to hand this in at your “closest” repair store, you’ll have to figure out another way to fix this. Then he told me to wait and was gone for about 5 minutes. When he got back on the line he once again told me, no problem, now UPS was going to come to my door with a box in which I was to put the iPod and then they would return it to Apple for me.
Five – 5 – days later I received a box in the regular mail from UPS, I put the iPod in the box and called UPS. Another five – 5 – days before they finally came to pick it up. Then another 2 weeks before the thing was returned, by regular mail, to me.
I hooked it up to the computer yesterday, and it worked fine. I got all my songs and movies transferred into it, and I even used it for a little while just to check that it was ok.

Today I’m going to Oslo, that means sitting quite a few hours on the bus, so I thought, I’d better make sure the iPod is fully charged before I leave. I hooked it up to my computer, 2 hours later, it’s still “hanging”, all it says is do not disconnect, which I of course by now how done, because I have to leave in 20 minutes and then I’m turning the computer off anyway. So the damned thing is still not working. This probably means that when I get back from Oslo I will have to spend another 20 minutes on the phone with some guy from Apple who has no idea about what he is doing – and oh yeah, the really excellent thing is that these calls cost a fortune as well, the last one cost me NOK 180!!
I hate – I HATE – Apple/iTunes and this truly is the last time I’m buying any of their products! I am now wondering if it would be possible to have the fucking thing returned completely and get my money back so that I can buy some other kind of music player that will actually work!?

Fortunately when getting on the bus today, I do have a new laptop that I bought two months ago, a small one, a very good laptop that’s worked perfectly since the day I bought it. As a replacement for small music player of course it’s not ideal, but at least it will entertain me whilst I’m on the bus and make sure that I don’t spend those hours just getting more and more angry about Apple and their lousy products!

Puerto de Mogan

2007-12-06T15:30:00.000+01:00

I'm so enjoying my Christmas holiday now, not doing anything useful at all really. I have booked a flight to England on the 3rd of January, and I'll be staying over there for 12 days - I really look forward to that. Right now it's just good to be home and relax.

I said in an earlier post on this blog that I would write some more about my stay in Gran Canaria eventually.

One of the things we did that I quite enjoyed was getting on the bus and going to Puerto de Mogan. It is a quite small town on the south west coast of Gran Canaria. We walked around there for a couple of hours and had lunch at a good Irish restaurant.

Excitingly enough there was a huge fire in one of the buildings at the harbour that day, so I got some photos of that.

We also managed to climb about a 1000 steps to this view point above the city, the climb up was hard, but getting down was actually even tougher as most of the steps were slightly tilted forward so it put a lot of strain on the legs, I almost kneeled when we finally got down - but it was worth it. Anyway, as you can see, here are some of the photos that I took on that trip.

Winter

2007-11-29T18:37:00.000+01:00

Beautiful, isn't it?

Bærtur

2007-11-29T18:34:00.000+01:00

I’m sorry I haven’t been able to post anything on this blog for quite a while. It seemed I actually managed to get so fed up with Gran Canaria before I got out of there, that I got myself a tiny little depression that it took me a couple of days after I got back home to shake off. It didn’t exactly help that I knew I had an exam coming in only 6 days when I set foot on Norwegian ground again last Wednesday, and exam I hardly had been able to study for because I was simply just fed up with absolutely everything when I was still on that island.

Now however, since I came out from the exam on Tuesday my mood has been improving a lot. Did the exam go well you probably wonder, oh, well, let’s put it this way…

In Norwegian we have an expression that translated into English would say something like “Someone is on a trip looking for berries”, there’s a word for this in Norwegian called “Bærtur”, which directly translated bær = berries, tur = trip. If someone is on a “bærtur” it means they have no idea what they’re talking about or what they’re doing. I’ll use this expression to explain how my exam went:
I wasn’t exactly on a “bærtur”, but I was standing on the edge of the forest, intensely studying the red and blue berries and seriously considering bending down to pick some. That I think pretty accurately describes how my exam went. The results will be ready in week 51; I’ll try not to spend too much time thinking about it till then.

So with my exam done and my MA dissertation finished I guessed I’m really on a little Christmas break now – and today it’s been snowing almost all day long, and I love every bit of it. It was just so right for me to leave Gran Canaria behind when I was as miserable as I was – and now I’m just really looking forward to the Christmas party on the 13th of December when I get to meet lots of friends that I haven’t seen for quite a while – I’m sure it’ll be great, it usually is.

I’ll be writing a bit more about Gran Canaria eventually, but I need some more distance before I get around to that.

I´m going home

2007-11-13T22:26:00.000+01:00

You´ve probably already guessed what my decision today ended up being - I´m going home. Not immediately but a lot earlier than 5th of December - I´ll be heading home to Norway next Wednesday on the 21st. And so far I´m very happy with my decision, let´s home it stays that way. It ended up costing me a little bit more than I expected, but once my decision was made - I just could not change it. I´m really looking forward to going home now, and will do my best to enjoy my final week here. 6 weeks is more than enough for me!

Cutting it short – or am I?

2007-11-13T16:49:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow it´s 5 weeks since we came to Gran Canaria, and most of my enthusiasm for this place is now gone.

I don´t really know what kind of expectations I had before I came here, but whatever they were, it really doesn´t feel as if they´ve been met. I guess for some people, living here is just not right – strange as that may seem.

The truth is, I´m so bored with this place now it feels as if I don´t get away soon I might lose my will to live! No, it´s not that bad, but it does feel like this place just sucks all of my energy out of me.

The sun has been shining since we came here 5 weeks ago, the temperature is fairly steady around 25 – 30 degrees every day. I know this might sound like heaven to some of my friends in Norway, England and Germany now that are experiencing anything but sun. To me, it´s just boring. Coming from a climate with lots of changes in weather, I´ve learnt to appreciate that. Now I long for a really cold evening when I can be inside, in front of a nice fire. Christmas is only about 6 weeks away and normally I would start looking forward to it and shopping for presents. In this weather I just can´t find the right spirit.

And there really isn´t that much to do here. During the day, sure, you can go on trips around the island and to the other islands – but in the evenings, all people do is hang out in bars, restaurants and clubs. There´s just so much a partying a person can do before even that loses its charm. I really long for the time when I will be looking forward to a party again.

I miss my friends and family almost desperately. When I was in England last year I was sometimes homesick too, but at least I had a purpose for being there, and here, I just don´t see the point anymore.

And by now I´m sure you´re all saying: stop whining and do something about it! And I probably will. This semester I´m doing a correspondence course in Nordic langauge and literature through the university of Bergen, and I applied to be allowed to have my exam at the Norwegian school here in Gran Canaria on the 27th of November. Today I´ve been in contact with the university and been told that I can move my exam to Bergen if I want to. There are flghts back to Norway that I can get on as early as Friday and it really would not cost me that much to change my ticket.

So – I can go home – if I want to. And I do want to go home – but at the same time I´m afraid that if I do – that I´ll regret it. It seems as if I do decide to go home earlier than planned, that I´m giving up – that´m a quitter, and I´m not that kind of person. But right now, if I do decide to leave soon, I don´t know what it is that I am quitting: a life and party? But I should not feel bad for quitting that – should I?

Even though I don´t want to be here any longer, it still is hard making the actual decision about leaving too. I will have to make the deciscion very soon though, because if I want to leave I´ll hae to change my flight – and make the neccessary arrangements to have my exam in Bergen.

And, oh, yeah, those of you who read this and know the friend that I´m down here with: she´s having a fabolous time and is now looking for a job here so she can move here permanently. And I´m really happy for her, just as she understands that this life is not for me. We are still the best of friends even though we are very different people.

I will let you know shortly what my decision is.

Novel Competition

2007-10-30T14:20:00.000+01:00

I have managed to do quite a bit of writing since I came to Gran Canaria. I've added another 20 000 words (about 50 pages) to my Viking novel "The Battle", and I've finished a quite detailed synopsis of book no 2, 3 and 4 in the Viking series, and a synopsis of books 5 - 12. And today I've sent it all to the publisher for the competition that has a deadline on 1st of November. The winner will be announced in January so I guess all we can do is wait. As always, it is a bit scary to have sent it off - I always feel that there is something more that I should have been doing with it. But honestly, I am actually quite happy with it so far. There might be further edits in the future, but for now I think it is quite a good story.

3 weeks of 8

2007-10-30T14:10:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow 3 of our 8 weeks in Gran Canaria will be over. I simply can not believe how fast the time has passed. We did spend far too much time hunting for a place to live. When we came down here we had booked a hotel room for the first 2 weeks thinking that finding a place to stay for the remaining 6 weeks would be no problem at all. The problem really isn't finding a place to live, the problem is how much you're willing to pay for that appartment or bungalow. We thought that as we were down here for such a long time (it seems that way to us) we would be so called long term renters, but no. You have to stay here for at least 6 months to be considered a long term renter, anything shorter than that and what people are offering you are places at vacation rates, which is quite expensive. We had to prolong our stay in the Montemar hotel with another 2 days before we finally found a bungalow in Maspalomas, just down the hill from Playa Del Ingles. And it's such a nice bungalow too. Very private, and with a large terrasse where we tend to spend a lot of time. I've included a couple of photos in this post of the terrasse so you can all get and idea of how nice it is and get really envious!!!

The challenge of living in a bungalow of course is the local animal life, and by that I especially mean cockroaches. There aren't that many of them, and we hardly ever see them during the day, but they do come out at night - and we don't really care that much for those kind of creatures. We do our best to keep them on the outside of the bungalow though, we have placed traps for them all over the bungalow - and so far two have entered the house and been killed by them. We've been having a strange and creepy experience over the last couple of days though: there's something wrong with the toilet, it suddenly, since yesterday morning, doesn't flush properly - it floods the bathroom floor and then run out of water - and these quite large cockroaches will come through the pipes into the toilet. Only two of them so far, but can you just imagine how creepy that is, cockroaches, very much alive ones, coming through the toilet!!! We spoke with one of the neighbour women and apparantly she's experienced this as well.

We have been promised that someone will come and fix the toilet today, and hopefully that means today, because yesterday we were told Mañana - which the dictionary says means tomorrow. What I have learnt since comming here two weeks ago though is that what Mañana really means is any other day than today. It might mean tomorrow, but it might also mean some time during the next week, or what ever...So hopefully today, and while we're waiting we're using the public toilet by the pool which isn't that bad but still, would be nice to have a fully funcioning one of our own.

As we have spent so much time hunting for a place to live there really haven't been time to many other things. We have of course spent probably too much time in the Dunes & Tunes Irish bar on the beach (about 10 night so far), we have rented some movies and a series called "Carnivale" from a local dvd store called Jags. We have been to Arguineguin a couple of times for some neccessary purchases, they have a couple of nice stores there for buying things for the house. I still have done no sunbathing what so ever, but my face and and arms have quite a nice tan from all the walking around we've been doing. I hope that now that we're settling into this bungalow that I might actually find at least some time for some sun bathing, but I've never been very keen on spending a lot of time doing that anyway. Tomorrow we're going to the market in San Fernando. I've heard that there's supposed to be a used book stall there and hopefully there is because I brought 3 books with me here, and I finished them all last week so now I really need something new to read.

What do I miss now that I'm here? Not much. I do miss friends and family in Norway, but I got used to that living in England too. I must admit I do miss having TV channels that I can actually understand. We have about 10 TV channels here in the bungalow, all in Spanish - and my Spanish vocabulary that might have increased to about 30 words so far just doesn't make TV watching in Spanish very exciting. I am trying to learn some new words though, but I have a hard time remembering that left is izquierdo and right is derecho - I am however able to remember that further is otro! And why do I try to learn these particular words? Because it turns out that the bungalow complex we live in isn't that well known with the taxi drivers, but they do all know where Holiday World is, which is just down the street - and then it is very helpful to be able to tell them further and left or right. Living in England was so great because I speak English very well, so I never had any problems with the language - here in Spain I get ever so frustrated because I can't speak the language. I am planning on trying to take some langauge lessons now that we have finally found a place to live and are settled in. It would be great to be able to put some sentences together, and to understand more of what people are saying around me.

So, that's pretty much it really for our first 3 weeks in Gran Canaria, mainly it's been great, and I'm really happy to be here. And I will try to get another post on this blog before another 3 weeks is gone!!!

I’m off for two months

2007-10-09T16:48:00.000+02:00

You’re probably very used to by now that the activity on this blog isn’t very high. I guess I haven’t had that much to blog about. This afternoon I’m going to Oslo airport to stay at a hotel there, and very early tomorrow morning I’m flying to Gran Canaria for two months.

I’m looking forward to that, and as always also a bit worried. I have been there so many times I know the place good enough to know that I really like it there, but at the same time, it is two months, that is a bit scary too. But it will most certainly broaden my horizon and perhaps give me new things to write about, here in my blog and otherwise.

I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to blog when I’m there. I am bringing my new cute 12” laptop, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to go online. Hopefully it won’t be that difficult to find internet access so that I get to tell you if not all about it, at least some of what’s going on.

Here’s a photo from my last trip to Gran Canaria, sure looks nice, doesn’t it?

Scary

2007-09-23T23:27:00.000+02:00

A couple of minutes ago I pushed the send button on an email containing my MA dissertation – this email was addressed to the binder. Yes, I’ve finished my dissertation, and I think I’m quite happy with it too. I’m convinced that the creative piece, which is a piece of my novel The Battle, is a good one – and I’ve spent lots of time working on my commentary so I am quite confident in that as well. The binder will have the job done in about a week, and when I get it back I’ll send it to the university.

And now I can focus all of my energy on my Nordic language and literature course, and polishing my Viking novel for the competition deadline on the 1st of November.

Exciting days indeed – and I’m also eagerly waiting for the 10th of October to arrive. Then I’m flying to Gran Canaria with a friend and we’re staying there for 2 months. A bit crazy, I know, but still, when I’ve got the opportunity to do this, why shouldn’t I. What I will be doing this autumn is working on my writing and taking this Nordic course, and I might as well do it somewhere warm and sunny, yes? I am actually also going to be taking my exam in this course in Gran Canaria, on the 27th of November, at the Norwegian school. That should make this whole exam-thing a bit more exotic!

So fu****

2007-09-16T01:09:00.000+02:00

I can’t believe how fu**** I am after having started on this course in Nordic language and literature this autumn. At some point I gathered that it would be a good choice to do this course, I mean, being an aspiring author and all… I thought that studying Nordic literature would be a good idea simply because, well, I’m not very good at doing so on my own. But if someone were to force me, through a course or something, to read Nordic literature, you know, that would be helpful.
So, what I’ve discovered now is that I’ll have a 4 hour written exam on the 27th of November. That’s fine, even though it’s been a couple of years since I last had a written exam. The problem is that this written exam is to be in “Nynorsk”. Everyone in Norway will know that this means trouble, for a person who’s grown up with “Bokmål”. For those foreigners out there; at some point, somewhere in the 1800s, there was a huge debate on what should be the official Norwegian language. At that time the two big options was a Norwegian based on Danish, called “Bokmål” – the other option was a Norwegian based on the Norwegian dialects called “Nynorsk”. Most Norwegians today are taught “Bokmål” in school, but still there is this “funny” rule, that says that everyone has to learn both types of Norwegian. So, when I was still in school, I was taught “Nynorsk”, but I have not read or written anything in it in the last 17 years. And now, in just 2 months, I’ll have to do an exam in it. As if this subject wasn’t tough enough to begin with.

Somehow I’ll have to get through this, but right now, all I can think is that I’m just so fu****, and not in a good way…

In Celebration with Orlando Bloom

2007-09-10T19:27:00.000+02:00

On Friday the 31st of August I went to London and saw the play “In Celebration” at the Duke of York’s theatre. For those of you who are new to my blog, I’ll tell you that one of the actors in this play was Orlando Bloom – those of you who read this regularly should already pretty much be aware of this!!

And now I have to write a review, and since I am a huge Orlando fan this is a bit hard – but if I am to say anything about this play, I have to be honest.

The play itself was excellent, really worth while seeing. It’s set in 1969 in one of the mining cities in northern England. A couple is celebrating there 40th anniversary, and in connection with this their 3 sons Steven, Colin and Andrew are coming home for a visit. Steven is the younger, I’d guess in his late 30s, Colin is 2 years older and Andrew is 5 years older. At the beginning everything seems quite nice, we get the impression the sons don’t visit that often, but still everything is nice – and then, at the night of the anniversary, when everyone’s had a bit to drink the skeletons start to fall out of the closet. There was this older brother who died when he was 7 and Andrew was 5. And the mother may or may not have had to marry the father because she got pregnant at 16 – and oh well, I guess all of you know how these stories go.

Tim Healy plays the father, Mr Shaw and he is really very good in this role. Paul Hilton plays Andrew and I must say he is excellent. Most of the other actors do a great job as well, except for… you guessed it, Orlando Bloom.

The character Steven is the youngest of 3 brothers. We learn that he is married and has 4 children, he works as a school teacher. For a long time he’s been working on a book but he’s now given up on this. He really is a very quiet and awkward character, and we understand that he too has a lot of emotional struggles concerning his parents, and especially his mother – but unlike his oldest brother, Andrew, he chooses not to speak about it. So, through the play Orland is on stage quite a lot, he just doesn’t speak much. He keeps walking from one end of the stage to the other, twisting his face a lot, and answering questions with “ay” or “no”. And he is really not a very convincing character. It could be the role of course, but I have to admit, after having seen him in this I’m wondering about his qualities as an actor.

Oh well, you say, you weren’t there to see him act anyway, you were there to stare at his handsome face and body. But here's the thing, he wasn’t really handsome in this play either. His hair was kind of very black and strange, almost looked a bit oily, I guess in the style of that time, and he had the most dreadful moustache. The clothes they’d put on him looked like they were a size to big – and honestly the way he was dressed and the way he looked, for some reason he reminded me of some of the characters out of Monty Python and I kept waiting for him to say something funny. He never did!

I don’t really know why Orlando would want to be in this play in the first place. The role isn’t that big, even though he gets a lot of stage time, but so few lines, and it’s a very awkward role that is a bit in the background of the “big events” with the father and the oldest brother. I’m not sure this was the best of choices for Orlando, when he was going to do his stage debut. This spring I saw Daniel Radcliffe in Equus, and I was so amazed with this young actor and what an excellent theatre actor he turned out to be. So sad I can’t say the same for Orlando after having watched him in this.

I’m still happy I went to see it though, it was a good experience getting to see Orlando live, and I’m still a fan. I just have to realize that he’s only human and not everything he does will be up to the Pirates or Lord of the Rings standard.

And the play in itself was, as I mentioned, very good!

A cold from England

2007-09-10T18:49:00.000+02:00

You’ve probably all been curious about my trip to England last week. I meant to write something about it as soon as I got back, but unfortunately I managed to pick up a cold while I was there, and 14 hours travelling to get home last Tuesday didn’t really do miracles for that cold – so from Wednesday I was pretty much knocked out through the weekend. Feelin’ a bit better now, but still not fully recuperated.

England was excellent. So great meeting my friends again, and one day we made a trip to Arundel Castle. I always wanted to see this castle when I lived in Chichester, because it’s not that far from Chichester really, but never got to do that until now. I can’t help but loving these old things, and this castle really is in a very good shape. Really an inspiring place. I’ve posted some of the photos I took here in this blog.

I did of course also go to London to see “In Celebration” with Orlando Bloom – I’ll review that in another blog post.

So, now I’m back home, working on my MA dissertation and my “Nordic literature and languages” course, and writing on my Viking novel – and looking for a place to stay in Gran Canaria for 2 months (from October). Quite a busy life.

Not dead

2007-08-27T20:06:00.000+02:00

You might have been thinking that I’ve gone and died on you all, but not so much. I just haven’t felt like writing anything here. Every time I’ve sat down and thought about blogging my mind’s gone blank. And I don’t think it’s because there’s not anything going on in my life these days, because there is. I’m actually going to England on Wednesday, for a week – and to see the play “In Celebration” in London on Friday. Yes, that’s the play with Orlando Bloom in it – I’m really looking forward to that.

Other things going on in my life:

I decided to postpone the final dissertation for the MA till December (we can choose if we want to hand it in in August or December) since I still haven’t got my assessments back from the university. Apparently they’d been sent to my English address, even though I had given them my Norwegian one, and then returned to the university. They are probably on their way to me here in Norway now.

I am thinking a lot about changes I want to do with my Viking story before sending it to the next novel competition, but still haven’t got any actual writing done. This isn’t new when it comes to me and writing though. Before I wrote the first draft of the novel, I thought about it for almost a month before putting pen to paper, so I always do a lot of thinking about how I want things to be before I get down to putting words on paper.

It seems likely that I will be travelling to Gran Canaria again on the 10th of October, to stay for two months this time, till the 5th of December. I’m not 100% sure that this is happening yet, so I’ll tell you more about it when I know more about it myself.

And that’s pretty much it.

That’s that then: result from the novel competition

2007-08-04T11:42:00.000+02:00

I got a letter from Schibsted publisher today saying:

We have now found our winner of the novel competition.
Unfortunately your manuscript wasn’t the winner.
We thank you for letting us read it and wish you the best of luck.

So that’s that then, I didn’t win.

Yes, I am disappointed, not so much that I didn’t win – but I have to admit, I thought this might at least be a manuscript that they would’ve wanted to publish outside the competition. But this is also part of being a writer; no one has ever said it was going to be easy. So, I’ll just have to keep writing and sending things off to the publishers when I feel it is good enough.

Now I’ll have to keep working on this manuscript and edit the things I didn’t have time to edit before I sent it off to this competition. After all, there is another, quite similar competition, with another publisher, that has a deadline on the 1st of November, only in that competition the prize is bigger and you get the chance to be published in all of the Nordic countries. I guess that’s what I’ll be doing next with this manuscript, because I still think I’ve got a good story and that it is good enough to be published.

More waiting

2007-08-03T11:51:00.000+02:00

I’m back from my holiday in Herning – Denmark and Waren – Germany. It was a nice holiday even though the weather was bad and sometimes even horrible. The three days we stayed by the Müritz lake we froze a lot. The ice wind blowing in from the lake (the biggest lake in Germany) was so cold it felt like being on a mountain top in mid winter. We did stay at a very nice apartment though; Haus Kim. We rented a suite with 2 bedrooms, two bathrooms and a total of 115 sqm, and the price was only 145 Euro a day for the whole flat. It was a great place, and if you’re ever going to Waren I’d really recommend staying with Haus Kim.

We made it back to Norway on Wednesday night after having driven the 1200 km from Waren and back home in 16 hours. It was quite a long ride, but it was good to get back home. We didn’t really feel like stopping the night anywhere and delaying our arrival home with one day. I was very tired yesterday even though I’d spent the whole of the day before sitting in a car.

And now I’m doing some more waiting…

I still haven’t heard anything from the publisher even though their letter, which I got in the beginning of June, said that they would make a decision in July. And I still haven’t received my two last assessments from the university, which I could really need to do the final work on my MA dissertation.

Waiting and working

2007-07-24T20:43:00.000+02:00

I think I’m pretty close to finishing the piece for my final dissertation for the MA Creative Writing. I’ve got 16388 words from my novel “The Battle” - but as the piece should only be 16000 words I have a decision to make about cutting at the start or at the end of this piece to make it fit the demands.
My commentary is so far 3000 words long, it needs to be 4000 words. I have an idea about what I want to write, I just need to do some more thinking about how to write it. I find that quite often this is very much part of the creative writing process: sitting in a chair thinking about how to write something, lying in bed thinking about how to write something, using the equipment at the local gym thinking about how to write something, driving a car thinking about how to write something… I had hoped that I would’ve finished my commentary by the time I go on another one week vacation on Thursday, but now that doesn’t seem likely.
I am still waiting for my two assessments to be returned from the university, the two assessments I did in connection with the modules this spring. I have been informed that the assessments have been marked and that they’re sent back to me on Monday the 2nd of July, but I still haven’t received them. I’m not comfortable completely finishing my dissertation before I see what the tutors who have marked my assessments have to say about my work – so I’m waiting for the assessments to arrive, but after 3 weeks I fear that they might have got lost in the mail.

Another thing I’m of course waiting for, but trying not to think about that much, is the result from the novel competition I entered this spring. The publisher said in their letter that the result would be announced during July, and there really aren’t that many days left of July now.

I stopped by a book store today and bought “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. I can hardly wait to read it, but as I need to focus on my dissertation until I leave for my vacation, I’ve decided that this book will be my vacation reading – which means that on day two of my vacation I’m out of books to read! All the other Harry Potter books I’ve read through in one “sitting”, usually 4 – 5 hours, and I don’t expect this will be any different.

Busy days

2007-07-11T19:00:00.000+02:00

Last weekend we had our annual camping trip, called Bættel, in the forest of Finnskogen. It was as always great. We had a fabulous time, but too little sleep and perhaps a bit too much alcohol made sure that I was really tired on Sunday evening and Monday. Then on Tuesday already I had to get up really early in the morning (and what signifies as ‘really early’ in my universe these days is half past 7 in the morning!!) and go to Oslo, because me and my friend Dorthe had tickets for that evening’s big concert with Metallica.

Before going to the concert we had decided to go see “Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s end”. For those of you reading my notes regularly will remember that I saw this movie about 3 weeks ago, but I enjoyed it so much I was quite happy to see it again since Dorthe hadn’t seen it. And guess what, it was still excellent!

So, in the evening, Metallica. What can I say but magnificent. 40 000 people. The Gods of weather decided not to drown us (as they have been trying to do with most parts of Southern Norway for the last week) – and the guys on stage, they really know how to play good music and put on a great show! I really truly enjoyed this.

Today I got up at the hotel around 9, left around 10 and then went out to the Viking ship museum on Bygdøy. I spent almost two hours there with my notebook, studying the ships and the artefacts that were found with the ships. I’ve been planning to do this research for quite a while, as this is something I really needed to do for my Viking stories. I was tired, but it was still very inspiring and interesting to see these things for real. I also picked up a couple of books about Vikings.

And now I’m back home for a couple of days. On Monday I’m leaving for a 6 day trip that will among other things bring me to the area around the Trondheims fjord. This is also something I have to do as research for my Viking stories. I have never really visited that part of Norway, and as my Viking story “The Battle” is set at Steinkjer and Ørland, both places by the Trondheims fjord, I’ve really felt the need to go there and see the area with my own eyes. So I’m really looking forward to that.

The troublesome thing is that I’m running out of time to write my final dissertation for the MA. Don’t worry, I will get it done in time, but still, I don’t have as much time left as I would’ve liked to. I’m going on a long planned trip to Denmark and Germany from the 26th of July till the 1st of August. Originally this trip would’ve lasted till the 11th of August, but I’ve just had to cut it short to make sure that I get my dissertation done in time. Unfortunately this means that I won’t get to visit Untersteinach and Kulmbach this summer, which is something I’ve pretty much done every summer for the last, oh, fifteen years or so… Hopefully there will be time before next summer to go down there for a visit.

But my late summer/early autumn looks busy, and as if it wasn’t busy enough, on Tuesday I made it even more hectic. On the evening of Friday the 31st of August, I’ll be in London to see a play that’s recently been put on at the Duke of York’s theatre. The play’s called “In Celebration”, and in one of the leading roles we find… Orlando Bloom!! The play is only on from 5th of July till 15th of September, and I really just could not miss out on this opportunity to see Orlando Bloom live (oh well, with my typical luck he’ll probably be ill and out of the play on Friday the 31st of August, but let’s just keep our fingers crossed and hope not, yeah?). So, even though my autumn is already very busy, I just had to go to London to see this. I’m so excited about it; you can’t imagine how excited I am.

These are my days, and they’re most certainly busy, but it’s a good life, so I won’t complain.

I survived…

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

Solör Mart’n and I’m now plotting to find out how I’ll survive next weekend’s Bættel which usually is even a bit tougher than Mart’n.

For those who are unfamiliar with the terms used here:

Solör Mart’n: an annual fair from Thursday to Sunday on the last weekend of June at Flisa in Solör. All the shops have lots of sales, there are lots of booths in the street selling various things that you may or may not need – but most of all, it’s a huge party from Thursday evening till Sunday morning. The newspapers today report that possibly as many as 40 000 people visited the event during the 4 days it lasted this year, which is a new record. And considering that the county of Åsnes, where this is arranged, has about 8 500 people, and the two neighbouring counties, Våler and Grue, has a total of about 10 000 people – the visitor numbers are extreme. People come from far away to attend this event – and it’s, well, it’s just excellent. I’ve had lots of fun.

As for next weekend’s event, Bættel, this is of more private character but possibly even more fun than Mart’n. This is also an annual weekend event, where a bunch of us head into the forest of Finnskogen with tents, BBQs and plenty to drink from Friday to Sunday. Most of us have been friends for at least half a life time, but with our busy lives we don’t get to meet that often – but on this weekend as many as possible in our group of friends try to show up. This year I’m so far counting 18 who’ve said that they’ll come, and this is a new record. Usually about 10 – 12 will have said they will be coming before the event starts. Our record was 4 or 5 years ago when we at some point on Saturday night counted 17.

Still feeling a bit tired from Mart’n but sure I will have recovered by the time Bættel starts on Friday afternoon.

Autumn plans – for studies

2007-06-27T22:19:00.000+02:00

I received a letter from the University of Bergen today confirming that I have been accepted into the two year correspondence program “Nordic language and literature”, starting in September this year. So that’s what I’ll be doing when it comes to studying this autumn, and next spring, and next autumn, and the spring after that again… I think it will be interesting (I ought to, it’s my chose to study this topic) and very useful to me as a writer to get to know my literary heritage better than I do now. I fear though, that after having done the MA Creative Writing – nothing will ever be as exciting as that.