She raced past me on the street, wind in her hair, tears from her eyes. I was always the one passing people by, leaving them behind me, staying ahead. Now she catapulted herself past me, left me among the other cyclists, in some slow stew of people who appear to stand still. 'I've got a devils haircut in my mind', Beck sang in my ears but the only thing I saw in the morning commotion was my speed being reduced to sand by the tears of a speeding woman. The fleetingness of the specialties we carry around.
The rest of the story takes some of the drama away, the pilot did have a license before, but only for freight flights and it had expired years ago. But with the success of Stieg Larsson and other block-buster crime writers, such as Henning Mankell, Sweden is changing into a dark place with crime, grime and prostitution. Now we have illegal pilots flying around to emphasize that the picture of a freedom-loving liberated porn paradise that people thought Sweden was before no longer is true.
The time when Sweden was seen as a moralist tranquil nation of blond diplomats (its peak doubles being Carl Bildts involvement in the Dayton Agreement and the end end of the war in Bosnia) is slowly crumbling together with that IKEA lap you bought for your first student apartment. Maybe the Italian made shockumentary above saw this coming before the rest of us Swedes.
I myself can't wait to head out to Schiphol tomorrow evening for some flying.
Among the many fine Swedish authors I've read Bodil Malmsten stands out as one of the most important. This many people know. Bodil also has a blog(in Swedish), where she writes long and short things, sometimes fiction about a faimly of tejp, sometimes small sad observations of life, a life she used to live in France but now does in Sweden. She has humor, like when she linked to this article in The Guardian titled 'Ten rules for writing fiction'. Her only comment to this link, with numerous novels written? 'I've always wondered.'
The article lets authors give their advice on the writing process, and even though I am against rules in fiction writing there are some good things, like reading what you have read out loud or Magraret Atwood's suggestion of what to think about when writing on airplanes: 'Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.'
I finished a novel in Swedish this past week, and in the spur of the moment sent it out to some people who I trust. This was, according to Atawood a good plan as her number 8 rule is: 'You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.'
Anyway, read the article, its funny and even though I do not agree with many things I always find it interesting when authors discuss the writing process.
This is the second part of the questionnaire I answered about two weeks ago.
Do you own a pair of Converse? I did buy a bootleg pair in Bangkok at one point but I believe they broke. I need more comfort than Converese can bring my feed anyway.
Do you usually get too drunk? It happens, this I will not deny. I tend to blame the company I am in and my national origin.
Are you allergic to anything: Yes, cats, dust, kiwi (not sure anymore), lack of sleep.
Have you had sex today: No
Next goal in your life: Finish the book project that I have been working on for 1,5 years. And get a permanent job, of course.
How do you answer in your cell phone? ‘Yeah its Patrik.’ I don’t know why, and I do not think it sounds especially nice, but that is what I say. When one of my Italian contacts call I occasionally say ‘pronto’. And when someone in my family calls I sometime answer ‘Tjänsteutveckling I Karlstad AB’ which is the old name for my dad’s company.
Who did you last call? A person who will participate in a study I am conducting
What did the person you last spoke to say? No problem, I can help you with this.
Numbers of hours you slept last night? 8.
Did you sleep alone? Yes
Are you usually on time? Yes. It is indescribably frustrating because no one else (or very few) I know is.
When do you feel good? When I am in the sauna, when I have showered after working out, when I like what I write, when I read something I like, just after I have booked a trip I look forward to, after, during and before sex, when I have conversations that are good, when I hear a song for the first time and have to listen to it five times in a row.
When were you photographed last? A few weeks ago while working, I looked focused.
How do you feel right now? Tired, shoulders hurt, ears are warm and a headache is looming, but I’ve become totally consumed with answering these questions so can’t stop now.
Most common colour of your clothes? Blue
What do you think about feet? I have no problems with them. I don’t love them either. But they are good to have, in case you want to run, or walk.
What do you lack? Money, a plan, a bed, a comfortable office chair.
Did you have a good night last night? Not really, I had floorball practice and I was awful. Had to throw my stick in the wall at some point to release all the anger I had built up.
Favourite thing to drink in the morning? Tea or orange juice
Do you shave your legs? No
When do you usually go to bed? Between twelve and one.
Are you shy? No
Do you do any sports? Yes, I am quite the sporty character. I play floorball, jog, bike, snowboard and cross country ski. The latter two very sporadically since I live in a country without snow or mountains.
The CEO and founder of Airportline Inc. wanted to leave the internet and the world which was attached to it. 'My whole world is online!', he screamed one day in an empty café while finishing his third chai latté to the sound of his now upset stomach. He was a man in despair, so attached to his computer screen that his eyes could no longer focus on anything not digital. Even in the middle of the night while he was sleepwalking he found himself next to his laptop, hunching as if is was a cup of rice and he was a poor child in some African war zone.
His computer had become his altar, the tool which his life was lived through. 'This has to stop' he continued in the empty cafe, with only a black cat who was hunting mice acknowledging this somewhat unusual event. He rushed out from the cafe, out into the street where people lived without a computer in front of their eyes. They all looked depressed as they were pacing down the street in the spiky rain that fell. Like Forest Gump he began running through small town and villages where old men were reading newspapers. 'Why aren't you reading them for free online!' he yelled at them. Unfortunately for him they found the latest football scores more interesting than listening to a running CEO of a non-profit blog.
He kept on going although the worlds ears seemed deaf. Like a Duracell rabbit escaping the laptop which tormented him he cut thought the countryside like a knife cutting through a Christmas ham until he finally made it to the ocean. In a great salute to this man's quest the ocean bowed and drew itself back, showing its red carpet. Which happened to be brown and muddy. There he stood, with the wind blowing through every hole in his second hand jacked and starred out into the distance. A man finally free from his computer.
After a few minutes he returned to his everyday life and wrote a blog post about it. Unclear about the effect of his Forest Gump running he opened up an old newspaper which he had stolen from an old man which he passed by and read that the sea bows for anyone who walks there at the right time. This information pissed him off.
I know you're expecting words here, in this space, in this blog. Me too, I expect that they should just come out and put them self in order, make sentences that makes sense to you. Sentences that you can bring with you when you leave your computer and go out in that other world. That is why you come here, maybe. That is why I come here. I come here to read my own words. Sometimes they frustrate me, sometimes they anger me, sometimes they are misspelled or grammatically wrong.
In my head there is no grammar that is wrong, there are no spelling mistakes. Where do they come from? In that space between my mind and my fingers, why do they appear? I do not know and maybe that is the conflict that everyone that writes anything always have to struggle with, the words in your mind versus the words that you write. It would be convenient if my fingers that hammer these keys were completely controlled by my mind, it would even be something I would expect. But that cannot be true cause sometimes things come across as so much better in my head than on paper, or on a computer screen. Something is lost and I do not know where it is going.
Todays story and music tip is Melody Gardot. She got run over by a car, was advised to use music as a way to get back, and is now a ridiculously successful jazz singer. Read this and listen to this and you will see the beauty of life.
This Friday I watched a long interview in Swedish with, probably my favourite Swedish author, Jonas Hassen Khemiri. I understand that you not-Swedish people find his name as non-Swedish sounding as you are. But be calm, Sweden is no longer only a country of blond women with large breasts and white tennis players with hair bands. We also have writers that provoke and enhance the Swedish language with both creativity and bravery. Jonas Hassen Khemiri is maybe the best example of this trend, both his books Ett Öga Rött (One Eye Red in English) and Montecore – En Unik Tiger (Montecore in English) are both magnificent books which he has sold translation right to both the U.S and The Netherlands and Germany.
In this interview he claims that he sometimes is more concerned by fictional character than with real ones, and that he sometimes spends too much time with the fictional characters and not enough with real ones. I find this very interesting, a sort of productive escapism. And maybe it's something that is demanded from a great fiction writer, just as a business man needs to devote time to his work, so does a fiction writer with his/her characters. And maybe that's why I will never be as good as him, cause so far, I'm not willing to trade time with real people for time with my fictional character. Maybe I just need to come up with better characters, characters that I would like to spend time with...
