What makes us ourselves

We interpret things differently. This has become very clear to me the last months. First off, you need to know that I live in constant pain. Constant, as in all the time. 24/7. So when I say "I'm alright" I mean "no worse than usual" - which includes being in pain, feeling nauseous, muscle weakness and difficulty focusing. When I say "not doing so good" it's a worse, want-to-stab-myself-in-the-neck or can-I-die-soon pain.

People around me don't understand that. They see "alright" or "can't sleep" and they make comparisons to their own aches. And I want to slap them. Do they know how lucky they are? For one or a few days they're in pain and then they're not.

I turn bitter. I wonder what right they have to complain. And I react in a way seemingly violent, seemingly illogical and irrational.

And that's why your characters don't need to make sense - not to everyone else. As long as you know the reason behind their reactions, fine. Their personal problems and hang-ups make them themselves. It gives them personality and a life outside the pages. You might need to have them snap somewhere in the story or make a friend of theirs explain the situation to the main character. Or you can show these issues to the reader through internal 3rd person POV.

Or maybe you don't mention it at all. The world is full of people we will never understand. It only makes sense if your main character encounters a few of those too.

Damn you, Janet Evanovich

A few times in your life you need to stop and re-evaluate your self image. You might realise that maybe that career in law isn’t what you want, or that pink isn’t your colour. I know – right now you’re thinking “but where’s the writing? Is this another depressing IRL post?” Don’t panic. Writing stuff will ensue.

I had one big “waaait a moment” feeling around the time I turned twenty and realised I was gay. I had never seen myself as gay. I figured I was incredibly picky with men. I didn’t know how it was supposed to feel. It was a difficult realisation to have, especially as I had missed out on all those pretty high school girls.

The other big turn around was the other day when I picked up the books I had just bought and saw two more Janet Evanovich books. Suddenly I had to accept the fact that I gush all about them, that I can’t wait for the film to come out (One for the Money) and that I usually read them straight through in one day. I love them. They’re not the height of literature, a wonder in writing technique, full with deep thoughts or have a society-challenging plot. But they make me laugh. They make me want to buy a cookie jar. They even make me challenge my gayness because damn, that Joe Morelli is hot.

I’ve never seen myself as a romance/comedy/detective person. I’ve been into fantasy, science-fiction, high dramas. And you know what, I was wrong. I narrowed myself down and I have missed out for such a long time.

This is the reason you should never let anyone – least of all your own prejudice – put you in a box. When you read, try something new. When you write, try everything. Our hearts are better judges than our brains.

Who Sees?

Are you wondering which Point of View (POV) you are using? Then the chance is high you’re using 3^rd person limited – and you’re doing it wrong.

I’ve talked about POV before and this is a brief reminder. The question about point of view is simple – who is seeing the story unfold?

1^st person – Who sees? I do.

2^nd person – Who sees? A narrator sees what you do

3^rd person limited – Who sees? The main character/s/ does

3^rd person omniscient – Who sees? The narrator does

Most people think they’re doing 3^rd person omniscient – but they’re actually doing limited. Problem is that they’re doing it from everyone’s POV, at once. The rule is: Do not change POV within a scene. I know published authors do it, but I usually burn those books or feed them to the cat.

3^rd person omniscient is a separate narrator. It can be the main character, but it’s a main character who sees herself differently (for example when looking back in time).

Assignment – write a 200 word story in each POV. I’d love to see your results in the comment section. Let me know if you want me to correct them and I’ll do that too (if needed).

I didn't even get euphoria

In my last post, I said it was 8 hours until I was getting my ass on an early plane home from this great vacation I had planned. Things had already gone awry and I was sad and ill. Then my hunch proved true; my system crashed. If I hadn't decided to stay behind, I would have been in the middle of a national park, several days from the nearest city.

The first thing to go from bad to worse wasn’t due to me being ill but a technical error.

I had begun the day with little sleep and not able to eat (like the previous 4 days of travel and stay in Darwin). I waved my new friends goodbye – the worst part of going home was not to get to know them all better. I pack my bags, I get to the shuttle, I have a good time with the drivers, I arrive at the airport.

The lady at the check-in says I have to talk to the ticket office.

She probably sees the alarm in my eyes because she assures me the booking looks fine. I move over to the ticket office, still alarmed. With all right. The Swedish company I booked with had not managed to create a ticket, and it’s the middle of the night in Sweden. No help to find. I was not allowed on that flight. [Later on I learned that there was a technical error and the travel company repaid everything.]

I booked another ticket for the same day and remained stubbornly at the tiny airport despite the twelve hours until my flight.

Then things started to get ugly. I turn more nauseous, and also weak and shivering [later I learn they're convulsions, not shivers]. At this point I haven’t been sleeping or eating much for five days. The journey home will take more than 30 hours. I’m alone.

The airport staff try to help me but I start throwing up and I feel even more woozy and weak. They get an ambulance to pick me up to make sure I'm fit to travel. I’m taken to the hospital, I wait, a bitchy nurse examines me, I wait, and then a young female doctor looks me over. She says the best thing is for me to get home (definitely true), gives me some strong painkillers and anti-nausea pills.

By the way, have you ever noticed that ambulance people treat you like a person and everyone else at a hospital treats you as a patient? It’s a big difference.

The painkillers have effect by the time I get back to the airport – the first time in ages I haven’t felt in pain. Unfortunately the tremors are still there, and so is the nausea. I hold out for some five hours, checking my luggage in, going through security check, sitting waiting and all that. The convulsions are by this time constant. It’s like the restless thing when you put your toes against the floor and you leg starts bouncing up and down – but all over my body. Finally, with the backdrop of a spectacular thunderstorm that I hardly notice, I throw up as I attempt my second dose of painkillers.

It’s interesting how many people don’t notice that someone has thrown up all over themselves and are sitting bent over, quivering. Even when they walk right over the puddle on the carpet. And when guy next to me tries to get help, they said something about if I was at the airport, I was obviously well enough to fend for myself.

Finally one of the flight attendants take notice of my pathetic little self and gets me help. I think eight people were hovering above me at one point, getting info to find my luggage and my name to end my booking and my age for another ambulance.

This time it takes much longer at the hospital. It’s in the middle of the night, so I’m sure they’re understaffed and there are a lot of people in the waiting room. But after the nurse has taken a look at me, they leave me there, on the plastic chairs. The only time they notice me is when I’ve laid down on the floor, my whole body twitching, because I felt so faint I was afraid to fall down. The nurses tell me to get up on the chairs; one isn’t allowed on the floors.

There are lot of hurt and ill people passing through the emergency room in a hospital. I felt guilty for just being there, yet I'm sure they thought the same about me. Or maybe not. Apart from the twitching I might not have looked as lethally ill as I felt.

At some point I'm given a shot of some still unknown substance. I don’t know how long it takes before they find me a bed (a gurney in the corridor). Then I lay there, twitching. It’s very unrestful to twitch uncontrollably. It’s in fact really scary.

I think a total of six hours pass before the doctor talks to me. He’s a young, Asian guy with dreadlocks gathered in a ponytail. (I'm not kidding you)

I was not an easy patient. He said I had a panic attack, I didn’t believe him. At least not until he started explaining that he had had the same (maybe he lied, but it worked) and exactly what was going on in my body with the adrenalin going amok and how my brain didn’t need to be upset for a panic attack to happen. He refused to admit me to the hospital and gives me valium, which makes no difference. Another pill, stronger, takes effect and stops the convulsions. By this time I’m so heartily tired of hospitals and people not listening that I just obey when he says he doesn’t want me to stay in the hospital. I accept the sleeping pills and find the hostel where I had stayed earlier.

For the first time in some five odd days, I sleep. I get six hours. The following two days are tainted with the odd side effects of dizziness, sleepiness (odd, eh?) and general hungoverness. The euphoria, one of the uncommon side effects, didn't show up. And the pills affected the libido negatively. What's with these drugs that are no fun? No fair at all.

The first night (technically it's almost noon) is the only time the pills make me sleep, but those six hours are enough to get me through the 40 hour journey through Melbourne, Hong Kong and London.

I arrive in Sweden much earlier than I was supposed and much later than I would have liked. But I am home, and there isn’t a better place in the world.

Not always to plan

In March I booked a trip to Australia and New Zeeland, 8 months in advance. It was the kind of trip where you go by bus everywhere and you sleep in tents. I was supposed to be away, having a great time, for two months. Hence the sekkrit in my last blog post.

I lasted two days. Due to my illness, my body crashed. I don't know exactly why but probably a mix of humidity, heat, jet lag, and stress (because even if it's fun, travelling includes so much impressions it's also a kind of stress). I know myself, and I have promised to start listening to my body. I know I don't recover easily from how I feel now, and I can feel that this trip is simply going to overload my system. So in approximately 8 hours, I'll be on a plane back home.

I'm not going to tear myself apart over this. I see it as an experience - now I know I can't do long trips, neither in time or far away. It's something I had to learn by trying it. I don't want to give up on things in fear of what might happen, I want to try it and see. It just didn't turn out so good this time. Next time it might. Which is really what writing is about too, so I got to learn to accept my mistakes in that area too.

Also on the plus side - I'm going to have a Swedish Christmas after all.

Have you ever had something turn out quite differently from what you planned?

Heads up!

I'm going to be offline for the coming two months and I'm going to let you know ALL about it - once I'm back home. So keep your eyes open in February.

On the news front - yes, I did finish NaNoWriMo! And passed all my final exams!


Merry christmas (or whichever version you celebrate), happy new year and have a great time while I'm gone. Don't break the Internet.

NaNoPhoMo - a different challenge

My NaNoPhoMo challenge.

Everyone knows that a photo is worth a thousand words so as NaNoWriMo is a challenge in writing 50 000 words, I changed it to be about 50 photos. Every motif should only occur once (but I cheated once due to awesomeness).


In my collage, photos are numbered from left to right, up to down.

1. Autumn leaf on the hedge outside my apartment. I love the pattern of colours. Did you know leaves change colours because the chlorophyll (green colour) is pulled backed into the tree because it contains the vital nutrients nitrogen and magnesium? Carotene (yellow colour) is just carbon and hydrogen so the tree doesn’t bother reclaiming it.
2. A Chinese fortune cookie which says “passionate new romance appears in your life when you least expect it”. It was a dinner with relatives and even my nephew’s first visit in a restaurant.
3. Blossoming flowers despite the late season! Seen in a flower bed on one of my many walks around the water tower.
4. Apple slices and the knife I used. Nom.
5. Two squirrels on each side of an evergreen tree. Photo taken in Vrinnevi-forest on one of my walks.
6. Fallen autumn leaves. There were so many of them I wanted to throw myself into the heap and roll around, but that would have ruined the nice display.
7. Reflections and shadows. A candle holder with mirror pieces on the outside threw reflections on the shelf.
8. Horse’s feet. The front legs of Steffie, one of my favourite horses at the riding school.
9. Aunt and nephew playing in grandma’s kitchen. He’s almost 14 months old and is already running around.
10. Warning sign at the dams telling people to watch out because the dam can open suddenly. No idea why anyone would decide to climb two fences and slip down the hatch to walk about beneath the dam.
11. Tea and biscotti, the cup was made by my ceramic skilled friend.
12. A walkway under a road which I pass through to go to the grocery store. I often go buy food on evenings, alright?
13. A busy road late at night, taken with long exposure from a bridge.
14. Fil with raspberries and bananas.
15. Nephew playing “where is auntie?” with me at a playground.
16. Studying hard with a cup of tea at the only early-bird coffee house in town. Had been to Core-training right before (at 7am).
17. An apartment complex being torn down to make room for parking lots or something. Sad to see it go because it lay in a very interesting angle. But the deconstruction bit was fantastic to view.
18. A close up of the same apartment complex being torn down as in the photo before. Yes, I know I cheated from my rule of “motif only once” but it was so fantastic to look at!
19. Sea gull in one of the central parks, right by the stream.
20. Nuthatch walking down a tree trunk (head first).
21. Mist among trees. There are four “promenades” where I live, one each in north, south, west and east. This is one of them early in the morning.
22. Jumbled mess of spare parts and stuff in a mechanic shop where my dad works.
23. Words. Cut out pieces of a book from me making a bookshelf (from real books).
24. Three generations of love. My dad and my nephew. Nephew with his mother’s hat on for cute-overload. Yes. He’s in my photos often, but they are all different!
25. My stats after a jogging spree. Tempo is 1 km per 6:22 min, I was out for 33 minutes and ran 5,2 km.
26. Bookshelf, made from actual books (see 23) with my DVDs in it.
27. An eggtimer in my favourite style and colour. It matches everything in my kitchen perfectly.
28. Tea pot! Höganäs 1,5 litre with a metal strainer inside. Love the colour and the shape.
29. Keys in our new mail slots (outside! Where it’s COLD!). I won the red phone booth at a book launch for my incredible art skillz. (stop laughing)
30. Tofflor – or slippers in English. I would never be able to survive without a pair.
31. Oak against sky at one dreary morning walk. Naked boughs against pale skies are very dramatic.
32. Graffiti, which I really like watching when it’s well made like this one. It’s from one of my longer walks, right before a railway bridge.
33. School books (biology this time). I had three final exams to do in November and felt quite disgusted with it all.
34. Bunny! His name is Snakebite because he was supposed to be eaten, but the snake didn’t want him. He doesn’t like me petting him but he’s very curious.
35. In a horse’s eye, you can see a lot of truths. Filur right after my class on him and he was quite spent the poor thing.
36. Moon on the morning sky, going from full to new.
37. Soccer game in the early morning with a loud coach and frozen looking parents.
38. Lussekatter (saffron buns) – newly baked by me and mom. A few out of a hundred.
39. No plants are safe in my house. This one has lost most of its leaves and I threw it away a few days later when it kept suffering.
40. Blister. This is what happens when reins meet skin for an hour of dressage. It dried up and turned all brown after a few days.
41. Nose. My cat Selma having hoarded the string of the camera.
42. Paw. My cat Selma’s hind leg.
43. Candlelight. The background lights come from a set of garages that are right outside my window (yay for view).
44. Christmas decorations in town, view from escalators.
45. Moccacino. Which is very much like a café latte with pieces of chocolate melting in the bottom. And they made a leaf in the foam!
46. Eye. My cat Selma (hey, the motif is different, just happen to come from the same cat).
47. Basketsball court. Never seen anyone play here and the fence is always a little open. Feels very abandoned.
48. Decorative flowers outside an apartment complex with droplets from the morning mist hidden among the petals.
49. Torn out warning text from a pack of cigarettes lying among the dying leaves.
50. Seasonal rings telling the life of this tree in small sections, just like this collage showing my life throughout November.