A Tall Stack Of Papers

This website is called Tomas Nilsson Foto (since I am Swedish I spell it that way), and it's obviously no secret that I enjoy photography a lot (anyone unfortunate enough not to be able to make his or her escape fast enough will probably know that ;-)).

I do however have other interests that will show up on this blog from time to time. One of these interests is writing. I feel it is time for that now that the month of August is over and the next exhibition event isn't until October.

I've enjoyed reading since I figured out that those strange squiggles could be translated into words when you put them together; according to my mother the first word I ever read on my own at the age of 5 was Tobak (tobacco in Swedish). I don't know if that was necessarily a good thing, but there ya go.

I was one of those kids who played a little bit of Dungeons and Dragons in my teens, mostly as the Dungeon Master, sending my brother and other neighborhood kids on quests here and there. It was fun, but in the end they liked doing sports more, and I found it was more fun to write than to actually play the adventures (plus I wasn't really that good a Dungeon Master).

When I was in high school my best friend at the time wrote a book, and challenged me to do the same ("you always said you wanted to write...now get to it!"), so I ended up with a ghastly poor First Novel. It's got very few redeeming features, but at least it didn't discourage me from trying it again! In the ensuing years I've written a few other things, both longer works and short stories. It's never felt like I've made something worth sending to publishers, it's always been something I've done for my own enjoyment.

In 2008 my dear friend Montie told me about National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short-ish) and I thought was an absolutely hair-brained idea; write a 50,000 word first draft of a novel in 30 days. That felt impossible, especially for a devout procrastinator like me. But I figured I'd give it a go, since at the time I needed a jumpstart to my writing. That ended up as "The New Leaves", a book that I think actually does have some merits, a book that I think I'll get back to soon to expand certain parts that needs something more.

Six years later I am about to do the writing challenge for the sixth time and it is still a lot of fun! I especially enjoy the group of awesome friends I've made through the write-ins and get-togethers we've had through the years, people I would never have met otherwise! What this year's book will be about? I haven't got a clue, but hopefully I'll have at least a first sentence by the time November 1 rolls in!

Here's the beast, ready to fight me all over again...

That being said, there's been this project of mine that's been ”on-going” for many years now, a book that I've not been able to finish, nor let go my hold of. It's currently in its...probably sixth or seventh re-write at around 135,000 words, but I still don't feel it is really there. It's an intimidating stack of papers, but it's also a nice feeling to know that I've been able to put together the story at least this far! So I am going to have a crack at it one more time in the next few months, hopefully being able to finish it at some point. If nothing else it'll be a nice warm-up for the November NaNoWriMo event!