Archives for January 2023

Dear reader,
2022 is gone and 2023 is here. A year is different for us all. Some may experience it as the best year of their lives, while others are forced to stare into the void.

2022 was another strange year. Covid is still here. I lost a friend to the pandemic. My last grandparent left us and has now found peace. My knee has been acting up, I went fo an MRI scan and was told to get used to it. I walked less than the year before, because of the knee.

On a positive note, I didn’t take up smoking, I kept walking, didn’t gain weight, lost no teeth (one hole was fixed though), I left my full-time job and took up another position with the same employer, giving me more time for the family, myself and writing.

Writing. I have been neglecting writing for too long. My novels are few and far between. Something always seems to get in the way. My new year’s resolution for 2023 is to not let that happen again. No matter how weird things get, I am now on the verge of publishing my third novel. That is an achievement and it is time I start taking this thing seriously.

So, what happened in the past? Under the Black Sand came out in 2014. It could have been much earlier, the short story is from 2006, the screenplay from 2009, I had a novel draft in 2011, but it was my first and I took many detours. I wasn’t sure where I was going with this.

Blood and Rain came in 2017. It was ready at the end of 2015, but as I received feedback from beta readers at the end of the year, my all time musical icon, David Bowie, died. It affected me more than it should have. I didn’t touch my writing for a year, pushing the publishing date to early 2017.

Mont Noir was conceived around the time I took on a full-time management job. I was able to balance work, family and writing at the start, but as the pandemic hit, things got crazy at work and I had no time to look at my writing. Mont Noir was finished in early 2020, but I don’t want to publish novels until I am perfectly satisfied that they are they best they can be, so I shelved it.

In February 2022, I stepped down from the full-time job and this gave me breathing space. Late 2022 saw me opening Scrivener again for the first time in months. I started by looking at my older works. New edits of Under the Black Sand and Blood and Rain were finished. Those “remasters” were published in November. I also ran through my Icelandic translation of the Sand, published that. And then it was time to finish Mont Noir.

I added an opening scene, deleted one or two scenes that added nothing to the story, tidied up the writing, made Mont Noir into the novel it could and should be. It was ready. I created the eBook, paperback and hardcover and set a publishing date. I have since made tiny tweaks, so the thee formats will have to be redone, but they’re tweaks and won’t affect the 16 February publishing date.

New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t really do them, but as I have found the muse – or time – again, I am dedicating myself to this craft. Creating stories, interacting with the Writer Community on Twitter, talking to people with the same passion for literature… it’s priceess. From now on I am an author. I am writing. I am editing. I have started work on a new novel, I’m four chapters in. It’s first draft and nobody gets to see that, but it is promising and I fully expect this project to be ready later this year and be published around the beginning of 2024. And then onwards. I will also be reading much more by indy authors, those heroes that self-publish.

Getting to this point has been a long and winding road, but you’re stuck with me. For as long as I can think, type and come up with worlds and characters, I will create stories.

A newsletter will be launched next month. If you want to be a part of that, please subscribe. Readers will be informed about promotions, new projects and trivia. Fellow writers may be featured if I am passionate about their books.

The future is literature. Let’s explore it together. And be kind. The 21st century was supposed to be a new beginning. Let’s work together and let this century reach its potential.