The Ten Worlds

What is ‘Land’ about?

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Originally published on my ko-fi page as subscriber-only post on August 27

I was talking to a fellow author, Tessa Hastjartanto today, when it struck me. Children is the question; Land is the answer.

My cPTSD therapy has ended three weeks ago. Since then, I have been doing things that have been nowhere near my reach (“comfort zone” LOLOLOL) for, often, six years. Today, for instance, I went out to lunch with Tessa, unaccompanied, at an actual cafe, and it was our first ever 3D meeting. So, technically she also counted as semi-stranger. If you look at me, you probably don’t see someone who hasn’t been able to enter a supermarket for five years.

Children has been my subconscious writing down, in great detail, the memories I have repressed. (You don’t know when you repress your memories, thought I’d mention that. Repressed memories are repressed.) I used to laugh when people told me it was so dark, because I was aware it was very autobiographical. Land is less dark, or rather less often/continuously dark, but I also have all those memories back. Which is why Children took me 29 almost complete rewrites, and Land is on draft 14 – if you exclude the drafts written 4/3/2 years ago when my brain suddenly had a word vomit, it’s actually on its sixth. And as my editor told me, the differences between 5th and 6th (green vs red on the graph) are mostly words or phrases. [In the meantime, the book has been finished and sent to the proofreader – BL]

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What is ‘Land’ about? Read More »

The Two Worlds book 2: Land – November 5

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So, it’s official. After mere three years of delays, Land will be with you on November 5 (unless life starts happening again, which is why you didn’t get it on November 5, 2021…)

I got so used to saying ‘the sequel to Children‘ that I nearly forgot that The Ten Worlds is a series. (Updating the website will be a bit of a pain.) Some of what follows are spoilers for Children, so in case you haven’t read that one yet and intend to, close this page and don’t read further…

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The Two Worlds book 2: Land – November 5Read More »

The Two Worlds book 2: Land – November 5 Read More »

What’s coming in 2024

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I’ve spent almost all of 2023 writing, even though it might seemed like I hid from the world (I have). If you like any of my books so far, good news follows! (I’m really looking forward to having TWO books in ANY series…)

 

Storytellers follow-up

It’s happening. A few months ago, on a Thursday, someone asked me if there will ever be one, and I said no – I just didn’t have any ideas. I’d have to force myself to squeeze something out and it wouldn’t be very good. Then I had a dream. (Which is actually how Storytellers started, only it took me three years to realise the dream won’t give up until I write it down.)

The Poison Never Dies is about a thirteen-year-old girl, Camilla – because of course I know everything about being a 13yo girl – who awaits her first date. The boy never shows up. Instead, she overhears a very suspicious conversation. In the morning, the person is found dead. There are no traces, no reason to believe there’s been a murder, and Doctor Brynjólf declares the person died of natural causes. Is Camilla right? Was this conversation about what she thinks it was? Who’s going to believe her? There is love, there is another murder, lots of blackmail, and I know you only really want to know one thing. The answer is: YES HE IS THERE. And he’s happily married. With a son, too.

I’m posting quotes of the unfinished version on my ko-fi for subscribers only. I don’t know whether I’ll finish the whole book this year, because…

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What’s coming in 2024 Read More »

Why Bjørn Doesn’t Write to Deadlines

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This post originally appeared on my ko-fi blog, available for my supporters – thank you!

After I finished Storytellers, I started working on a disastrous book called The Age of Fire. Luckily I realised in time that not everything I wrote was genius just because it came from my brilliant mind, and shelved the thing. It featured a woman called Maya, though. Maya dressed only in black, had messy, mid-length hair, and liked silver bracelets.

When I started on Children, it had a different title, and was supposed to be Magni’s book, until Maya found out and announced she wasn’t just moving in, but would have half of it for herself, thanks.

This is how I write. [“I” – Ed.]

Children

By now, as in 2023, I sometimes get a say regarding what happens in my books. When I was working on Children, which received 29 rewrites until it became the version it is, I was not blessed with the ability to negotiate yet. I would write something, Magni would take a look, and announce “I’d never do this.” When I inquired, he’d shrug and say “you’re the author, you figure it out.”

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Why Bjørn Doesn’t Write to Deadlines Read More »

Children: 27 months later

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This post has originally been posted on my ko-fi blog, available for my supporters – thank you!

I’ve been just about to start working on Land – the sequel to Children – very soon for, um, *nervously glances at the April 2020 date on the file sent to beta readers* …a while. In the meantime, things happened. Not just that one thing, but 16 months of intensive c-PTSD therapy. Followed by the discovery that my subconscious has actually kept the best for last.

(This is not a “pity me” post, just saying.)

Some readers, including other authors whose work I sadly can’t read because it’s too dark for me, told me they had to take breaks while reading Children. One said she had to go for a walk after she finished reading one particular scene. I chuckled, bewildered. The only reason why I put trigger warnings in the beginning were two scenes in chapters four and seven, out of ten. (The hot tub scene is my #livedexperience in different setting, and I was already self-aware enough to know it would be difficult for some readers.) Even though those were just two scenes, not adding those warnings felt like leading the reader into a trap – “haha! you thought this was a weird, but funny book? BAM!”

 

Apparently I was quite alone in that conviction

I mean, y’alls, come on. A lot of Children is based on my life, just kind of cranked up and with more Gods and magic. It seems that some of my past, whether I have written about it consciously or not yet, isn’t just “weird, but funny.” (I follow Carrie Fisher’s teachings: “If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.”) I knew I was doing self-therapy, but not how much.

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Children: 27 months laterRead More »

Children: 27 months later Read More »

Where is Land?

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The sequel to Children is called Land. The book explains why the series is called The Ten Worlds, since our heroines and heroes travel from the Nine Worlds Universe to Iceland (where else?) and some of the survivors make it back. It’s going to be cinematic. Epic, actually. There’s everlasting love, but no romance; exploration of consent and abuse in uneven relationships; there’s Iceland and the Hidden Folk. Questions asked in Children are answered, riddles solved. Aha, Land also doesn’t exist, even though I officially announced it, somewhat optimistically, as a 2021 release.

It’s a grown up book. I had to grow up first.

 

Mel

The first sign that I wasn’t ready was deciding to send an outline to a sensitivity reader (let’s call them Mel), because I wanted to make sure I’m doing the right thing. Some of my new characters are Black-coded – dark elves. One of the reasons is that I want to make Norse fantasy less white. I worried… nah, I was terrified that I was just wasting time. That I wasn’t doing it right.

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Where is Land? Read More »

We are default people too

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“When we say that someone is ‘writing from the margins’, what does that mean? […] They’re writing about race, or gender, or country of origin, or disabilities, or… the list goes on. But. Why are they still in the margins? Why is it still considered that?” (Morgan Hazelwood, Writing SFF From the Margins)

Krystle Matar and I decided to talk about this topic, and how we refuse to keep both ourselves and our characters on the margins of SFF literature.

Shifting the default: what does it mean to you and why do you want to do it?

Krystle When talking about how much of your characters to include in your books, I’ve seen the advice, “if it serves a purpose to the plot, absolutely talk about their sexuality/identity.” This advice always rubbed me the wrong way. When have we ever asked if a character being heterosexual and male “serves a purpose” in the plot? Why should our characters being full and complicated humans have to be anything more than aspects of who they are? Why should they have to justify their existence by a checklist?

Maybe it’s because I’m a character writer first and a plot writer second—every part of them serves a purpose, but no particular part of them is more important than the other. In my head, they live and breathe. Those of us that don’t fit the default shouldn’t have to “serve a purpose” to be allowed to express ourselves to the fullest breadth of our existence. We should be allowed to just be—and I wanted to give my characters the same multifaceted depth that I’ve seen in the real world.

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We are default people too Read More »

Is this even \”writing\”?

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There are three sorts of writers. Plotters, who come up with the plot first, then write their characters to follow it. Pantsers, who kind of grip to the edge of their seat and watch what happens. And Artistés, who develop characters that become so real they refuse to do what we want them to.

Storytellers got 21 rewrites and took me 26 months to write, because I haven’t learned yet what sort of a writer I was. I had my plot, a few important characters, and multiple stick figures. When my editor said to me “the only differences between your female characters are whether they’re pregnant or not” I felt, as a noted feminist, that there was a massive challenge in front of me. But when I started giving them personality traits, they stopped doing what I wanted them to.

Guðrún no longer wanted to devote her life to being a figure in the background whose task was listening to others. She turned out to be assertive, fun, selfish, strong, and didn’t suffer fools gladly. Once she started talking and acting, the other characters needed to become alive as well. Including the fools. Mannerisms, clothes, duties, habits, attention to hygiene, attitude towards religion, neuroticism… In the meantime I had a plot, or thought so. Things kept going out of control until I figured everyone out, even characters that only appeared once for approximately 15 seconds. Only then the pile of paragraphs finally started feeling like a book.

This was my first clue that I was going to be an Artisté, but I didn’t know that yet. I just thought I had no idea what I was doing. (That was true.)

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Is this even \”writing\”? Read More »

My Norse Gods: Freya

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With Children out for a month now, it really is time for something I’ve been postponing for months… apologies to Freya and Freyr.

“My” Freya is the reason why I originally – two years ago? – pitched the book as “Drag Race meets Terry Pratchett in Ásgard.” She  wouldn’t just win Drag Race, because Freya doesn’t compete. She’d send RuPaul to a nursing home and take over the hosting duties – until she got bored (halfway through episode two). She’d then announce that Keeping Up With THE Freya is where it’s at and everyone would switch the channel. In the inevitable Netflix series I cast Scarlett Johansson as Freya because I can’t stand Scarlett Johansson.

This is an unusual interpretation of the Goddess.

 

The Freya

Our Troth:

As mistress of magic and goddess of sexual love, she kindles the imagination and sparks the heart. Whereas that other great goddess, Frija [Frigg – BL], is wholesome and safe, the Frowe [Freya – BL] is sweet, wild, and dangerous.

[…] Frowe is not motherly in any way. […] To the Norse, Freyja was a goddess of riches, whose tears fell to the earth as gold and whose most common appearance in skaldic poetry is in kennings for “gold”. […]

Here’s Freya getting burnt at the stake – three times:

[Freya] is first thought to have come among the Ases as the witch Gullveigr (“Gold-Intoxication”), whose fate started the war between the Ases and the Wans: “when Gullveigr was studded with spears and burned in Hár’s hall; thrice burned, thrice born, often, not seldom, but yet she lives”

I changed the order of events. The war between the Æsir (the Gods who inhabit Ásgard) and Vanir (those coming from Vanaheim) can’t be won by either of the sides, so they declare a truce and exchange hostages. Freya is one of them, forced to move into an unfamiliar place filled with those who only just stopped trying to kill her and her kin. She is young and afraid, and wants to prove that she is more valuable alive than dead. What she has to offer is love, so when one of the Gods wants to be loved by another, Freya briskly fulfils the wishes. It turns out, though, that some have multiple suitors, others are already taken, and some change their mind five minutes later. In her attempts to avoid the Æsir’s wrath, she enrages them, causing them to fight between each other. Burning her on a stake only once is not enough of a punishment. The myths don’t seem to consider this to be a particularly memorable event in Freya’s life. She seems to just get over it.

Not in my book, though.

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My Norse Gods: FreyaRead More »

My Norse Gods: Freya Read More »

Children: out and proud

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Children is out, and I am proud. You can buy the e-book here. There are more links and excerpts on the Children page.

When the writer finishes the book, they don’t know whether it’s any good. Will the readers stop reading on page 50? Will there even BE any readers? So, the writer has found the target audience carefully approached through various marketing means (I didn’t do that, because I’m a bit of a twatwaffle, about which in a moment), but what if a mistake was made and the Carefully Selected Potential Readers just don’t click on the links? Or they do, but don’t like the cover? They like the cover, but not the blurb? Or the worst – mutter “meh” and go elsewhere? Will the book sell any copies at all?

This is predictable to a certain degree. For instance, I am 100% certain that in the coming year Children will sell fewer copies than Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which has been out for 23 years. Whether that will mean 0.001% of Rowling’s book’s sales or 10% (in my dreams) isn’t that easy to predict, but at the end there are maybe a few thousand people in the world who know I exist at all, much less that I write books.

This isn’t the worst part though. Without a team, or at least one faithful and very well-read assistant, I don’t even know what my book is. It took me literally months to decide I would call it queer Norse adult literary fantasy, and I am still not entirely certain whether that’s correct. In order to get people to buy my books, I have to find those right people (then hope they like the cover, then the blurb…) That’s very easy though, innit? I simply find some books that are just like mine, advertise to those readers, $ucce$$ follows.

 

Also-boughts

Let’s start with the warm-up. What other books do my readers buy?

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Children: out and proud Read More »

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