I suspect this blog entry will be read by more people than usual, most of them new to me and probably native Swedish speakers, so I shall try to keep it short and sweet.
At the Quill was conceived as my blog about writing, reading and self-publishing. I started it with high hopes last summer (2013), but for various reasons it’s been languishing throughout the winter. I’ve been wanting to breath new life into it and the opportunity just came along to participate in a blog challenge. A challenge I think I might be able to meet.
Blogg52
Blogg52 is the challenge. It’s being is being co-ordinated and curated by two Swedish authors, Susan Casserfelt and Anna Hellqvist, so most of the participants are likely to be writing in Swedish. I think it very generous of them to have included me in the roll call as I don’t write in Swedish. However I do plan to commit myself to the requirements of the challenge to:
- publish at least one entry every Wednesday for the next year
- announce the publication on Twitter using #blogg52
- announce the publication on Facebook in the #blogg52 Facebook group
- read other people’s entries – if not everybody’s then at least one person’s every week – and offer comment and encouragement
The latter, I may try to give on the relevant website in Swedish (with my standing apology for my own poor command of that language). And of course if anyone feels like commenting on any of my pieces, Swedish is perfectly OK. I can read it, other #Blogg52 participants will be able to read it. Anglophone visitors will get a frisson of Nordic Noir and if they want a rough translation there’s always Google. (More on my feelings about of the Google translation engine, no doubt, in coming weeks.)
Names, beginnings and endings
I may also use someone else’s blog entry as a jumping off point for one of my own. For example, at the time of writing the latest entry on Susan’s website is “Hur hittar författaren på namnen?” (How do writer’s find names?) I think names are important and I think some writers don’t give them the attention they deserve, so right there is a potential entry. The latest on Anna’s website is “Att börja en början och att avsluta på ett bra sätt” in which she writes about the difficulties in finding good beginnings and satisfactory endings for books. Another excellent topic.
Susan and Anna write that their objective with #Blogg52 – for themselves – is to build up a bank of their own texts which they will be able to collect into book form and publish. This isn’t a requirement for everybody who takes part, but seems like a good motivator. For myself, my plan is to try to write entries of between 600 and 800 words and not to ramble on too much.
Chances
What are my chances of completing the challenge?
Up until not very long ago I would have said they were remote. I have a bad track record of starting things and not finishing them. But I have managed for more than a year now to publish a daily photograph from Gothenburg on my photo blog so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to do this too.
Apart from the photo blog, which may – or may not – lead to me publishing a photo book, I have a couple of other book projects in hand which I’ll be writing about. One is my historical novel, Elin’s Story, the other is a book of poetry with the working title 50/50-ish. These are the two private projects that are uppermost in my mind, but I’m also currently writing teaching material for two employers and translating texts for various customers through my firm JNELS [SC Words and Images]. I anticipate that all of these will feed into my blogging here over the next year.
Short and sweet?
Short and sweet was my goal for this entry. Well, I’m now pushing towards the 700 word mark. (And right there is another potential blog entry – how Swedes don’t tend to think in terms of words but prefer pages to describe the length of long texts.) As for how sweet this is, you decide. But now I’ll bring this to an end.
Till next time, cheerio!
I originally published this article on the separate At the Quill website. I revised it for spelling and SEO fine-tuning, and added a featured image, before transferring it here on 26 March 2017.