Looks like very old magic

My friend Heidi often says that all of Norway looks like Narnia. I understand, but I don't agree. As a child, I never fell in love with Narnia as much as I did with The Lord of the Rings. There was always a sense that I was being tricked, that Lewis didn't truly believe in his world the way Tolkien did. Narnia just didn't feel real enough. It didn't feel true.

Of course, Norway does not look like Middle-Earth, either. It doesn't whisper of elves and dwarves and a peaceful time under the stars. But Norway has its very own flavor of magic. A green, old, wild sort of magic that gathers under mossy pines between towering mountains.

Or a gray, cold sort of magic that washes over rocks and shores along the coast, swirled up by seabirds.

Or a knowing, watchful magic that lingers under bridges and barns and old stone walls.

I secretly hope that some day, someone will say: Oh, all of Norway looks like Sylver. To which I would reply: On the contrary. All of Sylver looks like Norway.

All photos, as usual, by Lin.

A trip to the cabin

One of the many good things about family vacations is that Lin and her camera are there to capture them. This Easter, we went to our new cabin on Tustna, an island in the Atlantic Ocean not far from Kristiansund. It's so pretty there. Just look:



Here's the view from the mountain that rises behind the cabin, Knubben. It's quite a climb, but I think it only took Lin and Eiv about two and a half hours to get up there. I didn't go, preferring to laze about on the sundeck...



Which feels a lot like this, only this is a photo from last summer. I read 'Breaking Dawn'.



The weather was mostly unusually fair, but we had one day of misty rain, where mountains and ocean were lost in layers of veil. We just stayed inside the cabin and ate chocolate and played yatzee.



This is the tiny copse that we have to pass through to get to the cabin. It's so dense, I've named it the Night Forest.



And here's the little bay just along the shoreline, where there are farms and houses and a small, sheltered harbour. While we were there, the landspace warmed from weary grey to fresh green.



A gaggle of giggling crocus. They can be rather silly, you know.



One day, our friends Cam and JohnE picked us up for a trip on the glassy ocean in their very nice boat. Magnus came, too, but I do believe he prefers puddles to all that water.



Because there truly is a lot of water, and air and light. So, does anyone want to come? It's even nicer in the summer.

Ketchup days and butter days

Usually in the morning, my Pan makes himself a cheese sandwich before running off to work. Usually, it's Norvegia cheese and butter and nice bread. But sometimes, if it's been a particularly bumpy night, if Magnus has been up or sick or fussy, if there's a deadline at work, if he's late already, if the stack of bills is tall, he substitutes the butter for ketchup. Cheese, bread and ketchup.

So if I come into the kitchen and the red bottle sits on the counter, I know. Uh oh. It's a ketchup day.

Lately, there's been a lot of those, not only for Pan, but for Magnus and me, too. Viruses galore. Asthma. Hospitals. Eye problems. Messy house, messy work, messy nights and ketchup days.

All right, spring. Bring on the butter.



Photos: Minimalist101, Line

Second generation wolf

A post on tollipop's blog about cousins got me thinking.

When I was a kid, we always went to grandmother's farm for summer and Christmas vacations. I adored my sweet, patient, kind grandmother, not to mention her tins of chocolate sheet cake and cookies that always waited under the bench in the hallway. But even more, I loved hanging out with my cousins.

Looking back, I'm amazed our parents seemed so relaxed as we roamed around our grandmother's farm like a pack of unruly wolves, getting into trouble every other minute, making so much noise I think we scared off every owl and fox between the mountains.
But man, we were happy. Those sled rides, those games in the attic and orchard and fields and woods! We kissed cats, we chased cows, we splashed in the icy stream. That's the kind of parent I would like to be. One that facilitates roaming and noise and adventure. I want wolf cubs.

Magnus has had a rough winter, but at least there's this: When I ask him if can howl like a wolf, he always answers: "Aooooooooooo!" It's a start.

The shivers

I just finished 'Menneskehavn' by John Ajvide Lindquist. For those of you who don't know the name, he's the author of 'Let The Right One In', which I hope you have seen, the Swedish version, please. 'Menneskehavn' hasn't been translated into English yet, so I don't know what the title will be, but literally it means 'Human Harbor'.

Lindquist mixes realistic settings in modern day Sweden with horror, delving into modern myths like vampires and zombies, but always with a fresh, somber and deeply chilling angle. He's good. He's really good.

This time it was ghosts. Ghosts and creatures of the dark sea. Combined. Man.

I'm not going to say that I don't scare easily, because I do. I scary so easily, I can't watch horror movies. There and then I laugh (a little shrilly perhaps), but I always dream about them afterwards. Nightmares when I was five, nightmares now. Silly imagination.

(Actually, wonderful imagination. Thank you, Great Imagination Dispenser, for those extra couple of squirts. I do love them.)

'Menneskehavn' is the scariest thing I've read in a long time. It was a gift from a friend, and I hadn't read the back before I started it. (I like to do that sometimes. It's like running in the dark.) So when the main character slowly realizes that the presence he senses in his old summer house on the Swedish coast is in fact his dead six-year-old, I cringed with him. When he finds out that the ghost is connected with the dark waters right outside his walls, my belly stung. Dead children and the ocean are definitely on my top five most frightening list, along with women in white nightgowns with hidden faces, old clocks, and porcelain dolls.

At one point, I stayed awake most of the night because I was too afraid to go to sleep. And Magnus still wakes up 10 times every night and my Pan and I have to split the night into shifts just to get by, so one night of lost sleep is A LOT.

Then I spotted Magnus's red winter suit hanging on the bedroom chair, and well...

I think you should read it if you can.

Now for shivers of a more pleasant sort: You have to read what happened to my friend Laini when she went to London to meet the British publishers of her next book, Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Good heavens. The costumes alone!

(Photo by my fantastically talented sister Line, as always, and this time the photo is of her as well).

In which I get my four-year-old heart broken

I have some grave news about pacifiers. They're not for 37-year-olds.

I remember the day I stopped using one very well. It was my fourth birthday, and my father was tucking me in, and we agreed that I was a big girl now, too big for pacifiers. He turned off the light and I curled up to sleep, feeling both proud and completely lost.

My dad must have been so relieved, he'd been trying to get me to quit for quite some time. Once he took me up on deck of the boat back to Trondheim from the windswept little peninsula where he worked as a teacher. He wanted me to throw the pacifier in the water, so I would know that it was really, truly gone. Eager to please my dad, I plucked it out of my mouth and let it go over the rail. I watched with mounting horror as my pacifier, my love, was swallowed by the churning wake, so thoroughly that it didn't even re-surface before the wake was lost in darkness. Of course I wailed all the way to Trondheim, a good ninety minutes, and our first stop when we reached the city was a pharmacist's.

And now, having watched the stars in Magnus's eyes whenever his darling 'mem' is brought out, I was convinced that I remembered correctly: Nothing in the whole world could be more comforting and soothing.

So I tried it. It was dry, rubbery, awkward and not a little bit exhausting.

Which is not to say that the hole in my four-year-old heart is mended. Not at all. On the contrary, even. I guess some memories are best left alone.

UPDATE: Magnus would like to point out that mothers are clueless.

Grünerløkka: home of superheroes

Grünerløkka sidewalks in February are the hip joint equivalent of a perfect storm: Ice polished to a dull gleam, uneven like a rumpled sheet, treacherous like a Lannister, covered by a mealy layer of grey, dry snow with the occasional patch of half-sunken gravel thrown in for interest. It's miracle we even make it to the store.

But we do. In fact, so far this year, I have not seen a single person fall. My theory is we've developed the ability to hover. Our legs may flail all over the place like a riverdance prodigy drunk on Dr.Pepper, but our upper bodies just float on serenely until the legs are back in service. Flying cars and Superman are just a few kroner and some spandex away.

Now, if we could just add teleport to our tricks, that would be great.

I know where I would go... Do you?

Black, white and very, very blue.

Yes, yes, I know, endless posts of kids and cats. But I couldn't not post these photos. Isn't it strange how blue eyes look even bluer in black and white?

It must be said that not every child is lucky enough to have a lens-wielding aunt this talented. Did she mention that she tied for top of her class at Bilder? No? Guess she forgot.

That's okay, Lin. Magnus and I know exactly how fabulous you are.

Balthasar and me, shopping malfunction

Balthasar: Toneladyyyyyyy! Toneladyyyyyyyy!
Me: (mutters) Here we go again.... What is it, Balthus?
Balthasar: I want fishy treeeeaaaats!
Me: I told you. You can't have any.
Balthasar: Whyyyyyyy? I want fishy treeeaaaats!
Me: Because we don't have any. (opens cupboard) See? Empty.
Balthasar: But I want sooooooome.
Me: You've made that pretty clear, all day and all night. However, I'm no fishy treat magician. I can't conjure them out of thin air.
Balthasar: But you always say we don't have any, and then, after I've done some howling, we seem to have them anyway. Oooooooooo.
Me: Yes, but this time it's actually true. I forgot to buy fishy treats. There are no fishy treats.
Balthasar: Nooooooooo. You just don't love meeeeeeee. You want me to staaaaaaaarve.
Me: Look, mister, your bowl is full of healthy food. Have some of that instead!
Balthasar: But it's not fishyyyyyyyy!
Me: (hides face in hands) Just please, Balthus, shut up for a minute! I'm trying to work here! I promise I'll get fishy treats when I go out today.
Balthasar: Do it noooooooooow! Noooooooow! Noooooooow!
Me: But... I'm working!
Balthasar: Noooooooooooow!
Me: (gets up, puts on coat, very ashamed). I can't believe this. I've just lost an argument with the dimmest of my cats.
Balthasar: (curls up on couch) Okaythanks, I'll just nap while you're gone. Get some chicken bits for Pims as well, I don't want her nosing in my treats. There's a clever Tonelady.
Me: (sighs) I don't know about that, Balthasar. I really don't know about that.

Huh! *scratches head*

What kid doesn't like pancakes? Sweet pancakes? Or waffles? Also sweet?

This one:



What a strange little guy. I mean, come on.



Come on.



Well, more for me then.

A detour to Westeros

What's new in Marselis these days? Very little. Magnus is still sick. I'm still under the weather. The cats are still cute. Words still stick to my fingertips.

There is one fresh element, though. This week and the next I'm copy editing the Norwegian edition of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I know I should be concentrating on Twistrose, but sometimes it's necessary to do some extra work to bring in some money.

Besides, A Game of Thrones is one of my favourite novels, so I quite enjoy it. I love the world Martin has created, I love the northernness of it, I love the sheer scale of the unfolding doom, and I adore the characters (though I often wish Martin were a little gentler with his literary offspring). I can't wait to see the HBO series that's airing sometime this spring.

Another nice thing about meticulously scouring Martin's (or rather, the translators') text for flaws, word for word, paragraph for paragraph, is that the construction work that binds it is revealed. Martin is a clever craftsman and a fine writer, yet even he must build his story with the same tools and material as everyone else.



Whether we're making a gothic cathedral or a ramshackle shed, writers need nails and screws and mortar. We all have to keep adding one bit to the next until we have a house.



And even the prettiest of castles have seams and construction scars to show for it. I find this most encouraging after a week of endless and rather frustrating construction work on particularly nut-and-bolt-heavy chapter of my book.



In other good news I recently found out that the sequel to the fabulous The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is out this March. Moreover, the next installment in my very favourite fantasy series, The Gentleman Bastard Sequence by Scott Lynch, is rumoured to be released this spring, too: The Republic of Thieves . That one I've been craving for a long time, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it's partly because I have the biggest crush on Locke Lamora. Last I saw him, he was dying. But you're better now, right, Locke?

So there's good stuff ahead. Until then I guess there's nothing for it but to hunker down, get lost in the world of Westeros, and wait for spring.


(photos by Lin: Balthasar as kitten, brick wall in Oslo, wooden cottage in Innerdalen, the Swedish royal castle.)

I bet November is on sale

Aaaand then it was Magnus's turn. Poor sweetheart.

I think I'd like to return this particular January. It really has been no good. (Well, except for the stellar agent news, but technically that happened over Christmas, so I'm not crediting January with that. Oh, and except for the trip to Kristiansund. That was nice.) I'm thinking I could get a November. I've always been partial to Novembers. And since everyone else seems to hate them, I bet they're cheap.



If I'm lucky, I might stumble upon a forgotten August. I adore August, when the nights finally deepen, and the bugs grow wise, and the cafés fill up with new beginnings.



But really, I'd take March. Or even a different January. Just not this one.

(photos by Lin, who by the way has been sick for ten days, too.)

In which I am twelve years old

Pims: So, Tone, tell your readers. What have you been up to while you've been sick?
Tone: Er... I've watched some tv.
Pims: Some tv?
Me: Well, some, a lot, what's the difference? Anyway, it was mostly educational, interesting stuff that is sure to land me points in the next Trivial Pursuit game.
Pims: Really? Care to share some of that enlightenment?
Me: Sure. Ancient Egypt was... World War Two... I mean, the referendum in Sudan... I mean... Oh, all right. I've been watching The Vampire Diaries.
Pims: You have, haven't you. I bet you managed to squeeze in a few episodes, then, since you've been slouching on that couch for days now.
Me: Well, you see, I only had the one episode on my tivo. But I've seen that quite a few times.
Pims: The whole episode?
Me: .... No. Just this one scene, where Damon tells Elena he loves her, and then makes her forget afterwards, and he cries while he does it. And there's this really sad song in the background.
Pims: I see. And how old are you?
Me: Pims! That's rude. Besides, I'm not too old to swoon over a little romance. I don't think you ever get too old for that.
Pims: You tell yourself whatever you like, sniffles. Now delete that episode, or I'll be forced to intervene.
Me: But it's so sad! So romantic! So fantastically cheesy... I can't...
Pims: (produces withering stare of a quality only cats aspire to)
Me: Okay, okay. It's gone.
Me: (mutters to self) Good thing you don't know about youtube.

I just want to snuggle and snooze

Ugh, I have such a terrible cold! Ear and throat infection, too I think. This does not compute well with teething toddler and no proper sleep for about 16 months. And my poor Pan has to mangage all daycare drop-off and pick-up and as well as night soothing while I cough and sneeze and slip in and out of fever dreams. I'm off to see the doctor, when really I just want to stay in bed. This bed:

I just hope the sparkly things don't make twinkly noises, because all sound acquires a metallic twang in my bad ear, and it's a little disconcerting. And if someone could bring me honeyed tea in this cup:

And then, if I could just get a kiss from this little one, that would really make me feel better. Wait, I already got that.

The bed and cup are from Anthropologie, the kiss is a snap of the very first time Pims and I met.

Strap on your fiduciaries, people!

There are words that fit their meaning perfectly. Slob, for one. And lozenge. But then there are words that are entirely unsuited to their designated semantics. It's as if they've slipped through the cracks of a dictionary and landed on the wrong page. They are chained to the mundane, the drab even, when really they should set eyes aglow just by bouncing off the tip of someone's tongue.

Like fiduciary. It means, among other equally boring stuff, 'a person who holds assets in trust for a beneficiary'. But just swirl it around in you mouth for a bit! Fiduciary, fiduciary, fiduciary. See what I mean? Couldn't it, shouldn't it rather be the word for a technomagical contraption that you strap onto your back so you can jump up on rooftops with a mere flex of your bottom?

As in 'Albert! Put on your fiduciary and get up here! You have to see this!'

If I were a masked dictionary vigilante, you could consider yourself rescued, fiduciary. Ah well. Maybe if I change careers again.

But what was there to see on the rooftop, you may wonder? Sadly, I don't yet own a fiduciary, so I'm not sure.







(Barcelona rooftops by Toni Camara, fox by markkilner, rabbit by Mecaniques, fussball gnome by gnomebomb.)

Dusk marked, cranium pale

This whole winter has been a succession of fierce cold spells and heavy snows. But today the sun showed its face through a January veil, illuminating my skin through the café window without cutting my eyes. It was so glorious to sit in the light for a while.

One of my favourite poems is one by the Norwegian author Stein Mehren. It's called 'Fattigdom', or 'Poverty'. But really it is about light, of a different kind than the one I basked in today. At the very least it lights my mind on fire. So much so that it the feeling it evokes is weaved into the fabric of the second part of my story, the part concerning Balthasar Lycke. In Norwegian it goes like this:

I min barndom kunne du fremdeles se
hvilke gater barn kom fra
Fattigdommen skinte som en måne
under huden på dem. En bakgårdssol

Fra et steinloft inne i lyset
Barn, skumringsmerkede, kraniebleke
som var de fødd opp
på koks, skummet melk og måneskinn

I hesitate to translate it myself. It's probably been done before and by someone far more competent. But a quick search revealed nothing, and I'm afraid the internet is the very worst sort of crowd for my inherent impatience. If I can't find something immediately, I simply ramble on. And so, with apologies for my character flaws, here's my rendering:

In my childhood you could still see
which streets the children lived on
Poverty shone like a moon
beneath their skin. A backyard sun

From a stony loft within the light
Children, dusk marked, cranium pale
As though they were raised
on coal, skimmed milk and moonlight.

Erin Bow, author of Plain Kate, named the poem The Writer by Richard Wilbur as one of the things that 'kept her going'. And I get why. It really is inspirational. Do you have a favourite?

Good one, Mum!

See, whoever came up with the idea that Magnus and I should go to Kristiansund to my mother's this weekend is a genious. Pan is off on a mountain trip with his buddies, and with the prolonged misery of massive teething, (we're talking mountain ranges, not peaks) there was a lot of sleeplessness ahead for the kid and me. Instead I've slept two nights in a row, and today I slept in.

For those of you who don't have kids yet, or have kids that sleep well, this obsession with sleep must seem outlandish. But it's been 16 months since our young padawan joined us, and I can assure you, there is nothing more wonderful than uninterrupted, peaceful, deep sleep. I'd choose it over cake, latte and chocolate any day. And that's saying something.

Besides, I don't have to choose. There's cake, too, and we get to hang out with my sister and mother all day long. So nice! On the downside, there is very little writing going on here out west. No space and no time and no daycare to look after Magnus while I hurry up and work. But it's only for a few days. Much as I love being here, I'm glad. Writing is going really well these days. Maybe I'm spurred on by the good agent news? Or maybe it's the gloom of January. It's perfect for sitting by the fire, sipping hot, sweet tea and getting lost in the crooked, snowy alleys of Sylver.