And now that book month is over I have to translate all the posts and post them here! In abbreviated for. Because why else am I playing?

===

Day 21 – Favorite romantic/sexual relationship

Tomorrow will be easier. I have much easier coming up with sibling/friend/cousinship than love stuff. Tansy’s response, Jessica Darling/Marcus Flutie, was awesome, but I’ve only read one book so I don’t feel qualified to talk about them!

Most of the time I lose interest by the time a couple becomes a couple, but okay. I say Em and Christopher in the Airhead-series by Meg Cabot. I’ve only read the first two books and while they get some kissing down, they’re not together-together after the second. The thing that makes them special is that Em is in an accident which leads to her ending up in the body of a super model and then when Christopher shows interest (which he never did before, they were best friends), she’s afraid that he only likes her because she’s suddenly hot, even though he stays away until he’s positively sure that it is Em and not the model.

Sounds crazy, I know, but it makes perfect sense. A quote, to show why the book is so awesome, although it doesn’t say anything about their relationship, and is actually about her dealing with her new hot self:

Another pose I had to do involved hanging off Brandon Stark’s shulders like I was one of those baby rhesus monkeys clinging to its mother. I said I thought that pose was kind of misogynistic, because it implied that women are helpless and need a big strong man to support them.

(…)

Raoul didn’t take my advice, anyway, though. And Rebecca took me aside and asked if I had a fever.

(…)

I pointed out to her that the media is notorious for infantilising women in their images of us and asked if it didn’t bother her, as a feminist, that she was partly contributing to that.

She looked at me and went, “Are you taking any kind of medication for your head injury? Because if so, they need to up the dosage.”

===

Day 22 – Favorite non-sexual relationship

As I said, I love sibling relationships. A few I can’t get enough of:

Spencer and Scarlett in the Suite Scarlett-series by Maureen Johnson.
Win and D.J. in the Dairy Queen-series by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.
Nick och Alan in The Demon’s Lexicon-series by Sarah Rees Brennan.

I also love friendship that DOESN’T turn into love eventually. LIke for example:

Gracie and Flemming in the Gracie Faltrain-series by Cath Crowley.
Finn and Hilary in What I Was by Meg Rosoff (best book EVER).
Neal and Kel in the Protector of the Small-series by Tamora Pierce.
Deryn and Alek in the Leviathan-series by Scott Westerfeld.

===

Day 23 – Most annoying character ever

Today’s answer is such a cop out. Sorry about that. I couldn’t come up with a single person, so instead I went with: people that don’t TELL SOMETHING for some stupid reason that you can tell is just a plot device.

Like, in Airhead, when Em doesn’t tell Christopher what she knows so he won’t try to play the hero. (Awesome reasoning, but still annoying.)

In the Protector of the Small-series, when Kel is all “no, Yamani don’t do that”, “no, Yamani doesn’t show feelings”, “no, Yamani are serene and calm and adfagdjhöfaghaöhufghgfja”.

In Harry Potter. You know, any of the seven million four hundred and thirty-seven times Dumbledore doesn’t say this or that and have to spend the last chapter justifying this.

I do believe this is more of a plot device. Uh. I’ll get back to you with an actual answer.

===

(Full list with links to all posts.)

And now that book month is over I have to translate all the posts and post them here! In abbreviated for. Because why else am I playing?

===

Day 18 – Favorite beginning scene in a book

From Liar by Justine Larbalestier:

I was born with a light covering of fur.

After three days it had fallen off, but the damage was done. My mother stopped trusting my father because it was a family condition he had not told her about. One of many omissions and lies.

My father is a liar and so am I.

But I’m going to stop. I have to stop.

I will tell you my story and I will tell it straight. No lies, no omissions.

That’s my promise.

This time I really mean it.

===

Day 19 – Favorite book cover (bonus points for posting an image!)

I have a lot of book covers I love, like for example The Demon’s Covenant, Tender Morsels, Siren Beat, Whip It and The Off-Season, to name a few, but one that I extra-super-duper-love is the British cover of Ash by Malinda Lo.

I’m sure you all know what it’s about, but I’ll mention it anyway: lesbian re-telling of Cinderella. Need I say more?

I actually prefer the British cover over the American and Australian one, because I feel that she looks even more passive on those two. Besides, on this one I absolutely adore the trees in the background. Possibly I just have a thing about trees.

===

Day 20 – Favourite kiss

This is where I polish my nerd badge proudly by googling my way to some FAN ART of the kiss I’m going to write about. I couldn’t find any credit, please if you know who drew this, let me know.

But okay. I know that Harry and Ginny gets a few smooches earlier on, but it’s the one in her bedroom, right before the camping trip from hell, that I really adore. She pulls him aside and into her room and they snog the hell out of each other and then Ron bumbles in and is all big brothery. But oh, those few seconds.

Yummy.

Another one that I really love is from Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. A quote:

It would have been nice, it really would have been, if I’d had just a second to enjoy it. Just a second to think to myself that Brian had his lips on mine and he was kissing me in a really romantic way that was better than anything I’d ever let myself hope for. And someday, maybe if I’m reincarnated or something because nothing that nice will ever happen to me again as long as I live, I’ll be in that situation again and I’ll handle it right. Or maybe the guy will warn me.

Because Brian didn’t warn me, and I felt this thing and sat up with a jerk and smacked my head into his nose and he started bleeding.

And can I just say that it’s super hard to write about this without it falling flat when it’s taken out of context? Also? In The Demon’s Covenant there’s a kiss that made me die a little, but I can’t even tell you who it is kissing because the surprise is half the awesome of it.

===

(Full list with links to all posts.)

Mari Mancusi, whose books I so have to read some time, writes:

I hear, over and over again, authors and editors and agents urging writers to “Write what they love.” But I’d argue this is not necessarily the best advice for everyone. While some of you may love to read the genres you’re equally talented at writing in, some of you may find your writing strengths lie elsewhere.

And if so, my advice is to not fight it.

For me, I’m best at comedy. I can easily whip up quirky characters and odd situations and pop culture references galore. And when I’m writing comedy my hands fly on the keyboard and sometimes, I admittedly even make myself laugh out loud, wondering where on Earth my brain conjured up that particular joke.

But for many years, I fought against my natural light style. I tried to write bigger, deeper, more epic novels with dark themes and alternative dimensions. I wanted to be that author with the kick-ass cover of a woman in leather, wielding a sword in a dark, twisted world. Because that’s the kind of book I’d pick up in the bookstore, over the one with a silly cartoon cover and a quirky title.

But I’m just not that author. I’m the cartoon cover kind.

Starting to wonder if that’s not how it is for me. I adore dark, twisted, amazing fantasy with creatures I could never come up with in a million years, but when I write it? Eww. Not good. Not believable. When I let football sneak its way into my stories, though… That’s a totally different ball game. (Pun mostly unintended.)

And on that note I’m going to turn on some noisy, awesome music and write about teenagers playing football and not coming out to each other. Because apparently that is what I do best.

In honour of this big (painful) day I’m embedding this clip.

(This is from when Cesc still wanted to be our captain.)

And one more thing. These are my very poignant thoughts of the game, written as it happened. Sadly Twitter only worked for half the game, hence the capslock love proclamation. Game was painful, although ended in a draw. 1-1, we so didn’t deserve that.

a) Wilshere has lego hair
b) Is Cesc having a chest infection or a “chest infection”?
c) Kos isn’t injured after all!
d) You can’t add flappy to Almunia’s name. He needs to change it
e) NGOG WTF?
f) Booing as a player goes off on a stretcher = classy
g) Cole is “not that kind of player” says Sky
h) TWITTER I MISSED YOU.
i) We’re fucked
j) Rosicky cut his hair, no longer looks like k.d. lang,
k) People that spells their names without capitals makes me twitch
l) 1-1!!!!
m) Obviously they want me to have a heart attack – waiting to 89:45 to score.

That’s all.

Last post for today, I promise.

But okay. Last weekend it was my cousin’s post-wedding party. She and her honey ran away to New York to get married, and when they got home they had to put their wedding clothes back on and throw a party. No party just isn’t in the book around these parts. So yes, there was a party and there was a lot of people, at least half of which I hadn’t met before, a quarter which I was terrified of in high school (she and her friends were the cool kids, only a year younger than me), and the rest was my cousins and people I genuinely love. So it was scary, but I went and stayed for seven whole hours before I couldn’t manage any more. Admittedly, if my aunt hadn’t looked at me after four and seen how tired I was and offered me to go over to their house for a bit I would’ve gone home right then and there.

So I went with my cousin, Johanna, to their house and hung out with her and her baby for an hour or so and it was lovely. He’s four months old, cries if she doesn’t hold him up so he can pretend that he’s walking AT ALL TIMES, and yes, he is named the same thing as the boy in our story in Worlds Next Door. They were named independently of each other, thank you, but it still amuses me.

I also managed to recruit another cousin (Frida) to go to the book fair with me. Because, you guys, there is a BOOK FAIR. It’s in the city that Frida lives in, two hours away from where I am now, and it goes on for like three days. I meant to go and actually ask her if I could sleep on her couch, but she said she could go with me, because it seems cool.

Mostly I am curious about the small presses and if there are any in the spec fic genre. There should be, but when I went to the sci-fi bookshop in Stockholm almost all their books was in English, so I’m not sure if there’s much of a market for that in Swedish around here. But it will be interesting to see and I’m totally going to spend all my money on books.

The ones I don’t have to spend on paying my dentist, anyway.

Anyway. Here’s some pics, all taken by my sister.

Somebody said she made her own wedding dress. How cool is that?

Me, being the life of the party. (I put my knitting away after a bit. Really.)

My brother a) suited up, b) has the same hair cut as me. Not on purpose, though. Here with cousin Sofia.

Awww!

Rings at dawn.

Dancing. That was after I left, though.

Love my family. They’re AWESOME.

I got something very exciting (and very shiny) in the post yesterday! Worlds Next Door, edited by Tehani Wessely and published by FableCroft Publishing. The cover (front and back!) is very pretty. I love it a lot.

And then of course you turn to the table of contents and go “eeeee!”

And then you go to page 117 and squeal some more.

Truth is I mostly snuck in under Tansy’s skirts, but STILL. And I should probably say that the title of this post has to do with a conversation I had with her. In Swedish there is a word for “author” and not one for “writer”, so either you’re an author or you’re not. There’s no middleground if you’re an unpublished writer, and it feels a bit wrong to call yourself an author if you’re not, you know? So when people ask and ask what I do with my time I shrug and say “oh you know, I knit and write and stuff”. I’d pretty much rather die than say “yes, I’m an author”. It holds so much more weight in Swedish than it does in English.

I still don’t feel like an author. I think I’ll stick with writer for now. But YAY for book, and YAY for having an extra copy to hand to my parents, to show them what I do with all my time.

Day 15 – Your “comfort” book

My first answer to this was Astrid Lindgren. Then I started thinking a bit and realised that the comfort thing is actually the pictures in her picture books. Those are drawn by Ilon Wikland, and just make me so happy. Here are a few examples, most from books that aren’t actually Astrid’s. Aren’t they gorgeous?

Source for these images is this website, where you can buy the prints, should you want to.

===

Day 16 – Favorite poem or collection of poetry

I’m honestly not much for poetry, but there is one Swedish poet that I have always loved, albeit more because we a) share a name, b) she was awesomely leftish politically, and c) she was a lesbian than because I’ve read everything she’s written. Sadly, that was also the reason she committed suicide in 1941, just 41 years old, but you know… It still made me feel connected to her.

The poem I love has been translated several times, none which really make it justice. They are all available here. The best version in my opinion is this one:

Armed, erect and and closed in armour
forth I came -
but of terror was the mail-coat cast,
and of shame.

I want to drop my weapons,
sword and shield.
All that hard hostility
made me cold.

I have seen the dry seeds
grow at last.
I have seen the bright green
spread out fast.

Mightier than iron
is life’s tenderness,
driven forth from the earth’s heart
without defence.

The spring dawns in winter’s regions.
where I froze.
I want to meet life’s powers
weaponless.

I always thought about the armour she speaks of as my shyness. That makes the last two lines very powerful.

===

Day 17 – Favorite story or collection of stories (short stories, novellas, novelettes, etc.)

I haven’t read nearly enough collections to be able to give a decent answer here, so I’m going to write about two books I want to read. And buy. All that. Tansy says to wait for e-book, cos they are big books, but we shall see about that.

A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti, published by Twelfth Planet Press.

I heard Hush read on the Terra Incognita podcast the other week. It made me very intrigued. Must read.

Sprawl, edited by Alisa Krasnostein and published by Twelfth Planet Press.

It was also podcasts that made me want this one. Reading selected stories out loud for free is a really good kind of advertising. Do more of that!

===

(Full list with links to all posts.)

Day 12 – A book or series of books you’ve read more than five times

Anyone surprised? No? Didn’t think so. The whole thing with Harry Potter is that I refused to read it for so long because it was such a hype around it, and then I had nothing to read on a plane and swiped a book from my brother’s shelf. (He’s never read them, it was a “the boy needs to read more, let’s by him four hardback books and pressure him into it” gift.) It turned out to be better than I’d imagined, and the whole way to Florida people kept asking me if I read them in Spanish. I thought that was beyond weird, but people would actually assume I was hispanic quite often after that.

But yes, I was majorly addicted for a very long time, but have moved on since. I have to credit Harry with bringing my besties to me, though, I wouldn’t know Tansy, Jenn or Millie without him doing the job for me, so I’ll never quite stop loving this book for that reason alone!

===

Day 13 – Favorite childhood book OR current favorite YA book (or both!)

I’m doing both, although the former might go straight over your head, as it has (to my knowledge) never been translated to English.

It’s another series by Astrid Lindgren, beautifully illustrated by Ilon Wikland, who is my favourite children’s book illustrator, hands down. These are about two little girls, Margareta (Madicken) and her sister Elisabet (Lisabet). It’s set a hundred years back or so, so there are horse carriages and long dresses and maids and all. Because yes, Madicken and Lisabet are from a wealthy family, but not far away lives a boy with his family, and he’s not. Madicken’s parents are a bit frowny about him, I think, but allows them to hang out.

There’s a lot of stuff here, I don’t even remember everything in these books, but they are lovely and an easy read and very fun. Again, nothing like Pippi.

Current favourite is this one. You have to read it to fully appreciate it, because it’s just that nuts, but I can say that the garden gnome on the cover plays a big part of the plot. Yes, seriously.

===

Day 14 – Favorite character in a book (of any sex or gender)

I waffled over this one for a long time, because I meant to make a “minor characters I love” list instead, just because those are the ones I love the best, but then I looked over it and realised that holy crap they are almost all boys. Which is so not cool. So I revamped it, and it turned out that the main characters I love are usually girls, and the minor ones are usually boys. How about that?

Main characters I love:
Val (Valiant by Holly Black).
Deryn Sharpe (Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld).
Carmel (Queen Kat, Carmel and St. Jude Get a Life by Maureen McCarthy).
D.J. Schwenk (the Dairy Queen series by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.
Nancy Napoleon (Siren Beat by Tansy Rayner Roberts).
Nick Ryves (The Demon’s Lexicon series by Sarah Rees Brennan).
Cameron (Going Bovine by Libba Bray).

Five girls, two boys.

Minor characters I love:
Alan Ryves (The Demon’s Lexicon series by Sarah Rees Brennan – decidedly less shiny in book two, but still interesting).
Luis (Valiant and Ironside by Holly Black).
Spencer (Suite Scarlett and Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson).
Parker (The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson – blink and you’ll miss him).
Lulu (the Airhead series by Meg Cabot)
Flemming (the Gracie Faltrain series by Cath Crowley).
Neal (the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce).
Heliora (Power and Majesty by Tansy Rayner Roberts).
Ginny Weasley (the Harry Potter books by J.K.R).
Marcus Flutie (the Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty).

Seven boys, three girls.

===

(Full list with links to all posts.)

I’m rather obsessed by Billie Holiday all of a sudden. I just adore her voice, and even more so when it’s coupled with Louis Armstrong’s. I used to love Louis and Ella the best, but her voice is a bit too happy go lucky, really. So Billie it is. All Billie, all the time.

My dad would be so proud.