The Bombadil Ear

Hello all Bombadilians,

I got a mail from a Peruvian guy who wrote about the feelings he felt when he found Bombadil Publishing on the Internet, and the certainty to be listened to. As he wrote, I just smiled, because I read this mail – not listening to anybody - but, of course I understand this young boy, and I’m very happy to do that. Like this boy, there are many young people who are writing e-mails to Bombadil and express that they get this same feeling, they get inspired, happy and they show their enthusiasm, and start to write the books on many different matters. At the same time I’m very surprised for this rich experience this young people give me, and not only from Latin-American but the entire world. Be sure young Bombadilians, that here in Bombadil there are several of our staff who is ready to listen to you!

Melvin González

Poetry and other stuff

Well since last time I have done a lot of things and I´m in a better mood too.
As you know we have been to Trollhättan and the poetry festival. And it was really a nice occasion in many ways, we also meet Sara's friends and had a nice evening with them. Meeting some of our young authors was nice and they read their poems in an admirable way. They was really nice specially Jennifer who opened the whole festival, she is so young and did it so well, didn´t look nervous at all. And our own Sara who released her poetry book, I´m so proud of her. A bit because her book was the first one I was involved in :-)). She and My did a superb perfomance. Well done Sara and My!

Sara and My in teamwork.

And I actually filmed the whole thing, my second time filming! It is really a new experience to me and I kind of liking it. And as usual John took some nice photographs both odd ones and nice ones. He has a tendency to take pictures of people´s backs :-)).

Me filming the whole thing.

We actually have released two new books, Sara's and Tove's. Tove was not with us at the poetry festival but she will join Sara this weekend to do something in Lysekil.

Oh tomorrow we will have a kind of fire here. Here in Sweden we "May fire". So I have helped John and Steinar to collect some wood for it, it is nice to work with your body sometimes and not just sitting and do things on the computer. Niklas with Steinar and his friends are going to Örebro to set on the big "May fire" at the castle with arrows ??!! How on earth they are able to do that I don´t know. It will be interesting to se it, they shall do the same thing here on "our" fire.

Ohh today we had an marketing meeting. It was nice and I discovered that I´m thinking a bit different then the rest of the Bombadil staff. I´m thinking first in pictures and not in words and headlines. I´m so used to think on pictures first and the words come after a short time or as I said: the words will come fast when I´m upset, sad, angry or irritated on something. But I will try to learn to do in the other way :-)), it will probably take some time.

have a nice evening
Mari

media center soon going live

Today was spent promoting our media centre. We had visitors from the local area who were first presented with the vision, then the plan and finally a quick tour around the centre finishing off with a scrumptious cake. A very successful meeting, I think.

The logo has also been launched. The logo is a reflection of the beautiful nature surrounding us - the anchor symbolising the sea, and the tree, well, the tree symbolises the trees :-D

MiB does not mean men in Black but rather Media Centre in Bergslagen.

Shaking kneecaps and poetry all night long.

Last weekend was a weekend full of poetry, creativity and nervousness.

So at last the 25th of april had appeared and The Poetryfestival in Trollhättan was a fact. We were four Bombadilians reading poetry and we were the ones opening the festival on saturday afternoon. First Bombadilian out was Jennifer Vidovic, an extremly talanted 13 year old who read a few of her poems and a short section from here collection of short stories that is under progress as we speak. She was so brave getting up on stage as the very first poet of the entire festival! When she was up there reading poetry like she hasn´t been doing anything else but reading poetry out loud, I was about to wet myself. I did not believe that I could get so tremendously nervous! Second Bombadilian out was Johanna Hansson who is getting her collection of poetry published at Bombadil Publishing within a near future, which is having a kind of scrap book theme. Cool! Johanna did also work the stage properly and did a great job reading her texts!

Then it was me and My, luckily, I wasn´t on my own. And no I don´t mean me, my and I or something silly like that, "My" is actually a Swedish name. My is an performance artist and have been reading my poetry before, so we figured; why not experiment a bit and do some reading together?! It all turned out very well, and apparently you couldn´t see my shaking kneecaps from the audience, well at least that´s what my mother told me. I haven´t decided whether I trust her or not, not yet. Last Bombadilian on stage was Kristoffer Hedberg (http://www.kristofferhedberg.se/) who is not "just" publishing his poetry at Bombadil Publishing this coming autumn but is probably more known for his music. Just couple of weeks ago he finished the recording of his third solo album. Check his website out!

After Bombadil Publishing All-Stars had done their part the Poetryfestival continued and offered lots of good, worse and brilliant poetry, texts with completely different topics and tone. The Swedish band Detektivbyrån finished off by midnight, and they really did an exceptional live performance!

So all in all the Poetry festival was a success and apparently Bombadil Publishing has already been invited to next years festival in Trollhättan, groovy!

over&out
Your Monday blogger Sara

I am very excited to be here! In this beautiful town, Gyttorp, in the middle of Sweden, it's like paradise, among several deep blue lakes, and the spring is running to us together with the sunshine. But I'm so happy to be in this Blog too, and be a part of this great family Bombadil.

A girl from Argentina amazed me with her starting of a book, and another girl, from my own dear country, El Salvador, put a little bit of emotion in my marvellous life; both girls wrote about feelings, both wake up inside me a lot feelings that I thought I had forget, my tears want to run out but I could stop them in time. Silly me.



This Saturday will my dear work colleague Sara will read poetry in the city of Trollhattan and all the Bombadil family will be there to hear Sara, this is something we look toward. This morning I woke up when two big, shining white swans played in the lake beside my bedroom and I was happy, usually I get mad when I wake that early in the morning, but this two swans sounds very happy and I can't avoid to be contagious by their play and like this two swans playing I really hope that you young people will playing with Bombadil. See you next week Bombadilians!

Melvin González

Freedom

This picture says so much, I really like it.
I would like to sit like that above everyone, looking and thinking what I should do and most importantly I would be free to do what I wanted to!

Free to fly like doves and free to do what you want, no one to interfere in what you are doing! Or thinking what you should do, telling what to do. That is what the life is about! People can destroy and hurt so much by just saying one word in wrong place or in wrong way.
That is also what Bombadil is about. Letting our young authors write in their way with their own thoughts and words.

And freedom is also going on a lake in a kayak. Steinar and John tested the kayak Steiner built, they tested it on Monday and I was filming for the first time in my life :-)):-)), that was fun. And I hope not the first and only time. To see their expressions in their faces when they was out on the water, that was Freedom and really, really nice!! I love that expression. Free to move in another way and you can do it almost everywhere. John was so excited about it so he now says that he shall built a kayak for him self with Steinar's help.

Have a nice time
Mari

Poetry

This weekend we are off to Trollhättan - the cradle of Bombadil Publishing - to attend the poetry festival. That in itself is really nice, but best of all, I think, is that one of "my" authors, who is also our very own Sara, will have her book release there. She has worked very hard on it, and it is the first poetry collection that I have worked with. We named it challenge poetry, because it challenges the mind: it is not just about pretty words, it is about opening a door into the very soul of the writer, challenging the readers as well as the author. There is something very beautiful about being invited into somebody's inner sphere of emotions and feelings and I think I am as excited as Sara about her book release. It will be an exciting day for us both!

Obsessed about it.

Today it´s all about obsessions. I think I´ve listened to the same song about 25 times, and it´s just 14.30, now that´s a bit obsessed! Plus it´s Monday, which means that I´m as usual a bit tired from getting up early in order to drive my car for 3 hours to get here. Me+tired is often not a good combination, I tend to get a bit cranky and high maintenance in general, but there is a couple of tricks one can pull to raise my mood a bit.... namely: food!!! I guess it´s all about balance, lack of energy in terms of not sleeping enough will be replaced with energy through FOOD. And coffee of course. So I guess I´m obsessing about food as well. Food and Fleetwood Mac. Not a bad combination at all actually. Silver Springs was the song anyway, by Fleetwood Mac. Tune indeed.




Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - Silver Springs

And I can´t stop thinking about the Poetry festival that Bombadil Publishing is attending on Saturday. I will be reading a few poems myself which is the result of not being able to take the Poetry festival off of my mind. We are 4 authors from Bombadil and on official festival leflets we are refered to as The Bombadil Publishing All Stars, neat! So I guess that´s being a bit obsessive too.

It´s nice weather anyway, on a Monday which I´m very suprised and impressed about, spring is here for real, at last. Welcome, please stay forever. And that´s all I have to say about that.

Over&Out

/Your Monday blogger Sara

Swanning around

Rather a short week for the second time in the last fortnight. Melvin Gonzalez, our Spanish countries coordinator has been hard at work translating the website into his native tongue, the Indian market is continuing to grow far beyond our expectations and I demolished a glass brick window.

Spring is here, and I'm rather enjoying it.



Mute swan



Coltsfoot (also mute)

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like Febreze, which is most unusual.

Handing over

I'm off to take a photo of the Moon-Mine from a better angle, for use in an article in "länsbuketten", the monthly magazine of the local "hembygdsförening" (approximately local historical society, though with "past-present-future" being a motto it is not purely historical oriented).
This will be my last blog as regular Bombadil blogger, as we have now grown big enough to have full time staff blogging leaving me the resident scientist free to pursue scientific musings - mainly at ESAB in Laxå, where I now spend half my time as guest ressearcher aiming at explaining through simulations why welds performed using ESAB equipment is so much better than other welds, and thus help further improve the welded joints of the world.
Next week, the thursday blogger will be Melvin Gonzalez, our new market co-ordinator for Latin America. Seems the Bombadil concept is as suited for Latin America as for India, so it will be exciting to watch those two markets grow. Of course, this will add at least Spanish to the Bombadil languages.

Melvin Gonzalez
Over and out!
/Niklas

Wednesday again

Hello everyone

Well last week was kind of short and this week is too! So we are kind of mixing up the days here :-). I was kind of bored on Friday but the sun was nice. I have been out of work for some time so I really enjoy to work here at Bombadil with all the nice and fun people. That is the reason why I was bored!, I missed them.

The spring flowers are up more and more. I actually now have seen the blue hepatica (blåsippa) and the wood anemone (vitsippa) on the way to the stable. So it´s definitely spring in the air in many ways now :-)). Ohhh, John has taken a nice photo on a leave to a wild strawberry, so they are coming up too! Look at the picture.

On work I´m setting books as usual and doing some more templates. It is actually funny and you learn a lot while doing it. Soon we are sending some books for printing again.

Pixie has got a bit fat so she is not getting any treats if she´s not have done something really good. Like when she behaved very well when I trimmed her claws yesterday (and today). And she also have tried the leash I use on my dogs at the dogshows. Hmm she has to train a bit more with that I think. But she stands still very good on her own, that is not so many dogs doing. She is really great on that.

Bye bye for this time
Mari and Pixie in a corner

Easter holidays and social networks

The last few days have been holiday here in Sweden due to Easter. I actually took it easy and did not work at my desk (only in my head) and took a long over due holiday. Saying that, I was forced to as the cold I had turned into pneumonia and kept me bedridden for a few days. I am better now, though I do not yet have as much energy as I would like. As I keep saying, "I do not do ill!"
I bet a lot of you thought I spent the time driving around the new car rather than working, and I really wish that had been the case. It is a pleasure to drive though, especially with the hood down.


Anyway, my task this week is sorting the parameters for the new social network. It is coming together rather well and I am pleased with the way it is coming together. Please check in on the website later in the week to see my efforts :-D then you will be able to register and be a part from the beginning. The social website will have most features that facebook and other social websites have, but will also have others such as information centres, writing schools and other exciting areas for book lovers and authors. It will be like a beautiful shore of a rolling ocean, full of pebbles - all different, all beautiful and all telling a unique story. Stay tuned!

Taking Mariannes new car for a spin

Marianne has bought a new car. Well, if you look closely, there's a tiny blue feather at the rear sidepanel, making it a Bombadil car. But to tell the truth, it is a Marianne car. She loves it. She loves me too, is obvious, because I was alloowed to use it, going to my part time job at ESAB in Laxå. ESAB makes welding equipment, and that's where I'll do most of my research for at least about two years now. There's a Swedish saying "det är många grejor på ett järnspett", approximately "there are a lot of details on a iron rod" - there are even more details to a weld joint, and it is a really fun piece of complex physics to try and simulate to gain more insight in how the process works and thus help make even better weld equipment. But back to the car. It is red, can reach allowed speed limit really fast, and has cruise control. Very nice. Here's a picture.

Roof and friendship

Springtime is definitely here :-))

Blogging time again. Pixie I not around at all, she is with the kids.

What have I done since last time? A lot actually, but the weekend did not go my way at all. Cars was broken down and I did not meet my basenji friends as supposed. But the week started with nice weather, besides today (it´s raining).

Here at Bombadil I have been scanning some really nice pictures for a book, it´s by a Gandalf author. Gandalf is Bombadil's sister company for older authors. And soon the setting of the English book will be finished, John is doing the last check on it.

Yesterday was a sunny and warm day, funny, and also bit strange. Why? Well me and Sara were climbing up on a roof and John was on the ground taking pictures! Hmm wonder why he didn´t climb up :-)). The pictures is about friendship and they are for a book. We probably looked a bit funny climbing and John did take some (hmm) peculiar pictures. But he also took some nice ones when I was not taking notice, well kind of forgetting he was taking pictures :-)). I normally don´t like people taking pictures on me, I want to be behind the camera instead. But this was for a Bombadil book, so it was kind of ok. On the picture Sara and me are relaxing for a moment before climbing or more like sliding down. Well I wanted to jump down but they didn´t let me do that!

After that we was going a bit by the lake taking some nice pictures. Well it was nice weather and we wanted to be outside for some more time. There was a swan in lake and some other birds. Of course we took some flower pictures. Well it is not so many flower up yet but coltsfoot is actually up.

Has anything more happend? Yes Marianne got her new car today, a red sports car and it is a cabriolet one. And she is really happy and excited about that :-)):-)).

Have nice Easter

Mari, happy in spite of the weather today

Intriguing mysteries and scalability

One of the best – and the worst – part of mentoring is that you really start seeing the authors as family members: you want them to do well, not just in their writing but in life in general. Most of the time this is amazing and the benefit is of course a friend for life. Sometimes this backfires as it did this weekend. John and I mentored what we thought were two good friends. I mentored the one that wrote poetry, John the novelist. They were good, entertaining and friendly. Suddenly a drama was to unfold, and a strange and initially plausible mystery started unfolding. We were incredulous but also genuinely worried because your dear friends seemed to be in trouble. John gallant as ever, and I with my bleeding heart dropped everything, sitting up until late at night trying to help. It was all, however, a joke, a practical and rather tasteless joke. Still makes me sad that such talent was wasted on nothing better than trying to impress and gain sympathy, which essentially was already there. It sort of backfired for the young prankster, I guess mainly because the person behind the one-actor drama only realized when it was too late that being a Bombadilian is not just about artistic talent, but about ideology, an open heart and trust. Now that there is no trust, or an open heart for that matter, the door is forever closed to that talent. Come to think of it, perhaps the talent was not as good as I had first thought it to be, because this young man, it seems, was unable to hold a consistent story line.

I am blogging quite late today, though not as late as Sara. The reason is that we went for a partner meeting in Stockholm to discuss scalability. I do not like coming up with exact numbers - I like estimations and trends - but after having heard of their importance for three hours, Niklas and I spent the evening getting them down on paper. As Niklas said, “these meetings are really good because we get an awful lot done – afterwards”. Well that too of course but the main objective of our partners is to structure us. And they are certainly successful. Structured we are getting – and scalable :-D And we are ready to get even bigger. Just look at the old picture of our office building and the domestic train just outside.. perhaps we will need to reinstall the train service so we can quickly get down to the village shop. Wow, wouldn't that just be so much fun!

I´m late!!

It took me a Monday and a Tuesday morning to remeber to blog, I do apologise. But here I am, your Monday blogger Sara on a Tuesday morning!

Spring has finally decided to show up and Gyttorp is more beutiful than ever, this morning a couple of swans were swimming on the lake, so yes we got our lake back! Sunbeams and melting ice, life is good on Tuesday mornings! Plus I´m getting to know The Mary Onettes, Swedish band which seem to have recorded an album that is made just for me and my Tuesday morning at work, thank you The Mary Onettes! You see, I´m that kind of person that cannot work without listening to music, this might be a bit disturbing for my coworkers, so far no one has complained but I´m waiting for that day to come. For some reason I have a feeling that it will be Niklas that will come to his senses and ask me to turn the music down... Or I might start playing Djingjis Khan, Niklas like Djingjis Khan a lot.

During the weekend John was sorting out our future garden and our patio, plus the deck, it really looks amasing and it´s kind of nice to be able to access the deck again. Before it was covered in the hedge which John cut down in January and a small dog kennel. All this has now been removed and we will be able to have breakfast on the back of our house, facing the lake. wonderful!!

So yeah, Tuesdays are not too bad.

/Sara, your monday blogger, today at a Tuesday morning.

Late thursday in radio

Oops,
late again, blogging.
I have a good excuse this time, though. At least I consider it good. :P
I was interviewed for local radio yesterday, you can see and hear for yourself here.
(In Swedish, so for non-native readers here's a brief summary:
The mine is filled with water from 20 meters down. We will empty it and create a research centre aiming to prove that a self-sufficient moonbase is feasible.)
/Niklas

Trees that grow on books

Yet another week has disappeared under our noses. Melvin Gonzalez, our Spanish expert, has joined us and on Thursday Mari, Sara and I went to see a man about a tree. Or rather a man about lots of trees, it is Bombadil's intention to plant a tree for every title that we publish.



We have decided to start with dwarf beech trees, as not only are they globally endangered, but the Swedish word for beech is the same as the word for book.



This is the island where we will plant the trees.



UNESCO’s world book day is on 23 April. To mark the event, Bombadil wants, nay, needs submissions from all authors between the ages of 12 and 26 - short stories, poetry, letters, essays – and anything else you can think of, to be published within twenty-four hours! Short or long, fact of fiction, poetry or prose, it's all welcome!

This is a not-for-profit book. We will cover our expenses and then donate the profit to charity. So, we will not be paying royalties, sorry, you will just have to make do with the glory of challenging the idea that publishing is slow and unwieldy and that books take years to produce. That and the satisfaction of seeing your name in print and reaching Bombadil’s audience with your writing! People, pick up your pens, tap on your typewriters and compose on your computers and become part of the Bombadil revolution! The deadline is 21st April. Email submissions to worldbookday@bombadilpublishing.com

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like kippers.

A sunny day

Hello everyone

Finally there is a nice sunny and warm day :-)). The spring is here.

Today our new co-worker began here at the Bombadil office. Melvin Gonzalez is his name. He will be mentoring our Spanish speaking authors. Maybe he will teach us some Spanish too :-)).

Niklas is also happy. He got the answer on the water test he took cin the mine. The water is fine, you can actually drink if you want.

Right now I´m doing some book templates. It has a lot to do with placing the stuff in the proper place so everyone will understand it. I will continue with it tomorrow. On Friday I'll not be here, im´m on my way to a meeting.

And we are hopefully soon be working together with a big Swedish company; it´s well known. You will hear more about it later.

Pixie is not around at all today, I think she is a bit tired. She can actually lie down on command, with some help of a treat :-)). At the picture (taken by mobile phone) she is doing that.

Bye bye for this time and have a nice day.

Mari