Books and, er, books, I suppose. Oh, and creativity. Lots of that.

There are many wonderful things about living in Sweden. The climate is pleasant (except for today; it's raining), the scenery is unbelievably beautiful and the Swedes are a particularly pleasant bunch. There are huge lakes, tall green trees and lush forests. There was at one stage a point to this paragraph. What the point was, however, escapes me now. I guess I'm just trying to say that Sweden is a pretty fantastic place and I spend my days in a basket of creativity. Those of you who spend an hour a day in the great orbital car park that is the M25, you have my sympathies.

Two books are nearing completion, Sahil's role-playing adventure book "Inz The Warrior" has been sent to the printer today and Seth's book "The Noresemen's Saga" has been sent off to be proofread. Note, proofread, not edited, as we do not believe in taking an author's work and then mercilessly chopping it about.

The big Learning Swedish effort is progressing steadily, if a little slowly. I have just discovered that rabbit is kanin, which sounds for all the world like canine. Dog is hund though, which makes a little more sense. And cat, well, that's just katt.


Detta är inte en katt...

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

Creativity rocks!!

And it sucks when you can´t feel the heat, of creativity.

Lately I noticed that creativity is a quite trendy word, at least in Swedish, it kind of became one of those overly used words. People talk about "The pleasure creativity brings", "the lack of creativity" and the importance of having creativity! The world itself seemed to have got greater than the real meaning of it. It´s almost like one is supposed to be creative, wether one like it or not. All the sudden it´s well creative to have managed to clean the house or washing your shower curtain...

Creativity is to create something new, to think out of bounds and outside the box. To dare and to do. At the Bombadil office creativity is something that is used and needed everyday since we everyday meets new challenges and new situations that must be delt with which we haven´t faced before. That´s why lack of creativity sometimes might be a "tiny" problem as we all get those days when the brain seems to be a big lump of soft content rahter than a highly tuned, extremly dynamic organ. That´s why it´s so fabulous to work with people and around people who seem to have more creativity than they can handle. One of the authors I happen to mentor is one of those people, she will overwhelm me with short storys, poems and pictures. And she will never stop trying. Amasing. and the best bit is, her creativity smittens and those days when my brain seems to work best as a soft fotboll she and others can inspire and lift me and my creativity level up to a decent level again.

True creativity really rocks. It´s a fact.
All for now.
/Over&Out, Your monday blogger Sara

I'm not dead...

I have been absent from the Bombadil blog for a few weeks now. No, I haven't been shipped off to Finland as punishment for eating all of the Bombadil biscuits, it's just that there have been rather a lot of public holidays lately. They invariably fall on a Friday, so we are not in the office.

I have been working on a couple of Bombadil's flagship projects, whilst at the same time wishing that things would move just a little faster. Sahil's fantasy adventure book is finally nearly ready, after we decided to undertake a major page referencing exercise on it. Perhaps not the most sensible thing, looking back on it, when I consider the amount of extra work that it generated, but it will make the book infinitely more readable. It is a book that allows the reader to make their own choices throughout the story so it must be carefully checked, then re- checked, otherwise it will not make any sense.

The May Fire at Örebro and the Archery Club party (in my villa) has been extensively covered by other Bombadillians elsewhere, so I shall not harp on about that. I am, with Steinar's help, building a kayak. I have recently discovered the joys of paddling along a river in a beautiful wooden craft and so I have started on my own construction. It appears to be growing quite quickly, but I have a feeling it will start to take a lot longer once it is time for sanding.



I am also learning Swedish. It's not really necessary as nearly everyone here speaks impeccable English (even the bums outside the off-licence) but as I have been here for a while now, I thought it was time to learn. It's going rather well (I'm on week two of learning).

I andra nyheter, Bombadil hunden är för närvarande mycket blöter.

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

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.

From Switzerland with love

I've been out of the office for a few days this week, visiting the British Council at the UN headquarters at Geneva.



I went to see their "Turning the Tide" exhibition at the Palais des Nations. We are planning a collaboration with them which should be launched soon. More details to follow!

We still have snow, but I am assured that spring is on its way. The Bombadil vegetable garden is expecting a delivery of topsoil in the next few weeks, so assuming the ground ever thaws out, I can start to grow Swedes. And other vegetables, of course.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like the epitome of mustiness.

Bearly there

So, Bombadil has acquired a bear.



As Niklas said in his blog yesterday, he and I went to the mine to collect a water sample. He went into the mine whilst I stood at the top of the shaft waiting for the inevitable loss of life that would surely follow. Strangely, the whole operation came off without a hitch. So I had hauled up the water container on the end of a 40 metre rope when when Niklas asked me to send the rope down once more.

"What else are you sending up?" I asked.
"I've found a teddy bear," the reply floated back up. "It's badly wounded."
"It's extremely heavy," I pointed out as I heaved on the rope once more.
"Ah, it's quite waterlogged..."

Does anyone know if Rolf Harris is still at Animal Hospital?

In other news, the Bombadil Dog currently smells like elderly pantaloons.

Fast times, fast books

Friday is here again! Well, it may have been here yesterday actually. Thanks to Mari for reminding me that I am blogging today - oops. But yet another week has flown by; we're well into March and it seems like only a couple of weeks ago that I was sliding from one end of the cabin to the other on my epic and uncomfortable boat journey to Sweden (well, to Denmark at any rate, I still had a ten hour drive through several blizzards until I reached Bombadil Towers).

I'm very busy with my own projects, which I will reveal in the fullness of time. I have been working on the artwork for the Bombadil posters for World Book Day in my spare time. Niklas, having made peace with the pneumatic Ms Anderson, has been busy with some drawings of his own, in the shape of expansion plans on the back of paper napkins.

Back to the UNESCO World Book Day, which is on 23 April. We wanted to do something to mark this event, so we thought about it and decided to publish a world book, comprising of short stories, letters, poems and essays from around the world. To spice it up a bit, we will be starting the actual publishing process in the early hours of the 23rd and aiming to have the first copy of the finished book available by midnight of the same day. Will we succeed? Who knows!

Posted by John

Media Centre is afloat!

Our acquisition of Veronica Hägg as the driving force behind the Media Centre heralds a new dawn in dynamic and proactive media-centric community orientated projects. Or put more simply and without the unnecessary and frankly ridiculous "middle management" waffle, "things will be 'appening 'ere".



We have lots of ideas at the moment, centring around creative writing workshops, journalism, kayaks, art projects, photography, theatre, cinema and a cafe.

Steinar, whose kayak building and other expertise will be an important part of the Media Centre, has nearly completed work on his latest kayak.







It's a timber kayak with a fibreglass overlay. The construction is light enough to be carried and strong enough to bounce off stones when in shallow water. It will also survive being dropped from a car roof rack.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like scotch eggs. And there is a loaf of bread in the middle of the driveway - make of that what you will.

Posted by John

Coffee, fruit and cheese

Ah, Friday. As loyal readers of the Bombablog may have gathered, Sara, my erstwhile and erudite colleague, doesn't really like Mondays. I, on the other hand, don't much care for Fridays. It signals the end of the week and I rather enjoy my weeks at Bombadil. On the plus side though Friday does tend to be even madder than the rest of the week. Here is a brief outline of the sequence of events that occurred this morning.

• Everyone drinks coffee in the fika room, at 10 o'clock sharp, like good Swedes/psuedo Swedes
  
• Twenty minutes later, everyone gets up to leave the fika room to continue Bombadilling
• Niklas (upon inspecting the contents of his mug and with a genuine tone of surprise in his voice), comments: "Ah, I have not drunk any coffee, I have only eaten fruits."
• Everyone sits down again
• Niklas drinks coffee
• Swedish chi is restored
  

Our Media Centre is gathering pace (well, it is gathering staff at any rate). Veronica will be joining the Bombadil stable next Monday, hopefully she'll be able to put up with our horsing around in the fika room.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like cheese.*

*She smells of cheese bacause she stole several kilos of cheddar from the kitchen table last night.

Dancing the can't-can't

The neighbours invited us over for dinner last night. I know that this is a blog of office news and that dinner with the neighbours is not, strictly speaking, office news, but most of us were there and it did mean that we were all slightly more sedate this morning than we might otherwise have been. I tend to judge the success of a dinner by the number of different drinks that are served at the table and let me assure you this particular culinary event was absolutely excellent.



And now an apology. Sara has been responsible for editing the Bombadil Shorts this week. It turns out that I do rather a lot of singing and dancing in front of the camera, usually whilst wielding power tools and other manly paraphernalia. I have no idea why and generally don't realise that I'm doing it. If I'm editing, I consign it to the Bombadil dustbin. However, Sara has decided that me shaking it with a cordless drill is what the public are baying for and consequently Youtube's servers are groaning under the (metaphysical) weight of scores of video clips featuring my rather dire dancing. You all have my most sincere condolences and rest assured it was NOT my idea!

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like fermenting herring.

Dog multiplication

I'm blogging just before going off to the airport to pick up a friend who is coming for the weekend to see Sweden. Rather a good choice of weekend too - snow and sun.

It's been a successful week. Marianne has been on the hunt for some more high-level people to sit on our board and early indications appear to be excellent. We've been featured in the regional newspaper and our website statistics seem to suggest that lots of people have read the article and are looking us up. I'm particularly pleased as the authors that I'm mentoring, some great ideas are coming together and we will have new titles in print before too long.

Honorary Bombadil dog Ubbe has accompanied Mari into the office today. Pixie is mentoring him and guiding him through the important steps that will mean that he is proficient at barking at the postman.



In other news, the (original) Bombadil dog currently smells like an elderly dishcloth.

Posted by John

All hail our glorious leader

Now, you remember that on Monday, Marianne posted a particularly peculiar picture of me? I thought it was time to redress the balance! But then I reconsidered, as she is currently spending time promoting my marvellous book, It'll Be Fine, which may be bought on www.amazon.co.uk . I was going to mention Marianne's inability to tell jokes - she knows a very long joke about a man sitting in a fridge, but she is completely unable to tell it. Well, that doesn't stop her trying. Tenacity is normally an admirable trait, however one can have too much of a good thing...



Anyway, since she's working so hard on my behalf, I've decided not to mention any of that, or to post this silly picture of her and Pixie.

I've now got a whiteboard and some coat hooks in my office, which is nice. I am told that the whiteboard markers are arriving some time next week, so in the mean time I'm sitting and looking wistfully at it, whilst quietly making little pen-squeaking noises and imagining all the witty things I could write on it. Roll on next week...

I have heard through the grapevine that our shorts have won the acclaim of a well known and long established author. The shorts bring together the ideas of the whole company, but as I am editor, director and often cameraman as well, I think I am justified in feeling smug.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like waterlogged shagpile.

Posted by John

Flat-pack civilisation

I'm feeling particularly Swedish at the moment as I went to IKEA last night. In Sweden. With a Swede.

Conny the carpenter has been hard at work, building a bedroom for Sara in the house that we live in. It's a rather strange house at the moment as every room can be walked through, so some internal partitioning was called for. The next job for him will be to put a door on the bathroom. Then we really will be approaching civilisation and normality.

The Bombadil Shorts project is going well, with a new film uploaded every day. See Bombadil Publishing on Youtube. Also, we are now a seller on Amazon - we currently have It'll Be Fine for sale, but we will be adding the remainder of the titles soon.



The weather in Sweden this week has been really rather snowy, with more forecast for the weekend. Some of the ice on the lake has frozen, but the majority of it remains, although I wouldn't fancy the chances of anyone wishing to skate in it.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like blue cheese dressing.

Posted by John

International Friday

I'm John, I'm in charge of the international office and the Shorts project and Friday is my day to blog. If you want to know more about me, have a look at my personal blog at http://booksandsnow.blogspot.com/.

I'm feeling particularly pleased with myself at the moment because in a stroke of comic genius I have attached a small anchor to the leg of my desk to stop it floating away. Anyone who has ever owned a desk, or indeed any other piece of freestanding furniture, will know what a problem "furniture drift" can be.



As you should know, we have published our second film today as part of the Bombadil Shorts project. These short films will be published daily and can be viewed on Youtube, via the link on the Bombadil website, via the Bombadil fanclub on Facebook and on my personal Facebook page.

See them here: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BombadilPublishing&view=videos

We have had great fun making the films and I think I'm getting rather good at editing them. As they're so short, an awful lot ends up on the cutting room floor. Or the "trash can" on the Mac, to be precise. I can confirm that we are every bit as mad as we seem. We're absolutely rubbish at acting, so everything you see is completely unscripted and made up on the spot.

We have actually been doing some work as well. Sara, having drawn inspiration from Joey Tempest (see Monday's entry), is currently planning the Bombadil spring festival, Niklas is away at the university in Trolhattan and Marianne is keeping everything headed in the right direction. I've just been messing around with boating paraphernalia and film equipment though.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like old socks.

Posted by John