Gira Bombadil en Latino América

Vemos con mucho agrado y satisfacción que nuestra actual gira en Latinoamérica esta sobrepasando las metas que nos habíamos propuesto, pues la aceptación que hemos obtenido en la parte oriental de El Salvador ha sido enormemente placentera.

Después de tres entrevistas televisivas y cuatro radiofónicas y una entrevista con la Casa de la Cultura, serán muchos los jóvenes que se acercaran a Bombadil Publishing y allí estaremos para darles las mejores atenciones en la cual desarrollaremos conjuntamente con estos jóvenes escritores; escribiendo acorde a nuestra filosofía e ideología, la comunicación de joven a joven, legado para futuras generaciones.

Maggy Jacinto and Melvin Gonzalez in El Salvadorian TV

Nosotras representantes de Bombadil Publishing Maggy Jacinto y Margarita Alfaro Bulle, estamos trabajando arduamente con nuestros mentores en Latino América para darles seguimiento a todos los jóvenes escritores que se están acercando a Bombadil Publishing tanto en El Salvador y toda Latino América y estamos seguras que pronto daremos a luz los resultados a través de los libros editados.

Pero lo que más nos ha sorprendido a sido el inicio literario de 23 jovencitos de la ciudad de Ahuachapán, la cual se ubica en la zona occidental de El Salvador, en edades comprendidas entre los 14 y 17 años, quienes conjuntamente con nuestros mentores Guillermo Antonio Galicia y Marco Antonio Lima, están desarrollando 23 distintos libros y como parte de nuestra ideología será un legado literario de joven a joven… y también de los adultos que así lo deseen, entre estos 23 temas podemos mencionar : leyendas, historias, cuentos cortos, ficción, en fin temas actuales que llevan mensajes de amor y esperanza para obtener un mundo mejor, un mundo Bombadil.
Desde aquí deseamos exhortar a todos los jóvenes con ambiciones literarias a acercarse a Bombadil y formar parte de nuestros sueños y hacer realidad un mundo diferente.

DE JOVEN A JOVEN

Written by: Maggy Jacinto

Inspirational meetings and making new friends.

Last week I got really inspired, more inspired than I have felt in a long time. Because last week on Thursday night I met up with one of those friends who are more a friend of a friend, although I can´t remember whose friend he was to begin with. I think we played in the same amateurs football team last summer, maybe that´s were where I first met him, he who gave me waves and waves of inspiration.

I am a hard nut to crack at times, especially when it comes to writing and to feel inspired, I don´t really think inspiration can be forced, although it´s no use just to sit around and wait for it to come and knock your door. Very carefully it need to be pushed and pulled at the same time, and for me who is a hard nut to crack the periods filled with nothing but inspiration seems to be quite irregular and nowadays quite rare even… And I have seriously started to consider if my inspiration has gone off to Greece in order to sunbath ridiculously much, or perhaps skiing in the Austrian alps. Who knows? It´s been missing, and I have surely missed it.

Back to the point; last week I met up with this friend of a friend, but now he is not a friend of a friend no more, now he is "just" a friend =). He writes lyrics and music for his band "Holmes", very, very talented, and we have been saying for quite a while that we should try to do something experimental and creative together. Or rather I have been saying. So at last we did and it all turned out something like this: I have been trying to interpret, unravel and rewrite some of his lyrics, in order to turn them into poems with my way of writing. Then he played his songs that I had rewritten on his guitar. And it all turned out to be pretty fabulous! And because of this energy boost I´ve got from this creative meeting I now have seem to found my inspiration! Didn´t take much; couple of cups of coffee, a new friend and his guitar. That´s the magic recipe. Full stop.

To summarize it all: Get out there and make some new friends, share your thoughts with someone, dare to show yourself, put your heart on your sleeve for a while, you might like it. It might even inspire you, or someone else, who knows?

Over&OutSara

Bloggin' on time

Last week I forgot to blog. Sorry! I guess my blogs aren't the funniest anyway, so perhaps no one minded. My ego hopes so, of course.

Anyway, most of this week has been spent organising the structure of the company, and handling the expansion and sorting out the changes to the social network. I am pleased with the way it is going, and also pleased that so many people have sent me messages off line saying what they want. Keep them coming please! We are listening, and really like your ideas.

One of our authors suggested a short story competition and our very first one will be on the theme "A smile" and in three languages: English, Swedish and Spanish. I am very much looking forward to the outcome, and I like the idea that the first competition is so positive.

Another of our authors has started a group for well being and encouragement. I think we all need it, and can all be inspired by it. Do take advantage of this, and I hope this group as well as the competition brings many smiles!

Inspiration and feelings

Hello in the sunny weather!

-Ohhh noo, that stupid claw thing again, grrr. (Pixie)
-Well your nails need to be trimmed again. (Mari)
- No,no. I will bite it. (Pixie)
-Yes, come here. It´s not dangerous. (Mari)
-Grumble, grumble. Let me go NOW (Pixie)
Then Pixie flounders a bit giving me some hard time cutting her nails. But in the end it did go well with some holding help from John.

When the spring comes the inspiration comes more and more. Well at least it does for me anyway. I always want to do so much and I don´t not what to begin with! I want to go out in the nature just to listen to all the sounds. I want to be with good friends, having some fun. I want to be with my excellent co-workers, they are marvellous. And so on, so on........
In the weekend i saw "Lily of the valley" and the blue "forget-me-not" a marvellous flower. I think it was a bit early!

"forget-me-not" (my first try with digital camera)

Inspiration is also to try to learn how a digital camera works. I was borrowing one of Bombadil's cameras over the weekend trying to take some pictures. Did it go well ? No it didn´t, grrr. I don´t have the same feeling for the digital camera as I have for my own normal system camera. I just can´t figure out how it works perfectly and therefore I don´t have the feeling for the digital thing. But I don´t give up that easy and I will try again and again and again :-)).

Books have been sent for printing and some more are quite close to be sent. It is an inspiration to see the finished printing file be uploaded to the printing company. It is really fine !!!

Until next time.Have a nice and sunny weekend
Mari

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