INDIAN DRUMS PART-II

A Journey With the Knowing of Devotional Musical Instruments

Prevalent Indian Drums-Structure and composition

Leather instruments are mainly called as ‘Anabadha’ or ‘Abadha’ playing instruments.
In India there are several types of instruments.The significant names among them are Pakhawaj,Tabla,Khol,Dhol,Nakkara,Mridangam,Dvil,Sudha Maddalam,Chenda,Urumi,Pambai,Udukku,Tumbakanari,Huduk,Tilima etc.

The descriptions are as follows:-(Leaving out Tabla and Pakhawaj)

Khol:-
The other name of ‘Khol’ is ‘Mridangam’ but it should be confused with the ‘North Indian ancient Mridangam’ or ‘Pakhwaj’.The whole body of ‘Khol’ is made with burnt clay. The middle portion is higher and has two slanting faces on either side.The two face are made of leather and the middle of each face has a black portion called ‘Gab’.The right face(maxm. size-2/3 inches) is smaller as compared to the left face. The specialty of ‘Khol’ is there is no need of adjusting ‘sur’ or scale as in the case of tabla. ‘Khol’ is usually used with ‘Kirtans’, Devotional songs and ‘Kirtananga Rabindra Sangeet’ .It is also used with Manipuri dances.


Dhol:-
The body of a Dhol is made of wood and the faces are of leather. Normally a ‘Dhol’ is 18’’ to 20’’ inches in length and 12’’ in breadth. The two sides are fitted with strong ‘Rojju’ which are given through small round rings. The rings are used to adjust the scale of the instrument. They are played with free hands or sometimes with the help of sticks. They are mostly used to accompany folk songs.


Nakkara: -
‘Nakkara’ is one the most significant ancient musical instruments. ‘Bheri’ or ‘Dundubi’ can be considered just as different types of ‘Nakkara’. Usually ‘Nakkara’ is made of Bronze or Brass and its shape is much like the ‘Bayan’ of a tabla. The face is made of leather and is tightly fitted by ‘Rojju’. Its height is approximately 2’1/2 feet to 3 feet. ‘Nakkara’ is played with the help of sticks but with the ‘Sanai’ of North India ‘Nakkara’ is played with hand only.


Mridangam:-
The North Indian ‘Pakhawaj’ is called as ‘Mridangam’ but it has certain dissimilarities with the ‘Mridangam’ of South India. The size of a ‘Mridangam’ is less than that of a ‘pakhawaj’ and whereas the left face of a ‘Pakhawaj’ is played with open palm ,in case of ‘Mridangam’ it is played with fingers like that of a ‘Bayan’ of a Tabla. The length of a ‘Mridangam’ is approximately 1’1/2 to 2 feet. It is usually played with heavy classical music and songs of North India.


Tabhil: -
The shape of a ‘Tabhil’ is much like that of a ‘Dhol’ Its right face is played with fingers while left face with strong wooden stick. This instrument is used with classical musical instruments of North India.

Suddha Maddalam:-
It’s a North India musical instrument and resembles much like that of a ‘Mridangam’ but much bigger in size than ‘Mridangam’ and its ‘gab’ is also much thicker and larger.It has a much heavier sound wave than ‘Mridangam’. This instrument is indispensable for the Kathakali dance of Kerela.

Chenda: -
‘Chenda’ is a type of ‘Dhol’ with length 2 feet and breadth 1 foot. It is played with the help of two sticks in two hands. It is also used with Kathakali dance of Kerela. It is also used with the folk dances of Northern and southern India.

Urum:-
It is also like ‘dhol’ in structure and the two faces are made of leather.It is played with the help of a 1’1/2 inches long curved stick.

Pambai:-
It has been made by uniting two 1 foot long ‘Dhols’ together. The upper part is made of brass and the lower part is made of wood and both faces are of leather. It is played with hand and stick. It is usually used with folk dances of the Northern India.


Udukku:-

It is about one foot long with a thin middle part and shaped like that of a ‘Dugdugi’. It is either made of wood or mud. It is held in left hand and played with right hand. It has limited use in some folk songs of Tamil Nadu.



Tumbakanari:-

It is the Kashmiri ‘Dholak’. It is shaped like a water pot. The lower part is made of leather. It is help below the left arm and played with the right hand. It is a very popular instrument of Kashmir.

Hudukku:-

It is like a ‘Dumru’ but much larger in size. Its both faces are made of leather and are held together by strong rope. It is suspended with a rope from the left shoulder and played with the right hand. It is popular in the ‘Gharwal’ AREAS.



Timila:-

It is also a type of dholak. It is suspended with a rope from the left shoulder and the upper part is played with both hands. It is used in devotional songs of temples of Kerela.

by Sonnet Mondal.

The Christmas dreams came true!

Last week I got an e-mail of a young guy from Latin America, he is about fourteen years age, maybe a little bit more, he wrote that he read about Bombadil Publishing somewhere and he don’t believe this marvelous opportunity. I mean, he explained to me that he have a big trust on us, in our editorial work, but it’s was so amazing that’s was unreliable and unbelievable, because he had dream about to be listened by somebody and to be interested in his book.
This young boy wrote that in the matter of the facts he beg to Santa in a letter for two years ago if he could find an editorial agency whom could take care on his literary business and finally came Bombadil Publishing in his life as a gift from the sky, a gift he had asked for to Santa. A Christmas gift! His dream about to be edited came true with Bombadil Publishing!
I wrote back this young boy, that Bombadil Publishing is a really matter, that we are represented globally nearly all around the world, that we have several thousand young writers whom are a part of our world, a part of our vision to get a better world, with our slogan YOUTH2YOUTH have found the heart of many young writers around the world whom transmitted their messages of love, their messages of hope, peace and love to other young writers and other young people… And adults too!
I wrote too to this young boy that is not a casualty that Tom Bombadil (Our inspirited character of the Trilogy of the Lord of the Ring) and Santa had a splendid white beard, and both like children, but I aggregated that Tom Bombadil likes younger to twenty six year old and everybody who’s thinking as a young!

We at Bombadil Publishing wish Merry Christmas to everybody and Happy New Year

Go out and meet nature

Yesterday I woke up in a terrible mood, it was grey, dull weather, I had not slept very well and so on. Frankly I was quite moody. Not the best beginning of a Sunday morning I thought to myself. But since it was not raining at least we ( me and my boyfriend) decided to take the car and drive to a very small mountain not far from our hometown Trollhättan called "Halleberg" and go for a walk. Halleberg

When we came to "Halleberg" we both realized we had never been on this mountain before and didn´t quite know the ways around it, it turned out to be a quite long walk just because we kept going on new paths which led us further and further from where we had started our"little" walk. Which I can feel in my body today; feverish and my cough became worse, but it was totally worth it! Because of nature! My bad mood was swept away as a soft wind as soon as I started walking through the thick and healthy forrest, my smile grew bigger for every breath of fresh ait my lungs inhaled and I felt like I had woken up a second time, this time happy. Nature is fabulous and at least I forget which inpact it has on me when I´m gone from it for too long. So go out and meet nature and heal your soul with the magic from our nature!

Over&Out

Sara

Chile: A country with literary skills has joined to The Bombadil’s Generation!

The Bombadil world are growing in a beautiful and wonderful way in Latin America, and global as well; every day we are getting new writers and mentors who understand the Bombadil Publishing’s philosophy, which is communicated betweens young people who share this message of hope and progress with other young people: and adult who want to too; all around the world!
Bombadil Publishing wants to welcome our very brand new mentor from Chile, Sandra Leiva; Sandra is living in the big city of Santiago, the capital of Chile, the South American country that has born several magnificent writers as the Nobel Price Winners in Literature Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral.
Sandra Leiva has taking with her the austral and long country Chile in our Bombadil world and with Sandra has coming the very first writer from Chile to us, the young lady Fernanda Ferrada, she is writing a roman and is in the terminal phase and we can have soon Fernanda’s book in our prints and we’ll get the book to the world.
Bombadil Publishing proudly introduce to the world our Mentor Sandra Leiva, our young writer, Fernanda Ferrada and of course the republic of Chile.
YOUTH2YOUTH
Melvin Gonzalez

We welcome a new Bombadilian

We are happy and proud to welcome Felix into this world. Felix is the first child of Mousumi and Alex in India. He was born at 9:50 PM on the 27th August.
Welcome Felix, we hope the world will bring you what your name suggests: prosperity and happiness.

Bombadil Publishing has launched their first two books in Spanish.

A group representing Bombadil Publishing AB will be travelling to Latin America to launch the two very first books in Spanish, next already next week in Lima, Peru where we will be presenting Rogger Avendaño’s book “La Dama de Negro y otros Cuentos”, at the Cultural Spain Center in the Incan capital. A week later our Bombadil group will be in El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, and we will be introducing to the world the book of our author Mario Chavez Jovel named “31 Cuentos Cortos” at the famous local in San Salvador.

Our company will be represented by our lovely MD Marianne Rugård-Järvstråt, the smart Niklas Järvstråt and myself Melvin González, together with our local mentors Maggy Jacinto in Peru and Margarita Alfaro Bulle in El Salvador, who will be very happy to get these books to their writers. The feelings of our work is crowned.

These two books are the result of the combined work of a great cooperation team between Bombadilians, the author, the mentor, myself, the team in the international office and the distribution team. There is a very good feeling in the air about these books and the message of those young writer is very clear: harmony, love, peace and taking care each other and help to building a better future, a Bombadilian future where young people help young people… and adults… as myself. YOUTH2YOUTH

Melvin González

Young People are writing!

When I read the mails of girls and boys from USA, El Salvador, Peru, Venezuela, Sweden, India and many other countries, and I can see that all of them are writing books with the help of mentors provided by Bombadil Publishing AB, and the writers ask me what I think about their books, about their writing, about their stories, I feel that these young people give me a kind of energy, a kind of inspiration and happiness which takes me to horizons far away deep in the future. When young people are writing different stories, different feelings, different way to think, different ways to see in the future, they express themselves as the adults they will be in a near future. And these young people show us how they will live in the future, how they will take care of matters in the future, in the society and in real life. There will be a good life, no doubt about that, because these young writers are taking their responsibility already now, but in a young way, in a happy way and in a responsible way at the same time.

YOUNG WRITERS OF BOMBADIL PUBLISHING AB

Srishti- India Andrea-Venezuela Lily- Peru Josephine-Sweden

A boy wrote the following to me: “Mr. Melvin, there was time to us, the younger generation to obtain this opportunity that Bombadil Publishing AB gives

us, this will be a historical success for both us young writers and for your nice editorial too, because never before has there been an opportunity like this. My mother is incredulous to this way to write books, because she never seen something like this before; my father is thinking in the same way, but they are just adults, they’re thinking like the other adults who didn’t have this marvelous opportunity your editorial has provided us. My parents are just adults, they don’t know better, poor people.” And there is to this young writer that I want to thanks this wonderful time I live right now, those young writer injected this inspiration, this good feeling, the Bombadil feeling. YOUTH2YOUTH.

A not so younger human been but feeling still young Melvin González.

"A little less conversation"

A new fresh week, another shining Monday and a new blog post to be written. The theme of today’s Bombadil blog post is communication.

To communicate is to speak and get ones message out. It´s to talk and to get your opinions across. And what else? Listening, in my opinion, communicating is mainly about listening.

Sometimes I find myself hearing what the person I´m talking to is saying, but not listening to what this person is actually saying. This especially occurs when I´m meeting new people for the first time, friends of friends, someone’s new boyfriend/girlfriend etc. The big failure take place when we are being introduced, I am trying so hard to look nice, smile a lot and remembering my own name in order to greet this new person that I completely forget to listen to what they are saying! And suddenly I find myself looking like a fool since I for the love of god can´t remember the bloody name of the person I have just shook hands with! And there I stand with my beard in the mailbox (old Swedish saying, which basically means you have screwed up).

Since I have managed to address the great mystery; why I can not remember names I can now push myself and do some training to get rid of this embarrassing situation once and for all. So instead of thinking "my name is Sara, hello, I´m very pleased to meet you" I am nowadays trying to leave my head blank and not think of anything at all in order to fill my little head with the most crucial information at that very moment; the name of the person, who´s hand I´m squeezing.

The same issue can be found almost anywhere, as soon as someone stops listening and is just hearing (big difference!) what is being said, a problem has been born, the important thing is not to let it grow! So start listening to your surrounding and try your best to communicate with it instead of "just" talking to it. Personally I think it probably would spare a lot of hassle, arguments and misunderstanding.

Over&out
Sara

An ice fridge is a nice fridge

Today, I decided to get some work done in the office. I don't normally work on the weekend, but I've been feeling so inspired since I took on my new (and still nameless) creative role that at ten o'clock this morning I made my way towards the office. Then I bumped into Steinar, who announced that it was a wonderful day for kayaking and that we should put the kayaks on top of the car and head out to a lake at the top of Pershyttan. I don't know how a lake gets to be at the top of anywhere, but there it was, and very nice it was too.





I would have put a picture of the lake here, but I didn't take one, so tough. Use your imagination. (Click for larger image)

When we got back, I tried to make it to the office for a second time, before Mattias called me. Consequently, we went to visit his brother to collect a three piece suite that Marianne had bought from them. We met a few people from his family and I acquired this.



It's a Swedish ice fridge from around 1850. The ice goes in the top (I'm not quite sure how it used to work as it had all melted) It is insulated with chalk.



It's currently in a bit of a state as some kind Swede has tacked linoleum to the top, painted it an attractive shade of "old mans' sock brown" and clad the inside with tartan wrapping paper. However, with a little paint stripper and furniture wax it should make a top notch wine cabinet.

It was quite heavy. Well, really heavy. I looked inside it and discovered an antique flat iron hiding in one of the corners. "Aha," I though, 'that will be making it heavy.' Then I looked a little further and found another. And another. And finally a fourth. So what I actually have is a circa 1850 ice fridge, a 1970s mains operated calculator (with retro green on black display, no less!) and four antique flat irons in various states of repair.



Not bad, I'm sure you'll agree!

English, Swedish and Spanish!

This week we found a talented author who is writing a mysterious book; a mysterious story about mysterious creatures. She really has a talent for mysterious writing and she asked me what I think about her work. The truth is that I don’t like this kind of literature because I get afraid! But I read it! It was a very good tale, a good story. And I think this girl is really good as any author, despite she is only sixteen years old! Imagine! As John Lennon song, if we all adults in the word should be like this girl! It should be a wonderful world of ideas, good ideas. So I very proudly introduce to the world our very young writer Andrea Lujano from Maracay, Venezuela.

Get a first glance to her, I mean to Andrea, because you’ll love her. As we do right now in Bombadil Publishing! This kind of event is the special kind of occasion which we adults can get the sort of inspiration that this young girl gave me and her mentor, Maggy Jacinto, Mrs. Jacinto said that it’s was almost unbelievable that a very young girl is writing so carefully and so competently, like one of the best writers in the young world of Bombadil Publishing. This is one of the moments that I appreciate so much. The best of all is that Bombadil is publishing in three languages English, Swedish and Spanish to the entire world!

So thanks Andrea, you are really the best!

Melvin Gonzalez.

Yesterday

I got a reproof yesterday, this very young boy and very good writer, who asked me why I forgot him because I didn’t send any mail. The thing is that we in Bombadil Publishing AB are very busy with our visit to Latin America next month and we are preparing our travel to these beautiful and warm countries. Our charming managing director Mrs. Marianne Rugård, our clever Vice-president Mr. Niklas Järvstråt and myself will be visiting several countries this summer and meeting you young writers and talking about our wonderful world, the Bombadil world, the world we are creating together. My dear friend “Chuck” Don’t think that I can forget you, not for a moment, you young writers are my inspiration, I could never stop thinking about you.



As I wrote, we in Bombadil Publishing AB will travel to Latin America and visit several countries, this will be a fantastic meeting with these beautiful, young and intelligent writers. We shall visit my old dear country El Salvador and is possible Mexico, Venezuela and Peru too. We’ll see all you young people and talk about our deep feelings, our wishes and, more important, your feelings and wishes. That will be a Bombadil feeling, our feeling to make a better world, a world with your books, ours books; books of the world, these books will be our legacy to the next generations, your generations, the future generations,Bombadil’s generations.

Melvin

Hot music

Sweden is a cold, cold country. It's beautiful, but it's cold. Deep frozen moose, Arctic foxes and lynxes with frostbitten paws abound. I know this because my friend who lives in London, and is an 'it' boffin, regularly tells me what the weather is doing just outside my door. He has some desktop widget on his computer that tells him the temperature in various parts of the world and he delights in informing me on a weekly basis that I am living in a cold and frequently damp environment, in contrast to his own existence in West London where he is saved from drowning in his own perspiration only by air conditioning.

In vain do I tell him that the Swedish flags are cracking, the tarmac is melting and my digital thermometer (100 kronor at the local supermarket) is showing temperatures in excess of 30 degrees Celsius. But here I present my one last rebuttal to the constant stream of meteorological misinformation that is emanating from Chiswick, namely one perfectly ordinary compact disc case that I left on the parcel shelf of my car.



John

“A clean hippie is not a good hippie”

I was down town on Wednesday, there was music somewhere; there was a song which reminded me of the old days back in the seventies. I strolled to a park and I could see a band trying to play “Black dog” from Led Zeppelin, I say the band tried because them was not so good as Led Zeppelin, but the members of the band wore this clothes very similar that I wore back in the early seventies, when the hippie thing was in fashion. When I was about thirteen years old I did want to be a member in a pacifist group whom protested again the Vietnam War, there were a lot hippies much older than my self, I remember that we did wear flowers as symbol of peace and love.

The first day everybody was happy with me and I came back every morning to the park, as my mother don’t allowed me to sleep in the park as the rest of the hippie gang. I come back every morning and I begun to see that everybody was wearing the same clothes, whereas I was wearing brand new clothes and several members of the hippie gang came to me and tried to stop me being with me. A guy who was a kind leader told to me to go, I was very sad and I asked him why? The man answered, with good manner, “Don’t you see that a clean hippie is not a good hippie.”

I left the group very sadly and went home, but I can’t forget the feeling this people transmitted me, the feeling to love everybody and don't spread war, instead spread love.

This feeling has persecuted me until now, I am so exalted over all the love our Bombadilians around the world send me and to all our staff in Bombadil Publishing, all these young people who send messages of love and peace in this very special manner, through writing poems in our Social Network, this special love get me this “clean” feeling, which is a wonderful experience, a marvellous feeling, a Bombadil feeling.

Melvin González

The Bombadil family is growing and growing!

Well, our dear family is expanding all the time, as we could read a few days ago; Matthias is our last acquisition as co-worker at our office in Gyttorp. But in the international side are we growing too, a lady from Peru, Maggy Jacinto, has started as a mentor and proofreader, as well, in our family, she had experience of office and printing work and she is mother of two young girls back in Peru, I want to welcome Maggy in the name of all Bombadilians and we´ll see toward new adventures together in our wonderful world of books, our world of writing, our world of creating and building a different world, a better one, there all the young people around the world have the possibility to express them self and show the world that the young people can create a new better world… and want too.



Maggy Jacinto Salazar.

And we got several fresh writers from Colombia and Venezuela, young people who inspire other young writers, and older of course, all around the world, and the marvelous felling to be part of this family get me this sensation difficult to describe, but easy to understand for everybody in our expanding family. Come together everybody and get this feeling, the Bombadil feeling and be part of this wonderful world all around us, the Bombadil World! YOUTH TO YOUTH.

Melvin González

New co-worker and author school part 2!

The Bombadil office has expanded even more, although no one thoughtis was possible, it was. We have now got the Bombadil handyman, i.e. Mattias the Estate Manager. Mattias is going to work with the Bombadil buildings and sort out the stuff which we are not able to do. Getting us a nice and neat lunch room, the old fika room is now under construction and is turned into a proper lunch room, wonderful! Mattias just came back from the paint shop and started off straight away. Aparently Mattias also has been riding when he was a child, just like the rest of us at the Bombadil office, perfect! For some reason he is not anymore, I think it had something to do with the story he told us by lunch (in the old lunch room i.e. mine and johns kitchen) it had something involving a 12 year old Mattias, a large horse and a very high fence. Somehow Mattias managed to get to the other side of the fence, going from the horses back. Interesting. I might very well try that sooner or later...

To the left, Mattias fixing the lunch room!

Further I am pleased to annonce that the Author school, part 2 is now finished! The topic of part 2 is making progress and identifying the problems that might come up whilst writing. We are trying to introduce a few different way of thinking, that might help authors on the way towards progress. Personally I think it´s important to think progress rather than solution when it comes to writing and other creative ways of expressing. Because what does solution actually mean when discussing creative expressions such as writing? Does it mean to achieve the perfect manuscript? And if that is the case, what is the perfect manuscript/book, isn´t that for the reader to decide, in the eyes of the audience and all of that... So there for I believe in progress and I believe in consistant development.

Over&Out
/sara

Bombadil has an informal environmental policy. That is to say, we do not brag about it, but we castigate those who leave lights on, turn off the coffee machine when it is not being used (although this is rarely) and publish our books on recycled paper. We also compost the apple cores and orange peel from the fruit bowl in the fika room. I am Composter in Chief, a post that carries many responsibilies (mainly the responsibility of carrying the compost bucket to the compost heap, emptying it, and replacing it under the kitchen sink).

I was happy and fulfilled in my duties until I learned, to my great surprise, that I am in possession of an illegal compost heap. Apparently, Swedish compost heap regulations stipulate that the pile of rotting vegetation must be enclosed, either with a wall, some form of planking, or by locating the composting materials inside a barrel or other preformed container. I have briefly considered enclosing my heap, but I lack the necessary building materials and therefore lie awake a night awaiting the inevitable knock at the door. That is, of course, providing the decomposition police can negotiate the cunningly laid set of banana skin traps in the driveway.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like a court summons.

The first bath of the year(?!)

It has been an absolutely lovely day at the Bombadil premises today, 1st of June and summer seems to have arrived!

Me and John are working with the visual part of the Bombadilian author school which includes a bit of filming... Naturally it goes a bit bonkers when you combine a few Bombadilian coworkers, a video camera, a horse and a kayak. I´m not going to tell anything about the theme of the author school film but I can reveal that I´m kayaking and sitting on a horse back to front. The horse in question is named Sunny and is a very calm and reliable Fjording which made her the perfect horse to be sitting back to front on. I shall probably also mention that I was not holding Sunny in the same time as resting my head on her backside, Mari very kindly held her whilst Sunny was quite happily eating lots and lots of grass. I figured I should be a bit responsible and explain this so no one thinks that it´s a neat idea to go out in the forest with a back to front horse. Or sitting on ahorse back to front is what I mean, really. It´s not a good idea, unless you bring Mari of course.

After shooting the horse scenes we continued with the kayak and as I was the bravest one in the group I jumped into the kayak and paddled 35 kilometres and back again, turned out that I was a kayak talent!! Eeh, at least this is what could have been, but it was not what actually happened. Since I was the one who were acting in all these scenes, I HAD to get into the kayak, I was not overly excited to be honest. But once I was out on in the water, in the kayak I happened to enjoy it quite a lot, and I actually was a bit of a talent, I could turn!! So I´ve decided'; Kayak is cool!

After kayaking me and Mari thought that the water looked extremly inviting so we had a dip! Which kind of explains the title since I have not been having a bath outside before today. Both of us was very happy with the first dip of the year and agreed that the water was warm enough and very refreshing! The summer is here!

And don´t forget stay tuned for the Bombadil author school video!

Over&Out,
Sara

Elo, Mr Blue Sky

Friday once more, and what a beautiful day it has turned out to be. It rained a little earlier in the week, which has inspired the lawn to reach a truly ridiculous height. If I don't do something about it soon, I will be at risk of finding a couple of tigers in there.

By tigers, of course, I mean Siberian tigers. And by do something about it, of course, I mean employ a gardener.



There are water lillies on the lake too. I thought they only grew in garden ponds, surrounded by faded plastic herons and covered with miles of plastic netting, but apparently I was wrong. They also grow on vast bodies of fresh water in central Sweden. There are as well, small black ones, but I think it would have been almost as pointless to attempt to photograph them as it would be to go to the effort of hooking them out and frying them up.



Sara and I have been filming for the author school, as she mentioned in her blog on Monday. I was in my element, dressing up in silly hats and throwing papers from rooftops (where I also found one hammer, slightly rusted). I used to hate dressing up and messing around like that when I was a small child, but I thoroughly enjoy it now. I think this is the correct way round. Dressing up is wasted on small children; they don't know the first thing about clothes in the first place, so they don't appreciate being decked out as a pirate or a zombie or a radioactive wombat.

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

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