Welcoming spring, new colleagues, old languages...and red hair

Spring is here (again!!) which makes me really pleased. It was quite a set back getting snow last week and looking out on a winter landscape. But now the birds are singing and the weather is mild and lovely. I guess most of the snow will be gone soon and we will be able to eat lunch outside. Can't wait :-D
On that happy note I would like to welcome our new colleague, Melvin from El Salvador who will be tackling our South American market and our Spanish speaking authors. Melvin has Mayan-Indian roots so he's been trying to teach us a few words. Mayan is, for us, a very exotic language. So far I can (or could because I have already forgotten) say bread and some other random word. I have also learnt a few Nepali words, though that has essentially nothing to do with Mayan or Melvin. I mentor a really talented young author from Nepal who told me so many lovely things about Nepal that I got intrigued and bought a phrase book sporting useless Nepali phrases. I guess saying "bread" is more useful than saying "my room has not been cleaned". Mind you, it probably depends on where you are. Not sure Mayan gets you very far in Nepal, or vice versa. Anyway, the languages are both very old and rather intriguing and I hope that we will one day have books in both of these languages. And many more minority languages too of course.
Personally I would like to learn Zulu, Japanese and Russian. Not for any specific reason at all really, except that they sound so distinct. And if I can hear the difference, then I assume I can also learn them.
And finally, when I got into work this morning, I was joined by three red haired and happy colleagues. Not quite sure what happened, but it must have been nice because they were all very happy. Or could it be that it is spring?

"Just make it cheerful!"

John has been helping me out with my blogpost of today, he named my title "Just make it cheerful". That was also the answer to my question: What shall I blog about today?

Although it might seem like I have run out of creativity, that is not the case, my levels are just a bit low today. I have great plans though, since i´m planning to make a festival, a Bombadil festival! Or an author-night, I haven´t really sorted out all of the tiny details yet. What I would like to achieve is a big get-together where Bombadil-authors will get a chance to shine and read from their books or books-to-be. I would like to have liveband playing and people enjoying themselves! And of course to spread the word of Bombadil, maybe we can reach some new youngsters that would like to publish their thoughts and ideas! This head of mine is not just a hat rack, believe it or not!!

A few things has changed in the Bombadilian way of working lately; we´ve decided that we shall start having old mentors helping new mentors with the mentoring bit of being a mentor. The old mentors that are helping the new mentors that are learning to mentor shall be called Super Mentors. I was just asked to hold an introduction about the mentor-role, since we are getting new mentors =). And then a rather important question sort of popped into my mind, will this introduction make me a Super Mentor? What is expected of a Super Mentor, will I have to wear my knickers on the outside of my jeans? Will I have to get Super sight and save people from burning buildings?!

I hope not. I haven´t got the figure for blue tights and certainly not the courage that might be requested in heroic situations such as the one mentioned above. Plus I can´t stand heat, I don´t do tans, just deep red.

But if it´s required to chat a bit about the feelings of being a mentor, how to develop a manuscript and how to aproach an author, I´ll sign up straight away!

All for now,
Over&Out
/sara

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.

Busy, busy, busy

Lots of things are happening with both the moon-mine and Bombadil these days, and there's a lot of snow. I had expected the water sample results to have arrived by now, which they haven't, but instead a couple of guys from the Russian embassy was here wednesday to discuss how they could help me get Russian partners involved. Very nice chaps, and positive. The cause moon-mine is soon 100 persons strong, too, and the architect Daniel Monsén has started drawing plans for the moon-mine, focussing on a Tintin Centre that we aim at to celebrate Tintins travel to the moon. Oh, and with IQUBE we are looking at economical measures and forecasts to strengthen the company, as well as some very interesting ideas on how to make the intranet more interactive and useful for mentors and authors.

Cold but sunny

Hello everyone

Today it was brrrrr in the morning when I was going to work, 13 degrees cold. I don´t like that att all, but one good thing was that it was sunny outside :-)):-)). And it snowed again on Monday afternoon and through the night. John was going by car to the airport at Arlanda in that snowy weather, as he was going to Geneva. But he arrived safely!

Look at the picture taken from my office window and how it looks like with all the new snow.

Right now I´m setting an English book, and are doing some small changes. It is funny to do this and it will even be more fun when we get the book in our hands :-)). This book is a new print book.

Today there was a lot of people here to visit Bombadil and the Moon-Mine project. It is always nice when people come to visit us, wherever they are from.
Sara is working with a lot of things and specially with "The world book day", look at the homepage to see more info about that. And all of you out there send us your stories!

Today I will go home earlier because I will go to a knitting café in Nora, it will be fun to meet some other people who also like to knit.
Tomorrow I will bring some apple pie for us so I must not forget to bring the apples with me home.

Have a nice day.
Mari (Pixie is not here right now)

Welcome to our new partners

Today a company in Stockholm called IQUBE became a shareholder in Bombadil. Yes they are the ones we have referred to in the blog over the past month or so. IQUBE will be a wonderful compliment to Bombadil in that they have expertise from a wide range of companies and are especially good att structuring and networking! You can read more about them on www.iqube.se
Welcome, Iqube, to the world of Bombadil!

It´s snowing!!

So yes, it´s Monday and the weather is disapointing (suprised?!). It started snowing again, after a week of sunshine. Since all of us have kept our fingers crossed, hoping for some spring to arrive, today´s change of weather kind put at least me off a bit. But hope is the last to leave us someone cleaver once said, and I will not be put down by traditional Monday-weather. Before I would, but no. My hope is still with me!

Tomorrow John is going to Geneva, very exciting! He will be meeting up with some important people that are involved in the big "Turning the tide" project, but as well he will aparently be introduced to some people from UNESCO who started the worldbookday in 1995. Which is VERY exciting since John is the brain behind the 24 hours Worldbook-book that we are attempting to make. It might be a very long Worldbookday at the 23rd of april, but I guess it´s quite cool to be able to put on your resume that you´ve made a book in 24 hours! Quite cool indeed.

Personally I´m a bit nervous, speaking of the Worldbookday. My little baby-project for the Worldbookday is to get libraries and their visitors interactive in their local library. This I think partly can be achived by having people participating in a writing campaign. Basically we are encouraging people through their local library to send us novels, short story´s and poems on the topic "Me&books". Then we´ll publish the national Librarybook of Sweden! I´m not worried about the concept, but about people getting involved, I´m relying on the librarians committment, so yet again, fingers crossed. I like librarians, they are nice so I trust that they will do their best to get Swedish library visitors to contribute!

All for now,
over&out
Sara

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.

Water!

I have now been down into the mine and fetched a bottle of water that was then sent for analysis. Well, the moon-mine mine, not a bombadil mine, but John was there to help me should there be any problem, and to hoist up the water bottle. (And a teddy bear that had somehow fallen into the mine and broken a leg.)

Sunny Wednesday

Hello everyone

Well Wednesday again and my and Pixie´s time to blog.
Hmm Pixie has not been around so much, well she has been here to look if I had some treat for her :-)):-)) and then going of in her usual speed. Her being around the office is nice, that makes it so I´m not missing my dogs at home all the time. I´m so used to have them around me (even in the bed under the blanket).

Otherwise it has been some nice days here, with sun and a bit warmer outside. Oh I really hope the spring will come more and more now. One thing that is springtime for me is when it is time to sow tomato seeds and some other stuff, I did that in the weekend. So the spring is on its way!
As both John and Sara has mentioned before the ants and other small creatures will wake up and they often come inside, I told them that. But at my office I don´t have ants, luckily. Hmm my suggestion with white pepper was meant to have just a little bit on the floor not the whole bottle, well it tickled your nose anyway.

Otherwise I have finished setting another book and it is sent to the printing company, very exiting :-)). At the time we have at least three books there to be printed. And more are going on.
A new thing to me is that I´m now also a mentor. Not so much to do yet but it will be some exiting time to do this thing, as I´m so new to it. Luckily I have Marianne, Sara, John and Niklas to ask if there are something that I´m not sure on. And they will get some questions, that they can be sure on :-)).

On the picture Ubbe has found some nice smell, maybe something to eat he thinks. And Pixie is investigating him to know who he is. It was Ubbe´s first day as an office dog.



Have a nice week and weekend
Mari and Pixie (a little bit)

A sunny Tuesday

Today was one of those wonderful spring days, with blue skies and slowly melting snow. It is absolutely amazing. The flowers are starting to appear and I earlier today I really felt like taking my computer outside, sitting in the sun and enjoying work and spring. It is still a bit too cold for that, but is regardless very tempting indeed.

I am not sure where time flies, but each week seems to accelerate faster and faster. We are getting more and more talented authors and we will soon be exceeding 100 authors a day. The present estimate is that in a month or so there will be over 1000 new authors a day . Fascinating, exciting and also a bit daunting. But most of all fun!

The clock is pressing midnight, and I still have a lot to do, so I will keep my blog rather short today, but promise to make it up next week.

Spring greetings to you all!
Marianne

Monday, glorious Monday!

Typical Monday today, greyish, soppy weather. The air tastes a bit like dust for some reason and the sun is refusing to come out. As usual I´ve been up a bit to early to drive up to Gyttorp from my hometown Trollhättan. The only thing that is a bit unusual is the fact that my brother came with me this mornong! His name is Erik and has just turned 15, he will spend the week with the Bombadil staff to do his work practice. He has already managed to re-do the layout of the Swedish startpage on the website and got himself a Bombadil hoodie. Not bad, I would say. As his mentor I intend to make him work, a lot. At least one power point presentation and som filming for our shorts. Since we only speak English this is a great opportunity for him to practice speaking English, he is already really brilliant and according to our dear mother, his spelling is better in English than Swedish...Interesting indeed.

On wednesday parts of the Bombadilian team is going to a college in Kinna (south of Sweden) to be interviewed by the students, well exciting!! Gonna be lots of fun to get away from the computer and meet some interested youth.

Another great thing that is happening right now is the preparations of World book day! We will have some different activities during this day and the main thing in Sweden is the "Library-book" as I have chosen to call it. The thought is to get the Swedish libraries more interactive, so we have decided to encourage people to send submissions to Bombadil: poems, novels, short stories etc. The topic is "Me&books" and you will submit through your local library, and then we will Publish the swedish "library-book". The whole event is finishing on the 23rd of April on world book day. So yeah, we've got some great things coming up. During the spring we will be visiting bookshops, poetry festivals etc. so stay tuned!

All for now,
Yours truly
Monday blogger Sara

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

Expansion

It'll be a very short and late blog from me this time, since we have all been very busy. Well, me less than the rest of the office, maybe, but anyway. We are expanding, growing at a tremendous pace that seem to be ever accelerating. 60 new authors in a day may seem a hard record to break, but that will happen again soon, I am sure. Another record that I do not think will ever be broken was when we added seven (7!) new countries to the Bombadil map in a single days work. Well, I had no hand whatsoever in that, so you might think I have not been busy. BUT, I have now devised a graphical expansion plan, that is here presented digitally for the first time. Please do not show to our competitors - I have heard rumors that there are sneaky people out there trying to steal manuscripts by asking Bombadil authors to send them by e-mail. Fortunately, our intranet is working perfectly, foiling all such attempts by us consistently using it for manuscript transfer, reviewing and uploading for printing.
/Niklas

Wednesday and barking

Hello out there

-Pixie come here, I have someting for you. (Mari)

-Voff, voff, sniff, sniff, sniff. I want it now can I have it please? (Pixie)

-Can you do some tricks for me first? (Mari)

Pixie laying down.

-I´m lying down, is that OK. (Pixie)

-Yes it is OK. Here you have some candy. (Mari)

-I like it. Can I have some more? (Pixie)
-No not now. You can get some more later in the afternoon. (Mari)

The electrician comes, and of goes Pixie very fast. You can hear her very well, she can sound a lot. Voff, voff, voff and voff she goes on. That can drives you nuts sometimes.

The week has been good. Well Monday was as Sara mentioned a bit "dosy". We were all up late on Sunday. But it was fun to go to Stockholm to have some good food, meeting some people that you haven´t meet before. And then going to the theatre was really fun. Then Tommy showed as around a bit in Stockholm in the dark. Then Marianne drove a bit wrong when we was going home. We got us a guided tour in the central of Stockholm:-)):-)).

On the way home it was coming more, and more snow. I think we are pretty fed up with the snow now, well at least John is. And me to actually, me and my dogs want springtime now.

Where I live we have a big garden and on the backside there will come a lot of wild animals, like deer. In the winter time we give them some food, like carrots and some other stuff. They will come quite close to the house, not afraid at all. Look at the pictures. Not so good quality on them, they are taken by a mobile phone.

Very soon Sara's book will be printed. And I have just ending the setting on another book. So it is going on in a good speed so far. And it will be really fun when we have those books in our hands. Well they are the first ones that I´m involved in so it is exciting for me.

And I have finally a bookshelf in my office. Now it is not so much stuff on the desk any more :-)).

Have a nice week and weekend

Mari + Pixie

Another leg to the structure

The best thing about working with a completely new idea is that you do not know what awaits you as the concept develops. Essentially, this can also be testing sometimes; if I'd known that almost all of my spare time would be spent working, I might not have been so enthusiastic when I got the idea for Bombadil. However, that was before I knew what would happen with Bombadil, and today, as I see it, there is no other choice. I love the concept and our authors so much that I could not and would not turn back.
I have tried to label the different stages of our development, not only to see how the plans match reality, but also to try and plan for the future. Last week we only had 5 stages, though I knew there would be one more. This week the new phase appeared and got a name. Interesting how it just appeared, as self-evident as night coming after day, and as smoothly and easily as if it had been planned all along, waiting patiently for us to catch it up. What is also interesting is that our stages speed up at a similar rate as the expansion in other areas. Perhaps this is something new, or perhaps I am just a bit dense in matters of management. I sincerely hope it is the first :-D
Our first stage was the idea conception stage. We needed a product, a fair bit of administration and some financing. In our case it was self-financed, and the product was the first book. Yihaa, it worked, reality hit and the second stage emerged.
Income model. A word that kept me awake at night, not because I did not think Bombadil should make any money, but because I did not want to go through the momentous task of documenting and testing my gut feeling. Well, we got there, and by summer we were able to move on to the next stage.
Expansion. There was never any doubt in my mind. I, a citizen of the world, would never be satisfied with a small company, albeit with a great idea, in a small town in a small country. Well large really land-wise, but small population-wise. Saying that it was never my intention to conquer the world, but there was no other option than to expand once I saw how the authors ran with the concept, not just to their neighbouring youth, but to youth in neighbouring countries. After all, the world is our oyster, so why limit ourselves to a small pond. Sail the oceans instead! That is what the youth thought; that is what I thought. We got the stucture for expansion in place by the autumn of 2008, then rolled comfortably and happilly to the next phase.
Network. What does one do with an expanding company, if there is no one to share with, or if expertise or knowledge is missing? Well one starts working on a network and of course ensuring that the network is fully scaleable. We are halfway through this one now, and quickly added a fifth, inevitable phase.

Global presence. Well we are definitely at this stage, though we are not quite a household name. It would be a proud day when this happens, but so far we are only a household name for a selected thousand, though we are indeed on all continents - in 24 countries to be exact- so guess we can tick off the global presence. When we reached this phase, I could not see what would come next. The boxes on the arrow finished, and the arrowed just pointed straight. Nothing good remains static, and this week the next phase emerged.
Consolidation. We have so many small strongholds around the world so now we will need to make sure they are all sustainable and that we can join the dots. It is such an amazing experience to be able to take part in writing history, as if an invisible hand guided us, adding the phases at own volition. Seems there is no rest for the wicked and at this rate there will soon be yet another phase and it will be interesting to see what it will be.

"Monday, bloody Monday"

So another week has started and Monday has blown us away, well not litterary, but it´s been a very exciting and for once awake Monday, at least for me. Some other bits and pieces of our nowdays large and rather strong compliment has been a bit dozy today tho...

You see, we all (we all are: Marianne, Niklas, John, Veronica, Mari, me and Marianne´s children Josephine and Alex)went to the capital of Sweden, Stockholm yesterday to watch a play. It was a one-man show and to John´s delight a girl was playing not just ONE but TWO violins! (well to be correct, one violin and one viola according to John) As we all know John has quite some knowledge when it comes to violins and how to play. Mari very kindly suggested that John should enter the stage and play us something, for some reason John was not very keen on this. Maybe he was just a bit camera-shy but in a stage-shy way.

Anyway our very nice Sunday trip started off in Gyttorp, two cars leaving the Bombadilian headquarters going to Stockholm, in our car (me, John, Veronica and Josephine). I held a music class, and did my best to teach all members of our car the beauty with Nena singing "99 Luftballons" in german and the story behind the Swedish teenage band Noice. After a while I kind of could tell that none of the participants was really paying attention...And I kept quiet after Josephine asked me if I didn´t have any modern music. Frankly, I shut my mouth and then I turned the volume up.

When we reached Stockholm we all met up with Tommy (a Bombadilian author) and Calle who runs Gandalf Publishing and his wife Eva. We all had dinner together and there after went to the theathre. Delightful indeed. After the play we went to see the city sights since John being English and all, hadn´t been to Stockholm.

This is a picture of all of us standing by the river in central Stockholm looking at the view. All in all it was a very delightful and successful day and night (we did get back at 2 a.m) So I guess it´s not really strange that some of us is a bit dozy today after all.

Yours truly

Mondag blogger-Sara

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

Sorry, Pamela Anderson

After blogging about Barbara Andersson, the entire office has been teasing me about not knowing the name of Pamela Anderson. Turned out, however, that in Barbed Wire, the film I'm unwillingly spoofing in in last weeks vlogg, she is actually acting as Barbara Kopetski. Thus, although I added a Swedish s to get Andersson propely spelt, she is Barbara in barbed wire, so I will consider this a non-error on my side. I thought I was wrong, but that was a mistake, I have NEVER been wrong. ...
... Must admit I have a rather short memory for some things, though, so never might not be that long in this case.
At least I didn't call her "babe".

Item 1: Barbara/Pamela Anderson-Kopetski

Wensday blogging, again

Hello everyone

What shall we blog about today?

Hmm Pixie is not here at the moment. Well she would come here if I told her that I have some treat for her :-)):-)). I like her, she's a small energetic dog which is something that I like. My two (three sometimes) dogs at home are like that, hmm maybe the oldest one is not that anymore (he is 12 years now).

Here at the office Sara and I have finished her book and sent it for the first printing, it is exciting! Right now i´m doing the setting on another book, totaly different to Sara´s and that is fun. Hmmm I am also fixing with a Power Point presentation. It is telling what i´m doing here and what I have done so far, shortly described.

And my office is not so empty anymore :-)). I have at the moment two computors, one PC and one MAC, well i´m not so used to the MAC yet but I will learn. I´m just missing a bookshelf to put my books and some other stuff.

The weather is not so fun at all. I´m cycling to work and the road is full of snow and it is a bit slipery as it is a lot of ice also. It is melting during the day and frezing during the nights, grrr. Not fun at all.
On the picture you can se the way to the entrance of work and how much snow it is. Hopefully it in spring time soon and a lot of sun.

have a nice weekend
Mari

Arise Sir Gandalf

I am tired today, which is something quite unusual for me. It is not the weather, it is not that I am ill, and not that I have eaten too much. I think I have just been in the fast lane too long and need some sleep :-D So today I am going to keep the blog rather short and tell you all about Gandalf Publishing.

Gandalf is run from Stockholm by a man called Carl. I think we might have mentioned him before, and I think he is rather cool. He and I met in the autumn last year when I was talking about Bombadil. He asked me, like so many before him, what happened to those over 60 and whether we were going to accommodate them. Well, I am not over 60 (yet anyway :-D) and told him that I could not do it, but what about him? He called me a few days later completely convinced that he was the right person to do it, something we at Bombadil were even more sure about than he was :-D Calle is cool, and he is speeding ahead with Gandalf at a tremendous speed. I asked him today when he was ready to take Gandalf global and he did not in anyway sound worried or insecure or frightened. Of course he will do it; he is as smitten as we at Bombadil are about the concept and the lifestyle, and I believe that we will soon have Gandalf wild firing around the globe too. It is of course only right that Gandalf goes at a slightly slower speed than Bombadil, there is after all an age difference, isn't there? But then Gandalf was a wizard, and before we know it he might have cast his magic spell on all and sundry and the entire globe will have succumbed to his spell. Arise, sir Gandalf!

It's a late Monday today one said to oneself.

It's a lateMonday indeed, it all staing started this morning with me having to return home three times before I managed to remeber to bring everything I kept forgetting. Along with the rather crucial weather situation I was not off to a good start.

I managed to get to the Bombadil office at a sensible time (fika-time) and the day turned out to be quite productive! My book "where's the manual" was completed today for exampel, me and Mari did the final touch and after that I proof read my own book, very interesting experience actually. It's hard killing your babies, luckily I didn't have to go that far, but managed to remove a couple of dots and adding a few capitals every here and there. So yes, this week Bombadil is sending off a new title for printing!

Another exciting thing that took place today was our new coworker, Veronika! She started her first day with painting her office, I fully understand her reasoning since the former colour was a very bemusing greenish sort of tone... Now Veronika's office has a light, shaded purple shade, much nicer indeed. Veronika will be participating in the media centre, which is going to be a place for young people to meet up and learn about media etc, it's very exciting to have Veronika with us since that means that it will start running quite soon =) which we all are looking forward to a lot!

The unofficial update of today is that John somehow has managed to look more tired than me this evening, which is an achivement one might say, certainly is. A qoute from John taken from a conversation me and him had last week will explain this very detailed:
"You might wanna put some make-up on"
We discussed taking a picture of me for the back of my book (soon to be published!) when John very kindly dropped that comment, the picture in the end was decided to be a black&white close-up shot of me with my eyes closed. So yes, an achivment indeed to manage to look more tired than I do, well done John!

Over&Out
Your monday-blogger Sara