Denmark has, in my opinion, one of the best library systems in the world. I’m not sure “systems” is the right word, but everything is connected. All the libraries are connected. I can order something from the database, and it might be plucked from the Royal Danish Air Force library and sent to my local library to be picked up. I’ve ordered articles from old newspapers and a librarian scans it and sends me the PDF. I can watch 100 films or documentaries every month, and borrow the DVDs of those films not available for streaming. CDs, board games, computer games – anything you want, and more, when you’re not careful. Like the time I thought it would be interesting to read Sir Richard Burton’s notes from 1001 Arabian Nights. Well, they arrived, all 13 volumes, but they were so old I had to read them at the library.
I must admit, I bit off more than I could chew there. But nevertheless, it is a rare occasion indeed when the Danish library cannot deliver.
Sometimes it feels like magic, as a certain character of mine might say.
However, another character of mine is rather less loquacious. And whereas I know where he got his name from, I did not know the name Maratse also belonged to the man believed to be the very last shaman in Greenland.
I only discovered this recently, but now, thanks to the library, I have Kirsten Bang’s book in my hand.
There’s not much to say at the moment, other than how cool I think it is that with all the shamanism (fictional and heavily dramatised) in my books, I love the fact that there’s a link, if only in name, to my main character.
So I’m going to put aside A Very Stable Genius which I’m currently reading, and crack open a very old book about a very old man, and see if I can’t lose myself in East Greenland for a while.
More on that later.
Chris
The publishing world has changed drastically since the advent of eBooks. There are thousands of articles and blog posts about the changes, and I’m not going to recap any of them here. But what I will say, as an independent author, is the smartest thing I ever did when flirting with the traditional publishing world was to keep my English rights for the books they were interested in.
When I’m not “here” I like to think I’m somewhere in the far north. And, while Greenland is very dear to me, so is Canada and Alaska, and the Yukon in particular. So here’s a quick post to keep the streak going. We had lot of wildlife encounters during our two month trip down the Yukon, and this is just one of them.
I never intended to write crime books or thrillers. Personally, I prefer fantasy and science fiction stories. Which might explain why there’s a hint of shamanism and spirits in my Greenland Missing Persons series, and some of the Maratse novellas, and, come to think of it, in Narkotika … and then there’s The Ice Circus, and of course, the new character introduced in North Star Bay has a touch of the shaman about him.
When I lived in England, one of my friends called Beef (he was the butcher’s son) showed me how you make sausage. It’s true, it’s one of those things probably best unseen, but I’ll never forget him cutting the fat away from the meat he was preparing at the counter and throwing it, together with bits of gristle and other “stuff”, across the shop and into a sausage making machine. There’s probably a name for such a machine, but I was more impressed with Beef’s aim, because he didn’t miss. However, with a smile he confirmed that it’s true, I probably didn’t want to know how you make sausage, or more to the point, I didn’t want to know what was in them.
Being independent gives me and authors like me the freedom to decide pretty much everything. It also means we have to own our mistakes along the way. Like everything, there’s a learning curve, but learning is a big part of the reward. Can I do things better? Sure. How do I do things better? Well, I go and learn from people better than me in that area.