The Story So Far

Having decided to do this at last, I'm getting quite excited about starting. We've been in England this past couple of weeks, but I've been turning ideas over in my mind wondering how to go about things. The start is always difficult. I can say that with benefit of experience since I've started many writing projects. The end, though, that's even worse - at least I think so, I've so very rarely got to the end of any major writing project. As for the middle ... I'm beginning to get cold feet.


I'm writing this before having set up the blog site where it will appear, so I'm already thinking it might be better to pull the plug now before I embarrass myself in front of more people. (I have so far told only four people about this, all of whom have heard about my writing projects before and are not going to have their opinions of me much undermined by one more which doesn't get off the ground.) But the whole point of risking a more public pratfall is that it might give me the impetus actually to succeed.

So on we go.

We returned to Sweden last Tuesday, 12th July, and on the plane I was thinking about beginnings and endings, arrivals and departures. Three weeks earlier, I had intended that the final work would be a kind of personal magazine, with sections taken from various of my unfinished projects - the Book of Beasts, Viking Words, Sweden Observed. But then I re-read Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia, the kaleidoscope twisted and everything looked different. Chatwin's book was probably the seminal book for the post-modern generation of travel writers. In it, he travels to Patagonia, apparently in pursuit of the true story behind a relic from his childhood - the piece of mylodon skin which his grandmother kept in a glass-fronted cabinet in her dining room. He travels the length and breadth of Patagonia, ending up in Tierra del Fuego, and recounts the stories of the people (especially the British and people of British descent) that he meets, and the places that he visits. The book is a snapshot of southern Argentina and Chile in 1976, but it is also, at least to some degree, a work of fiction. Although the structure appears simple - travelled here, spoke with this person, slept here, saw this - in fact it is put together with considerable artifice. After the book was published, some of the people identified and quoted protested that Chatwin had put words into their mouths, and even the character of "Bruce Chatwin" may be fictional - at least to some degree.

I am not going to pretend that I can emulate Chatwin, but I can aspire, no?


I've also been thinking about marketing. As I noted in Intentions, my objective is to interest enough people to be able to sell at least 100 copies of the final book and/or to break even. I think I'll have a better chance of doing this if I give the book a sharper focus. So out goes the magazine idea, and in comes Gothenburg. I've lived in Gothenburg for 8 years now, ever since the early months of 1998. My wife comes from the city, and we lived here for two years also just after we were married in the mid '80s. Gothenburg is Sweden's second city, and has a relationship with Stockholm rather like that of Manchester with London or Glasgow with Edinburgh. It's also a city with an interesting history. It has been the gateway to Sweden for visitors from abroad since the early 1600s, and Sweden's gateway to the west forlonger even than the city has existed. There many stories to be told (or re-told), and there have been many ideas expressed about Gothenburg, just as there are many ideas currently in circulation. Gothenburgers are proud of their city, they don't compare Gothenburg with Stockholm (except to disparage Stockholm), but are happy to tell you that Gothenburg is "Little London". (In fact, "Little Glasgow" might be more appropriate, but more of that later. Perhaps.)


For some years I've been collecting material for an anthology of writing in English about Sweden - working title: Sweden Observed. But I've also been toying with the idea of a travel book using some of the same stuff. So my current thought is to use the historical material I have collected where it refers to Gothenburg, weaving it into an account of a tourist's exploration of the city today. I have three weeks of holiday coming up (one of the few benefits left to the teaching profession). These will give me a chance to establish contexts for my story.

Later
The above was written on Friday and Saturday (15th-16th July). Today I have established the blog, learned about templates and uploading pictures and discovered that a picture with poster edges doesn't look very good as a thumbnail, which may partly explain the rather washed-out portrait on my profile. The circle of friends who know my plans has grown, I have begun to fill a notebook with ideas. I have also been out for a Swedish summer-style walk in the woods (bare feet) and helped nature along by contributing blood to three mosquito families. (I come up in boils after mosquito bites - only Scandinavian mosquitoes, not British ones - and now have three lovely ones, two on my left foot and one on my right. Gritting my teeth and trying not to scratch. At least my feet are no longer cold.)

I don't intend to update this blog on a daily basis, but I hope to be adding something at least once a week - perhaps more often in the first month or so.



Even later
Hm, some trouble uploading pictures, but I seem to have overcome it now. (It seems as though Blogger doesn't like long titles on jpeg files.) What should be showing are four variations on the Gothenburg city lion. First some flags on Kungsports Avenue with the modern emblem and the city's modern Swedish name, Göteborg. Then a painted lion (from the side of one of the city's older trams). After that there ought to be an embossed lion (from one of the bollards around the city art gallery - konstmuséet). And finally, to the right here, there a lion peeping over the edge of a parapet on Södra Hamngatan.