This is a long story.

It spans 10 years, a million words and about six kilograms. But first some background.

I am a middle aged gentleman on the wrong side of the middle. I’ve got two jobs, three kids have no time.

When I started being serious about my writing, wanting to take it from a dream to a career, I had to cut out something from my day. So I don’t watch TV anymore. I used that time to write.

I cut down on useless web surfing. Or I try. I do spend a bit too much on the YouTube science and writing channels. But I found those things that I could trim from my schedule, and used that time to write. (more…)

A particular dream of mine, to read thousands of words per minute, breeze through the mounds of books I want to read. I could – if I didn’t care for knowing what the books said. The explanation is in the video. (more…)

In relationship psychology, there is this thing called the “five times positive”-rule. It says that for any relationship to remain positive over time, you need to have at least five times as many positive interactions as negative ones.

This is most commonly applied to parenting. If you yell at your kid once you have to make sure to have five positive play-dates with them before you yell at them again.

Otherwise, you’re going to get into recurring battles with your kids and your life will turn into a living hell.

Trust me on that one. (more…)

M*A*S*H. The 1970’s sitcom staring a field hospital in the Korean war. Booze, blood, and bullets to bite. And a surprising amount of wisdom coming out of the MASH writer’s room. Like this. (more…)

We humans are pretty good at finding the negative sides of our lives. All the little annoyances that litter our days. Those tiny angers we encounter on the road, at work,  at home.

We can’t avoid them, no matter how we try.

But that’s OK. Our brains are made that way. What makes life good is figuring out those parts that keep you afloat when everything else is dragging you down. (more…)

How do you write? Not now and then. Not because someone forces you to. How do you write, as often, and as productively, as you would like?

Fun, plain and simple.

Removing the “must” part from “I must write,” turning it into a simple “I write.”

For me, fun is what made that happen. No pressure, no self-recrimination, no “the world should be this way, and I should be that way with it.” Just plain fun. (more…)

I’m not lazy, no matter what my father said during my teenage years. I like to work. I like to create. What I don’t like, is pointless busywork, or work where I feel I’m not making progress.

At those times, my pace slows down, and I don’t really produce anything. For a long time, when this happened, I would give up. (more…)

You’ve got to have hope.

Not blind faith. This business is way too influenced by luck for that. Not a realistic assessment of your chances. Your chances are way too uncertain for that. Hope.

Hope is the feeling that you could achieve something with a bit of luck, with a bit of skill, with a bit of perseverance. Hope is the feeling that what you do matters, that you can influence the world around you in a positive way. Hope is what makes life in uncertain times possible. It doesn’t really matter what your business is, how uncertain it is, or what you’re writing, or creating, or hoping for.

You need hope simply to survive. (more…)

In my day job, I do a lot of zoom meetings, and every time, I’m struck by how similar people look on zoom.

You can get 20 images, side by side in a big grid. 20 faces looking back at you. And they all frown. Every single one.

Granted, I’m from Sweden and Swedes are a bit of a dour people. We don’t have that compulsory, smiling thing that they do in Japan, or that big “I love everything in the world is great”-thing they do in the USA.

But still, I’ve spoken to people from other countries on zoom, and they don’t look much happier than I do. (more…)

I like to fool myself that I’ve got a fairly decent sense time. This, of course, is utter hogwash.

Humans live in relative time. We simply do not know how time passes, we can’t feel it, can’t predict it. And it’s doing pretty weird things to our sense of self, or rather our sense of accomplishment. (more…)