Quiz/meme
I found this meme/quiz on a Swedish book blog and decided to do it too.
1. If you could choose to live in a tv series, which one would you want to live in?
I mainly watch cop series and that wouldn’t be all that much fun. Besides, most of them aren’t set in Sweden, but since this is just a fantasy anyway – maybe Endevour, Grantchester or Mr Selfridge. On the other hand, I think I’ll pick Star Trek (TNG), because that future looks a lot nicer than the past of those three series.
2. As a child, what did you want to do ‘when you grew up”?
Even though I loved my parents who were teachers and my favorite place was the library, other professions attracted me when I was very young. For a while I thought I wanted to be an astronaut (not very realistic) or an archaeologist (which as it turned out wasn’t realistic either)
3. What is your favorite smell/fragrance?
I love fragrances but in this case I’d say it depends on the context. Food, desserts, fruit and chocolate smell really great, but I also appreciate the smell of nature or a garden.
4. If you were a big rock, where would you like to lie?
Far into the woods.
5. You find out that the Earth will be destroyed in twelve hours. What would you do?
Hopefully, I’d have access to some amazing defence weapon and will be able to save us all. Really though, screaming and crying and hugging my family.
6. What would have been different in your life if you’d belonged to the opposite sex?
A lot would be the same as now, but I’d probably be physically stronger and more accepted and make more money.
7. What is your favorite tool?
Tool? I’m clumsy and impractical, so unfortunately, I don’t know.
8. What will you be doing in ten years time?
Trying to think positively, I think things will be roughly the same only better. Hopefully I’ll be living somewhere I’ll be happy and hopefully I’ll have children or at least one child. Sadly, I think I’ll still be single though.
9. What is your best song to dance to?
I don’t dance, but I love all kinds of music. At the blog where I found this quiz, it says Dancing Queen, so I guess I’ll say the same. It’s a great old song.
10. If you were really great at sewing, what would you make?
I’d make clothes for the whole family.
11. How would you handle winning about 100 000 000 Euros?
I’d invest in a really great place to live and in other ways secure our future. I’d insist that my sister stop working and then we’d find a good way to invest the rest of the money. I’d also set things up so I can donate money to causes I believe in.
12. This was a question about a new Swedish word for she/he, but since this isn’t relevant I’ll replace it with this:
How do you feel when you read a self-published book or a work-in-progress on Wattpad, when the writer doesn’t master basic grammar, has a very poor vocabulary etc. Do you still enjoy the story, if it’s based on a good idea? Or do you move on to another story?
I would stop reading and find a better story. A good idea counts for something, but you also need to be able to tell the story in a relatlvely decent way.
13. What is your best recipe and why?
I’m really bad at following recipes, but I’d have to say our vegan spreads, like hummus tahin.
14. How do you feel about meat consumtion/the meat industry? (No, I did not add this question myself!)
I really dislike it for a number of reasons. Because of all cruelty and ruthlessness towards the animals. Because of the pollution and because of the injustice towards the starving people in the third world.
15. Are you ‘addicted’ to anything?
My family (including the animals), books, chocolate, cold water, avocado, plants…
16. What kind of music triggers your nostalgia and why?
Hm. My nostalgia? Classical music, eighties music, nineties music…
17. What makes you really angry?
Rude people who go out of their way to pick a fight and those who try to silence people with their unfair master suppression techniques. And neighbours and bicyclists… 😉
18. Do you have any really good domestic advice?
No, I can’t say I do. But I think it’s important to use non-toxic products in the home, as well as everywhere else.
19. Is there any commercial you really like?
Since this refers to Swedish commercials, it may not tell you anything, but I’ll say it anyway: ICA:s (groceries), and Telia (telephone company)
20. Are you a lot like you were as a child?
Yes, pretty much, only thinner and sadder and a lot more disillusioned.
Fandom News
I found this site where you can make your own newspaper and had a lot of fun making this fandom newspaper about books, writing, fan fiction and fandom in general. If you’re interested, you can check it out here.
15 Facts About India That Will Blow Your Mind
Read more here.
Interesting lecture
Today I went to listen to a very interesting lecture about the Norwegian Resistance during WWII, or rather the interactions between the Resistance and Swedish people living close to the Norwegian border.
It was a bit surprising to me that the rather rural, and in my eyes primitive nearby region, the ‘backwoods’, had such a heroic and adventurous past.
The woman who did the lecture had written a book about the interaction with the Resistance, and was apparently behind an exhibition that was the starting point of her book and the lecture we heard today.
Something I had no idea about until today, was that during the war the region (where our little cottage is) was forbidden to any outsider, because of fears of espionage.
One funny story was about a little Finnish ‘war child’ who had been a little too observant in the farm where she lived. She’d found an amazing piece of silk fabric (a parachute) hidden in the barn and had to be kept quiet. So a man, working with the Resistance, who was known to be very eloquent and also kind to children, traveled all the way out into the woods and gave her a big, expensive doll, on the condition that she kept quiet. There was a photo of the girl holding two dolls, one of which was probably the ‘bribe’.
A rather less funny story, was about a Swedish man who for the rest of his life was the target of threats from old Nazis.
Some members of the audience had stories of their own to tell. One of them was really touching and sad. The sister of a man in the Resistance was a journalist. She wasn’t careful enough about her activities and was caught by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp. At the end of the war, she was taken by the famous Swedish White Buses (sent by a Swedish count) to the south of Sweden, but the first night there, she died. Despite what you might think, apparently mother was ‘happy’ that her daughter had died in Sweden (i e not in a gas chamber).
I’m glad I forced myself up at rather an early hour, despite my cold (which isn’t too bad, but still) to go and listen to this lecture. It was fascinating and I learned so much about a time in our history that isn’t very well known to the general public. (For instance, much of this has been classified until recently).
About WordPress
Recently, I blogged about Gravatar, a profile page from Automattic, the owners of WordPress. I was thinking I should mention a few things about WordPress too.
When you sign up for WordPress you can get a blog if you like, but to begin with you get a username, so you can comment on WordPress blogs you follow. And speaking of following… With WordPress you get a blog reader. You can add any blog to it, including ones from Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Tumblr and Blogger. That way you get all the blogs you like to read collected in one place, a dashboard, like on Tumblr.
And as I mentioned before, you also get a Gravater profile.
The blog does display ads, occasionally (if you’re not logged in), but it’s a very good blog platform. You can also upgrade to premium and get a domain name and more space for photos etc.
If you want a blog without ads, you’ll need to upgrade or get your own personal WordPress blog/homepage. Then you’ll need a web hotel and a domain name. That can get a bit complicated unless your web hotel comes with a special service that helps you start a WordPress blog/homepage. We have one, so it wasn’t complicated at all, but I know that setting up databases can be a pain.
WordPress used to be less good at photos and other media than for instance Tumblr. Now it’s a lot better. I can’t say it’s as easy to use as Tumblr when it comes to that kind of thing, but it’s getting there.
What you don’t get on WordPress is as much of a community as Livejournal and Dreamwidth. There’s the Gravatar profile page and the comments and likes (you can even ‘like’ comments), but there aren’t any groups or communities. You can search WordPress for blogs about topics you’re interested in, but I must say it’s been difficult. The search doesn’t work that well. I have used ordinary search engines instead, and then you get all kinds of blogs, regardless of platform. But of course that doesn’t matter, you can still follow them through the blog reader, though you can’t ‘like’, reblog and comment inside the blog reader.
Gravatar
I thought I’d tell you about Gravatar, which is a really cool service from the owners of WordPress. Basically, you add your email addresses to a list and upload photos to match each one, depending on what photo or image you want to combine with each email address. Then when you sign up and get an account on any other site, you won’t have to upload a photo, one will be displayed for you. So if you never want a photo matched with one particular email address, don’t use it on Gravatar.
All this is quite useful, but that’s not all, you also get a profile page, where you can add your blogs, homepages, twitter, facebook, G+ or whatever you’re on. The websites part gives you an actual preview/thumbnail of your blog/homepage. ‘Verified services’ is exactly what it sounds like, you provide verification that it’s really you on Twitter etc. It’s very easy to do, as long as you’re logged into the service in the same web browser. You can also post a brief bio of yourself to go with the photo and the links.
There’s a similar service, not owned by Automattic, called About.me. It’s good, but I think I prefer Gravatar. If you’re on WordPress, you get that anyway. I signed up for About.me a year or so ago and forgot all about it for a long time, then rediscovered it. Basically it’s a business card. (Although it doesn’t have to have anything at all to do with your professional self. It’s up to you what you want to put on your page.) You just upload a photo that you own the rights to one way or another. That will be the background. (It’s the same on Gravatar). You also upload a photo/image of yourself (you can pick anything you like, again, it doesn’t have to be a selfie, unless you want to). Then you add links to your websites.
There’s a bit more social interaction here, since you can visit other people’s About pages and ‘Compliment’ them, and/or add them to lists – favorites or whatever you like.
Booklikes, Libib, Leafmarks and more…
Booklikes
I was doing a little squeeing about LIbib a while back. I might as well have squeed (?) a bit about Booklikes as well, because that’s such a wonderful book community too. Everyone on my friend list probably knows about how I came to be looking for alternatives to Amazon-owned Goodreads (and likewise Amazon-owned Shelfari, and LibraryThing which isn’t owned by Amazon, as far as I know). I found several book communities but only these two feel like they’re really worth it.
Leafmarks
Actually, I’m also getting more and more fond of Leafmarks too, but it’s basically an ordinary book community, only a bit nicer than most.
Booklikes
Booklikes includes, apart from the usual, a Tumblr-like blog. At the time I signed up for Booklikes I was still on Tumblr (and on Livejournal) but shortly afterwards I was forced to leave. It was sad, because I’d been there for so many years, but I won’t compromise with my conscience so there was no question about leaving, I just had to do it.
So now at least I have my Booklikes blog (and of course Dreamwidth and WordPress, but people on my friends list must know that by now). Only a few days ago, there was a bit of uproar on the Booklikes site, because the people running the site had had to start putting ads on it. Most people were upset and were asking about adblocker (?) settings. I was just worried about the blog. After all, I can stand ads on the dashboard, but not on my own personal blog. Fortunately, I was reassured by one of the nice people who work there. They consider our blogs our personal area, and won’t use that for advertising. Naturally, they would have been well within their rights if they had, but I’m so very pleased they’ve promised they won’t put anything as ugly as an ad there.
Another thing that is nice about Booklikes is that you feel so close to the admins. If you have a problem or a suggestion, you can either chat with them, or send an offline message to them and they’ll reply to you very soon.
Libib
Libib is a bit different. You can write short comments on your books and post short messages, but my Libib account doesn’t include a blog. I don’t need another one anyway. The other day I sent in my suggestions for improvement on Libib (not that the site isn’t really great already). To my surprise only the day after, I received a polite and friendly email from one of the people behind Libib. The guy said that most of my suggestions were already on their way and that the only one that isn’t, is still being decided on and if it is approved, it will happen next year. I really hadn’t expected such a prompt reply, and it certainly doesn’t make me love Libib any less.
I must admit I love seeing my bookshelves on both sites. On my BL blog, there’s also a little shelf with my latest additions. It’s childish, I know, but I think it’s really cool.
Wattpad is another new acquaintance. Apparently, that’s where everything writing-related is happening these days. You can post both original fiction and fan fiction and you can also read lots of free books. Most people tend to publish novel-length stories, in chapters, but you can also publish shorter work. One thing that’s been stressing me out is that you need a cover for your books. Even the short stories and fan fics. It’s also a very nice feature. My stories look great with their new covers. I have decided to only post work I haven’t published anywhere else, except on my websites, so I have never needed covers for them before. So far I haven’t had any reviews or votes, but it’s fun just to know that my stories are on this site, which is visited by so many people.
It reminds me of AO3, where at least I’m getting kudos regularly, if not actual reviews.
One big advantage of all these sites except for Leafmarks (and even that, to some extent) is that you can add books in other languages than English, and post stories in other languages than English, if you should want to.
Squee!
I just have to squee a little about Libib. When Amazon bought Goodreads I started looking around for alternatives (just in case – I’m still on GR, but hanging out more on Booklikes and now Libib). One of the similar book sites I found was Libib. So I imported all my Goodreads books and that was that. I thought, why publish my books? But today I received an email from them, saying they’d added new social network features and I decided to check it out. I also published my books. What a nice looking bookshelf! I don’t know about the social network features though, since I don’t have any friends, but hopefully I’ll find some soon.
Another squee: I was adding two recent books to my Libib book shelf so I needed to know the ISBN number and went to Amazon and checked. They suggested a number of other similar cosy mysteries and I found so many new books I wanted. I had to add them to my wish list. It will be years before I reach the bottom of that list now. 🙂
Book meme
I found this book/reading meme on WordPress.com and I thought I’d try it here.
You just answer these three questions on your own blog:
What are you reading right now? K D Nelson Folds of the Script – a science fiction novel from Amazon on my Kindle.
What did you just finish reading? Lady of the Moon by Mary Gillgannon (from Smashwords).
What do you think you’re going to read next? A Swedish children’s book by author Ingelin Angerborn (“Heart of Dust”)
