Gingerbread typewriter (Or: What this novelist put a lot of hours into instead of writing novels)

I always make a gingerbread house for Christmas, and I never do it the easy way. But this year was special even for me. I have now released four novels and one grammar book, and for the first time I’m not depending on the salary from my teaching job. I love teaching, but I always knew I was going to be a novelist, and in January 2015 I’ll start living that dream to the fullest (at least for one semester). It’s a big step for me, and I think it inspired me to do something writing-oriented this year.

I love old typewriters. I have two of them in my house, they are a hundred years old and they will keep working for a hundred years after this computer breaks down.

The keys in my typewriter include the Swedish vowels, since I’m Swedish (hence my poorly written English – I’m a Swedish novelist, I write in Swedish and this blog is usually Swedish, I just didn’t want to keep my gingerbread house from the world). The order of Å, Ä and Ö is the same as in old time typewriters, but different from the modern day computers and typewriters where they are located next to P and L.

So, who lives in this house? It’s ”Miss Letter”, or in Swedish ”Fröken Bokstav”. If you look closely, you’ll see her by her desk, working on her new novel. Don’t disturb her! She has been spending far to many hours on building a gingerbread house and is now behind schedule.