Maria Hammarblad's Blog, page 25

God Jul - Merry Christmas - Happy Holidays

Whatever you choose to celebrate this season,  I hope you're having a wonderful holiday.

Happy Lucia!

Today is an important day for Swedish people. On December 13th, we celebrate Lucia. Adults and children alike look forward to it, and it happens in work places, schools, homes, and hotels all over the country.

What it is? Well, Lucia should be enjoyed more than explained, and this video can explain it much better than I do. Enjoy! =D




Here's another video, with the most common Lucia song. =D

Wordless Wednesday. Nope, can't do it. There will be words. LOL

It goes something like this: Thinking about the poor undercover cop I left dangling from the ceiling in a chain last time I closed Word. And the spaceship hidden in a rock bed deep under a lake, not to mention the people struggling to escape from Venus before the planet became really hot. And the catalogs I'm supposed to do at the daytime job, and the website updates. Oooh, websites, I should update my websites. Websites are on the Internet. Blogs are on the Internet. I should have written a blog post for the work blog, that will be about puppies, I need to give the dogs a bath. Should buy dog food too. Did I ever reply to those e-mails? Oh snap, I forgot to check my Twitter account this morning. Is there anything on TV tonight? I was supposed to print out a form, wonder where I put it. What are we having for dinner? That's a really pretty blue - I wonder if I could get that on an iPhone case. I like coffee.

And so on. =D

Advent traditions

Every year in December I feel displaced. Nothing about Florida says Christmas, and if you come from a cold and dark country, Christmas lights in palm trees is just plain weird. This will be my sixth holiday season in the US and it's less peculiar now than the first year, but it's still weird.

Before I go any further... When I say Christmas, I don't mean it with a religious connotation. For me, the word describes the holiday season regardless of religion. In Sweden we celebrate "Jul" and this is a religiously neutral word.

Anyway, my holiday rhythm is out of sync with the Americans. Christmas here seems to start in September. Not just in the stores; I saw Facebook posts about friends putting up their Christmas trees in late summer. Time passes so quickly anyway, why try to hurry it up?

In my family, you could put up some decorations and lights in the windows for Advent, but everything else had to wait until December 23rd. In the evening of December 23rd, Christmas should be ready. (We celebrate the 24th. The 25th and 26th are days off from work when people relax and play with their presents.)

What's advent? It is the four Sundays preceding Christmas. On the first of Advent (late November or early December) most cities have Christmas markets. This is when the holiday season really rolls out. Below are three images of traditional advent decorations. =)


This is an "adventsljusstake" - an electric candle contraption found in
virtually every house and workplace in Sweden during December.
We don't decorate the houses with lights as much as people in the US,
but the advent lights is a big deal. Most of the country is really dark in winter.



The four Sundays before Christmas Eve, many people use one of these.
You light one candle each Sunday. =) The lit star is also a tradition. They're usually made
of straw or paper, and spread a beautiful light. =)
The reverse problem comes when it's time to take stuff down. In my world, Christmas stuff stays up until January 13th, when you have a party taking everything down. Here, everything comes down right after New Years, and my husband hangs his head in shame as we're the only house on the block with all the stuff still up.

I say, "You can take it down if you want, but I'm not doing it until Tjugondag Knut." The Swedish expression alone is enough for him to walk away and shake his head. Poor guy. LOL.

The Doctor

When I first met my husband and he told me that he like Doctor Who I winced and imagined endless hours of watching what's-his-name with that long knit scarf. They showed endless reruns of that incarnation of the Doctor on TV when I was a teenager, and it was too weird for me. 

I might like scarf-doctor better now when I'm grown up, but I haven't given him a chance, lol. I haven't watched much TV from the UK, but I liked that other British sci-fi show, what was it called... Oh yes, Red Dwarf. I don't remember diddly of the story, but I remember watching it.

I remember the second guy from the left. I think I need
to watch this show again and see if I still like it. =)
David Tennant as Doctor WhoAnyway, hubby introduced me to Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor and I liked the show. Miracle! All of a sudden it made sense why my Internet-sister claimed Daleks were cool. Then, Eccleston merged into David Tennant, and I loved the show.

You know that Internet meme of how you're extra likely to find a spider in your home if you're afraid of spiders? I think I'm scared of David Tennant. Nope, didn't help. There's still no blue police box here.

Anyway, the Doctor turned into Matt Smith and I was skeptical. He seemed so young.

Now I love Matt Smith as the Doctor. Sadly, there will be a new actor soon. I might like Peter Capaldi too once I get used to it, but I don't like change. There's so much going on in life anyway and I don't want the faces of my imaginary friends on TV to change!

David Morrissey (The
Governor from Walking
Dead) in Doctor Who.If they have to change doctor, I want The Governor from Walking Dead.

I know, he was a bad guy, but I loved the character. I'm still sulking over his demise. I loved to see what he would come up with, and in this season I rooted much more for him than for the people in the prison.

I have imagined David Morrissey as a space villain, and in my mind he's a great space villain, but he's good at playing good guys too. He has already been in Doctor Who, and did a wonderful job.

I want David Morrissey as The Doctor. Who's with me?

Tips for writers: displays, banners, and swag

Whenever I'm out and about people ask about my displays. I have been fortunate, finding the right things on the first try. I have been to outdoors book fairs where the wind was strong enough to knock down the tents, but my displays kept standing. Not even the postcards blew away.

I have plywood bookstands from cleardisplays.com. They're cheap, and they come apart and pack flat. Easy to transport, easy to handle, and stable. (Unless you put them backwards. I've done that once, LOL.)

My postcard stand is bought at the same place. This also comes apart to a neat flat package. I've bought a little suitcase on wheels where I pack the stands and all my swag. Since I'm lazy it has to be easy to handle!

I bought my banners at Vistaprint. Below you can see photos of my large banner that is perfect for covering the front of a table, or hanging as a backdrop.

Vistaprint often have sales. Right now a small banner - which is pretty large - is only $8. I pay extra for the outdoor vinyl; it's only some $3 more and well worth it. My large banner is also from Vistaprint.

Up until now I've borrowed an easel from my daytime job to hang the small posters, but I need to invest in a stand of my own. =)

One more tip for the traveling writer is to get plastic table cloths at the party store. I always bring a couple extra, and if I'm going to an outdoors event I bring a roll of clear plastic just in case it rains, or the ground where I need to put my bags is wet. You can get a big roll at Home Depot for less than $3!

My postcards are also from vistaprint. They don't do bookmarks, though, so I get those from smart press.com. They have reasonable prices even for small quantities. Important to note: making 200 cost almost the same as making 10! Whenever you buy something printed, check larger quantities than you originally intended. You can often get an extra 100 for an additional $2.


Here you can see my plywood displays and the large banner. 
The "small" banners are quite large. I was worried they wouldn't stand up to outside
use since they're fairly cheap, but I've subjected them to both wind and rain.
I'll wear them out eventually, but for $8 (if you can catch a sale) it's not a big deal.
My pens are bought locally at the Sarasota Printery. I don't remember what I paid for them, but I caught a special and it was a matter of cents for each pen. Again, look into buying a larger quantity than you think you need. The price per item drops dramatically when you add an extra hundred or so.

So, how did it go in Matlacha?

I'm not a morning person. I love sleeping and my pillows are my friends. When I got up at 5 AM two days in a row, the doggies clearly thought I had lost my mind.

Before this event I had no idea where Matlacha or Pine Island might be, but Siri guided me to the right area. She said, "Make U-turn here and arrive at destination." Turned out the address I'd gotten was a tire factory. That couldn't possibly be right. The book fair was supposed to be on an island...

What did people do before cell phones and Google?

I googled and found my way, and pulled in at the fair curious about what I would find. By now I thought I was late, but I was early - the volunteers hadn't gotten to putting up the tents in my area now. Yay! Nap-time in the car!

The book fair had less visitors than I hoped, but I am still happy with the weekend. I met some great authors I didn't know, sold some books, saw a part of the state I hadn't previously visited, and gave out a lot of postcards. Success!

It was chilly in the mornings, but nice once the sun came out.
In the future I think I'll prefer indoors events in November.
Alternately, I need to learn to bring more clothes. LOL!
I was supposed to share the booth with two other writers, but Saturday I had
more room than I could fill. I did get a tent-roomie on Sunday:
Patricia Helms with her lovely book with recipes and ideas for the home.
I don't think it's available on Amazon yet, so I can't link to it. =(
I made some wonderful new friends. This is Elizabeth Olancin who presented
her children's book One Inch at a Time and Through my Angel's Eyes.
To the right is Sarah Elle Emm who brought YA fantasy novels
Prismatic and Opalescent. Click on the links and check them out! =D
Me, looking cold. LOL! I had a Happy Bunny fleece hoodie,
but that didn't seem appropriate attire for photos, haha.
This is Trouper. He made my weekend! The poor guy
was hit in the head by a mean man when he was a puppy.
Are baby raccoons puppies? Cubs? Anyway, someone
hit him in the head with a golf club and now he is blind and has no
sense of smell. How can someone do that to another living being?
Luckily Trouper was rescued, and now he gets to go with his human
to advocate respect for animals. He was definitely popular.
I got to hold raccoon paw! Please check out Trouper's website!
Above is the TV commercial for the event. =)

SFR Brigade Presents: more from Brand New World

The SFR Brigade Presents is a blog hop where sci-fi romance authors present snippets of their work. I want to share an excerpt from my novella Brand New World.

Brand New World is the first book in my Embarkment series, and they're a bit different from all my other books. They're written in first person, and they're more playful than my "serious" books.

Check out the other participating authors as well! =)

~~~~~~

The door to my new home slid open, and Adam said, “It’s not perfect, but it will have to do for now.”
He put me down on a couch in the middle of the room, and I experienced a brief but intense feeling of loss when he no longer held me. Odd. There might be a perfectly reasonable psychological explanation to it, but still… Odd.
I glanced around to distract myself. The room was nice, but impersonal. It reminded me of a hotel in the upper price range.
My new friend took a seat next to me, a little awkwardly as if it was difficult to find a comfortable position. “Are you hungry?”
I probably should be, but eating was the last thing on my mind. I shook my head and fingered the sofa. The fabric under my fingers was almost familiar, but not quite. Everything was like that; just a little off, enough to be disturbing. Just like him.
Adam looked human and felt human to touch. He was solid and warm, but didn’t really have a smell. 
Not until now did I realize everyone I ever knew except for him had an elusive feeling of humanity around them. Maybe it was the lack of endorphins and other things a living body would produce. Maybe all of us pick those things up all the time, without even knowing. “Are you really an android?”
“You’ve asked me that before. Yes, I am an artificial life form. Look here.” He rolled his sleeve up, showing a perfect arm. It was slightly tanned, muscular, and covered with fine hairs, just like a human’s would be. He ran his fingers over the skin and I gaped as a hatch opened. A moment earlier, it was seamlessly attached, and now a portion of his skin and underlying whatever it might be slid to the side, revealing metal and circuits. “Wow!”

He grinned. It was the first real smile I saw on his face, and it looked perfectly human. “That’s exactly what you said the first time I showed you.”
~~~~~~

Brand New World
When Alexandra wakes up in an unknown environment, populated by a cat-like woman with a tail and a hologram of a rockstar, she knows she has to be hallucinating. Maybe she hit her head, or finally suffered that nervous breakdown. It doesn't get any better from finding out she died and was taken into the future by the elusive Adam, whom she can't remember, or from people telling her she's on a spaceship.

The last year or so is gone from her memory, and she has no choice but to try to adapt. As days go by, her new environment becomes more and more unnerving. She finds herself helpless, and completely dependent on a man who isn't even human.

It's happening this weekend: Matlacha Authors Festival

If you're in the area, I will be speaking at 12:20 on Saturday the 30th. I will also have a table with books, postcards, and swag.I'd love to see you there!

Happy Thanksgiving!

When I first came to the US I didn't understand Thanksgiving at all. (I had actually never heard of it.) Now I appreciate the concept - not to mention getting a holiday - but Black Friday still puzzles me. 

The first time I heard "Black Friday" I thought the nation was in mourning over something historical, but I couldn't figure out what. Then hubby explained that it's the day most retailers' numbers get in the black. That's sad. They've run the entire year up until now with a loss? Wow.

Last night I saw a Black Friday commercial on TV. It was a choir dressed in Christmasy clothes, singing, "Go, go, go, go, go, shop, shop, shop shop."

So, the entire nation spends one day being thankful for what they have, and then they go out in the middle of the night to fight with other people to buy more stuff.

Go, Go, Go, Go, Go, Shop, Shop, Shop, Shop...

I'm not going, and I'm not buying, but I am thankful. In the spirit of giving something back, Touch of the Goddess is free for Kindle all Thanksgiving holiday until Sunday.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May your holiday be wonderful and special. May your food be delicious, your friends and family peaceful and loving, and every traveller kept safe.