It's been a while since I had a weblog that served as a weblog; my old Blogger sites were places I posted my work, and little else. This site is something different, though, which brings me to the purpose of this post: what has this waning year brought, both positive and negative?
The year progressed as years often do, until June, when Wolf Thandoy (my editor) and I completed the main round of editing The Complete Norwegian Folktales and Legends of Asbjørnsen & Moe, paving the way for publication some time next year. This event came roughly twenty years after I translated my first folktale in the summer of 2003 (just to see if I could do so).
Although progress on Asbjørnsen & Moe was the most significant event, personally, the most obvious change in my sphere of activity, was the removal of my Blogger blogs, following reports of impending indiscriminate data theft in the name of “artificial intelligence” by some of the world's biggest corporations. Taking the blogs down was not a decision I took lightly, but it was an easy one. Although I had made my work in unedited form freely available for personal use, I refuse to work for Silicon Valley’s profits without explicit consent and significant remuneration.
Inspired by the end of the heavy editing, and as a reaction to the shock of realising the scope of this project (i.e. the heft of the books), I developed my publishing plan in new directions. Not only will there be a complete, annotated collection in three volumes (my original plan), but there will also be a three volume editon without annotations, and a single ebook edition, also without annotations. All of these editions will be illustrated with the images that every Norwegian expects to accompany their beloved folktales and legends.
Lastly, I registered and set up this very Website, and after fiddling around with wiki software, and refusing the Wordpress bloat, I have settled on the current format. I have little interest in bells, whistles, animated banners, and the rest of the stuff that makes surfing the Web so wearying, so this is what you get. I hope it is readable, and I strive to be informative.
The new year
The new year should see the resolution of the Asbjørnsen & Moe project, which should free more of my time to complete the projects I have temporarily placed on the back-burner. I have two volumes of Regine Normann’s nothern legends to edit and publish, as well as a volume of draug folklore and stories, and I have at least two essays that are in differing states of completion; I am looking forwards to seeing those in print. I have enough to keep me busy, you might say.
But first, the holidays! I hope yours is as relaxing as it can be.
