I NEVER OUTGREW MY CHILDHOOD MONSTERS,
AND I HOPE I NEVER WILL.
I’m a grown ass woman (like i’d tell you my age – gen X – that is all you get from me) from Copenhagen, Denmark. I am born here, I was raised here, and I still live here and raised my children here. And they will have to carry me out feet first! I love Copenhagen, and can’t imagine living anywhere else.
I don’t know what information is even relevant in a thing like this; is it relevant that I was once married for 16 years, and have not dated or even entertained the idea of a partner since. I grew up in foster, but stayed the same place from I was 8months till I was 15 (I blame the hippie movement). I have 4 half siblings – I am the eldest. I am incredibly near sighted, blind as a bat without glasses or contacts. I neither want to, or know how to; drive a car – I bike everywhere. I have a bachelors degree in social education. I have adhd and that is both my downfall and superpower in one. I am Aries. I hate venturing out into nature, I’ll stick to my big cities thank you. I am afraid of horses. I don’t own a single pair of high heel shoes. I am allergic to almonds, lactose and food coloring. I smoke. I have a fobia of dentists. I love to refurbish and repurpose things. I love taxidermy. I wanted to be a mortician when I was young. I can play bas-guitar and once played in a punk band. I own a massive amount of books. I lease my apartment, i don’t care for owning cause it demands stuff of me. I know how to weld, and have a certificate. I hate chili and spicy food. I am deadly afraid of heights. I am vegetarian. I collect exotic moths in frames. I love the sent of rosemary. I have 4 cats; two maine coons, one lykoi and one regular calico housecat. I am solitary and not social in my private life. I love gaming, both FPS, horror and puzzle games. I swear a lot, and is in general not very ladylike. I have sworn by anarchosyndicalism since my teens and still do.
I hate boxes that identify you, so I ususally just say: I AM.
When I started writing horror I don’t know, and there are no one alive anymore who remembers. So if I were to say, I’d say forever. I remember I wrote some stories one summer, I must have been like 9 or something. And my mum said she wasn’t sure what was worse, my grammar or my story. I would spend hours and hours on the library, borrowing books that children normally weren’t allowed to take home, but that is what you get when you befriend the librarian. Also my dad was the janitor at my school, so I spent many evenings and weekends alone on said school, and he’d just unlock the library for me, and I’d go to town (is this where I admit that I took out books that I never stamped? cause they had a strickt policy about agerestrictions on books, like we weren’t allowed to read Christine, but we could read Where the wind blows – oh the 80ies).
As a child I would lie a lot, about the most miniscule of things, and later in life I found that not only is it a shitty character trait to lie (obviously) but I could use it for something, that overactive imagination of mine; to tell fairytales by the fire, and have people listen. Admitted I did lose friends and aquaintances before i realised that I could use my need to tell tales like Münchausen could be used for something constructive. Now – now I know that it was a gift, because writing horror IS lying, that is what I do! I take something that is grounded in reality, maybe not my reality even if it’s often the case, and then I weave a fantastic story around it. Who want to read about a camping trip I had in 8th grade? No one, that’s who. But who want to read about a entire school class disappearing mysteriously, sucked into a alternate dimention? Probably a lot more people. That’s who!
I realise it’s semi controversial to say that to write is to lie, but I stand by that philosophy, and really it’s not a harmful sort of lies, it’s more like play pretend, and the fantastical story you tell doesn’t hurt anyone or present a false image of events or you. I mean it’s complicated but if you take fiction for facts, you need help.
I had some years in my youth where I lived out of a backpack, and even then I’d carry a little notebook, writing down snippets of stuff, because if I don’t I might go crazy. I can’t have all those scenarios, characters, worlds and stories living in my head. And I see stories everywhere if I want to. My grammar is however still terrible, but that is what editors are for. When the internet became something most people had, I started out writing stories in English, actually at first I’d use the original Sims to create some sort of illustrated story, and I did that for many years, and sometimes I miss it. It was a neat way to write, and fun too.
And with the English stories, I slowly moved into writing fanfiction, and I did that for a lot of years, and had fun with that, untill I didn’t. See fanfiction is a great concept for new authors, you can take something that already have a fanbase, and if your story sounds appealing enough, someone will read it. unlike when you write original stories, you have to do a fuckton of legwork to get someone to read it. And that is what appealed to me about fantiction really, the instant payout of comments, encouragement and questions. What I always hated was the communities, I am not a person who likes restrictions, and thoughtpolice. And in short that is why I don’t write fanfiction anymore. But I do have an archive of stuff I wrote, even the first cringeworthy story – cause it helps you grow.
At one point I had a novella co written with my friend Anne (link to her below), and the publisher butchered that poor thing to oblivion, and I won’t tell the whole sordid tale here, I probably did that in my blog at some point. But I will say that we ended up buying our script back with the licence and copyright to our characters. I have not been even entertaining the idea of publishing through a American publisher again. But honestly one does not need to be published to be an author. it’s not the notches in your belt that makes you good, it’s your ability to keep writing, because you can’t not write. And that is me – I don’t care about getting noticed, but I do care about my creativity and integrity. Back when I published that novella, I did so under a made up name, actually I just took two of my kids middle names and went with it. But now that I took a decision to not take it up the ass for anything, (in regards to my authorship at least, cause life fucks me over on the daily, and not the fun or even consensual sort of fucking either.) I decided to write under my actual name, which is Nordravn (north-raven, which is why i often mention myself as ‘the raven’.) and because my first name is sort of tricky I just went with a nickname one of my small cousins gave me, which is Riri (fight me Rihanna!) – So that just became R.
Horror makes me happy, always have – a lot of people don’t get it, and that is fine. But I seriously very seldom watch a movie that is not horror, read a book that is not horror, or listen to a podcast that is not horror. I know I am a lone swallow in that regard. I am in many, many ways completely cut off from popular culture, and that is completely fine by me, and the older I get. The more prominent it gets, but I think that is mostly because I no longer give a fuck, and don’t bother to keep a lid on it. But for more of that, I can only say you should check out my blog here.
The crochet thing might be a little unsettling for some hahaha, but really I learned how to manage what I now know to be inattentive adhd, when I had to stay focused. When I for instance took my degree in socialwork, I had to sit through lectures, and dude, if I did not have something between my hands I’d fall asleep. And later in my life I had to quit my job because of stress, and found that audiobooks and crochet was the perfect solution for unwinding. I do have a sales page here on this blog, but most I make I don’t sell for money, I either give it away, or swap for whatever you have. But for that, you’d have to keep tabs on my fb, or my blog here.
I do youtube as well, but that is mostly because in my brain, if I don’t use what I do for something, I don’t do it. So to record my games, gave me a reason to play them.
It’s not a lake, it’s an ocean.
Alan Wake
DREAMS OF A LOST MOONCHILD 