Meant To Be

I just have a little something to say about the idea of something being pre-destined, you know, meant to be. Let me give you an example:

Peter Jackson. He makes films, right? And he's been doing so ever since childhood. He used to watch films all the time and ran around with a Super 8 with his friends. And since he's still doing that, it's pretty obvious that it's a sign of genious and perseverence, but also that he loves doing it. Right? So he's doing what he is meant to do.

Picture from here

Flash forward to 1983. I am one year old, and my mother suddenly becomes suspicious. It's awfully quiet in the house. She hurries upstairs to my room, where she finds me, pencil in hand, having covered an entire wall in tiny little circles, as high up as I could reach.

From that point on, it pretty much only got worse. I drew on anything, with anything. My parents bought me one of those large rolls of drawing paper from IKEA, and I had a field day. Many field days, in fact, but I was unstoppable, and I filled the roll far quicker than they'd counted on. I copied pictures of Donald Duck, I made up little worlds in which aliens dwelled, I invented their gear and clothing and flying saucers. I had what seemed to be the collective imagination of a medium-sized kindergarten. I don't know how many of those rolls I filled, since none are left for posterity. Shame, really.


I kept at it. In school, when we had tests, I sometimes finished them quicker than all the others (yeah, I suppose I was kind of a geek ohwaitIstillam), so I used the extra time to make funny little drawings on the back of them for my teacher. So it surprised no-one when I decided to go to art school for my high school years. I met people who got me into comics, I read Elfquest till my eyes were sore, and made my own comics which I even entered into contests. People said I would become an artist one day, as I was so talented at drawing. An artist? I guess they didn't really pay attention to what I was drawing. But then, neither did I.

You see, even though I more often than not ended up drawing funny stuff,  I could also, when I took the time, draw and paint wonderful things. Portraits and landscapes and still life and watercolours. So I went on to university, doing a bachelor degree in Fine Art. I admit I did rather well. Rather well indeed. But when I had finished and went back to Norway, I had a nagging feeling that I wasn't supposed to do that all day for the rest of my life. So I entered a flower-arranging course.

Wait, what?  

Flower arranging, you say? WTF?! Where did that come from? I can only say that at the time, it made sense. If I was going to try to make it in the art world, I had to have something to fall back on. Especially on the Norwegian art scene, where you really have to have done your degree in Norway to get a foot in anywhere. However, by the time my year of arranging flowers was over and I was meant to take up an apprenticeship, I'd met my chiropractor, you know, the one who wants everyone to follow their dreams, and so I decided to hop off the exhilerating train (not) that is flower arranging, and take a job in a toy store.

 Flower arranging: totally blows your mind

The Flower Arrangement, painting by Otto Scholder, 19th century

Wait, what?

Yeah, yeah, I know, but that also made sense at the time. I had to sit down and think of what I wanted to do, and I needed money while doing so, and it was only for a year anyway. I continued to see my chiropractor, seeing as flower arranging had wrecked havoc of my shoulder, and little by little he got me on the right train of thought (and my shoulder back to normal), and even bought one of my paintings. And he hinted that maybe comics were my thing. I guess I have a lot to thank him for.


So I moved to Bergen to study art history. Yeah, yeah, yeeaahh ... I suppose, in hindsight, it seems like I was fighting my destiny kicking and screaming, but at the time ... it was a wonderful, interesting year in which I learned so much. And to be honest, you have to have a little life experience when making comics, because if not, what will you make your comics about?

I suppose, also, that this blog post makes it sound as though I'm this driven genious within comics who spills over with ideas and draws perfectly without effort. Not true. I encounter writer's block on a daily basis. I struggle with anatomy (because I have to draw fast, you know? Won't make any money if I spend a week on each comic strip), I have to be good at grammar, at colouring, at perspective, and because I don't have an agent, I also have to be good at all the boring office stuff as well, like taxes and accounting and billing (okay, that last one can be fun I guess).

 Picture from here

So I'm pretty sure I'm finally doing what I'm supposed to do. Doesn't mean I won't do a whole lot of other things as well, though. Like writing a blog in English. Or decorating a kick-ass cake. Or play my guitar and reminisce about my band days. Or pull out some fabric and a pattern and sew a dress or whatever. And I still pretend to be an artist every now and then, enter group exhibitions, even sell stuff for quite a lot of money. But it's not what I want to spend every day doing. Except the making money bit. I could do that ALL DAY LONG.

Thank you for you attention. Now carry on with what you were doing. And think about whether it's what you're meant to do.













Oh - and I found this picture while searching for that poster of Lord of the Rings up there. It's hilarious. If you don't get it, I suggest you go here. And also here, here and here. That's today's recommendation right there.

Photo from here

Oh. And I changed the name of my blog. It's called Written by Jorunn now. I thought about "Jorunn Writes", but then it sounded as if Writes was my last name. I'll stick with Written by Jorunn for a while.

High Density

Last week when I was in Spain, I saw a young girl on rollerskates rolling over to a payphone to make a call. I was immediately transported back to the nineties, not only because of her rollerskates (skates, not blades) but also because she was using a payphone. I thought, "why doesn't she just use her mobile phone?", and hadn't gotten as far as "maybe it ran out of battery" in my chain of thought before pointing it out to my husband and then realising what I'd said and consequently waited for a logical answer because my husband is logical and knows everything and I'm not, and I don't.

I need that payphone more than you do! Get outta my way, beyatch!!

Photo from here

He told me that perhaps not everyone in Spain has their own mobile phone. However (he said diplomatically), since Norway has the world's highest density of mobile phones per citizen, I was forgiven for thinking that everyone has one.

Seriously? Norway? What about Japan? I said. Then he pointed out, also in a calm and patient sort of way, that though Japan is very advanced in terms of technology, not all of them have a lot of money to buy mobile phones for (neither do I, which is why I held on to my last one for almost five years and I didn't even pay for that one myself), so on average the density there is lower. Then he thought for a bit and said that maybe Finland has a higher density of mobiles, seeing as they have Nokia.

This has made me think of what other things Norway have the highest density of. For instance, no-one drinks as much coffee as we do. One of the most common reasons for housefires are because people forget to turn off their coffee makers. We have coffee with our breakfast, our lunch and after our dinner, in between meals, in the car, on the train, you name it. I love coffee too, but then I did spend a whole summer forcing myself to like it. That's a story for later.

 I love coffee so much horses come out of my hair

Photo from here

Also, we read a hell of a lot of newspapers. That's another density record. I myself subscribe to three different newspapers, and that's a lot to read through every day. Plus I skim through like, four newspapers online every day. I guess we like our news.

 Rather than actually reading the newspaper,

I opt for ingesting its concents via my hands through osmosis

Photo from here

Lastly, Norway has the highest density of comics (okay, the second highest, Japan did beat us there). That explains a lot. Like why I can sit in a country with only five million people and be able to live off what I do. This is veeerrryyy goood. Keep it up. Go on. Read comics. I don't want a day job. I like la-la-land. I'm in my happy place. And I marvel at how my husband knows so many things.



Ps - I havent' been able to find reliable numbers for my husband's claim. Some numbers I did find, here, are very dated, from 2007, and they show Norway way down at number 30. However, this blog contains claims for both mobile phones and comics. It's also dated though. If you know of a reliable, up-to-date source, please feel free to mention it in the comments. And I'll ask my hubby when he gets home.

This Is What I Do For A Living

Right, so I thought I might have a little show-and-tell today. I make comics, which are then printed in various papers and magazines here in Norway. My longest-running comic to date is Reveland, which translates as "fox land/country" which just sounds lame. "Reveland" also sounds lame, but that's what it was called back when I was twelve and made the first comic about Superfox who saved pretty girls from drowning and suchlike, and I never got around to changing it and now I reckon it's too late.

In the year 2000 I entered a comics contest with an extremely naïve rendition of my fox universe, but then, I was eighteen and an art student and all ironic and clever and things. I never heard from the jury. Three years later, though, I entered again, and this time I was runner-up. That was encouraging, so of course I put my comic in a drawer and didn't look at it again until 2007 (thanks to my chiropractor, who is a great believer in following your dreams and listening to the universe and things) when I got it printed in my local newspaper. Four years later, I'm making four different comics on a regular basis. I quit my day job in January 2009. I worked in a gardening center, but I'll save that story for later.

Here's an example of my comic Reveland:

(I know, that joke is SO old. But it had very little text so it didn't take me long to translate it. I'm super busy you know. That is why I'm writing a blog entry instead of actually working)

I'm also proud to say NONE of my comics have ever been refused for print. Except one, because it was so obscure that the editor didn't understand the joke. It was about that milkshake-song and all the boys to the yard and I made that Scotland Yard, which in the comic was a stick at the Scottish official yard-measure themepark where you could get chilled milk beverages, and --- okay, I guess I understand why they refused that one.

Did I mention I have a baby? He's six months old today. Hooray!

First Entry

Hi there. Hello. Yes. Welcome to my blog! If you read this, you're --- probably very thorough, seeing as it's my first blog entry here, and that means that maybe my blog in the distant future has become quite popular and you wanted to read the whole thing and not just the new entries. So I should probably write something really interesting and funny here to make it worthwhile for you. Yes.

Right. Well, I'm a tall blonde Norwegian, but don't let that put you off. I'm a comics creator, which means I write and draw comics for a living, which is pretty cool. I'm also sometimes a fine artist, in fact I have a fine arts degree, so occacionally I paint something and maybe someone buys it. When they do, I get really happy, because then I get money and also unsold paintings take a lot of storage space.

I just did an internet test that showed that I in no way have Asperger's syndrome, however I do tend to get intensely interested in things and obsess about them, so if you for some reason keep reading my blog over a lengthy period of time you'll probably see evidence of this and then you'll probably be a little annoyed. Don't worry though, I usually lose interest after a while. But this will mean that I might write things like "I WANT TO BE A WRITER SO BAD AND I HAVE AN AMAZING IDEA FOR A BOOK WHICH WILL SELL MORE THAN THE BIBLE AND BE MADE INTO FILMS WHICH WILL WIN ALL THE OSCARS IN THE WORLD", so when that happens, just smile and nod and carry on with whatever you're doing.

For said reason, see above, I won't say that this blog is about anything. Because even though today it might be a blog about comics, tomorrow it might be about cooking. Or babies. Or computers. Or art history. Or cookies. It probably won't be about politics, though. Or mathematics. Or ferrets. Or unicorns and rainbows. Sorry about that.

Anyways, a good blog entry should include a picture, so I've drawn one for you. It's not very good though. Here it is:

Also, a good blog entry should include a recommendation of something. So I recommend you go ahead and read the book Divergent by Veronica Roth. It's really good. Here's a picture of it:

Right, have a nice day, then!

Edit: You might wonder why I called this blog "Have a Dang Cookie". I haven't really got an answer for that. I'll probably change it sometime. When I've thought of something really good.

Sub-meta-edit from the future: It's not called Have A Dang Cookie anymore.

Edit 2: That little drawing I made above? I made that on a Bamboo Pen&Touch Special Edition. It has a little program called Doodler. It's very basic but pretty neat.