ULFRHEIM
Where It All Began
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a little girl who liked to tell tall tales and dream of worlds she could control. As she grew older, she learned to write and discovered the joy of toying with words. And the rest is history.
I’ve been writing poetry, lyrics and fiction all my life, but I’ve never really shared my works with a wider audience. This is going to change. I’ve decided that I will be posting work in progress here on the blog. I can’t very well discuss the merits of creative process writing, unless I’m willing to step up to the plate and offer my own works as examples.
Professionally, I’ve written a wide range of non-fictional pieces; worked as an editor, proofreader, writing coach, blogger and journalist; and I have lectured and taught classes in Creative Writing, Media & Communication, English Language & Literature and Swedish Language & Literature. None of that was half as scary as publishing things I’ve written just for fun.
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced me into shielding (500+ days and counting as I write these words), I wanted to keep myself busy and, at least somewhat, sane. I decided to write about the experience of being completely isolated, but my mind wasn’t in it. Turns out you can’t keep depression at bay writing about the very thing that threatens to pull you down. I needed something that would excite me and keep my mind out of the black hole.
Luckily, I had something that was vying for my attention. A rather extensive archive of DNF writing projects to be precise. Two of said projects, we can call them Anna and Bo, have always seemed to annoy me more than all the others combined.
Anna is a dystopian AU, set in a rather grim future where a plague has wiped out more than half of humankind and society as we know it has collapsed. I wanted to explore how modern humans would fare in a world where technology fails, food is scarce and money has lost its value. How would they survive? And how would they rebuild?
Bo is a YA fantasy rooted in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. It takes place in our time and is centred around a young girl who grows up believing in the old gods and fairy tales. What happens to a child who “tells tall tales” and believes in a world that doesn’t exist? And what would happen if it turns out she was telling the truth all along?
Both of these stories had potential, but I always felt they lacked that special something. You know, that feeling, whatever it is, that makes you want to share a story with all your friends and family. (Yes, I am that annoying person who wants my people to read, watch and listen to the stories I love, and I’ll shamelessly nag them until they actually do it!)
The pandemic made my old plague story feel relevant, but a part of me believed that Anna and Bo would be really good as a couple. If they weren’t so bloody vanilla! I set about plotting ways to make them work together and that’s when it dawned on me. There was, indeed, a way I could shake things up and inject some serious action, intrigue, and smut into the mix.
Enter DNF project Calle, an MC action romance with a twist. A group of kids in a small country village form a fantasy club. Their mission: to prank teachers, exhaust parents and defeat the school bullies. Over the years, as the kids grow older and their lives become harder, the club grows with them. Until the day they all have to move to the big city to continue their education that is. Will the distance and the fact they won’t be going to the same school anymore break them apart? Or can they find a way to keep their chosen family together?
Chucking Calle into the mix, I set about turning my sweet vanilla duo into a spicy polyamorous thrupple. And here we are… I am now at a stage in my writing where I’m debating POVs, timelines, chapter orders and other technicalities. However, as I’m not 100% sure when, where and how the important characters from the three different stories will meet up for the main (joint) plot events, I’ve decided to focus on developing their backstories for a while.
In a series of stories, that I will be publishing both here and on Wattpad, I will reveal how Ulfrheim came to be, who the main players in the sagas are and how they all came to be together in the right place at the right time. I will begin by introducing you to Edda and Horse, two of the central characters in the Ulfrheim sagas. Friends since they were both knee-high to grasshoppers, they build an unconventional family of misfits, outcasts and broken spirits together.
These kids grow up not trusting authority of any kind. They have all had far too many traumatising experiences for their young ages, and they seek refuge and comfort in each other. Looking to the ancestors and the old ways for guidance, they create a fantasy world based on the way of the wolf. Ulfrheim. This is their safe haven. The place where the pack looks after their own and no one gets left behind. But what happens when life forces them to split up and move to different schools, and different cities, to continue their education?
Well, if you tag along on this adventure you will find out. I hope you do decide to join us and I look forward to hearing from you in the comment sections on the way!
Love and Lust,
//Lïnnéa x
