Being a writer

Even if I had pretty much made up my mind when I was 14 that I was going to dedicate my life to the muse of poetry, I got bored with it when I had achieved to have my first book of poetry published when I was 21 by the largest publisher in Iceland at that time. I wanted to explore more creative sides of myself. And so I did. It wasn’t until about a year ago that I called upon the muse of writing. I had finally made up my mind about what I wanted to choose of the very many different creative expressions I had experimented with through the years. It is a work of much solitude, but at the same time it requires life to be explored and tasted by all the senses.

Ever since I called upon the muse of writing and the muse of poetry. (They are not the same), I have been sorting through the various qualities of material and ideas that have piled up in my computer through the years. It has been a massive process, because I am not only processing the written words of almost two decades, but also many emotional attachments to them. As a result of all this work I have one novel, 10 small books of poetry on different themes and a handful of short stories. Once I have got these published I will be able to start writing my new novel. I mean it is impossible to get pregnant while giving birth… even if I am sure there is at least one freak incident in our human history of that too.

I am now an art correspondent for the Icelandic Grapevine and it has forced me out of my solitude into the whirlwind of other people’s creations. I like that challenge, part of it is to be a critic and I am a little bit freaked out about it, it is a lot of responsibility to be in that role. I promise myself not to be judgemental, but rather act like an observer. Try to be transparent about it, I mean I can never really write about anything that is not coloured by my own self, viewpoints and opinions.

Soon I shall be walking a shoreline of another country, feeling, sensing the smell of the ocean, the smell of citrus and feeling the fingers of the sun play with my hair.