Writer´s retreat in Lappvik

I can’t think of a better way to end a hectic work week than leaving the city for a few days to spend them in a house by the sea. To get spend two days with the Creative Lunch people and to do one of things I love the most – is just as good as it gets. 

Sabine had planned the weekend for us in advance, so the only thing we needed to do was to find the place and buy some food for us. We had a huge house with a sauna building – all to ourselves – which gave each of us lots of personal space for both rest and writing. I also loved the fact that the house was by the sea which gave me – a person with a severe sea obsession – the chance to take long walks before I started with my morning pages and my daily writing.

I was very satisfied with how we managed to combine solitude and fellowship and one of my biggest lessons from this weekend came from reading Julia Cameron’s The right to write where she says that instead of thinking that “writers are loners” we can think that “writers have good friends”.

This will for sure become a tradition.

Secret beach. 

The Creative Lunch gang ready for yet another meal.

It’s a book!

Postcard of On motherhood out!

Many people have been asking for post cards of our posters, so we made some postcards of the poster On motherhood. We made them as double-sized premium cards in size A6.

Remember: “You don’t have to be perfect to be the best”.

If you want your own, find out more about the postcards here.

Creative Lunch and community

Have you ever had the feeling that you are squeezed into a bottle and it gets harder and harder to breath? That’s my feeling right now. I love having things in order, being ahead of things, instead of way behind. I prefer enjoying things in a slow pace than rushing through life. Well, my last weeks have been far from that…

Today, our wonderful creative community decided to meet just for an hour, one and a half hour earlier than we used to – just so I could make it to my next meeting. That’s what I call solidarity. That’s what I call putting others before yourself. Needless to say, it was great as usual. We met at Moko, I had a delicious owen-baked potato and we talked about our ongoing writing projects and how to keep deadlines.

Detail on glasses “Open your third eye”. Today I call it the eye of solidarity.

New poster: On motherhood

Sometimes a picture says more than thousand words. I think it’s the case with this poster. When you see the baby pingvin, you know, the little one is in very good hands. The little one is protected. Loved. No need to worry.

Inspirational Art poster made by Eva Gädda (copywriter) and Saara Fernström (illustrator), 2015. If you are interested in ordering your own copy, check more details here.

Writing horror stories at Creative Lunch

Here we go again! It’s Wednesday and lunch with my creative buddies again. This short workshop meeting in the middle of the work week has become something I long for. Yes, I lead it, but it’s still an oasis in the middle of demands and deadlines.

I am reading the Game of Thrones at the moment and overwhelmed by the story, the characters and the brutality. I have never been impressed by fantasy, but this time, I am sold. Therefore, I decided that we would develop our fiction writing skills this time and focus on horror stories.

We got really different scary stories. One story was set in the archipelago on a summer cottage with five teenage girls, revealing some underlying serious bullying matters. Another story covered a couple on a business trip accidentally drawn into a criminal setting. The third story was a surprising and horrifying one about disgusting eye diseases. It is so impressive how one can get so different results on the same task.

Keep writing, winter is coming!

Wallpaper at Lungberg that sparks your fantasy. Horrific? Maybe.

How I landed my first global client

This is a story I’ve been wanting to write for a long time. It’s a story about giving up something, following your dreams and receiving everything.

Today I finally signed a contract at my first global ad agency with my first global client. Needless to say, this is my biggest leap in my career so far, and I am thrilled about this opportunity!

I have been working as an editor and copywriter for my whole career – and about a year ago I had the feeling that I needed a new challenge – or I would just repeat myself over and over again. So I got out of my comfort zone and started walking on water as a freelancer.

About a month ago I got a call for a job interview at the new global agency Mirum for a global client of theirs. I was taken by surprise. Mirum has 40 offices in 17 countries, the client was no corner bakery. I learned that someone had recommended me and off I went. Two rather tough interviews later I was told that the project was postponed…Come on…what happened?

Two weeks later I got a call again and the day after I started working there. It’s called the jumpy road of surprises – and I have to say I truly enjoy the ride. 🙂

I still haven’t answered the question, I know. But the answer is, I don’t know how I landed my first global client. I reckon it’s a little bit of talent, many years of hard work and just plain favor.

Whatever the true answer is, the main point for me is to enjoy the answer and do my best with what has been given to me…

Have a glorious work week, folks!

The view from my favorite work spot at the beautiful Helsinki Mirum office. 

 

Creative Lunch goes Moko

The assignment for today was still about developing characters. Characters that stick. Characters that feel alive. Characters that you can imagine walking into the door to the cafe where you are sitting – and it would not even feel a little bit strange – that your fictive person would sit down beside you and start sipping on his or her latte.

We met at a new place again. I love changing location, it gives such a boost to your creativity. New food, new interior, new people, new smells – and today even new stuff – since we met at the combined interior design store and café Moko.

Needless to say, I am madly in love with Moko. While Sami was working on his character assignment, I walked around and immersed myself in the place. Saw some cute new prints, touched a few bottles, took a few pictures and checked out their beautiful notebooks. My heart melted. This will not be the last time our gang gathers here. Bye the way, did I mention that their salads are huge, delicious and cheap? Go there!

 

Colours – you make me crazy!

 

Creative Lunch develops characters further

How do you get characters to come alive? You get to know as much as possible about them, you dive into their past and you put them in different kind of settings to see how they react. And then you simply write about them. That’s what we did today.

We met at new place today, which is always inspiring. We met at Svenska teatern’s Cafe Artist for lunch and the above mentioned workshop. It was lovely! We all enjoyed the delicious and cheap (!) food and the sophisticated atmosphere.

Our main assignment then? Pick your main character in the novel you are writing, pretend that they would come into the room where you are the moment. How would your character react to the new environment? What would he/she do and say?

They did great as usual and towards the end of our session I challenged the participants to summarize the character they are working on, and list the five main personality traits of his. That was challenging but rewarding!

Have a creative week, friends! 🙂

What a lunch place! Try it out.

 

Maultaschensoppa and Creative Lunch

We went to the newly opened German café Daja for our Creative Lunch today. We all had a “Maultaschensoppa”, and lets make the name of the soup describe our intercultural group. Maultaschen is German and the dish is a German version of the Italian ravioli. Soppa again is Swedish for soup.That’s our mixed group. We speak in English, we add some Swedish, some German and Finnish. And sometimes we even add some southern Continental flavour. It’s a delicious soup!

Today we started working on some serious stuff: character building in a novel. We used one of the assignments from “Min roman…” where one was to fill in different kind of information about the characters; like special features, biggest problem, special talent and obvious weekness. What can I say? The characters we are working on are truly coming alive and they are sure intriguing.

Try it yourself.

Good luck, fellow creatives!

Daja wall decoration.

Creative Lunch assignment: describe a person who falls asleep

Let’s not make things complicated. If you want to become a better writer, you start with the easy things, continue with the next level stuff and repeat until you master your craft.

Last time we described our bathroom cabinet and the world from the perspective of a pair of shoes. This Creative Lunch we continued with describing more complex things: humans.

The assignment was to describe a person who falls asleep in 20 minutes. Time caps are always challenging, so this time I decided to plan the story on paper, before I started writing. After thinking back and forth, I decided to write a short story about a baby falling to sleep. Mainly because it’s one of the most beautiful scenes I know, and also because I wanted to experiment with creating a very sensitive and soft feeling.

I liked the outcome. Now it’s your turn. What’s your next creative step?

Cool stairs at Gran Delicato.