I don't think I have mentioned it before (at least not a lot) that I have wanted to do youtube for years. Yes, years. Ever since I started watching youtube videos back in the days, I have wanted to make videos myself. But I have never had the guts to post anything. But then, back in July/August, I finally decided to post videos. I realized that I have been spending too much time being scared people I know is going to find it and think it's weird. And it's so ridiculous.

And I posted booktube (=youtube videos about books) videos for a few months and absolutely loved it all. But then I had a freak out moment and put them all on private and didn't post anymore. Ever since then (about October) I have missed it like hell. Therefore, a few weeks ago I decided to start again:

I don't know about you but I honestly can't believe it's already DECEMBER! Like, where did this year go? One can't lie: this year hasn't been the best for the world. However, I hope 2018 will turn out to be a good year, for myself and the rest of the world.

I was trying to think of something I did this year that I'm happy, proud or excited about but I honestly couldn't think of that many:

Something I remember making a lot when I was younger is 'stick-bread', or pinnebrød as we call it in Norwegian. Whenever we were going on a school trip outside (and there would be a fire, of course) I loved to make this and bring it with me. Sometimes plain, sometimes a little spiced up.

That's something I really like about this; you can change it up! If you want it around your sausage, you can leave it plain or add some cool spices to add a little more to the food. If you want it as a dessert - add some extra sugar, possibly a little cinnamon. It's honestly very versatile.

My favourite way to eat this is just plain. Bread is just good on its own, right? But I also like to add a spice called 'all-around spice'. When my friends and I went out into the woods for a few hours (read here) I made a dessert one, too. By adding a little extra sugar and some cinnamon, it ended up tasting like a cinnamon bun - and who doesn't like a cinnamon bun?

As you can see in the photo above, I wrapped the dough around the barbeque stick without any sausage. I really like wrapping it around the sausage too, but eating just bread is really good, in my opinion.

R E C I P E :

• 500 g of flour
• 5 tablespoons of sugar*
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 dl oil
• 2 dl tepid water

T I P S :
one:   when wrapped around a sausage, I highly recommend to cook the sausage over the fire first. Just to make sure that the sausage will be cooked all the way through and warm enough. Then, when it's ready, carefully wrap some dough around the sausage.

two:  do not, and I emphasise - DO NOT - wrap the dough too thick. It will take forever to cook. The outside will burn, but the inside will be raw.

three: as with everything else, don't cook it inside the flame or right above it. As mentioned, the outside will burn, but the inside will stay raw. And I personally prefer everything to be cooked - I don't know about you? Hold it above the embers and it will turn out amazing.

four: we use a barbeque stick because it's easier. But, if you don't have one of those, you can find a stick (which makes a little more sense to use - I mean, it's called stick bread for a reason!) Use a knife and remove the bark from the area you will be using and make a pointy end if desired.


Love, Thea

I hope you are having a great day!
A few weeks ago myself and a friend decided to pack our backpacks and head out into the woods. Then, this weekend, we decided to do it a second time because we enjoyed the first time a lot. The difference between last time and this time was that we were three instead of two, and I managed to remember to bring matches and everything we needed! I guess one learns from one's mistakes?

The forecast said it would rain on Sunday (which is when we went outside) which wasn't the best thing. Luckily by the time we decided to head out around noon, the rain slowed down. During the hours we were outside we had to hide under a shed-thing a few times when it started raining a little heavier. Not that I mind rain, though, I actually love it, but I didn't particularly want to get soaked, even if I wore a raincoat, so we decided the shed was the best.


It sounds morbid, but it really isn't. I love fires when they are contained and taken care of if that makes sense. I just love the smell and sound and the warmth. All though, I could do without the smoke in my eye! I'm pretty sure the smoke hates me...

We grilled some sausages. I made some 'pinnebrød' or twist bread according to google translate. I would personally translate it to 'stick bread', but hey... can't have everything here in life, right? You twist it around the sausage and cook it. All though, quick tip, hold the sausage over the fire a little first. Then it gets nice and warm! I also made dessert stick bread - I added a little extra sugar and cinnamon and voila! Dessert!


What have you done this week?

Hi!
It's the night before it all starts; the night before my social life has to go down from small to tiny; the night before I have to show some self-control so I can get 50 000 words written in one month.

It's 21.52 (or 9.52 pm). Two hours and 8 minutes until NaNoWriMo starts in Norway. It's tempting to stay up until the clock shows 00.00 and get 500 words written down but I think I might go to bed. I'm sitting here with peaceful piano playing in the background along with the hour-long crackling of fire from my friend Netflix. It's calming and focusing.

I'm trying to write the timeline - a very vague one, but a timeline non-the-less - for my story and I can't have any distracting voices singing in my ear when I try to make up people's stories. I have left it a little late, I know, but I wasn't planning on adding a character that changes pretty much all of the story in some ways.  In other ways, though, it doesn't change anything. It's hard to explain. Before this change showed itself a week ago or so, I had a timeline written out, the beginning, middle, climax and ending all planned out... And now, that's changed.

Something I have done - as I have done the two times I have participated in NaNoWriMo is to follow a word sprint account on Twitter. It honestly helps me a lot. I haven't put notifications on yet because I'll be getting them too often. Some people have started other places in the world so the sprints are in full form. I'll turn it on tomorrow! I always turn it off when I go to bed and on when I wake up!

• Write 50 000 words. Realistically, I will be very happy if I can beat my best score of 15 050 words!
• Get ahead in the beginning. By day 7 I would love to reach 15 000 instead of 11 000.
• Not stress too much.
• Enjoy it.
• Get draft one of my novel down. Or at least a part of it.

Four more days now...
As I have mentioned, I haven't been able to decide if I'm going to participate in this years National Novel Writing Month. However, as of yesterday, I have decided that I'm going to give it a shot this year. It's not like I have anything better to do... And no, I'm not being sarcastic by the way!

I realized it's stupid of me to let this years NaNoWriMo pass without putting some effort into it seeing that I have no obligations for anything else other than life. I might not reach 50 000 words by the end of the month, but I'll feel worse if I don't even try to reach 50k! My best NaNoWriMo was my first year (in 2015, I gave up on day two in 2016). I wrote 15 050 words and even though my GOAL is 50 000, my "realistic" goal is 20 000. If I write 20 000 words I'll have written 20 000 words of my novel + beaten my best word count!
What's something you need when it comes to writing?

P R I N T A B L E
As I have mentioned, I like keeping things organized. I love printables and therefore I made a simple printable you can download for free to keep track of your word count for the month. You can download it by clicking here! (It's a google doc)

Oh, and you are more than welcome to pin this photo:


Thank you for reading! Lots of love, Thea!

I have a huge sweet tooth... it's a problem...

Am I doing NaNoWriMo this year??
For those who don't know: NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month which happens every November. The goal is to write the first draft (or whatever draft you happen to be on) during the month and in the end reach 50 000 words...

I did my first ever nanowrimo in 2015. I hadn't planned to do it, therefore I hadn't planned out the story I was going to write. Then, as I always do, I ended up on youtube watching writing videos and spesifically nanowrimo related videos. So I felt like doing it anyway. The problem was that I decided to do it a few days before it started. I scrambled to plan my novel and surprisingly; it went ok - the planning process!

One and a half week in I decided to stop. It was too stressful: I had exams I was stressing about and decided to stop so I wouldn't end up hating the process of writing. However, I did manage to reach a word count I was, and am, proud of. I wrote exactly 15 050 words. I wrote over 30 pages and that isn't something that happens a lot for me (I tend to get bored by the story, which I suppose just shows that that story might not be the right story...).

Even though that was far from the actual goal, I am very happy with that.

Then, 2016 came a long and once again I wasn't planning on participating because of school. Then, on November 1st, I decided to give it a go anyway... It didn't go well. Actually, it went terribly... I only wrote 2083 words... *hitting forehead* You see, after day 1 it gave me too much stress, so I stopped.

But when I decided to stop last year I told myself that next year (2017) I was going to give it a real shot (like in 2015, just even more) because I wouldn't be in school. So I have more than enough time on my hand.

I don't really know what I'm doing here (in this picture), but hey... who cares?!

I have gone a little back and forward, not sure if I'm going to bother doing it this year, (1) because I was planning on writing (almost) every single day since September but then that changed because of some health problems (I'm 98% fine now - I think) and (2) because I just didn't know if I was going to care enough to do it.

But I'm going to do it - that I have decided!

I'm going to write on the world war 2 historical fiction novel I have started. I have written almost 10 000 words on it so far, but I think I'm going to restart the draft. (OR is it draft 1.1?) I have some more ideas but I'm not sure if the ideas are a spur of the moment ideas, and if I actually like it, so I'll have to figure it out...

I'll update when I start!

Are YOU doing NaNoWriMo?? Let me know!

#nanowrimo #writing #writer

Good morning/day/evening wherever you are!
A couple of days ago me and a friend decided to pack our backpacks with some food, some firewood and some hot chocolate and head into the woods near where we live and have a nice time outside.

We - my family and neighbours and friends - used to do this often on the weekends or during autumn break and so on. I have missed it too - I love being outside.

My friend and I walked to where we were going to be, only to realize I had forgotten the matches (I was 100% sure I had brought them when we walked from home) so I called my mom, who asked my sister and her friend to meet me halfway with a box of matches. At least I didn't have to walk all the way home... which, too be honest, isn't very far from where we were. I could have walked home in five minutes if I had bothered - but hey, my sister said she could, so who was I to say no thanks!
I think in the end we were out for about 4 hours - and that including a walk we went on before we decided to eat our dinner outside. Which is another thing I'm proud of myself for: I have gone for more 1-hour long walks the last 1,5 week than the last 6 months!

At one point the fire was dying so we scrambled to it and tried with all our talent to get it back alive and after about 5-10 minutes it was back alive. And then it died again.. but we did manage to get it back again, though! We might or might not have celebrated a little loud with a small scream of joy... There was no one around (except a guy and a dog a little later who scared the shit out of us..) so no got the opportunity to hear us.

It was nice to spend time outside. It was relaxing, fun and made me want to do it a few times before the snow comes. All though, I wouldn't mind doing it when the snow comes either! I'll just have to force my friends out!
Thanks to my friend who took these photos of me!

What have you been up to?

This Monday is the day of the Parlimentary Election here in Norway. This is the first year I can vote, and I am so excited! I'm a full believer of using my vote when I can, so this is something I have been waiting for since I turned 18 last September.