How Can You Ever Forget Old Norway - Kan du glemme gamle Norge?

There is a Christmas party scene in Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930's where the majority of the attendees are immigrants from Norway or descended from immigrants.

As a child, I can remember my Dad, Webster Warren Bateman, singing this song in Norwegian. The only part of the song I remembered was the first line which is also the title. Thanks to my cousin, Janet Peterson Esser, I now have all the words in both Norwegian and English.

I'm sharing them here because this blog will eventually become my personal book of memories of what it took to write my first novel. It's an eye-opening, sometimes heartwarming (this song for example) and surprising look at who my father was as a young man.

Kan du glemme gamle Norge?   Norwegian – American Folksong

1.     How can you ever forget Old Norway? I can never forget that country, with its proud castle-like mountains is and will remain my native land.

2.     How can you forget this country which first embraced you? Do you think you’ll ever find another country with such a proud and glorious name?
3.     How can you ever forget Norway^’s forests with their pines, and birches and firs? If you can forget the waves of the ocean, then you are able to forget everything. 

4.     How can you forget these narrow fjords which twist and turn? There as a child you often were rocked by a stiff breeze. 

5.     Don’t your thoughts at times take flight to the place your cradle stood? Don't you feel your heart is beating for the land you left behind? 

6.     Let, Oh let your thoughts take flight; let them fly so easily. Long live Old Norway, forever young, in the hearts of all Norwegians.

 

1.     Kan du glemme gamle Norge ? Aldri jeg det glemme kan, som med stolte klippeborge er og blir mitt Ødeland.

2.      Kan du glemme dette landet som dig først tok i sin favn ? Mon du finne vil et annet med så stolt og herlig navn?

3.     Kan du glemme Norges skover med sin furu, birk og gran ? Kan du glemme sjØens vover, alt du da forglemme kan.

4.     Kan du glemme disse trange fjorde, som sig bukter inn ? Hvor som barn du mange gange vugget dig for førlig vind.

5.     Svever stundom ei din tanke dithen hvor din vugge stod ? Føler du ei hjertet banke for det land som du forlot? 

6.     La da kun din tanke sveve; det kan aldri falle tungt. Må for nordmenn lenge leve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Transitions

One of my biggest challenges in writing, Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s, has to do with transitions.

I begin the story in March of 1939 with my father, Webster Warren Bateman, driving from a construction site in Nebraska. He has miles to think about the recent death of his wife, the funeral he’s going to attend and what the future has in store for him and his three year old daughter.

The miles also give him lots of time to think about his past and why he believes he’s not worth a “tinker’s dam.” 

Moving from present to past and back again has its challenges. How many chapters do I write between present and past when the past is the real story? How do I keep my readers anchored and interested in both time periods? And what’s the best way to maintain reader interest between scenes within a chapter and between chapters?

No one said writing a novel would be easy, at least for a beginner, but there’s lots of help along the way. Following are worthy prompts from a website called Men with Pens. If anyone else is struggling with these or other issues in writing, take a look at the site and the excerpt that follows.

Enter Stage Left, Exit Stage Right

Transitions are much like the turn of a page at the end of a scene in a paperback novel. They should wrap the scene up nicely and give the reader a place to sigh happily and set down the book for the night to come back to it tomorrow, or they should leave the reader with a real cliffhanger so they can’t resist turning that page.

Always leave them wanting more. 

So if something exciting is going to happen next, give readers a teaser or a taste. Make them say, “Ooh!” and get them excited to read the next scene. 

…If you’re aiming for warm fuzzies or a somber wrap up, give readers that too. Write in a way that leaves them with a sigh, or with some emotional response that lingers. “Aw, how sad! I wonder what he’ll do!” Or, “Aw, that’s so sweet…”

…Find a better way to wrap your scene and pass the baton. Ask a question. “Do you really think we’ll make it?” and leave it there for a cliffhanger that begs for an answer. Or, end with a statement sentence. “He turned his back to her, and put his face in his hands.” Try an action. “The glass flew from his fingers, and smashed against the wall.”

And the reader goes, “Ooh!” and turns the page to see what happens next.

http://menwithpens.ca/how-to-write-transition-scenes/