What It Takes to Write and Publish a 368-Page Novel
By: Øivind H. Solheim
Tags: Life, Novel Writing, Creativity, Historical Fiction, Fiction Writing

— You write in Fabrikken about people in Odda before and during the Second World War. Why did you write this book?

— It is a need I have had for a long time, without it actually being particularly conscious in me until just the last few years. About two years ago I started writing. I did it in my spare time, kept on and wrote the book in the afternoons and evenings during a period of almost two years, while I also worked 100 percent as a teacher, as I had done for the last 30 years.

— What subjects did you teach?

— I taught French and German as foreign languages, and Norwegian language and literature. And then writing, of course. Learning to write is an important part of learning a foreign language, and especially when learning Norwegian as a mother tongue.

— So while you were a teacher, you wrote a novel of over 360 pages!

— Yes. And it went unexpectedly well!

— You mean — the writing?

— Yes, thinking about characters, thinking about the environment, events in the time period that I was interested in.

— So it was mostly joy, enjoyment, writing the novel?

— Yes, mostly that. But also hard work, many more difficult moments when I doubted, when I was looking for answers and solutions, and when I experienced that I was in trouble.

— But why do you write about this particular period, the Second World War, and the decades before the war?

— Yes, you can ask that. That’s before I was born. So maybe that’s why.

— How come?

— Well, maybe the fact that I have wanted to explore that time, this period, in Odda and the area around the city, Hardanger. How it was then, in the time when my parents and grandparents lived.

— Are you telling about real events?

— Yes, in a sense it is real. It could have happened. But the events have not happened, of course. Not exactly like in the novel. The events that the novel depicts inside the factory, in Odda and elsewhere — these are fictitious events.

— And the characters — some of the types?

— They are fictional, all as one. Fictional characters, who could have lived.

— But the environment, you have a plethora of concrete descriptions of places in Odda, both inside the smelter and in the village of Odda?

— I have deliberately gone in to portray as realistically as possible. It gave me a kind of joy to write the characters into the physical framework.

— What do you think about Odda today?

— Lots of things! But perhaps first and foremost that it was a good place to grow up. Even though I did not exactly think like that when I was in the middle of it, that is, when I was young and living in Odda.

— What about the future?

— I do not want to predict it. But I think it’s a little sad that people in Odda seem to be repeating mistakes they have made in the past. Certainly the old

Hotel Hardanger, Odda, finished in 1896. Photo: Knud Knudsen, Kraftmuseet arkiv

town hall (Hotel Hardanger, the largest wooden building in Northern Europe) was dilapidated and unappealing to look at in the time (1976) before they demolished the building. But they could have taken better care of it! It’s hard to understand, that they just tore it down.

— But the smelter today?

— Yes, that’s right, there’s a lot of junk and clutter in there. But those who decide should take up the matter itself, which in my view is very complex. An important aspect in this case is what the smelter has been and what it has meant for people in Odda and for the Odda community for almost a hundred years.

— So you go for the protection of the smelter?

— I do not know the details of the case well enough, so I can not go into that much concrete. But I think it is important for the Odda community that one takes care of this part of Odda’s history, and that one uses the possibilities that lie in what is now left of the smelter. It will be a great pity for Odda if the city misses the status on UNESCO’s World Heritage List that may have been on the trail for Odda.

— Is it too late?

— It’s never too late!

— Is it not?

— Of course, if you have the wrong, negative attitudes. Then it can often be too late. But now I want to end this interview with a motto. It’s in English, and it sounds like this: NEVER SAY NO. — SAY YES, I CAN!