Cycle I
Krelløy: Behind the Scenes
The Island
When I first arrived on Sørarnøy, I didn’t know how deeply this place would affect me. The rhythm of the tides, the slow light, the Mountain... all of it began to shape how I thought and felt. The island has a quiet gravity. And very unique flow of time.
≭
I spent much of my time wandering the shorelines and cliffs, fishing, and simply watching the weather change. The sea was different every morning. Sometimes calm and silver, sometimes dark and heavy like iron. I began to see the smallest things differently. The movement of clouds, the calls of seabirds, the way mist could swallow the world for hours and then dissolve as if it never existed. This was somehow more affecting from the experiences I had in Slovakia. And of course I don’t have to mention the dance of Aurora Borealis almost every night during the autumn and winter.
While working in the fish processing plant, I found an unexpected sense of belonging. Life there was simple, repetitive, but strangely grounding. It gave me space to think. Somewhere in the quiet between shifts, I began to feel creative again.
Sørarnøy, Norway, 2023-2024
Siegfried sitting near Fallvika, Sørarnøy, Norway, 2023
From Sound to Silence
Before coming here, I expressed myself through music. Back in Slovakia, I used to spend long nights composing, searching for emotion through sound. But here, without my instruments or DAW software, I lost that outlet. What remained was silence, and in that silence, something new began to grow.
I carried my creative need into the landscape. I started walking more, exploring hidden paths and feelings. Gradually, I understood that what I had once expressed in melodies could also live in words.
The island taught me to listen differently. The absence of sound became a kind of music.
≭
Inspiration came not only from the island itself but from the people I met here. Some of the ideas behind Krelløy were shaped by real characters - by Siegfried and Zelda (Linnet), whose presence left a lasting impression on me. Their personalities, our common moments and memories, and the way they interacted with this place and my perception helped define the emotional tone of the story.
What began as ordinary encounters slowly became part of the creative process. I didn’t try to recreate them directly, but to capture what they represented for me subjectively. Through them, the story found its human center, the emotional heartbeat beneath the isolation.
The First Words
When I began writing, I didn’t know it would become a book. It started as an idea... a story that connected the feeling of this place with the questions and weird ideas I carried inside. I had a vision of the beginning and the end, and slowly the path between them revealed itself. The structure I designed at the start barely changed, as if it had already existed somewhere, waiting to be found.
I decided to create something that would represent who I am. Through memory, experience, and the fragments of real life. The work became a mirror, one that held both truth and invention side by side.
≭
Alongside the writing, I began shaping the design. I created the cover and the visual identity of Krelløy, both of which have remained unchanged since the earliest drafts. From the beginning, I wanted the book to look and feel like the story it contained - a world both fragile and vast, familiar yet distant.
As the story grew, I found myself drawn deeper into it. The island, the people, and the words started to merge into something larger than I expected. My evenings were spent at the plant, but my nights belonged to the story.
Those quiet hours became magical. Often, I would write under the shifting glow of the aurora, while my lady slept. The silence of the house and the pulse of the northern sky made the work feel almost sacred. I wrote as if I were building something that might outlast me... a story my descendants could one day hold, a small fragment of what this time and place meant.
That thought became my core inspiration. It carried me through fatigue, through doubt, through the long winter nights. Every page felt like a way to preserve not only imagination but life itself.
Creating Krelløy, Sørarnøy, Norway, 2024
The very first proof copy of Krelløy, Sørarnøy, Norway, 2025
Becoming Real
As Krelløy neared completion, my nights became filled with a different kind of work. Careful tasks that make a story tangible. Editing, formatting, typesetting, and designing each demanded a different rhythm, a different kind of patience. Every line, margin, and page felt like a new craft to learn.
When the manuscript finally became an eBook, I hesitated before publishing. It went live on July 12, and I remember feeling both excitement and fear. I had no idea how people would respond.
The reaction was something I never expected. Readers wrote to say they enjoyed it. Some said they couldn’t quite describe why the story stayed with them, only that it did. That alone was enough to fill me with a strange mixture of pride and disbelief. For the first time, Krelløy existed outside of my own mind.
≭
Word began to spread quietly around the island. People talked, shared, asked questions. But nothing compared to what happened after the paperback was released on September 11. Holding it in my hands for the first time was surreal.
That period between the eBook and paperback was uncertain. It was full of learning, long hours, and moments of doubt. I spent less time in nature and more time behind a screen, teaching myself new skills, preparing files, adjusting details. Yet through all of it, my lady and I understood the purpose. It felt almost mystical, as if this was something that had to be completed, something larger than both of us.
After the Release
Once the paperback was approved, I ordered twenty-six copies of Krelløy. Those copies found their way into many places. Some were sent to Norway’s National Archives as legal deposit, others were donated to the Gildeskål Folkebiblioteket and the Fylkesbiblioteket in Mo i Rana. A few became gifts for friends and old comrades who had followed this journey from the beginning. Each book carried a part of the island with it, a fragment of what inspired it.
Between the eBook and the printed edition, life became a storm of small but important steps. I created a Facebook page, joined BookBub, claimed my Goodreads Author Profile, and shaped my presence on Amazon. I learned to run my first manual-targeting ads, ordered my own barcode, and obtained an ISBN from the National Library of Norway.
It was a period of constant learning and discovery. I met new people, writers, readers, and creatives who understood what this work meant. What began as a quiet hobby slowly evolved into something professional, something with a future I could finally see.
Then came the moment I will never forget: the official presentation of Krelløy at Pellerie, on Halloween 2025. The restaurant was warm and full of light against the dark autumn evening. The atmosphere, the timing, and the kindness of everyone who came left me speechless. Signing those books, seeing the faces of readers, and feeling their interest was one of the most powerful experiences of my life.
That night felt like the completion of a cycle - the story had returned to the island that created it, no longer just words on a screen but something living, shared, and real.
Krelløy book launch, Pellerie, Sørarnøy, Norway, 2025