The Girl Who Didn't Write a Review

Karl Stig-Erland Larsson (15 August 1954 – 9 November 2004), who wrote professionally as Stieg Larsson, was a Swedish journalist and writer, born in Skelleftehamn outside Skellefteå. He is best known for writing the Millennium Trilogy of crime novels, which was published posthumously. Larsson lived and worked much of his life in Stockholm.

He was the second best-selling author in the world in 2008, behind Khaled Hosseini. By March 2010, his Millennium trilogy had sold 27 million copies in more than 40 countries.

But those are just the facts. 

I started out attempting to write a review of the movie The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which I watched Friday night. I had heard so much about it and was pleased to see it come on right after the news on my free movies on demand channel. The movie is in Swedish and I was somewhat curious as I have family of Swedish decent. I was thankful for the subtitles even though at first I found them difficult to read just due to lighting and I found myself wishing they were larger. Someone with a vision impairment would have definitely had a problem keeping up with the movie. With these thoughts in mind I knew I needed to do a review.

Yet, this morning, I realized everyone already knows about these books and movies. Some have read them and watched them. But what do we know about the author? He seemed like an intriguing fellow and that's when I was prompted to look him up. 

Stig was a journalist so was used to writing I suppose. The interesting part is that he kept writing in his spare time. When he'd come home from is daytime job he'd write for his own pleasure. He was very much like you or me in that aspect. We blog or jot notes or even just doodle. What I find most interesting is that he died of a heart attack before anyone ever knew of Dragon Tattoo's or Hornet's Nests. He had only halfheartedly pursued getting his work published and it wasn't until his death that the manuscripts for his work was found in a trilogy with clues as to the intention of writing at least ten books! It is the first 3 books which we now have in this world with a partial manuscript owned by Stig's friend. The works have won several literature awards in Sweden and no doubt will continue around the world.

So, I sit here with a work of my own. I've been writing for well over a year and some of you know I've become stuck at a certain point. Reading about Mr. Larsson has made me think how wonderful it would be to see my own work come to light. To just finish it would be huge reward.  Everyone has a story and I want to make sure that mine gets put down before someone can come along and find those first 13 chapters.....with 3 alternate chapters [because I can't quite figure it out!] and wonder what could have been. 

What else do we leave unfinished? We won't ever know the rest of Stig Larsson's stories but we can finish our own. What do you want to leave in this world? 

Live without regret. 

Finish your story.