Combine a first name only native Norwegians can pronounce properly (with variations for Bokmal, Nynorsk or Notral) with a rootless existence which has taken me hither and thither and the result consists of a lot of local differentiations in Over-the-Hills-and-Farawayland. I lived there for quite a while you see, and learned to respond to many different names.
For the first six or so years of my life I was called Nisse. Nisse was joined by Kaao-Niao and then variations of Nils & Niels. After that many more names were added by inadequate pronouncers of Norwegian (myself included, my passport says I am a subject of King Silly Billy of the Netherlands but I am but a poor excuse of a Dutchman and a worse speaker of Norwegian). These included: Neil, Neill, Nial, Nil, Niles, Nyls, Nile, Simba, Big Bob, Ouwe and Prutser.
Since Nisse can be taken to be the Scandinavian translation of the English Robin Goodfellow (also known as the Green Man, Wood Wose, Hooded Robin and Puck) I decided to use it as my scribbler's name.
I turned to telling fabulist dream-tales and the meaning of Nisse is apt for the setting of a chronicle which will span more than a century upon completion. The characters change and society changes but the Wyrde Woods in Sussex remain a constant in all of the planned books. The Wyrde Woods are real by the way, but in our generally accepted reality they are splintered. Some of them I shaped after having visited the locations all accross Southern England and parts of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Some of them I believed I had imagined till I suddenly stumbled into them; apparently they had existed all along.
The bio thingy on the back of my published novels (Escape from Neverland and Dance into the Wyrd) suggests I live in the Wyrde Woods and I do spend a considerable amount of time there; emerging every now and then to stare at piles of bills and an otherwise mundane frugal existence. Not a bad one, I have quite enjoyed the adaptation of a Bohemian lifestyle and get to spend a lot of time writing.
Writing about the Wyrde Woods.
Teaser from Steampunked Amsterdam in Time Flight Chronicles 1: AMSTER DAMNED by Nils Nisse Visser
A study of Brighton & Hove in England as a setting for Steampunk fiction
Stubborn Sussex is a series of articles exploring the motto 'Sussex wunt be druv' (Sussex will not be driven to do anything they don't like) in a historical context.
