Arne (41) was on Nav measures – then he got the question that changed everything

Eleven-hour working days at a primary school, piles of evaluations, the calendar full of school lessons that had to be planned, a sick mother, a small child and a moving project.

In 2017, Arne Lindmo found himself in the middle of a time crunch, after several years of many stresses in his life.

– Many months passed where I tried to balance everything I was responsible for. I exhausted myself and finally collapsed. The body couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t bear anything and struggled to sleep, he says.

In the same year, the 41-year-old chose to resign from his teaching job. Suddenly he was now unemployed. At home he had a wife and a small child.

Wrote over a hundred applications

Lindmo says that it was difficult to ask for help.

– I probably had a self-image of being the one who helps, and that is destroyed when you suddenly have to turn around and ask others for help. Since asking for help comes with so many negative emotions, it’s natural to try to push it away.

He describes that the feeling of burnout and depression stayed in his body for quite some time. But he realized that he needed help, and eventually sought this from Nav, back in 2017.

When you register as a job seeker with Nav, it is a requirement that you apply for jobs. Along the way, you get guidance and feedback.

– A couple of years passed, I tried many strange things. I probably wrote over a hundred applications, says Lindmo.

Lindmo has seven years of higher education and 10 years of work experience as a teacher. He was used to hectic days and many balls in the air.

However, the dream of the 41-year-old from Oslo was to write:

– I have wanted to be a writer since I was six years old. In high school I wrote western books and love poems in rhyme. I didn’t seriously think about becoming a writer, but toyed with the idea. I have always liked to write, he says.

– Terribly demoralized

But changing career paths would prove to be more difficult than first thought.

Lindmo applied for all sorts of jobs. Except teaching jobs – that was the only thing he was sure he didn’t want to work at.

What he expected, he was not prepared for. Because despite both education, experience and references, he was not offered a permanent job.

– I was terribly demoralized at the start. Mostly because I thought it would be easy to get a new job, he says.

Lindmo tells of a period of depression and frustration.

In retrospect, he has reflected on what made him not reach. forth.

Finally, he became so frustrated that he did what he absolutely did not want to do. He took a job as a teacher for a few months, just before the pandemic broke out.

But then, in 2020, Lindmo was referred by his supervisor at Nav to a new type of work initiative; so-called extended follow-up.

An unexpected meeting

At this Nav initiative, he met Monika Persen. She thought anew about how to get people into work.

– I think of it a bit like driving a car. I drive the car and the candidate sits next to me and reads the map, says Persen.

She emphasizes the importance of having a good relationship with the candidate.

– It is important to build a relationship with the candidate. We must trust each other and work together. I have to get to know the person in question in order to find a suitable job, she says.

Persen says that her clients quite often end up with jobs they thought they couldn’t get.

Lindmo describes Persen as very positive and easy to talk to.

– She tried to find out what I was good at, and to find something that could match, he says.

The question that changed everything

Persen became aware of Lindmo’s dreams of writing, and tried to find an internship for him in a publishing house.

But it ended in a wall of rejection.

But the job specialist did not give up and eventually found a small children’s book publisher; Fig show. They could offer an internship, but were clear that they could not give Lindmo a permanent job.

Lindmo was nevertheless positive.

– I didn’t expect it at all. It is impressive that she was able to connect me to the publishing industry.

– I would never have thought of it myself, or had faith that it was possible to enter that door, he says.

At the publishing house, he received training in translation work and courses about the book industry, how it works, what publishers are looking for in stories and, not least, what children want.

But he wrote nothing himself.

– He just said that when he worked as a teacher, he used to tell stories to his students in Norwegian lessons. One of the stories had supposedly made such an impression that the children lay awake at night, says publisher Anitra Figenschou.

She became curious about what kind of stories these were. And pto sOn the first day of the internship, Lindmo was asked the question that changed everything: Would he hand in something he had written himself?

He sat down and wrote the first three chapters of what would eventually become the children’s book “Trollheim”.

– Instead of critical feedback, which I had prepared for, I got really good feedback. She said the start was promising and wanted to challenge me to finish. If I managed to finish as well as I started, she should consider going ahead with the book, says Lindmo.

– It ignited a spark in me that had really only been simmering since I was a child.

– Wrote in one stretch

Figenschou liked the first chapters so much that she chose to continue the collaboration. Now without the same close follow-up from Nav.

– During that period, I wrote from the time I got up to the time I went to bed, in one stretch. I submitted a finished first draft. She liked it so much that we signed a contract for three books, says Lindmo.

He could breathe out.

– It is difficult to plan anything for Nav measures. You don’t quite know where you are or where you’re going and are sort of in an intermediate stage. There is little security and little predictability.

Persen, the job specialist at Nav, did not let Lindmo out of his mind quite yet. She wondered how it went.

One day when she was working late, she decided to call him to find out how he was doing.

– He just said that “Monika, you straightened my life”. That is why I am so happy with my job, says Persen.

Award-winning

In August 2022, Figenschou published the first book “The Secret of the Crow Castle”. The sequel was released soon after, and the third is just around the corner.

On 17 November this year, between writing, marketing and meetings, an unexpected message arrived.

Lindmo’s debut book had won Ark’s children’s book prize and received the title “Best children’s book of the year”. Over 10,000 children sit on the jury.

“The Secret of the Crow’s Castle” climbed up the bestseller lists.

– Suddenly I became known among the children, and the book was spread. The waiting lists at the libraries became long. At one point, there were almost 60 people on the list in some of the big cities. The children wanted to borrow and read it.

– It was absolutely fantastic, Lindmo says with joy in his voice.

For the small children’s book publisher, which job specialist Persen had come across, the joy was also great.

– It is an unreal feeling that what you have worked for to happen suddenly and finally happened, says Figenschou.

Lindmo boasts that Nav has work initiatives like the one he was able to be a part of.

– When I entered the bestseller lists, it began to dawn on me that it was possible to make a living from writing.

Arne is now writing the fifth book in the series.

– So now I will try to live as a writer for as long as possible. I try to have an optimistic, but also somewhat realistic approach, he says.