13 | unlucky number thirteen

CURRENT PROGRESS REPORT, WRITING IN THE WORKS

☑ OIFDEO (Og Ikke Førend Det Er Ovre/Only When It's Over); Danish novel, part of City-verse, 113K words, being beta-read for the third time. Once I get notes and comments back, I'll be doing final revisions and edits before either getting a batch printed or self-publishing, depending.

☑ ESVST (Er Sproget Vores Sidste Tilflugtssted/Language Is Our Last Refuge); Danish short story collection + epistolary novel, part of City-verse, so far 22K words and growing. 3/? short stories written, only 1 of these has been beta-read. Looking for betas, though none of the short stories are meant for publishing, but rather work as background material for the novel that my girlfriend and I will be starting over summer.

☑ TLOL (The Lover of Lilith); English short story, 6K words, entry for a local erotic fiction submission call, has been sent to a professional editor I'm paying to look it over before submitting it by end-August, when I've done revisions and editing, hopefully.

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Just did the math. Since Monday, I've written 11,5K words! That's insane, even by my standards.

It's been a long time since I did a streak like this, I don't think... since I started OIFDEO in November? And even then, I'd had a prolific writing month in October, too, so I'd built up to it, this just happened out of the blue more or less.

Loving it, though. It's giving me something to focus on while K. works on her own stuff and while my anxiety has been sky-rocketing on a much too regular basis. It's okay today. I'm feeling okay.



I have a couple of plans today. K. will be babysitting for her brother, so I'm alone all afternoon. I've arranged for an event in my writing Discord server, where we'll do sprints and then, share a bit of what we've written during the sprint. I also have plans of starting in on a book I got for X-mas called Flygtige Ord (Fleeting Words), an essay compilation by a Danish author who, beside writing fiction, has also been a speechwriter for, like, four different Danish state ministers, and that is what the book is about. Writing speeches and Danish politics, but seen from a writer's PoV. It's research, because Marie-Claude was a speech writer for Jean Louis when she was younger, and I'd like to know about the trade to be able to write her more convincingly - but also because she herself begins dating her own speech writer later. So it's an important part of the story I want to tell.

Anyway, I think it would be a good thing to sit with, when I inevitably have to sit down with my leg elevated during the day.



Since I finished the first of my current Marie-Claude short stories last night, I wanted to make sure I had something to work on during today's event, so I made a list of different short stories, featuring her, that I wanted to write as well. Right now the list counts four ideas, but I suspect others will be added as I start writing, because scenarios turn up as I go.

The ideas I have in mind are as follows:

☐ The first time Marie-Claude and Sasha sleep together and probably the first time they address their attraction to each other; takes place about a month after the Christmas party I wrote about in my current short story where they kissed.

☐ Prior to that point in the timeline, I'd like to write about Sasha's job interview and how she and Marie-Claude were first introduced to each other.

☐ And later in the timeline, I want to write about Marie-Claude introducing Sasha to her conservative, homophobic father.

☐ Last, but not least, at some undetermined point on the above timeline, I want Marie-Claude to have a conversation with her lesbian colleague about Sasha, maybe because the colleague and Sasha have had something for a brief period of time. Could be either before or after it becomes official that they're together, though I'm leaning towards before.

And those are the ideas I'm juggling right now. Today, I'll probably write about Marie-Claude and Sasha's first time, since it's closest to the canon point I've just covered.



In half an hour, I'll go make tea. For now I'm just sitting here, anticipating the day.