verylongfarewell | 31 | tell me where you go

It's 3am, I'm - obviously, but also rather predictably - awake. Made the stupid decision of having a nap around 4-6pm yesterday and even as I went to bed later than usually (around 11pm rather than an hour earlier), I still woke up at half past two, unable to catch another moment of rest. I'll probably crawl back into bed in a few hours from now and sleep until seven or eight, but for now... Wakefulness is the bane of my existence.

I think, for the first time in almost a week, I'm not going to go for a long(ish) walk today. It's so warm, having to wear compression socks is killing me and I'd rather not walk half a kilometer without them, my feet would swell terribly. A short walk, though, definitely, to keep my blood circulation going and my muscles working. And to get out into the nice sunshine that should be even better (worse) today than it was yesterday. This heat, I tell you...

My plans for today are pretty much the same thing in variation. Once I've ordered new medication, I have to reread the final of my six Marie-Claude short stories, then hopefully finish "Flygtige Ord" as well, my book on speech writing for the Danish Parliament. After that, if the day hasn't flown by, I want to leaf through the two magazines and newspaper I bought on my walk to the local grocery store yesterday. This first week of July and our summer writing project, I'll focus on writing secondary uses of Marie-Caude's voice, so articles about her and interviews with her as well as maybe start on some e-mail correspondences (work-related) to capturing her epistolary voice better.

Over the weekend, my Danish Discord writing server is hosting a 24-hour writing day where we try to write from noon Saturday until noon Sunday and I've decided that I'm going to partake and get as much of this magazine/newspaper imitation material written as possible. Just to get as in-character as possible before we start writing the correspondence between Jean Louis and Marie-Claude proper.

I also have an idea for a small creative project on the side. It's basically a scrapbooking kind of idea, but where I buy a daily planner from Paperblanks - got my eyes on one with a print of Gaudi's Sun - and map out all Marie-Claude's appointments as Prime Minister and in private over the course of a year, as well as what other notes she might make in her planner, books she needs to remember the title of, quotes she doesn't want to forget, little notes to meetings she's been in, anniversaries, shopping lists, all that stuff you collect that you want to keep in mind. Then, I write it into the planner as if it were hers. I think it could be a cool, life-like look at her life in (one of the) year(s) she's corresponding with JL.

Today is also the day when I'll put in my gigantic Paperblanks order. I've decided that if the Little Prince notebook doesn't get released today (release info just states July, not when in July), I'll get another notebook instead, because I really need the notebook asap. So, I have my eyes on this one, if the Little Prince idea doesn't work out, although the Little Prince would be more fitting for the project overall.

The colour of the Brontë sisters journal is, however, very fitting - for reasons.

My wishlist from Paperblanks this time around looks like this:

12-month planner, ultra, French: Gaudi's Sun - 28 euro
Hardcover journal, midi, unlined: The Little Prince - 20 euro
Pencil case: Spring - 12 euro
Pencils: Kara-Ori - 5 euro
Bookmark: The Chanin Rise - 4 euro
Bookmark: Poetry in Bloom - 4 euro
Bookmark: Pink Honeysuckle - 4 euro
Canvas bag: Holland Spring - 20 euro

It's going to be expensive, but it'll probably be the only thing I'm splashing out money on for myself this summer, so I think it's fair - and I do avoid pricey shipping, if nothing else. And then I won't have to put in extra orders for a good while to come. Plus, I have a voucher from a friend who purchased something from the website a week or so ago, so I do save, like, 10 percent. It's okay.

It's typically me that the day before we start our summer writing project in another universe, I get an epiphany on my Sappho universe and how to structure it, something I've struggled with for a year, always getting new ideas but no way to combine them.

Yesterday, I realized that I want to make the Sappho project into a trilogy of independent novels where each novel tells about a stage of Sappho's life as seen from the perspective of a woman she loved during that period. This dawned on me because I finally found a PB (faceclaim, RP terminology) for Anaktoria, one of the few women from Sappho's poetry I until then hadn't touched. But now she lives in my head and she will be the woman in the first novel, a look at how Sappho got established a poetess in Mytilene originally and kinda a "first love" story. Anaktoria is, by the way, from my own personal favourite poem of Sappho's, so finally picking her up as a character is thrilling!

The second novel will, of course, be about Atthis and take place right before Sappho goes into exile in Sicily. Whereas the third novel will be seen from her daughter, Kleïs' point of view and cover the time after her return to Mytilene later in life.

I've decided that if we're done with our summer project by the time November comes around, the Anaktoria novel will be my WriMo (well, formerly NaNoWriMo - before the whole organization went batshit) project this year. I've worked on research for this historical universe for more than a year now, it's time I do something about it. If we're not done, then it will be the first project I pick up after we finish.

I really look forward to it. And by then, I must own this notebook, obviously.

However, focus. Now. This summer, it's Marie-Claude and Jean Louis. And how excited I am! Even when it's 4am and I should be sleeping.

31 | tell me where you go

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