saturday.

I'm at a hotel in Vejle, about an hour from the town I live in, sitting up waiting for K. who's off to her Rammstein concert in Odense, an extra hour away by train. I get regular updates from her and apparently she has managed to get a spot up front which is good, because otherwise she wouldn't be able to see anything as is life when you're short. I'm really happy for her and am hoping she will enjoy the whole deal so much.

I plan to stay up until she gets back here sometime after midnight, maybe closer to three than twelve. It's fine for me, I'm well-entertained. I have tea. And a reception downstairs that sells fizzy drinks. Life is good.

I miss her, though. And am a little worried, but that's on me. She has said she's found a group of nice people who've banded up with her, so she isn't completely on her own which makes me pretty relieved.

While staying inside (it's already so warm outside and summer has only just begun), I've worked on some writing ideas and project stuff and I've done a lot of thinking. I've always really wanted to write something with a big ensemble cast of characters, not with changing points of view, because I won't bite over too much either, but it's something I never really dare to do, because sticking to one (or two, max three) characters in a scene is more comfortable to me, lots of introspection, not a lot of voice juggling, stuff like that. Well, now I decided I should just... try, so I've been trying to find a project with a fitting structure and cast to fit the bill. I think I've found something now. Inspired by A Woman Appeared to Me, the idea of queer women banding together in an urban environment, supporting each other and sleeping with each other left and right, but moved forward in time to WWII, I've made a group of characters that I think are distinct enough that even I can't fuck that up.

My only problem right now is that I know what couple of women I'm going to be focusing on, Lily and Hélène, but I can't decide which one of them to make my narrator/MC. Lily was my first pick, but she's so different from the characters I mostly write that I get really self-conscious, hahaha. Hélène is more my usual style, though writing from the 1940's is in itself a completely new thing to me, so that should make it interesting all on its own (I went out and bought Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls to get more of a grasp of late 30's/early 40's lingo, dialogue and such). Lily and Hélène are a couple, so no matter which one I pick, the other will feature a lot, too, it's more a question of tone and style of writing I feel like doing, I guess. And I can't decide! If any of you here have any thoughts, whom you'd find it most interesting to experience a story through or anything, let me know? I'd really appreciate it, to help me choose.

If I pick Lily, the main storyline will be about her refusal to marry when all her friends and lovers are married for convenience and there will also be a backdrop of ballet world, since Lily's a ballerina which is always fun for me to do. If I pick Hélène, there'll be a lot of homesickness themes (she's French), historical stuff in relation to France's occupation during WWII and some kind of red thread with reminiscence over her and Lily's shared past in Paris, compared to their present in NYC.

I'll just have to keep letting it marinate...

The other characters in question are Paula, the stage actress specializing in Shakespeare and especially good at tragedy, both professionally and personally - plus her husband, B., a rich heir who just wants to have fun and sleep with a lot of women, you see how they make a good match? There's Ann, the post-expressionist painter, total butch, George Sand-style and married to an elderly art collector, H. They have a son, T., 10 years old. Finally, there's Miriam, a writer, married to P. who is a scriptwright and theatre director, also a lover of Paula occasionally. It's a happy group, haha.

It's something completely different than the Omina project I've worked on for months now, so the newness is making me a little bit apprehensive, but I like these characters and I think I could do something really good with them.

I guess we'll see about that.