Rainbow Lounge

I've been sick all day. No fevers or anything, but general fatigue and lethargy, I think I've slept half the day away at the least. My girlfriend caught something a few days back and it has been riding us like a mare since. I truly hope our entire weekend won't be completely ruined by it. Sigh. No matter what, nothing we can really do about it.



It's sucked big time, though, especially since I've been wanting to write or betaread or do something constructive with my time, but not had the spoons to. It's the worst feeling. Have managed to work a little on a Marcel flash fic as well as editing the first part of my current Marie-Claude short story, but compared to my usual workload? It's pebbles and grain.

I've had a nagging urge to continue the Marie-Claude piece. It would be my first attempt at erotic fiction in Danish and I kind of... stalled at the actual erotica, but I do know how I want to proceed, I just - again - haven't really had the mental energy. Double sigh.



Have I introduced you all to Marie-Claude? I introduced you to Marcel a few days back, and Marie-Claude is from the same general universe, bound to Marcel by her relation to Jean Louis, Marcel's lover. Marie-Claude and Jean Louis have a sibling-like relationship, both let down terribly by Marie-Claude's father, who besides his familial connection to Marie-Claude, served as mentor and substitute father figure to Jean Louis earlier in the timeline. So, they connect over their shared disappointment in him, while also both working in politics. At first, Marie-Claude worked as Jean Louis' speech writer, but eventually quit to start her own party and take her own place in the political lineup in their country. Still, they continued to be close - until it was discovered that Jean Louis had deep ties to the criminal world and had done truly atrocious things in his position as foreign minister. So Jean Louis flees the country and for a while, they're no contact. During that period, Marie-Claude becomes prime minister and takes over leadership, but when Jean Louis begins writing her in secret, she foregoes all security protocols and writes him back. Because he is still her brother in spirit and she misses him and for once in her life, she will do something selfish and stupid for her own sake.

That is the starting point of my girlfriend's and my July project. That is where the correspondance between Marie-Claude and Jean Louis begins.

We're both very excited about it, I think it will develop these characters beyond anything either of us have ever done with them before. Hopefully. I also just look forward to sharing this process with her and, I believe, producing a worthwhile piece of fiction.



If you want to meet Marie-Claude, just take a look at Sonia Petrovna in Indian Summer. She is the spitting image of how I imagine Marie-Claude looks, just slightly older. Marie-Claude is in her mid-thirties at the beginning of the novel, though she looks fairly young still.





The rest of the day, however, is going to be spent making dinner at some point soon and after that, rewatching The Prince of Egypt which is one of my favourite films of all time. True comfort entertainment. Speaking of claiming faces, Miriam could be a really good face for my version of Mary. Just saying.

Watch on YouTube

Listening to this tonight.

The whole album, Music for People in Trouble, is amazing, but this is one of my favourite songs on it. It's raw and atmospheric, poetic and haunting. I've used it for the part of my OIFDEO/ESVST universe that takes place in Norway, where Marcel and his partner, Jean Louis, end up after years of corrupt and criminal living in an unnamed part of Central Europe. Even emperors retire, is the tagline.

I came to think of Marcel yesterday, feeling an urge to reread OIFDEO, my novel about his late teens in Amsterdam, but at the same time I just wasn't in the mood for that much tragedy and his very narrow mindset. I love him as a character, but he is extremely flawed - and at his worst during that time.

Twenty years later, he lives on a run-down farm in Norway with his long-term lover and former business partner, and during that period he grows as much as he's capable of and becomes as happy as it's possible for him to get. My girlfriend and I have a saying that goes, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you get, which we came up with due to these two specifically. And now I feel like exploring that part of Marcel's life some more.

It's around the same time that Jean Louis and Marie-Claude correspond, so timeline-wise it runs parallel to that and would work fine as prep for the July novel writing project. I'll have to ask my gf if she feels like diving a bit into it with me here in June. Will also need to reread some old drabbles and fics I've previously written from that era - or I might just go from what I remember and start from a blank page.



One of the things I've continuously used as inspiration for this universe is the poetry of Anise Koltz, a famous Luxembourgish poet - back from when the story took place in Luxembourg, rather in an unnamed imaginary Central European country. I love her poetry so much, I had a friend of mine who studies French translate some of her poems to Danish, to be able to continue to use her work as basis for my stories even as I changed languages. I have 10-15 ones as reference, most of them relate to Marie-Claude, but this one is very Marcel and Jean Louis. Especially in their Norway days.

*** by Anise Koltz

My deep-sea diving brother
can no longer walk

Flanked by sharp fins
he rejects the polluted and corrupt
non-aquatic world

He sides with the sharks
and attacks anyone
who enters
his waters

Visually, I stumbled upon this on Tumblr and it reminded me a lot of the surroundings around Marcel and Jean Louis' farm in Norway, a winter landscape. So I saved it as reference.


Frits Thaulow (1847-1906)



I should be asleep, but my anxiety is sky-high, I'm extremely conscious of my foot, nervous about something being wrong, although precisely nothing is alarming. Just one of those nights, I guess. It has been an intense past week, so maybe this is also just the reaction to that. It'll probably take the remainder of this week to really settle back into a routine again.

I must just do the best I can and make the best of it.

Anxious this morning. Extremely body-focused and feeling a lot of health-related anxiety. Nervous about my foot. Flashes of panic about my teeth or getting cancer. Most of it entirely unreasonable. Yes, my ankle is broken and it swells when I use it, but I have a physio therapist who's telling me that's completely normal and will continue for a couple of years, although to a lesser and lesser degree. My teeth is a recurring fear I have, and I think mostly a symptom of my other issues. The cancer thing... same.

Anxiety is a strange thing. It wants me to be afraid, but not to be constructive about my fears. I have to do that work myself and sometimes it cripples me so much, I can't. It's gotten better and I have various coping strategies now, but on mornings like this where I just wake up hit by it... Yeah, it's difficult.



Working on a "new" short story in Danish.

I still need to do a final read-through of the Lilith one, before I can send it to my editor, but I found the first couple of paragraphs for a short story that I'd started many weeks ago and I really liked it, plus it's from the PoV of my character, Marie-Claude, that I'll be writing for our summer writing project, my girfriend and I, so I thought I should dive back in.

And I have!

I'm halfway through now. It's three scenes overlapping each other and I'm starting the final part of the first scene today, hopefully able to finish that and maybe the next one, too. Maybe all three, but we'll see. I also need something to work on tomorrow, when I'm hosting an online event in our Danish writing Discord server.

On that note, I should also make a list over future scenes I want to write as preparation for summer...



My gf has some plans today, besides working on her article, so I will have plenty of time to write. Same about tomorrow, where she is babysitting her brother's four children.

I can't believe it's June tomorrow. Half a year since my fall. 2025 has kinda just disappeared in a rehabilitation fog, to be honest. I've come a long way, but it still feels like there's a long way to go. But as my assisted living person said, if this had happened one or two years ago, I would have handled it a lot differently and no doubt worse than I have now and I should remember that, be proud of how far I've come mentally as well, not just physically.

I can do a lot of the basic "adulting" things now that I couldn't a year ago, checking my e-mail, bank stuff... All of that has changed drastically and for the better. I'm just so focused on my foot that I forget.

It's the anxiety. It gives me tunnel vision.

But it helps writing it down here, then it exists somewhere. It exists.

I exist, with everything that I am.