OK, I'm coming clean. I have made a complete volte-face and rethought everything about my writing. Most essentially, I'm now working on a story set in Sweden in Swedish, which feels terribly awkward but also like coming home. And I have no idea what this story is supposed to be - I'd say coming-of-age, possibly women's fiction? Not what I usually write at all, but obviously what my brain is wired for because all the little pieces are just falling into place with absolutely no wrestling at all.
Most horribly though, I've landed between my former 18th century infatuation and my current Victorian one, since I've managed to set it in 1824-32. I have no idea how that happened except the historical facts fit the story I want to tell best.
It's set at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm (with a completely made-up cast) and contains opera, love, betrayal, death and all that comes with it. I haven't been this excited, truly excited, about anything I've written in years (and I do mean years - last time was in 2005, I think). I don't care what comes of it, I just want to write it. I
love my characters, even the horrible ones, and I love subjecting them to horrid traumas.
It's really nice to be able to rely on my basic knowledge of the layout of Stockholm too - I know how long it'd take someone to walk from A to B, for example, and what route they'd take - but really difficult to figure out the dialogue since the word "you" wasn't usually used back then and you really can't disregard that without feeling terribly anachronistic. It was all "Would Fru Eriksson excuse me?" "Would the gentleman like some coffee?" which makes me feel pretty stilted, but reading period literature is making it flow a
little easier.
Anyway, just needed to gush. My cup runneth over and all that.