Thoughts on writing historical fiction

Why are there even people still alive in this world?

No, that is not my only thought on writing historical fiction, but it were thoughts like that which in the end led to starting this project.

For a very long time, I had mostly been interested in writing science fiction. I dreamed of mega cities growing in the desert, of unbelievable strange environmental conditions for life to sustain. These thoughts were full of curiosity and bravery,and a very pure desire to live.

When earlier this year I suddenly had to deal with the collapse of everything that I had ever called reality, this old motivation did not work well anymore. And for a person like me, this had serious consequences. I did not want to continue to read the book that I had been reading before, I did not find any music to listen to anymore. Being alive had no feeling, no aesthetic. All that was left was waiting and hoping, and slowly realizing, headline after headline, that this would not be over any time too soon, and that it still would have to be survived. Without any source of happiness. Without a feeling. Without leaving the house in the morning. Without seeing the people I usually see or going to the places that I usually go. Without seeing friends, without going on a date, or even to a party. Without seeing family members. Without any hobbies or activities. Maybe not for everyone everything has been breaking down like this, but depending on how you used to organize your life, it could have been just as I had described, and for me it definitely was.

After a while, I realized that I needed a new motivation. I needed to learn to feel and think myself in a new way to make it through those days, and weeks, and, by now I can say, months even.

Between scented candles, cigarettes, and wine, I figured out that it was inspiring for me to look into the past. I could not think myself into the future anymore, because making it through the day was an effort already too big. But looking back, and remembering that within each disaster there had been someone young and hoping to enjoy their life, or freshly in love, etc.

That was a thought that was helping.

How the hell did they do it? How the hell did they not completely die inside? How come, we have not died out, because living appeared as such a bad idea that breading was just stopped for good?

Looking into the past, however far that might have been, became inspirational to sustain sadness and pain. Because, whatever you encounter, has already been survived.

And I think that it is important to recognize that within every very strange society, every weird cultural concept, people existed with just the same physical and mental features as we do have them today. There was the need for shelter, for food, for love, and for sex, and grieving losses and falling in love, and missing each other.

As I have already explained here, there are personal reasons why I have decided to take a look at witches, and understand the whole circumstances under which the myth was born, and how personal biographies were effected by it.

I am perfectly aware that it is not historical fiction to write about summoning a person called Layla into my kitchen and talk to her in modern day English about the pandemic, about boys, and about ice cream. But it is my way in understanding what being 25 in her time might have been like.

And since I am still kind of stuck in this really unreal, uncomfortable, and challenging state of things that I have described, I use every bit that I read about witches and witchcraft to deal with things how they are. So yes, this blog is a combination of sharing my research and (ab)using it for something really personal. But in the end, a novel about a woman living in the early 17th century and at some point being burned alive will be written.