Weird post
Jan. 16th, 2004 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartI really, really need to get better organized. At least in my mind, weird place as it is. I was trying to decide whether I should write various posts or a single insanely long one. I settled for multiple tags.
Allrighty, the To Do-list. Not necessarily in any order of importance.
1. Must finish slave labour during weekend. Long, boring translation. But it brings some extra money, so it needs to be done.
2. A piece of correspondence with Vorondis (the writer, not the character) made me realize that I've been avoiding to face my 1,500+ pages long original fantasy epos far too long. Say, since 1985 or so. It needs to be broken down into 10-15 shorter pieces and made a serial. And it needs to be rewritten. Oh, not entirely. Just, say, 3/4 of it. Where it's cheesy.
Not to mention that I've lent a volume of it (it's bound, in 6 volumes) to someone who never gave it back, and I don't even know who it was. So I have to completely rewrite 30-50 pages, from nonexisting memory. I don't have the notices any longer, and back then I didn't have a computer. The whole thing was written on an old-fashioned, mechanical typewriter.
No, I won't touch it right now. No way. No time. No energy. But I'll have to face the monster some day, soon. Arrgh.
3. I really, really need to get my computer fixed. Stupid thing refuses to work on floppies, maybe the floppy drive has fritzed out. Waiting for maintenance guy impaitently. Also, he needs to fix my printer. Can't copy anything to floppies, can't print. Drat.
4. Need to make some sembalance of order in my room and in the study. Stupid carpenter promised to come and build my new book-case in August. In August 2003. Still don't have a bookcase in the study, and the shelves are bending under the burden. It's hard to keep a room clean when you have to store books and stuff on the floor, for the lack of any better solution.
But, I had great fun yesterday. Earonn sent me an absolutely wonderful CD, full of great stuff, Tolkien-related and otherwise. And I've been promoted by her to the "Mistress of Mischievous Elfies". I think I like that. Very much, in fact.
*hugs Earonn*
And, of course, there are the things I wish I could do, I just never find the time for it. Part of the reason is that I tend to waste my time for unimportant and unnecessary things lately. I just can't bring up the energy for most of the really important things.
I'd like to read a few books in English original. Like the Earthsea series. One of those things are the Prydain-books by Larry Alexander. I own them in German translation, but I've come to realize lately, that German translations are, to put it mildly, not that grand.
I've compared the Hungarian and German translations of The Hobbit and LOTR, and detected that while the Hungarian one gives back the atmosphere of the original surprisingly well (aside from that "slight" mistake in personal pronouns that makes Merry slay the Witch King instead of Éowyn), reading The Books in German is, like trying to swim with a millstone hanging from my neck. LOTR is not that bad, actually, but The Hobbit is horribly "schwerfällig". At least for me. I tried to read it with a 13-year-old student of mine, and poor little guy threw the towel when the Dwarves finished their song in Bilbo's salon.
I wonder if there's such a difference with the Prydain-books as well? Of course, the translations that are made nowadays are nothing but rubbish. I'm glad they are re-printing the old ones from the time when our translators used to be writers and poets on their own right.
Also, I'd love to go to the fitness center and do exercises regularly again. They were so good for me while I did that. Damn thing isn't even far from here. But there is so little time for everything, and I'm always so damn tired. *sighs*
Well, at least I seem to be growing a thicker skin against certain reviewers.
Someone told me two days ago that they don't agree with my characterization of Tom Paris in my Alternate Caretaker story. That I've portrayed him overly sensitive and - well, whiny. It was phrased more politely, but that was the core of it. Otherwise, the reviewer liked the story, though.
Half a year ago, I'd have been devastated, especially as the last thing I wanted was to write another whiny victim!Paris who needs a good, healing shag to get over all that horrible abuse he'd been experiencing since his birth or so. You know the cliché. In LOTR, it's Legolas. In Star Trek, it's Paris. So no, I certainly didn't want to do *that*.
Personally, I think the reviewer is wrong. But the whole thing only bothered me for a day or so. I was a little irritated, and I asked the people in my Trek group if they think there's something true in this, but after that I just shrugged and went on.
Obviously, I'm not a lost case entirely. Though that attracting negative people with my black aura thingy seems to prove right. Life is weird.
Allrighty, the To Do-list. Not necessarily in any order of importance.
1. Must finish slave labour during weekend. Long, boring translation. But it brings some extra money, so it needs to be done.
2. A piece of correspondence with Vorondis (the writer, not the character) made me realize that I've been avoiding to face my 1,500+ pages long original fantasy epos far too long. Say, since 1985 or so. It needs to be broken down into 10-15 shorter pieces and made a serial. And it needs to be rewritten. Oh, not entirely. Just, say, 3/4 of it. Where it's cheesy.
Not to mention that I've lent a volume of it (it's bound, in 6 volumes) to someone who never gave it back, and I don't even know who it was. So I have to completely rewrite 30-50 pages, from nonexisting memory. I don't have the notices any longer, and back then I didn't have a computer. The whole thing was written on an old-fashioned, mechanical typewriter.
No, I won't touch it right now. No way. No time. No energy. But I'll have to face the monster some day, soon. Arrgh.
3. I really, really need to get my computer fixed. Stupid thing refuses to work on floppies, maybe the floppy drive has fritzed out. Waiting for maintenance guy impaitently. Also, he needs to fix my printer. Can't copy anything to floppies, can't print. Drat.
4. Need to make some sembalance of order in my room and in the study. Stupid carpenter promised to come and build my new book-case in August. In August 2003. Still don't have a bookcase in the study, and the shelves are bending under the burden. It's hard to keep a room clean when you have to store books and stuff on the floor, for the lack of any better solution.
But, I had great fun yesterday. Earonn sent me an absolutely wonderful CD, full of great stuff, Tolkien-related and otherwise. And I've been promoted by her to the "Mistress of Mischievous Elfies". I think I like that. Very much, in fact.
*hugs Earonn*
And, of course, there are the things I wish I could do, I just never find the time for it. Part of the reason is that I tend to waste my time for unimportant and unnecessary things lately. I just can't bring up the energy for most of the really important things.
I'd like to read a few books in English original. Like the Earthsea series. One of those things are the Prydain-books by Larry Alexander. I own them in German translation, but I've come to realize lately, that German translations are, to put it mildly, not that grand.
I've compared the Hungarian and German translations of The Hobbit and LOTR, and detected that while the Hungarian one gives back the atmosphere of the original surprisingly well (aside from that "slight" mistake in personal pronouns that makes Merry slay the Witch King instead of Éowyn), reading The Books in German is, like trying to swim with a millstone hanging from my neck. LOTR is not that bad, actually, but The Hobbit is horribly "schwerfällig". At least for me. I tried to read it with a 13-year-old student of mine, and poor little guy threw the towel when the Dwarves finished their song in Bilbo's salon.
I wonder if there's such a difference with the Prydain-books as well? Of course, the translations that are made nowadays are nothing but rubbish. I'm glad they are re-printing the old ones from the time when our translators used to be writers and poets on their own right.
Also, I'd love to go to the fitness center and do exercises regularly again. They were so good for me while I did that. Damn thing isn't even far from here. But there is so little time for everything, and I'm always so damn tired. *sighs*
Well, at least I seem to be growing a thicker skin against certain reviewers.
Someone told me two days ago that they don't agree with my characterization of Tom Paris in my Alternate Caretaker story. That I've portrayed him overly sensitive and - well, whiny. It was phrased more politely, but that was the core of it. Otherwise, the reviewer liked the story, though.
Half a year ago, I'd have been devastated, especially as the last thing I wanted was to write another whiny victim!Paris who needs a good, healing shag to get over all that horrible abuse he'd been experiencing since his birth or so. You know the cliché. In LOTR, it's Legolas. In Star Trek, it's Paris. So no, I certainly didn't want to do *that*.
Personally, I think the reviewer is wrong. But the whole thing only bothered me for a day or so. I was a little irritated, and I asked the people in my Trek group if they think there's something true in this, but after that I just shrugged and went on.
Obviously, I'm not a lost case entirely. Though that attracting negative people with my black aura thingy seems to prove right. Life is weird.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-16 12:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-16 01:24 pm (UTC)As I said, LOTR actually isn't as bad as "The Hobbit".
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-16 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 01:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 01:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 02:38 am (UTC)Personally, I wasn't overly fond for Paris, either - until I started to write about him. It's interesting how a character can grow on you once you start trying to see things from his or her POV. And after having read ungodly amounts of poor, abused victim!Tom, who's having serious mental problems and needs some good healing sex with (insert random male character, though Chakotay seems the most favoured partner in this constellation), after which he miraculously heals in both body and mind, I felt the urge to write him as a slightly cynical, a little hostile-to-Janeway guy, for which, of course, I got chastised as an evil Janeway basher. *g*
Basically, it's the same bad cliché in slashfic as with Thranduil and Legolas. Admiral Paris is the bada$$, heartless, abusive father, who hits his kid and even rapes him, abuses or even kills his wife, etc., you know the routine. I even read a story where he tried to kill Tom when they finally got back to the Delta.
So, this was the reason why I got a little angry when someone thought I'd write a whiny Paris. That was the last thing I intended to do. And in this context doesn't even matter if I like him or not.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 11:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 02:42 am (UTC)Alternate Caretaker is the same story for which a little idiot accused me of plagiarization because I use the canon dialogue while changing character dynamic, BTW. Why do I attract fools in all my fandoms is a puzzle for me. I guess Chakotay isn't the only "contrary" person in this universe. Or that black aura of mine is to blame.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 04:03 am (UTC)I attract fools in RL, be thankful yours are only one a computer.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 04:45 am (UTC)Alas, I don't only attract fools on the computer. I'm a teacher, remember? Dealing with kids, their parents and colleagues isn't a bit better. :((
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 04:54 am (UTC)Nope, you can't count fools found in the school system, as far too many are found there too easily!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 05:47 am (UTC)It's strange that you still haven't got to see the whole of Voyager over there. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, though. You have been spared Janeway's character mutilation to a self-proclaimed god in the later seasons. In my opinion anyway.
Have you seen the Equinox double episode? The way she behaves there puts Captain Ahab to shame - and she doesn't even have a real reason to behave like that. Her behaviour made me start writing Impossible Odds, with the baddies in that episode as the main characters.
Oh, and to answer your question asked elsewhere: Annúminas is, in fact, on ff.net - but be warned, it's an unbeta-ed version, so there might be weird grammar and a few typos the spellchecker didn't catch. In fact, I know there are some - I just didn't have the time to re-post the whole thing yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-17 12:20 pm (UTC)You're welcome for the reviews, it doesn't take much to write one, and yep, I think we're all review-junkies!
I haven't seen the Equinox episodes, but it sound as if I wasn't missing much, but to be truthful Janeway never did much for me. Tuvok I liked, and Chakotay, but not Janeway.
Actually, it's not just the full Voyager series we'ver missed here, several season of TNG have never been shown here, and only about half TOS too. Our televisions stations will spend stupid money on crap shows and then only buy half of Star Trek and show it at 11PM, or once ever 2AM because, get this, it's not suitable for family viewing! Yet they show Southpark in family times. Go figure!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-19 11:56 am (UTC)I...I just thought you might like this stuff...you know...some pics of Cirdan...and the RingCon...and then I remembered the HoME-stuff, it's easier for research sometimes...and...and...
:))))
And who but you could be the Mistress of Mischievous Elfies??
*waves at Lindir*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-19 01:19 pm (UTC)BTW, did you get your invitation at all? It must have been expired in the meantime, but with Hotmail acting up like crazy it might get lost entirely in the first place. Want another one?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-20 02:59 am (UTC)regarding the invitation: not even I, most modest of all authoresses and nearly-saint-elvenprincess...why do you laugh?
Okay, again: I withstand the temptation to say that the invitation is lost. I've got it but...ahem...
If you still want a 'Schusselchen' like me in your group, another invitation would be wonderful. I'm really sorry, please don't think it wasn't highly appreciated just because I'm a little too stupid and have a little too much stress!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-20 03:21 am (UTC)