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.
(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".