Help me! I spend a lot of time scrolling through mastodon while waiting on the baby to eat, sleep etc.
So hit me! Ask me anything. #ama #askmeanything #QA
@kemonine It depends. But unfortunately I write in Danish.
Used to write a blog about books but lost interest. I have published to short stories online.
In my teens I wrote a novel. Kind of fantasy but in a after life world. A brother who goes on a journey from heaven to rescue his sister form hell.
Also been co-writer an a small amateur zombie movie.
And countless plots for larp and recently PNP :)
Just love to write!
@kemonine thx :) i just wish I was better at writing in English. Would be easier to reach more people that way.
Only ~ 6 millions speaks Danish after all.
@nuhn 6 million is still > 0 😉
Why not start a random thoughts blog or similar for practicing english?
I read a few sites that are definitely broken english (on a good day) and find it easy enough to read. The content tends to stand on it's own.
What's great is over time it tends to improve.
@kemonine maybe I could do that... I just don't think Im that interesting. Plus it's more the tone in fiction I want. I really love words, fiddling with language, but I don't have the colours or nuances to do that in English. And I think it would take years before getting just decent.
Guess I have high standards for my writing.
But well I'm here now 😀
@nuhn I think you're doing pretty good in our chat thus far.
Maybe start a blog of expressions and tonality learning.
Write a paragraph a day exploring the nuance of the language and cross post for feedback on masto.
There are a few instances and more than a few here that would likely have a lot of fun with a feedback loop.
And it'd be engaging.
@nuhn @kemonine Hey, that's what translators are for! Right, @Heliodora? :D
@InspectorCaracal @kemonine @nuhn Not to be a downer, but that's something native English speakers can't quite grasp and it drives me batshit: writing in peripheral languages absolutely means giving up on larger audiences, particularly if you write SFF and related genres.
As for translation, I promise you there are far fewer competent Danish to English translators than English to Danish, and English-speaking markets are notoriously averse to translation.
@nuhn Speaking from experience, if you really want to write better in English, there isn't a better way than to just start writing anyway (and of course, reading as much as you can). You could always try flash fiction prompts or other short pieces?
OTOH it IS worth it to write in our native language. Sorry I just keep having existential crises over this.
@Heliodora @nuhn @kemonine @InspectorCaracal i have noticed a recent boom in translated-to-English kids' books and there's even a handful of sites based around making light novel translations, so hopefully that's changing!
Not nearly fast enough tho, and i do know a lot of people with knee-jerk reactions for translated books specifically even if we consume translated games and cartoons, which is annoying, to say the least
@katrani What you call a boom is not even a blip for me so yeah I'm not super excited
@Heliodora yeah that's fair.
@katrani @Heliodora @nuhn @InspectorCaracal Punch a knee jerk for me?
Translations are 👍 IMHO
You get broader context and the point remains the same.
It's a *good* thing...
@kemonine @Heliodora @nuhn @InspectorCaracal exactly! i need to look into the history of it, see if there were like, some atrociously bad genre fiction translations Back In The Day to cause this, but even with that it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
you get new ideas! new stories! new references to look into! why avoid it just because the quality on some might not be the best?
@katrani The short answer is: power.
The long answer is power, xenophobia, and an exceptionally strong domestic market.
@katrani Arguably 'quality' is in the story, not the translation.
It takes a lot to lose enough meaning where quality would suffer from translation IMHO.
@katrani @InspectorCaracal @Heliodora @kemonine back!
Took me a while to realize what you were talking about. The fact that English-speaking have an averse to translation never occurred to me.
Almost everything I read is translated.
And yes, there will always be something lost in translation, but IMHO that's small and insignificant if the translater is any good.
@nuhn @katrani @InspectorCaracal @Heliodora Oh, sorry; In the USA it's a very pervasive attitude at times and in some communities.
It's really sad too. There are lots of texts I found that were translated (good and bad translators).
It's what has kept my desires to learn a few other languages (despite my inability to do so) alive and well for so long.
@Heliodora @InspectorCaracal @nuhn For the record: I've read, enjoyed and appreciated translations.
However, I'm not blind to the fact that writing in not english/chinese/spanish gives up a HUGE audience.
Not good if you're writing in a more common genre like SFF
😢
@kemonine oh and these days I'm writing on an article for exilian (in English) about Nordic larp and storytelling. Will pubæidh link on masto when done.
@nuhn How’s the Viking life?
@arturovm it's dark and cold, we might be getting snow soon. Oh and noisy. Baby 🐻 is loud.
@nuhn What do you normally write?
Any particular topic/interests?
Is there a blog?