Igenlode Wordsmith

I heard a woodpecker drumming this afternoon -- an unusual sign of spring, but a sign nonethless...

Thinking out loud:
I have almost translated the final section of my current song project -- or to be more precise I have translated it in multiple variants, none of which are entirely satisfactory :-(( Read more... )

All right, I think we have a new version of that final quatrain of the first verse( Read more... )

The word-order of the original Russian actually is a bit mashed up at this point thanks to poetic licence, so I can decently get away with a little enjambement, I hope...

Literal translation at this point:

Of the complicated earthly carousel
He takes care, and himself no longer remembers
How many, in order to save me,
Miracles he had accomplished from time to time.

Old version:

Across the weary whirling world enduring
He watches, and himself cannot recall
What miracles on my behalf procuring
The angel has accomplished, all in all.

( New version )
( Even newer version )

I am *still* struggling with Наша честь -- I managed to 'fix' the first verse by rhyming 'infinity' with 'misery' (the original lyrics only do half-rhymes for the 'off' couplets anyway, e.g. то ещё (tò eshcho -- 'something else') with сокровище (sokròvishche -- 'treasure')). I got a credible translation for the start of the second verse as "we've had a tough time of it", by means of repeatedly adding and removing different words when submitting the phrase to an auto-translator, and that is basically covered by the various variants I had there already, as opposed "we still have time", which means something very different!

But I was never very happy with the all-important chorus, and have been repeatedly attempting to find an alternative translation that manages to fit in more of the elements of the original( Read more... )

Having stumbled across the Wikipedia page for Thomas Cromwell's nephew out of mild curiosity as to how he acquired the surname 'Cromwell' despite being descended from the sister of Henry VIII's minister, I ended up spending eight hours or so in 'translating' virtually the entire page into 20th-century English prose out of the original text by an 18th-century antiquarian, which had been cut and pasted virtually verbatim to create the initial article. (I do not aspire to 21st-century prose: 'glow-up', 'call out' and 'problematic' are not in my vocabulary :-p)

Original 'untranslated' version

We shall see how much of it survives; I ended up having to do a good deal of research in order to check the validity of the various references I was trying to repurpose, and found at least two apparent errors in the original in the process. I also now know a great deal more about the said nephew than I did previously, my prior acquaintance being limited to the background of "Wolf Hall" -- but I am *not* an expert of any kind on the era, and limited myself to the existing sources already cited in the article.

Perpetuating here (as opposed to perpetrating, but doing that as well) another piece of random Internet editing, because I did put far more thought and fiddling-around-with-wording into it than the recipient will ever have the faintest idea :-p

Alfred: "Master Bruce, you're back!"
Alfred: "What are you wearing?"

Bruce: "I'll tell you later."

Bruce walks into the manor, and walks towards the stairs.

---

"Master Bruce, you're back!" Alfred's smile faded to a rather appalled look. "But what on earth are you wearing?"
"I'll tell you later," Bruce said briefly, walking past him and straight up the stairs.

Doing the very final edits to Chapters 30 and 31, and discovering no fewer than five references to characters being held in 'his/her arms', to be altered in favour of other wording :-p

• "found grateful oblivion in her arms"→"in her embrace"
  
• "Christine hit solid earth with an inelegant thud, knees buckling. Raoul's arms were round her from behind, straining her tight"→"Raoul caught her from behind, clasping her tight"
  
• "set his arms about Christine"→"caught Christine to him with a long sigh"
  
• "slept last night with her clasped safe in his arms"→"clasped close against his heart"
  

Raoul gets to keep the last one: "he could lose himself in her arms without a thought for Erik" :-p

Another rewrite (not so extensive this time) for someone who is 'struggling with an argument': as usual, I haven't done all that much to the actual dialogue, just tried to frame it in a smoother-flowing way. And fixed the actual errors.

"'Well you said the sigil looked fine.'

"'I wasn't paying attention. I expected you to be smart enough to remember basic kanji'.

"'You know I've always been average at everything.'

"'No, you're not!' Osu barked, and for a second, Kamitaro thought a compliment might be coming. 'You're not average. You're a freakin' idiot!'

"Kamitaro involuntarily changed into the kappa again. 'Don't pin this on me. You were meant to be protecting me. This is YOUR fault.'

"Osu's shoulders dropped at that and his face became expressionless, as though the anger had turned in on itself. His eyes flickered, hinting that there was a moment when he could have chosen not to say his next words.
( Read more... )

Rewrites: working on the graveyard scene to try to clarify and get the impact I wanted.

Original (after editing at time of writing) text:

Another fireball, this one hot enough to graze my cheek. If his aim shook enough, I thought I'd shaken his aim enough, perhaps, that he might kill me without even meaning it.
My knees gave way, and. I sank down, not gracefully but in a clumsy overbalanced fall. lurch, caught my heel against the kerbstone of a grave and fell sidelong with bruising force. A deep, griping pain ran through my belly, and a deeper pang of terror cut through swimming senses.

Current, supposedly final revision:( Read more... )

And... another rewrite, this time of a blurb that would actively put me off reading the fic in question (assuming that the writing style of the cover actually doesn't reflect the nature of the interior prose -- otherwise, tweaking the outside really isn't going to do much good :-( )( Read more... )

Well, the good news for the year is that my second beta-reader (the first having presumably abandoned the project altogether) has been reading the laboured chapters on the salvage of the Requin and apparently thinks they are *wonderful*: "Really exciting, and a nice blend of detailed technical knowledge and ‘human interest’. Please don’t keep me in suspense... I need to know what happens next."

Which was certainly not the reaction I'd been expecting after rereading them myself! (And of course the "I need to know what happens next" is what every writer dreams of hearing...)

( Read more... )

Hertha has finally reached "Don Juan", which means that I'm now back in my comfort zone of transcribing canon events from an alternate perspective. What I had *not* expected was that, in a situation where everyone else is disparaging the Phantom's music, Hertha turns out to be the one person who actually considers that there might be something in it from a modernistic point of view.
(Well, there has to be some balance for the fact that she basically regards the Phantom with absolutely zero sympathy the whole way through; she has no reason at all to feel sorry for him in the slightest, so there's a risk of the story coming out as a deliberate exercise in 'bashing'. She needs to feel a slight stab of empathy at the moment when Christine unmasks him, too.)( Read more... )

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Another spur-of-the-moment unsolicited rewrite -- this time of text that was being held up to ridicule rather than asking for help :-(
(Only I just can't do the present-tense-description thing. It sounds all wrong to me in narrative, and more like an announcer giving a commentary on the Grand National in real time...)
( Read more... )