Random Ramblings CCXXX

IN WHICH I UNINTENTIONALLY LIED
So, I said my next blogpost would be Author's Notes for my latest Sunset story. That's obviously not the case, and I'm sorry. However, I am working on the story right now. I'm not pleased with its flow currently and may need help. Still, I feel y'all deserve an update even if I'm failing. Follow me past the jump.

In addition to working on two stories at once -- Cream-Puff to Sparky and And That's Good Enough (the former is a standalone that I've been promising myself I'd write for at least two years and the latter is the ante-penultimate entry in the Recovery Arc) -- I've been doing some behind-the-scenes stuff for my work.

As I told Coffee, I drew a map of EQG!Canterlot (a.k.a. Canterville). But I wasn't happy with it, so I'm going to try again. Still, the first map gave me an idea of where I went wrong and how I think things should be arranged. My one regret is I don't have a scanner so I can show y'all the final product once I've completed it. Suffice to say I now have the Ferrus River oriented differently to accommodate railroad tracks and, by extension, the wrong side of them.

I also just finished a nice bullet-point list of nearly every personal item Sunset has named or will name in my stories. Again, even though I know most of these by heart, it's nice to write them down somewhere to make them definitive. I may have to go back and edit some of my stories for consistency on this front. It took me a long damn time to come up with a name for Sunset's scooter/moped, but I did it.

For reference, because I don't think it will ever come up: She named her 10" kitchen knife "Mister Stabby-Stab". Note that this is NOT the knife she used on herself in NoFS; that knife doesn't have a name.

Meanwhile, I've been in contact with my Italian fan (who would have expected that for a hack writer like me?) who has been kind enough to translate my work into his(?) language -- I don't speak Italian at all, but I try to help if I can when a slang phrase doesn't translate -- an example is in Sasha (at my request, the Recovery stories are being translated in chronological order), where the common English phrase "give up the ghost" needed explanation. I also gave the okay to convert all the Imperial numbers throughout my stories into Metric since there hasn't been an Italian equivalent in over 150 years.

As a guy who enjoys linguistics and has read the work and opinions of longtime Japanese-English translators, I agree with the belief that translation is not a Science; it is an Art. A literal translation is a poor one. I'm no Umberto Eco or Gabriel Marquez or even Douglas Adams (I wish), but I do place a lot of emphasis on Flow. I'm a percussionist by trade and have a nervous stammer, so I like my writing to have a rhythm or cadence (heh) to it. I want my work to be rewarding to read out loud. If that necessitates shifting my translated words around or localizing something to aid comprehension, so be it, as long as the spirit of the story remains. That shouldn't be too difficult with my elementary junk-level writing.

Again, I will extend my condolences to any poor schmuck who attempts to translate A Day In The Park. Or, for that matter, most of the Burritoverse, since the internal ramblings of the characters -- the whole point of that series -- can get kinda weird.

I've been wanting to buy some particular French dictionaries and aides because, in my non-Pony work, I have a girl who comes from a Francophone village in South Louisiana and my own French is not up to the level of writing her when she isn't speaking English.

Anything else? It's 3am. I guess not. I'd better get back to work then. I have to be a night-owl for the next few days as I've got a doctor's appointment first thing Monday morning that'll take me about an hour to drive to. Blech.

Peace out!