I had written the first draft of this post a year ago, but I didn’t post it because it was mainly a rant about my English professor, which I hate – okay, hate my be too strong, but I don’t really like her. For the past two years, ever since I started studying, the main tenor after my (oral) exams was: “Angelika, you will impress people with you knowledge, but you must really improve your vocabulary.” And therefore she made us learn vocabulary every semester, in January I was tested on 1200 English vocabs. You might have guessed – I didn’t like it, it was more a nuisance than everything else and much last minute learning was involved (we also call this “bulimia learning”, learning a lot in a short time and empty your brain just for the exam) and nobody in our group ever saw any sense in this.

Well, I had my last oral exam last Saturday (there will be a written exam at the end of August), it consisted of a presentation of twenty minutes (you could chose the topic yourself, however it had to be something business related – I chose “Gender inequality in today’s business world”) and a discussion afterwards. I had to say, it went fairly well, however, I guessed that my teacher would find lots and lots and lots to criticise me about. But she didn’t. Suddenly she was full of praise and totally impressed with my performance. I will quote her, because I can’t believe it myself really. “You were precise, and clear, your pronounciation and expression was so natural, your arguments were profound and you had the rapt attention of the audience for the whole twenty minutes. And you are really rhetorically gifted.” I sat there completely stunned. :-O At this point I should metion that I also have classes in rhetoric and presentation techniques, and lord – I really suck in these classes. The main tenor from my prof: “You have the knowledge, but you can’t really bring it across to the audience. Your speech is mostly horrible and at some points even I cannnot understand you.” So the complete opposite from what my English prof told me. I told her so and she really was surprised, I tell you.

So, this has been on my mind, I have to admit. And somehow what my English prof told me was true – I felt much more comfortable in front of the audience speaking English. I guess this is pretty strange, because: Isn’t it more natural/normal to me more averse to giving in a presentation in a foreign language?  I can only judge this from the reactions from my fellow students (I also sat in all their English exams, but I won’t go into detail about the why) and they were pretty nervous. This is by no means a post about I realise how awesome I am and how good my language skills are, but I realised that I had fewer and fewer problems with the language itself and I really look forward to my semester abroad (I will be studying in Newcastle come September).

I mean – I write this blog in English, which is only my second language. And I have started writing fanfictions in English (well, I had to get the connection to fanfiction, right? ), however I simultanously also write German fanfictions, and boy, it’s getting more difficult, because some things are really better in English. Some scenes are really in my mind in English and it’s not easy to translate them. So, an easy example:

“My husband is perfectly fine,” I bristled. “Thank you. [...]” Major difficulties with the verb “bristle”, which – according to the online dictionary – means “sich sträuben, zornig werden, sich über etwas empören”. But none of these get across the feeling, IMO. I also like the word “quip” – in German “witzeln” sounds horrible! Or blush – my favourite word, “erröten” is simply so hard and doesn’t bring along the feeling. Thinking about it, there are lots of examples coming to my mind.

Don’t get me wrong, contrary to many fellow countrymen I really like the German language, but English has really grown on me, so I guess this won’t be my last post on language issues. And right now, I’m also really happy about my good grade in English

I have to admit, I had to keep myself from making a very, very, very bad pun out of the story’s title and the current heat conditions here in Germany (we are at 33° C or above 90° F). That must have been said heat which keeps me from thinking straight, really (and that when I’m sitting in university 8 hours a day -.-). But enought of my ramblings, to the story. First of all the vital information: Available at AHA and FF.net (although FF.net is currently one chapter behind), rated T at the moment, modern P&P with Darcy and Lizzy in their teenage years (for the majority of the story at least). Blurb runs as following:

It rains and it pours and he can think of nothing but Lizzy Bennet and the handprint she left on his heart. A story about loss, love, rain, and how the three changed William Darcy.

It’s a WIP and currently the updating scedule is a bit irregular (you all know that thing called RL, right?), but every chapter is worth the wait. Although, at the end of the latest chapter I sort of wanted to tear my hair out!

It’s all described from Darcy’s point of view and boy, he’s hurting! He has just lost his mother and his father (who gives “emotionally distant” a whole new meaning) decided to move to the states to build a new life there. And you really feel Darcy’s sadness and the grief and the feeling of loss. The way everymonday portraits it, is heartbreaking! This story is simply so much more than the average Darcy-and-Lizzy-as-teenagers-in-highschool-story, with all the emotional baggage they are carrying. Because Lizzy has seen loss, too (and I feel that she’s very matured compared to the ordinary 17-year-old) and she might just be the one the help Darcy healing, but they are both so stubborn.

And then there is chemistry between those two – wow! At certain points you could just feel the tension and the passion of these two very strong characters. And I dread the huge row that is going to come, because we know from chapter 7 that there will be a break-up inevitably, which will take some years (in my guess at least). But everymonday promised a happy ending – I will hold on to that.

I can’t really guess where the story might be leading because the foreshadowing has given the story a whole new perspective, this will not be resolved while they are still in high school. So, they will split up when young and I dearly hope that they will meet in the future/present time. And you could see from the few paragraphs in chapter 7 that Darcy has matured quite a lot. Still pining for the girl he fell in love with when he was 17! Those two definately don’t have an ordinary romance!

a modern Darcy with glases.

That’s all.

All right: Currently you can find one it in Boogima’s Thirteen Days and Karen A’s Creep.

This story had my whole sympathies right from the beginning as it shares the title with my favorite song – Fix you by Coldplay, in my humble opinion the best song in the world (as evidenced by my iTunes counter according to which I had listened to the song arond 800 times in a year… and which is currently playing in the background, yes, you are allowed to call me an addict). But I’m disgressing… yes, I judged the story by it’s title first of all and it didn’t disappoint.

When an unexpected event disrupts the Netherfield ball, Mr. Darcy finds out that leaving Hertfordshire and Elizabeth Bennet behind is more easily said than done.

At the beginning Boogima apologised for having “chosen one of the oldest plots in the JA fanfic book”, but that’s completely unnecessary, because her take on “suddenly after the Netherfield ball, Elizabeth and Darcy have to marry” is ingenious, loveable and portrayed in a perfect way.

Darcy, gosh, he is so perfectly characterized that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with him, slap him (at certain points) for either his arrogance, his mistaken pride or his stupidity or simply hug him. It may have to do with the fact that we get the whole story from his perspective only and his thoughts and musings are so fitting, that I wish I could write them in such a way. It’s – once again – simply perfect.

“Fix you” is complete with 15 chapters and available at AHA and FF.net.

So, with three entries, orchidvines is (currently) the most often mentioned authoress here on this blog. She is the only reason why I plunge into the chaos that it FF.net as her writing leaves me speachless with both awe and envy. She is really extremely talented and simply has a way of pricturing Jane Austen’s characters in a modern setting that feels so natural and so extremely close to canon. And I think that I’ve sung enough praises of her extreme cool style of writing, so I’ll come straight to her story: Red Light, Green Light, which I not only like, because it’s by orchidvines and therefore well-written, but also because it’s a modern take on Emma and a that’s a really nice change among the great variety of P&P-fanfictions (not that I’m complaining about that ). I don’t really know what to write else as the story is extremely close to the original Emma-storyline (I’m a fan of Emma btw., despite all her faults in the original) and to add that you can never do wrong with a story by orchidvines.

Which is why I will also mention that she posted a P&P one-shot called Mercy, Mercy me (modern, non-canon), which I have also come to adore.

Yeah, I guess, we will hear about orchidvines more often on this blog (that is, if she continues writing – and I pray to God that she will!)

That’s because Beth AM’s (enrage_femme) truly marvelous story “Some like it wild” is updated every Tuesday. So, as regards the topic of this story: The reference to the film “Some like it hot” with Marilyn Monroe is totally intentional, because Elizabeth disguises herself as a man following her father’s decision to force her to marry Mr. Collins. And for help she turns to Darcy, who – of course – does help her and together they go on a roadtrip that will lead to many, many, many complications. It’s not over yet, nine chapters have been posted so far, I think there will be ten altogether, but I’m not sure about that.

It’s totally great – Darcy himself questioning his sexual orientation (shortly, I grant you, before he realizes the “young boy” is no-one less than one Elizabeth Bennet) and afterwards fighting his growing attraction towards Elizabeth and other people thinking he has … unnatural preferences (which is a bit dangerous, because this was a hanging offence at that time IIRC).  It’s really funny, totally creative and ingenious. Added to that a great style of writing and you can see why I like this story so much. At the moment I cannot imagine how Beth will lead this tangled web to an ultimately satisfactory ending, but I daresay I can live with this suspense a bit longer.

“Some like it wild” is available at AHA and DWG.

With whom? Darcy, of course – or rather, the Darcy Amy Robertson (4giveMeJane) portrayed in her story “Speak not against the sun”. I read it all in a rush today (on the train journey back home) and wow – I was melting like wax right there. The timing of her posting was very bad for me as she started her story in February (when my stress level was on an all time high) and continued posting until just today and at least once a week Fiora would tell me: “You have to read Speak not against the sun – it’s simply amazing!” – but, alas!, I didn’t have the time. Until today, that is.

The story just sucked me in and it was great to read it all in a rush. As mentioned above, I fell in love with this Darcy – he was just swoonworthy, I tell you. Completely and steadfastly devoted to Elizabeth, incredibly charming, unfailing, honorable… I could go on forever, I guess. Elizabeth… All right, this girl was in love with him and she had very good excuses – but at certain points I just wanted to smack Elizabeth for her stubborness! In addition to the great chracterizations (the Colonel is also very cool, but you should know by now that I have a weak spot for him) there is a great storyline and a great style. And it has a tolerable angst-level – at least in my opinion.

And the ending… Well, I won’t go into detail about it in case you haven’t read it yet, but it was powerful!

Yes, you should definately read this (comparatively short – 14 chapters altogether) story. It has already a place in my favourite stories.

It’s available at AHA, DWG (the last chapter is still on the posting board) and FF.net

Writing is not always easy. Sometimes as an author you despair, because your story doesn’t want the way you want it.

As a reader it is even harder. You have to rely on someone else to provide you with the next chapter and you never know if the next chapter is published next week or next month.

In the German Austen Fandom I have observed – quite recently – that more and more people are willing to translate stories from English to German (where the Austen Fandom is quite small). That is a comfort for the people whose English is not so very good, but for other people – like me, I might add here – it can be painful sometimes to see how a good story is “destroyed” by a bad translation.

Generally I like the idea. As an author I would feel honoured that people deem my story good enough for a translation. As a reader I would be grateful to have a story brought to me in a language I am not familiar with.

But as a student of English I know that it is not an easy task to translate from a foreign language into your own. Not only your foreign language skills have to be very good, also your knowledge of your own language must be excellent, to get the right style, tone etc. Especially when it comes to regency Fanfiction it is quite hard to get the right tone, the perfect language in German (or any other language).

As an author, I would not want my story, my “baby” so to speak, to be handled carelessly in a translation.

What do you think?

(Do not misunderstand me, I have read excellent translations into German, but also some really, really horrible ones. But I won’t name any, because it would be unfair. This is just my opinion on this topic)

So, in the back of my very uncooperative brain I have a complete WW-II-fanfiction figured out, but it just refuses to come out, so it has to wait. (Not that I have any other stories, that I could write…). I imagine my story to be quite heroic, dramatic, sentimental etc. – in short, everything Mari A’s wonderful Blackout (posted at DWG) is not. All right, it could be called all that above but in a more hushed down way. First of all, because not – as probably expected – Darcy is the “hero”, but rather Caroline Bingley is the “heroine”, and a great one I might add. Because the blurb says:

One evening changes a lifetime for a former socialite in a country at war.

I like stories with a transformed Caroline and this one is really touching. The way Mari describes the circumstances that lead to a whole new perspective for Caro is so moving. I really felt for her, because suddenly everything was turned upside down. Suddenly Caro is so level-headed and so “normal” and not a bit arrogant or haughty. I loved reading every single sentence of this story. And of course there is a “love interest” for her – but I won’t give away anything from the plot.

The story was finished a few weeks ago and it’s completely safe to read.

Yeah, about the original purpose of this blog, about reviewing fanfiction… We’ll come back to that in April, I promise. RL was just really busy… *sigh*

But I made a songvid, which I’m hereby sharing with you