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

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)

Now that AHA has an international stories forum for fanfictions in other stories than English I’m definately tempted to publish a story there… I have on current WIP (which doesn’t develop as fast as I would like) which I could probably post there, however, I’m first of all a bit afraid because it would be the first German story there and somehow – I’ve always associated AHA with one of the best English FF sites around so I don’t know. Suddenly posting a German story there – and one of my nonetheless – seems to be such a break in style and at the moment not really fitting.

And then there’s the audience. In Germany I more or less “know” the people reading and commenting my story, the audience is very small and I’m kind of used to them. Not that many people at AHA actually read/speak German but nevertheless, JA is for me a bit a epitome of an English story and some things don’t come across that well in German…

And lastly there is the dream that I’d post my first story at AHA in English (I’m currently writing one) and not in my mother tongue because this would be a real huge step for me. Now starting to post there with a German story is a bit in between, isn’t it? And usually I’m not one to do things half-way…

*sigh* I don’t know, maybe I just needed to vent my feelings here. Maybe I’ll dare, maybe I won’t, I don’t know. I miss Fiora (who is currently on holiday in London) because I guess that she’d give me sound advice. *sigh* Maybe I’ll bite the bullet, I’ll let you know.

This is a screenshot of the Wikipedia page of the 2005 version of P&P made yesterday, August 14, 2009 at 3:32 pm before I corrected it. I’ve highlighted the cause of this post.

I know, I know, you shouldn’t set such high standards for Wikipedia pages – after all everybody can add/change things there – but nevertheless: Longbourn is spelled wrong! -.- This is not meant to be a vocabulary lesson and of course there are mistakes that are far worse than spelling mistakes, but I’m sorry, but I’m very sensitive to theses things. Some people call me pendantic but I simply have this “must correct this” urge. I’m by far not perfect myself, but at certain times certain mistakes just drive me crazy! And when I have a bad day (such as yesterday and today) such mistakes just damage my pleasure to read. It’s pathetic, I know, but I cannot help it!

I quote the contributor guidelines of the DWG now because there it is handled very well.

Bennet has one t
Wickham has one h
Georgiana has one n
de Bourgh is two words with a small d
Lizzy is spelled with a y
Younge has an e
Bingley has an e
Longbourn does not have an e
Pemberley has 3 e’s

At certain times I simply cannot abide reading Longbourne over and over again! If I have a bad day it can make me stop reading the story, seriously. I can deal with “wrong” spelling in modern stories, where names can be changed (although I won’t necessarily like it) but not in original Regency ones, because there Jane Austen clearly wrote how everybody and everything is called!

This is even worse with German translations! Why can you simply not stay with the English names? Jane Austen’s stories are English stories after all, they take place in England so why change the English names? But no, in most cases, the names are germanized and Elizabeth becomes Elisabeth and Lizzy is changed to Lizzie or Lissy or (the worst of it all IMO) Lissie! And sometimes the translator isn’t even consistent in his/her changes. So he/she writes Elisabeth but her nickname is nevertheless Lizzie – so were did the z’s come from? Yeah, that’s also I reason I like reading the English original so much!

I know this post is more or less pointless, I’m writing about fanfiction after all where certain things simply have to be changed or imagined, but I needed to rant (bad week and all).

And sorry, I don’t want to offend any writer about this they are after all free to do as they chose and spelling “mistakes” just make us human.

And I don’t want to know how many mistakes (spelling, grammar and expression) I made in this post

EDIT: I apologize if any author felt insulted by my post – as I’ve mentioned two paragraphs above, I don’t want to offend anyone. This is simply my personal opinion. Just to make myself clear: I know that it is pathetic, but at a certain point I need to vent off my anger and then such minor spelling mistakes incense me in a totally irrational way. I don’t condem the story or its author, because for example Longbourne is spelled wrongly, but I stop reading because I know that I will become flustered about it when I’m already in a bad mood, because this is such a convenient way to vent off my anger. I probably reread the story later on.

It’s not as if I’ve written “Oh, author XYZ has written Longbourne in his/her story so it must be total crap” – because that’s not my opinion.

But when I have a bad day I can be pretty merciless and intolerant and completely irrational and but I guess that – like making “mistakes” – is simply human. So my apologies if that came out in a wrong way, every author is of course free as he/she choses, there are things far worse than a missing or additional e in a proper name!

I simply had to get this off my chest. I’ve had this scene in my head ever since I helped out at my company’s annual general meeting (AGM) in May, but I will probably never use it – at least not in the next five years or so as it simply doesn’t fit in any story I am writing or aim to write in the future.

I should probably describe the premise. I’m a student/apprentice working for a German-based “global player” with approximately 130,000 employees. In 2008 we had a revenue of 12 billion euros – an increase of 13% and this despite the financial crisis. So those were good conditions for a very smooth AGM as there were – in contrast to other global companies – no problems to report, really, as the company also operates in markets that are relatively independent from the overall economical development. That was until some shareholders decided to charge our directors with some pretty nasty accusations among others corruption and nepotism. I would never have guessed that shareholders would really come up with such stupid and totally vulgar questions – at an AGM no less! It felt as if they were virtually throwing tomatoes at our executives, because they decided that it would be fun.

In general, directors don’t answer directly to the questions or accusations shareholders make in order to not let the discussion getting out of hand but answer a bunch of questions after a question period. But I couldn’t help but imagine Darcy being in our CEO’s position (not that these two have anything in common ) and after some very tedious question rounds suddenly being asked about his personal life, namely an alleged relationship with Elizabeth Bennet, member of the board of Longbourn Industries, which is a competitor of Pemberley PLC, Darcy’s company. So this is how I would imagine Darcy’s reaction to such a question.

“I’d like to direct a question to the CEO, Mr. Darcy himself and ask him about the state of affairs in his personal life, especially his relationship with women.”

“Excuse me?” Richard had asked that before Darcy had had any chance to react to this statement and had completely forgotten that they were not to challenge the questions a shareholder asked. “How is the personal life of our CEO relevant at the AGM?”

“Well, if I have to be more blunt – do you have an affair with Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy?”

For a moment Darcy was taken aback by the venom with which the question was asked. He tried to remember the man’s name but couldn’t come up with it.

“I cannot imagine how the CEO’s love life might be relevant-“ Richard began anew but Darcy silenced him with a look and turned on the microphone in front of him.

“For those here in attendance who have not read the gossip rags in the last few months, Elizabeth Bennet is the newest member of the board of Longbourn Industries, one of our American competitors.”

“Which has done remarkably well the last year,” the man interjected. “Ever since she was promoted to be a member of the board and became ’acquainted‘ with you.”

“So, what do you mean to insinuate with that information here at the AGM of Pemberley PLC?”

“Come on, Mr. Darcy, don’t try to play me for a fool. Don’t you think that some of the most confidential data can best be gathered in bed?”

“So you are insinuating that I’ve been leaking out information to her due to a sexual relationship with Miss Elizabeth Bennet and that she’s been willing to have sex with me in order to gather confidential information? I’d rather be careful with that. And I can assure all of you that as of today I do not have and I have never had a sexual or romantical or whatever relationship with Elizabeth Bennet that goes beyond that of casual acquaintances caused by the fact that Charles Bingley, member of our board and my good friend, is engaged to her sister. Whatever the rumours about an alleged relationship with her may be, they are totally unfounded and hurt both mine and Miss Bennet’s professional reputation.”

“And what about the future?” The man simply didn’t want to stop.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said that you currently don’t have and that you’ve never had a relationship with Miss Bennet – what about the future? Do you intend to enter into an alliance with her? After all, you will get to know her better now that your friend and her sister are about to get married.”

“I don’t see why the future of my private life – relationship with Elizabeth Bennet or not – has any relevance for this AGM, where we review the goings of the past fiscal year and give a careful forecasts to the future of Pemberley PLC. You will be kept informed about all events in the future that might affect our company… but not about my family planning. And if you wish to further insult my professional behaviour as both CEO and majority shareholder of Pemberley PLC, please do so without reference to my love life and without a connection to Elizabeth Bennet because there is none to speak of. With that I consider the discussion of my love life closed.”

I will probably never use this, but it feels good to see my thoughts posted here. And if I ever decided on continuing this idea somewhere in the future, I would still have this blog entry to work with

Mine attacked me on Friday, December the 12th of 2008 at about 2 pm from behind and made me do the stupidest thing imaginable. I do have this story and it has come to haunt me. Last year I wrote a story called “Never say never again” (Sag niemals nie – in German) and when it was finished in July 2007 I had already made my mind up about a sequel called “The spy who loved me” (Der Spion, der mich liebte) and I was very positive about it (after all I had already written eight chapters which were presumably one third of the whole story) and so I announced it to my readers and I even posted some sort of teaser.

That was before my muse refused to cooperate. After a more or less serious case of writer’s block, in which my muse apparently had some fun without me and went on vacation, she only to came home with loads of new story ideas but refused to give me any ideas about “The spy who loved me”. After a few atempts and a few one-liners I decided to postpone writing on this particular story and to focus and my other stories (of which there are plenty *rolls eyes*) and my pretty hectic RL.
Until last Friday when my “The spy who loved me”-muse suddenly reappeared and had the funniest thought ever – overthrow all your old ideas and start completely new with the story, I could completely throw away the eight chapters I had already written.

Well, I was happy she was willing to cooperate again so I obeyed her every wish and I wrote two chapters in a rush but then she demanded something I was not willing to give. She wanted me to kill the Colonel, Colonel Fitzwilliam that is. (I won’t go into detail about the story’s plot, I’ll just say that the titles aren’t borrowed from the James-Bond-series without reason, it’s all about the spying business and intelligence services and so on…).

The first draft which I wrote in some sort of haze looked like this.

When he got into his car and looked at his two cousins one last time Elizabeth asked herself whether his seemingly constant frown would ever disappear from his handsome face. She couldn’t know that she would never see him alive again.

But I wasn’t ready for this so I refused to follow her every whim and after much arguing we came up with the following compromise:

When he got into his car and looked at his two cousins one last time Elizabeth asked herself whether his seemingly constant frown would ever disappear from his handsome face. She couldn’t know that his secret identity would be uncovered the same day and he would vanish into thin air without anyone knowing where he could possibly be. Five days after his disappearance his superiors would have him declared dead.

So long story short – what’s the meaning of my little rambling here? The muse is a bitch, seriously, she really is. I haven’t heard of an author who hasn’t complained about his/her muse at least once. She makes you do the strangest things with your characters, things you never intended, she suddenly leaves you, when you are in the middle of your story and disappears without further notice, she reappears with seemingly overflowing creativity when your RL is already hectic and you virtually don’t have time to write (I could tell you another story of my muse when she made me write three chapters of a new story the day before my math A-levels…) only to vanish again when things slow down and you were normally able to write the whole day long.

And the most annoying thing: There’s nothing you can do about it, she has her own mind or as some authors simply say: OBEY THE MUSE! You can try to lure her into some dark corner where you can beat her unconscious so that she won’t be able to disappear again or you can try to tie her up, you can try to bribe her with chocolate and sweets or you can try to do everything to make her feel cozy and comfortable but in the end she has her own mind and there’s nothing you can do against it.

Just be happy when she’s with you. I know most of the time we complain and rant about her but and wish that we had never met her, but let’s face the truth: What would all the authors be without her?

Oh, and did I mention that my muse was especially bloodthirsty and mean this weekend – others were not as lucky as the Colonel and could not cheat death – but that’s another story.