The Art of Translation

September 21 was a field day at my school. Classes were fit into the first half of the day; during the second, my grade led games and teams of all varieties. I myself designed a complicated game called "Primadonna", a lip-singing / dance competition inspired by the Marina & the Diamonds song.

The funny thing about it, though, is that it didn't occur to me just how complex my plan was. In my head, everything made sense - the different positions, the point system, everything. I assumed that, the game properly set up, everything ought to work smoothly.

In hindsight...

The game definitely didn't go as expected. There were mix-ups with team members' tasks, and my friend & I had to cut out the entire relay race portion. I was dying for the first 15 minutes, yelling directions and running from spot to spot, trying to devise instant solutions.

Field Day was on Friday. But over the weekend, I began to think about just where my painstakingly-planned out game had gone wrong. The fault wasn't inherent; I probably would've understood the directions just fine if I'd explained them to myself.

Hence lies the issue. I wasn't explaining the directions to a group of clones. I was speaking to groups of kids, who didn't have the patience or strict enough attention to follow my speech. And that's what every writer has to remember, while writing anything.

You have a human audience - don't make communication confusing! After all, the primary reason why people read is for entertainment. In our modern age, the public's attention span is short, and entertainment is largely visceral. Intelligent humor and irony are great, but not all writers can afford to go Infinite Jest on their readers.

So. Next time I have a grand creative vision, I'm going to try to remember the Field Day fiasco. A writer can never underestimate the power of clear, concise prose.

Another facet of the issue? Mastering voice, Often, a strong voice is crucial to a work's success - just take young adult fiction. I've put down many a YA novel because the voice was grating, a poor imitation of teen-speak by a middle-aged author.

It's never an easy task translating a vision onto the page. But writers have to do it everyday. We have to practice focus on the most minute details, to search for just the right word to describe an action or attribute. As Franz Kafka once said, "all language is but a poor translation." But it's the job of a writer to compose her own best translation... just so it can be translated, infinitely, by her readers.

Is It Time To Redefine Your Goals?

Hey, guys.

Lately I've been trying to head in new directions, with my writing and the blogs. For example - you might've noticed visual changes to both Writer, Bewildered and Roses & Mustard. I've been mixing and matching colors, backgrounds, and graphics to improve the looks of the sites and (hopefully) increase blog traffic.

Writing-wise, I've made a huge decision: I'm sticking to short stories.

While I was in Paris, I wrote a short story entitled "At the Zoo." I'm very happy with it because I think it marks - or I'd like it to mark - a change in my writing habits. This past year was a dry one, creatively. I produced barely anything. I wasn't committed enough - I didn't make the necessary time and energy sacrifices.

I want to change that this year by redefining my goals. I've been so focused on idea of a novel, but it's now that I'm finally realizing the truth: I'm not ready for a such a lengthy project. If I want to get anything written, I need to set smaller, manageable goals - that is, short stories by given dates.

The other change I'm making is plot-wise. I've spent the last several months developing characters for my early-twentieth century story. (It's switched from 1945 to 1922 and back again more than once.) But none of my characters have had the right spark. I've liked them, but never loved them. And this week, I finally figured out where I went wrong.

I don't really want to invent my own characters. A story I find much more compelling is the life of Anna Akhmatova, my favorite poet since I was 12, when I first discovered poetry. I'm interested in her relationship with first husband Nikolay Gumilev and her brief affair with Amedeo Modigliani - which took place in Paris. I've made my first goal to write about her and Modi's time together.

What are your goals? Do you need to redefine them, or have you had to in the past?

Oh! - last but not least, I'm heading off to the UK for 2 more weeks. I doubt I'll have time to post on the trip, but I'll see you again September 9th.

And did I mention my Kindle got broken? Well, my Kindle got broken. I might blog about the experience when I return...