... translations, part two of a short story

So here's another part of the story - the first part is done in October, so please check there.

The locals exchanged knowing looks, when at times yet another young couple entered the pub, just that bit too well dressed for the environment, assuming it to be a restaurant.
Most of them never made it to the pub a second time.
The red-white quartet, though would always be loyal to the pub, as long as it was feasible.
Michael, Thomas, Marcus and Christian were thirty-somethings who had spent every Saturday evening in the pub since they were in their teens. And even if none of them lived locally anymore, they still met there to discuss the latest soccer match with the older locals, to drink a few beers and to remember the good old times.

That Friday they would remember for a long time wasn't different from the other days they met. They talked to the older locals who spent almost every evening at the bar, downing their beers and commenting the latest matches and the news of the day.
Just like the older people, they got upset about the politicians who wouldn't give pensioners a few cent more per month while their income seemed to skyrocket, they returned to discussing soccer then, because it was nicer to talk about things they enjoyed. And just before the barman asked for the last orders, they remembered old friends who weren't there anymore to drink with them.


And the German version:
Die Stammgäste, von denen die meisten in der näheren Umgebung wohnten, warfen sich wissende Blicke zu, wenn sich wieder mal ein Pärchen in die Kneipe verirrte, einen Hauch zu fein angezogen für die Umgebung, in der Annahme, es handele sich um ein Restaurant.
Meist blieb es bei diesem einen Besuch, und die neuen Gäste tauchten nie wieder in der Kneipe auf.
Das Rotweiß-Quartett hingegen würde ihr treu bleiben, solange es ging. Michael, Thomas, Markus und Christian waren vier Mitdreißiger, die schon als Teenager fast jeden Samstagabend in der Kneipe verbracht hatten. Auch wenn mittlerweile keiner von ihnen mehr in Altenessen wohnte, trafen sie sich dort weiterhin, um sich mit den Älteren über Fußball zu unterhalten, ein paar Biere zu trinken und sich an die guten alten Zeiten zu erinnern.

Auch an jenem Freitag, an den sie sich noch lange erinnern würden, unterhielten sie sich mit den älteren Stammgästen, die fast jeden Abend an der Theke saßen und ihre Kommentare zum Wetter, dem letzten Spiel von Rotweiß und dem aktuellen Tagesgeschehen mit Stauder Pils begossen.
Sie regten sich mit den anderen über die Politiker auf, die den Rentnern kaum ein paar Cent im Monat mehr gönnten, während ihre Diäten immer weiter anstiegen, gingen dann wieder zum Fußball über und erinnerten sich schließlich, kurz bevor der Wirt sie um die letzte Bestellung bat, wie immer an die alten Kumpel, die nicht mehr mit ihnen trinken konnten.

... feeling like a Viking...

Oh yes, I just crossed the 50K line about an hour ago, and after celebrating just a little (silently, because it's close to midnight around here), I thought I needed to do some more typing...

Feeling like a Viking? Why, yes, because if I can manage to upload one of my winners' certificates and badges on this page, everyone will see!

So nice to have to versions of the badges this year, and I also like the design of the certificate... very cool!

More about this here, soon... I need to find something to do with all the free writing time now (well, some of it, since I will of course continue writing)....

Listened to Snow Patrol's "The golden floor" while crossing the magic line of 50K...

Cheers,
Barbara

... nano land

Being in-between two writing sprints to get my daily word count done, I remembered that I wanted to write about how my nano novel has been progessing.
Oh well...
This is my third nano, and while I rushed through the first one and had gone across the 50K mark on November 19 in 2006, last year, it took me a few more days to do so.
And this year? For the past five days, I haven't even managed my daily goal of 2K, which means that if I manage to write a bit more during the next few days, a bit more than the usual 1K I did over those past few days, I will manage to get to 50K by the end of the month - and win! Well, yes, winning is essential this year, and the story has developed nicely enough but I cannot yet see the end of it.
Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I am not sure yet.
But since this is not my first nano, I know that I can do it, and this year, it seems that the plot develops very slowly. Still, the main idea is a good one, and I have learned a lot about my main characters.
I will not yet publish any excerpt here, but I will do so on the nano website some time next week. It might be good to discuss this later on, but for now, I think I have a plan... write more again every day, finish the story some time in December, edit next year...
And then, what will I do with all the spare time after November has gone?
Oh no, there will be no spare time, just more writing time without the nice pressure of fellow nano people who write more in less time (but who knows what theirs stories look like in the end?).

And of course, I still have a big part of that short story to translate! :o)

Going back to writing now,
Barbara

... translations, part one of a short story

Since I thought of doing this anyway, why not post it here bit by bit?
Oh, and I will first post the first draft of the translation, bit by bit, later on what I have done with it.
So here's the beginning of the story I wrote for a book which contains a couple of stories by fellow authors from my hometown. It's in German, I don't think it will ever be translated, unless there is going to be a real huge demand... ;o)

Ernie
(working title)
They would talk about their last meeting for a long time. Not because it had been something extraordinary. It was rather because of what happened to Michael on his way home.
They met every first Friday of a month in their local pub, and they had seen a lot of changes without having gone to a different place.
During the past few years, the pub owner had changed the name a few times, but eventually, he had returned to the oldest, well known name.
Now, while the name remained, the owner renovated the interior, used the back room as a small restaurant, and every so often, "Dragon Fly" was visited by young couples who had heard about the excellent food he served.

And for those who know both languages: the beginning of the German version (I also see this as a story I can still work on):

Frannek
Von ihrem letzten Treffen würden sie noch lange erzählen. Nicht, weil es so außergewöhnlich gewesen war, sondern wegen der Geschichte, die Michael auf dem Heimweg erlebt hatte.
Jeden ersten Freitag im Monat trafen sie sich in ihrer alten Stammkneipe, und sie hatten jede Veränderung mitgemacht, ohne sich nach einem anderen Treffpunkt umzusehen.
In den letzten Jahren war die Kneipe zu ihrem alten Namen zurückgekehrt, auch wenn die Besitzer den hinteren Raum jetzt als Speiseraum nutzten und die Schankwirtschaft "Zum Kanonier" neben dem alteingesessenen Publikum nun hin und wieder Besuch von jungen Leuten bekam, die von der exzellenten Speisekarte erfahren hatten.

Well, I have changed the name of the pub and will change the names of the characters to make them more accessible for the reader. Just for that reason, because I think it might work better that way.

When I started translating yesterday, I noticed that it is something that I enjoy half as much as writing in English, and with some of the sentences it's odd, but since I have all the rights of the story, I can change some of the sentences, and so I might have to comment on some of them later on, but for now, just 24 hours pre-nano (at least where I am), I will have to stop.

Barbara


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... blogging

Gee, I've done this before, and yet it's still exciting to see the results.
After this blogsite was recommended, I thought about starting to blog again for a few days.
It's not like I don't know what to write about, with nanowrimo starting in just a few days, I should be busy plotting and creating characters for my third nano novel, but somehow, I only have managed to do a tiny bit of that.
But if I start this year's nano the way I started my first nano, all should go well - I only had a sentence just before midnight that led me to write it down just after midnight on November 1, and then I wrote a few more sentences before doing a first count of the words I had written.
About twohundredsomething, only, but I knew how to continue.
Without any plotting before November, with only a few well known characters which I have written about pre-nanowrimo, I managed to get along well, and I'm still amazed how I managed to write about 2K of words every day, most of them after a rough enough day at the office.
This year, though, I thought I could do some plotting, and since a lot of fellow nano participants are talking about how they have created their characters, how they described scenes already, I began to wonder whether they still have any fun when writing next week?
For me, a big part of the fun (and yes, one is allowed to have fun while writing!) of the writing process is to find out where the characters are led by the plot, only part of which I might know in advance. While I have an idea of the plot, of the beginning and the end, and maybe even of parts in the middle, when writing, another scene might come up, change completely, and the characters might even change their minds about something.
Oh well, just the usual, eh? Something that a lot of people have mentioned before, and that is something that I have always enjoyed reading about.
I am soon going to post one of my short stories here, one which I have decided to translate to see whether it works in other countries as well...

Best,
Barbara

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