flemmings | (no subject)

I wonder if there was the same outcry in FMA fandom over the translations as there was in Saiyuuki? I turn the subtitles on, from laziness and inability to understand the alchemical terms just hearing them, and I keep noticing that what I see doesn't match what I hear. Ed says 'The day we decided to leave we burned down our house.' The subtitle says 'The day we left home we burned down the family house and all the memories in it-- because some memories aren't meant to last.' Farewell Japanese understatement, hello hammer it home with a mallet overkill. Some officious translator or, more likely, editor has a very low opinion of western intelligence.

I shall quote ~~Pratchett~~ Gaiman again, just for the fun of it:

"It's not Brits who think American readers are a bunch of whinging morons with the geo-social understanding of a wire coathanger, it's American editors."

I can't decide if writing when you're uninspired is like exercising when you feel tired or eating when you're not hungry. I bet it's the latter, because it leaves me at least feeling worse than when I started.

I'm also having a crisis of faith over writing in the first place. I mean it's one thing if you're a god-given original who has thoughts no-one else does. You have to write your stuff because nobody else will. But there aren't many of those. If you're just one of the moderately talented producers of pleasant prose, and especially if you're a fanwriter, why bother? Any idea you have will be had, sooner rather than later, by one or another of the other moderately talented PoPPs. Just wait a bit and your story will be written for you by someone else-- supposing it hasn't been already. If you're not burning to write this thing, why write it?

The carrot for most people seems to be 'So other people will say nice things about my fic.' Uhh, yeah. But we note yet again that it's always the worst stories that get the most reviews, and that praise from certain people is no compliment at all. Rather the reverse.

So if you're not writing for you and not writing for glory and certainly not writing for money, what are you writing for? Perhaps there are Mother Theresa writers who do it to give pleasure to other people, and derive pleasure from that fact. Very altruistic, but subject to backfire: any stories *I've* written to please other people have signally failed to please the people they were intended to.

So if you don't *have* to write, why do it?

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I am not as smart or well-educated or well-read or talented as many of the people here, so I am probably speaking out of turn. But I write because the story wants to be told, and it won't leave me alone until I tell it. It's almost like a -- I *hate* to put it this way, but I can't think of any other way to -- like a bodily function. Or like a little alien chest-burster that has to come out. Once it's out, it runs away and I never see it again, and that's fine. I've done my duty -- I've served as the host body.

And sometimes it can even be creepy how a story will go galloping merrily off into an entirely different direction than I'd thought it would go. That scares me sometimes and makes me feel like I can't control it -- but then again I have no idea where it comes from, and I usually just regard myself as a conduit.

Sometimes it's there; most of the time it's not. When it's there, it's pretty insistent. It can take a while to incubate; I tend to write in my head nowadays before committing something to paper, and a story can take months to process that way. But once it's ready, it's ready -- and nothing I can do can stop it, or make it come along any quicker.

Yeah, that's the *have* to write thing. I like it when it happens; the world is so simple. As you say, it's almost a physical function that you yourself have little say in. But when there isn't that pressing need- when there's only a mild intellectual 'well I could write a story about this' sort of thought- that's when I wonder Why bother? It's only a plot bunny, if that, and it's easier to ignore than to write.

That's largely why I promised myself I'd never get myself into a situation where I **have** to write, like if my paycheck depended on it or something. I let myself write what I want, when I want, and if it's a plotbunny, I let it incubate until it turns into a REALLY BIG plotbunny that's impossible to ignore. Or I jot down notes and lose them on my computer, and then find them someday and go "Oh, hey, that's a pretty cool idea, I oughta run with that." And sometimes it works out okay.