![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarThose of you who also follow ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
rt_morelove might now understand why I've spent most of my spare time lately googling information about reindeer and random locations in Norway – because I'm writing an adaptation of The Snow Queen!
Yes, after giving over 2 or 3 months of my life to stage managing a play version of The Snow Queen, I'm now also writing a version of it... I actually think I'd enjoy someday writing an entirely "original" adaptation (for example like Anne Ursu's Breadcrumbs) – it's such an endlessly fun story to play with; it's usually kept as a children's story more or less in line with the original, but I think it would be interesting to give it adult characters, and maybe two female protagonists instead of a girl and a boy – f/f romance maybe? Anyway, who knows, someday I may also write a full-length original novel version, but first, right now, I needed something to write for rt_morelove and stumbled on this idea of doing a Snow Queen fusion (Harry Potter characters and universe + Snow Queen plot) and it's SUPER FUN to write. Whee!
So, yeah, I spend lots of my time lately looking at pictures like this:
(Photo from Wikipedia.)
That's the town of Honningsvåg, very near to the very, very northern tip of Norway. I was gazing soulfully at this picture at work the other day, and showed it to my colleague when he happened to pass by my desk, and thus learned an interesting difference between the two of us: When I look at this picture, I think, WANT, whereas his response was, "If that's the sky that's coming at me, I think I'll run the other way."
Anyway: looking at pictures of far northern landscapes = always the best, writing a fusion of Harry Potter and The Snow Queen = SO FUN, and best of all having this project (and a deadline attached to it) has kicked me back into writing regularly for the first time in ages. As a direct result of all this writing-ness, today, too, I finally got unstuck on another fic that's been sitting here for ages: It's going to be four chapters total, and I've been stalled on the very last (but crucial) bit of Chapter 3 for months. Tonight, just now, I figured out and wrote that last bit, and finished the chapter. Wheeeeee!
I didn't do NaNoWriMo in November, partly because I didn't have time and partly because the friends here in town who'd wanted to do it together ended up not doing it. Then I didn't do NaNoWriMo in January for the same reasons (still didn't really have enough time, and the group of friends who'd said they didn't have time in November but would totally do it in January...didn't end up doing it in January). But partway through this Snow Queen/Snow Wolf writing process, during a week when I was pushing myself to write at least 1000 words each day to keep up toward the rt_morelove deadline, I decided to aim for a "mini" NaNo this month, see if I can get my writing by the end of January to average out, at the very minimum, to 500 words/day. Doing well so far! (Average of over 600 words/day, and that's only because I didn't really start writing in earnest until partway through the month.)
Writing mojo reclaimed, or at least once again visible to the naked eye, after a long disappearing act.
rt_morelove might now understand why I've spent most of my spare time lately googling information about reindeer and random locations in Norway – because I'm writing an adaptation of The Snow Queen!Yes, after giving over 2 or 3 months of my life to stage managing a play version of The Snow Queen, I'm now also writing a version of it... I actually think I'd enjoy someday writing an entirely "original" adaptation (for example like Anne Ursu's Breadcrumbs) – it's such an endlessly fun story to play with; it's usually kept as a children's story more or less in line with the original, but I think it would be interesting to give it adult characters, and maybe two female protagonists instead of a girl and a boy – f/f romance maybe? Anyway, who knows, someday I may also write a full-length original novel version, but first, right now, I needed something to write for rt_morelove and stumbled on this idea of doing a Snow Queen fusion (Harry Potter characters and universe + Snow Queen plot) and it's SUPER FUN to write. Whee!
So, yeah, I spend lots of my time lately looking at pictures like this:
(Photo from Wikipedia.)
That's the town of Honningsvåg, very near to the very, very northern tip of Norway. I was gazing soulfully at this picture at work the other day, and showed it to my colleague when he happened to pass by my desk, and thus learned an interesting difference between the two of us: When I look at this picture, I think, WANT, whereas his response was, "If that's the sky that's coming at me, I think I'll run the other way."
Anyway: looking at pictures of far northern landscapes = always the best, writing a fusion of Harry Potter and The Snow Queen = SO FUN, and best of all having this project (and a deadline attached to it) has kicked me back into writing regularly for the first time in ages. As a direct result of all this writing-ness, today, too, I finally got unstuck on another fic that's been sitting here for ages: It's going to be four chapters total, and I've been stalled on the very last (but crucial) bit of Chapter 3 for months. Tonight, just now, I figured out and wrote that last bit, and finished the chapter. Wheeeeee!
I didn't do NaNoWriMo in November, partly because I didn't have time and partly because the friends here in town who'd wanted to do it together ended up not doing it. Then I didn't do NaNoWriMo in January for the same reasons (still didn't really have enough time, and the group of friends who'd said they didn't have time in November but would totally do it in January...didn't end up doing it in January). But partway through this Snow Queen/Snow Wolf writing process, during a week when I was pushing myself to write at least 1000 words each day to keep up toward the rt_morelove deadline, I decided to aim for a "mini" NaNo this month, see if I can get my writing by the end of January to average out, at the very minimum, to 500 words/day. Doing well so far! (Average of over 600 words/day, and that's only because I didn't really start writing in earnest until partway through the month.)
Writing mojo reclaimed, or at least once again visible to the naked eye, after a long disappearing act.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-31 08:14 pm (UTC)ok so first, Snee is German ;) it's just sne in Danish. (i know that the original title of the fairytale is Sneedronningen, but, uh, it's not correct. it may have been back when it was written (thing is Old, spelling conventions have changed since then), may also have been that HCA just misspelled the thing.) sneulven would be the name. Danish generally likes to put definite articles on names that are words/professions. he would refer to himself that way 'they call me the snow wolf - sneulven' would be accurate. i think in danish a character with that name wouldn't state it as their name, they would use the verb 'at være' (to be) instead of the verb 'at hedde' (to be called). 'jeg er sneulven' and not 'jeg hedder sneulv'. you could use 'mit navn er sneulv/en' and then either way, you'd still have the definite article. (for the record, 'jeg hedder sneulv' is suuuuper awkward and it's 100% because this is a fairy tale/mythical creature. they never introduce themselves that way in danish, mostly because mythical creatures rarely have actual names, but rather are a thing. if it's his actual real name, he could still say it like that, but (again, in a Danish context) if he's got any situational awareness he wouldn't say 'jeg hedder sneulv' because it's kind of. not very dramatic, very down to earth, could even be construed as childish. it's too simple, is what i'm saying - for someone who's got status (like the snow queen) he'd refer to the name as something other people bestowed upon him (=respect) or state the name in definite form because it makes him an entity rather than a person, and those are to be respected and/or feared. use this information however you will :D)
hmm, for icelandic you could go with either snjóúlfur or snæúlfur (a name that occurs in...the skaldic edda i think, i don't remember exactly). snæ- is slightly more archaic than snjó- i think. both are fine grammatically and all, but snæúlfur is more "established" as is. no definite article on this one!
lumisusi is indeed correct. :) sounds a bit funny, but then again werewolf is ihmissusi, so it's not like finns wouldn't recognise it.
i know absolutely nothing about russian or greenlandic, sorry :'D i also know very little about saami, and wouldn't be comfortable trying to piece something together. i could maybe do lulesaami as that's the saami language i'm most familiar with, but i can't guarantee that it's correct. i mean for starters, lulesaami has a billion different words for snow and i don't know which one to pick as each would give the snow wolf a very specific meaning, you know? like would you want a word that means "hard, as in the top layer has melted from the sun and re-frozen" or "new snow in a light layer that reveals tracks after animals, specifically reindeer" or maybe "thin layer of frost in autumn" ?? the word for wolf in lulesaami is stálppe. using a word that means "snow that has fallen in cold weather and that results in 'tungt føre' (difficult road/driving conditions because of a thick layer of snow)", you could have sahkikstálppe, assuming that's the correct way to make compound words in lulesaami... (the nominative form is sagij, and my lulesaami dictionary app informs me that the genitive stem is sahkik- and i assume there's some consonant gradation going on there, but - pardon my french - fuck me if i know. :p) you'd be better off finding a saami person willing to help out, but i'm not sure where you'd find one!
(sorry this got so long orz)
no subject
Date: 2017-02-01 06:28 pm (UTC)Yeah, English does seem to be the weird outlier with the word "deer" meaning one specific animal - in German, too, it stayed general ("Tier" = "animal").
Sneedronningen/Snedronningen - aha, that makes sense. I'd seen it spelled both ways in Danish, which was confusing, so I traced it back and found that the original was spelled "ee" and so I went with that - but that makes sense that that's an archaic spelling, which has since changed, which is why I was seeing it both ways!
The German would actually be "Schnee" - Die Schneekönigin, I suppose, though I've never thought about this story in German!
And double cool, my instinct was indeed to use the article in Danish but not in Icelandic, so, yay. :-)
As for use of articles and whether it's a name or a title... At least how I've got it written right now (this is all very new and rough draft), it's actually kind of the opposite: not him saying "this is my name," but saying "I am ancient and powerful and whatever you choose to call me, does it really matter? I'm more powerful than any name you choose to attach to me." So definitely what you said about using the article and considering it a title, not a name, applies. But also maybe moot in this case because he's not using it as a name anyway. But *also* definitely I will bear your advice in mind - especially what you said about using the verb for I AM rather than I'm CALLED. (In fact...I may have to remake the part I described above, based on how much I like that - the idea of him saying, I'm not CALLED the Snow Wolf, I AM the Snow Wolf.)
For Icelandic, I thought of snjó/r first, but then saw that "Snedronningen" gets translated as "Snædrottningin," so figured that might be more archaic/fairy-tale-ish, which it sounds like you're saying is the case. Also, all that Old Norse names research told me there's a King Snær in Norse Mythology who's the personification of snow, so that fits too, as a reference for "snær" in the context of stories and legends. :-)
Finnish: ha, google translate was correct for once! And for Finnish, of all things. That's kind of hilarious.
Russian: I've got another friend I can ask about that. Weirdly, for that one I think my own translation might actually be okay, since the words are simple and I actually do remember a bit of grammar. But we'll see if I'm right about that...
Greenlandic was a very long shot, that's fine! And for Saami languages, yeah, I wouldn't want to do it unless I was absolutely sure I had it correct. And given that this is basically just a tiny throw-away bit I'm doing pretty much for my own amusement, it's probably okay if it's not totally comprehensive. (Though Saami languages would of course be some of the *most* relevant to this part of the world!) I love that about all the different words for different types of snow. So cool.
THANK YOU for all of this, so helpful, and so interesting to me, too!
no subject
Date: 2017-02-03 01:45 pm (UTC)oh, interesting about this king snær. i'm not sure i've heard of him! but he might be the same person as vetrarkonungurinn, who i definitely have heard of? i remember reading stories about him when i was a kid, and i think maybe there was an animated movie (or i dreamed it, which is also v possible).
you're very welcome! i love talking languages like this - it's been as much fun for me. :)