I Write about Reindeer, and Gaze at Northern Skies

[starfishstar]

Those of you who also follow 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.

Comments

[starfishstar]

​Oh, of course, yes, that makes so much sense - I even knew that about how words for livestock got extended to use for currency as well (noticed that in the first Halldór Laxness book I read, how everything gets compared to how much of a cow it's worth...and I think one of our teachers last summer talked about that, too). I hadn't thought to make that connection here, but of course that explains why "dýr" would have both those meanings...cool!

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!

[nerakrose]

ahhh yeah, i forgot german does the sch thing. it sounds the same to me as just a regular s, so i always misspell it :D

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. :)