Struggling Writers discussion

If you have any pieces, that don't fit elsewhere, that you'd like immediate critique on, just post them under this topic. Remember, NO LINKS are accepted. And you cannot post a gateway link to ALL of your stories.

Haha ok yay finally! Somewhere for my translations :)

I translated this from an opera called Una Cosa Rara, ossia la Belezza ed Onestà (A Rare Thing, or Beauty and Honesty). It's about these two people (Lilla and Lubino) who are getting married but some annoying stuff happens so Lilla runs to the Queen and the Queen puts her under the protection of the Squire and the Prince falls for her and then a bunch of other stuff happens... anyway, the Queen is upset that the Prince is going to rule Spain one day and so she thinks on how she would want to change her destiny so she could be happy.

Queen Isabella

Recitative
Who would have thought
that under these roofs
and under these pastoral ruins
there is so much honesty and virtue!
Oh happy huts, oh friendly land,
you are the true abode of peace and rest.
With such pleasure
I breathe your air…
Ah, if fate had given me
the good fortune to live by myself,
I would rid myself of any ungrateful man
and choose who gets the throne.
Rondò
Ah, if every soul
could form its own destiny,
would I live in happiness for you,
with pleasure and liberty?
The simple pleasures
of pastors of the herd
make my heart happy
with the rest that it does not have.
But were not the forests
Intended for beasts?
I will find it,
mortal happiness.

...hello?...

Hi! Um, not sure what you want here. Speaking only for myself, I only speak English and I'm not entirely sure what language you translated from (Italian? Spanish?), so any accuracy in that regard is lost to me.

As it is, it's a beautiful passage and after looking it up on YouTube I'd like to see the whole thing performed.

Thank you! I'm going to publish it after I finish editing it (waiting for someone to send it back to me...), and then I'm going to write a letter to the Met Opera, and hopefully they'll do a production of it for me! (I seriously hope so - I know a guy in the orchestra, so maybe I can get him to side with me)

Thank you again :)

I decided to write a series based on the typical traits seen in Japanese manga characters. I don't even know if I'd want to publish this someday...

Warning! Language.

______________________________________________________


“Crazy. Deranged. Mental. Screwy. Cracked. Bonkers. Psycho. Demented. Cuckoo.”
“Unbalanced, unglued, unhinged.”
“Mad as a hatter. Nutty as a fruitcake. Round the bend.”

By the time I stood before that crumbling building, I was a complete wreck. My hair was plastered to the back of my neck, while sweat ran down my shirt like some kind of gross waterfall. My feet were aching, and my head had begun to throb with a hint of a migraine. Sleep deprivation made me dizzy. My stomach churned, softly moaning its hunger.

And that was only the physical problems. I had a series of mental issues plaguing me as well. Bipolarity. Depression. Paranoia. Anxiety. OCD. All decided by a short, stocky man with a balding head, who wrote down each life sentence while fighting to hold back a sneeze. I was also, according to him, “Antisocial, bitter, and a complete pain in the neck.”

What a guy. Thanks a lot, doc. You really had to include that last part, didn’t you? Geez.

Screw him. Screw him and all his medical buddies, who had stared at me when I stormed out of his office, whispering to one another, as though I couldn’t see them. Screw that lady that had been sitting in the waiting room, the one that had been staring at me, not even bothering to pretend like she wasn’t. Screw whoever it was that decided to call the cops.

And screw this building too, I decided, looking it up and down. My nose wrinkled. The place was even more of a wreck than I was! It was seconds away from falling apart; it’d probably crash down on my head the very second I went inside.

Like hell I was going to let that happen! I wasn’t going to take one step inside that dump.

“Hi! Haven’t seen you around here before!”

The voice – shrill and much too cheerful – caught me off guard. Though I had already been told that there were others living here, I hadn’t actually expected to come across anyone. Flinching, I whipped around and stared, stunned speechless, and the girl who had already gotten uncomfortably close.

She had to be close to my age, judging by her height, but she dressed like a toddler. She wore an all pink dress that was covered in frills. She had matching shoes and hair ribbons on both of her blonde pigtails, which framed her face as she sported a gap-toothed grin. Her blue eyes were annoyingly bright, and went a little too well with her skin, hair, and outfit.

It took her a moment, but the strange girl finally seemed to notice that I was staring at her. Unfortunately, this realization only made her grin all the wider.

“I’m Lily!” she chirped, excitedly hopping from foot to foot. “I’ve been here for three years now! I’m the new girl! Or I was, until you showed up! You’re newer than I am! Nice to meet you, new new girl! You’re gonna love it here! I know I do!”

How did she get the air to breathe, when she was talking nonstop? “What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded, cutting her off before she could go on. “Dressing like that… Blabbering like an idiot… Seriously!”

“Can’t help it!” she told me cheerily, then broke out into giggles. When she finally got control of herself again, Lily quickly added, “It’s my condition after all. Always cheerful, always positive, always smiling. See?” She motioned to her grin, then giggled a second time.

Her happiness was starting to make me nauseous. “The hell are you going on about?”

“I’m a Deredere!”

What was that, Japanese? The word was unfamiliar to me. And it didn’t really sound much like a medical term either.

“What the hell’s a ‘dare dare’?”

“You say that word a lot,” she commented.

“What word?”

“Hell.”

I scowled at her. “What word would you prefer I use?”

“I didn’t say I had a problem with it.” Lily sounded hurt, though she was just as smiley as ever. “… But ‘heck’ would be more polite,” she added after a brief pause, “come to think of it.”

“How about ‘fuck’?” I suggested, feigning innocence.

She took me seriously. “Nah, that’s a bit harsher.”

I sighed. “You don’t know what sarcasm is, do you?”

Lily shook her head eagerly. “Nope!”

I don’t know why I expected her to; from the looks of things, she was missing a brain cell or two. I let one hand rest on my hip as I asked tiredly, “… So, are you going to answer my question? Or are you going to just keep hopping like that?”

“I can do both!” She paused for a second, mid-hop, then continued as she asked a question of her own. “… What did you ask again?”

“I asked you what a ‘dare dare’ is.”

“Not ‘dare dare’,” she informed me, “a ‘Deredere’!”

… The hell? They sounded the same!

“Fine, whatever. What’s it mean?”

“I already told you! It means I’m always cheerful, always positive, always smiling.”

“No,” I frowned at her, “I meant—”

But her sudden movement cut me off. (Whether this was an accident or on purpose, I’ll never know.) Lily skipped over to me and grabbed a hold of my hand, starting to drag me towards the crumbling building before I even had a chance to protest. “Come on!” she squealed. “I can’t wait for everyone to meet you!”

"immediate critique"? lol :( I was so excited to find this group.... oh well