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user-inactivated  ·  3401 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Crystal Clear - First Cold I

    I'd like to be able to put it in word or something so that I could highlight places I have comments.

Here you go - a Google Docs version of the original .DOCX, with editing allowed for those who follow the link. That you can't copy the text is very odd; again, I didn't know. Wattpad looks pretty, but I've started to doubt its real usefulness.

    Why do you choose to write in English?

My native language is Russian. I speak English since I was twelve or so, though: I picked it up quite easily and went along, given how ubiquitous it was in my life anyway (especially ever since I've got cable Internet access).

I wrote the first edition of the story in Russian, then translated it into English sentence by sentence. It wasn't pretty. Linguistic constructs can be very different in both languages, and sometimes a name for something most common can not be translated directly. What you've read is the second edition: I rewrote the translation once I knew what is it I wanted to tell; an interesting experience, given how big of a quality difference it made. I'll try writing First Cold III directly into English - the second story is written in the mentioned way; let's see how it'll go for me.

As for writing in English... I do it because it automatically grants me a larger audience to appeal to, which given me a higher chance of being noticed, which encourages me to write more and write better in the language I've been complimented for speaking my whole life (where I'm from, most people don't care to speak English, but since I do, people believe it's a good idea to let me know how clever I am for that - it's a virtue nobody's willing to work for). Besides, the Russian DotA 2 community isn't known for its culture and literary interest, which is why I don't see how posting the stories in Russian would be a good idea.

I still plan on writing the short stories in Russian - I enjoy doing that and, with it, feel more confident, literary. Now, I'm also thinking about doing translations, as well: my stories aren't gold, but people have told me that they might be good.