notes from underground

that title doesn't really have anything to do with anything. i've never even gotten into any russian literature really, but that doesn't stop me from being obsessed with the idea that there are no articles in russian. HOW!?! i do not understand how that's possible. it sounds impossibly awkward and non-specific to my 'only english with a dash of the smallest amount possible of a romance language' - ear. i dunno. for some reason the notion of lacking 'a' and 'the' baffles me even more than gendered words, WHICH IS TOTALLY INSANE. i remember my language teacher in 6th grade telling us just to accept that there were male and female words and get over it, because there wasn't any good 'why' that we'd understand or that would be useful to us.

FAIR WARNING: the rest of this posting will be all about writing and magic and other nerdy stuff like that.

anyway, moving on. finished the first of my purchased books for research; alanna by tamora pierce. UGH. not particularly enjoyable, even for me. maybe it was just the audience she thought she was writing for, but it's really dumb. the language (and dialogue) is an awkward mix of "medieval"-speke and modern english slang usage. fyi, ma'am, no girl-disguised-as-a-boy page training to be a knight says 'I don't get it!'. yuck. it was written in 1983 so i guess that's an excuse. i dunno, it just really reminded me how fucking revolutionary the harry potter books popularity is going to to be on popular children's literature. rowling NEVER talked down to her audience, except maybe a little in the first book, but that was (imo) the editors / americanizer's doing. i dunno. i would never cut corners in a story anyway, i am far too long-winded and detail oriented for that, but i do need to learn to find a balance between exposition and moving through an important three month period of a character's life in HALF A SENTENCE.
[GOB] COME ON![/GOB]

i've decided on first person. i think i'm most comfortable with that. telling myself telling a story.