August 10 check-in

[larryhammer]

1. Rendered a main project poem to literal prose, and got another’s prose partway to verse. Got a side-project poem partway to literal prose (too many ❔❔s).

(I haven’t described these projects, have I. The “main project” is working though the anthology 300 Tang Poems, of which I’ve translated around 210 over a few years, including some during past iterations of getting shit done. The current “side project” is a 25 poem sequence by Shanguan Wan’er, former palace slave who worked her way up to righthand-woman to China’s only ruling Empress, Wu Zetian. I’ve translated her before, and am a little less than halfway through this set. It’s slow going because it’s courtier poetry, courtly and elegant and refined and full of allusions I’ve no context for. Keeps me humble. I’m not posting any till I finish a first pass on the whole set because I’m cautious that way.)

2. Reviewed/revised a poem from the collection. Which happened to be the first Chinese poem I ever translated, but I actually felt pretty confident about it—I’ve gone back to it several times over the years, and there’s even a whole frickin’ book about how different translators have mishandled this poem. So how off-base was my confidence? … Not very, it turns out: after reading a couple additional commentaries, tweaked one word. Met goal ✅

3. All told about 45 minutes of scales, strumming, and a YouTube tutorial. Met goal ✅

August 10th

[lauand]

GG:

Didn't exercise at all, but I made some more studies even though my asshole computer had closed the pics app so that I had lost my selection and I had to look for them again. I blame Windows because it's the kind of shit Windows does.

Long story short: drew more kisses and I think I more or less get it now. I threw some expressive hands in the bunch for good measure. I fixed, with my newly acquired knowledge, the second sketch, but I'm still wondering if I want to do that pic as it is or if I should change the idea and go for something more subtle but less narrative. We'll see.

Check-in for August 6-10

[lassarina]

I'm about to get in the car and ruin any goal progress for the next two days, but! Some progress has been made previously.

Writing: I have now written on three days, which is better than I was doing before! I have half drafts of two chapters to show for it.

Media: 2 books read; 0 games cleared (but making progress in one)

Tarot: 0 cards. My brain has been too full of other things.