http://scion-of-lykaios.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitulum-octavum-decimum.html
Capitulum Nonum Decimum
http://scion-of-lykaios.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitulum-nonum-decimum.html
Capitulum Vicesimum
http://scion-of-lykaios.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitulum-vicesimum.html
Capitulum Vicesimum Primum, et Fortasse Capitulum Ultimum
http://scion-of-lykaios.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitulum-vicesimum-primum.html
And that's that. I was hoping to finish it all yesterday, but that just didn't quite happen, in part because it seems like, all of a sudden, I have to juggle every plate in the world this week, and perhaps next week as well.
So, where are we with it? Of course, it's a bit of a mess: while the basic plot won't change, the beginning is entirely wrong for where the story ended up, and there are inconsistencies that need to be ironed out. (As generally happens, it's the small ones that bug me, like repeated typos with Krasnoyarsky Krai and Vsesalevich. I find the Russian language baffling. And looking back, I honestly don't know how any Russian ended up in the story at all; I certainly didn't expect it going in. I signed up for a story knowing that it would give me trouble with Latin, I didn't expect one that would give me trouble with Russian as well. And I can, and did, cheat to make sure the actual Latin wouldn't be too awful without having to carefully work through each and every saying on this very first draft. But how do you cheat at Russian? I don't know. And this bugs me, too, even in the English. I will at some point have to go through the dialogues with Ivan and Vsesalevich and strip out purely English colloquialisms.) The narrator, too, will need to be brought to the fore less clumsily, and parts of the story are absurdly rushed. Lots to revise, although I think the story is worth revising -- I like Aegidius himself, anyway, even if the story around him is a shambles. But this revision is all for down the road, because I'll set it aside for now.
Despite the fact that it took me forever to finish even such an absurdly messy first draft, I did manage to finish it, which is something. After a breather I'll restart Tanaver.
Incidentally,speaking of cheating at Latin, the Latin from Vicesimum Primum is, with some minor modification and reordering, from Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, which Giles has been quoting all the way through. Most of it is from Philosophy's diagnosis of Boethius's philosophical illness in Book I, Prose 6:
But there are sprinklings from elsewhere in the book.
But this question would I have you answer: do you remember that you are a man?' --`How can I but remember that?' --`Can you then say what is a man?' --`Need you ask? I know that he is an animal, reasoning and mortal; that I know, and that I confess myself to be.' --`Know you naught else that you are?' asked Philosophy. --`Naught,' said I. --`Now,' said she, `I know the cause, or the chief cause, of your sickness. You have forgotten what you are....'
