Ugh. I have writers block. But, it’s not like a normal writers block. It all works out perfectly fine when I write in english (which is my second language) or in RPs at the forum. But… then I try to write in Swedish, my first language, which the story I am currently writing on is written in (and I have a really important deadline for that!). And… suddenly everything I write in Swedish just sucks. Like, it really sucks. Suddenly all my talent for writing is completely gone. Ugh, what should I do? The deadline is just getting closer, and it’s really important that I finish it before that.
It’s the downside to being bilingual (and almost multilingual), I guess. But it’s still annoying.
Practice writing more in Swedish, take a break from your English stories and roleplays for a bit and write as much as you can and the best you can in Swedish. I'm sure if you focus your attention on your Swedish writing it will get better.
Yeah, thanks… hopefully it will.
Try writing in Comic Sans if you can. That's always improved my creativity when I'm in desperate need
I totally get that feeling. Its so frustrating knowing what you're capable of and just not being able to do it because the language you need to do it in is different. What makes it so difficult, i think, is that you worked out your style and the way you like to do it in English over many years, and style is just really hard to emulate across languages. Especially as grammar is automatically different, and vocabulary is usally so much more limited in comparison to english (did you know it has over 20000 more words than most other languages on this planet?)
Anyways, to strategies: maybe figuring out what your style is defined by in English, and then trying to find ways to do it similarly in swedish. For example, if you usually use slang in english, use slang in your swedish writing. Or if your description usually has longer sentences than other parts of your writing, try to keep that. It will make writing in swedish a little bit more comfortable, hopefully, because you get to keep some of the habits and things you enjoy.
Another thing I've seen bilinguals around me do (and have, admittedly, done myself) is just cave, write it in english first, and then translate. One danger of that though is losing the voice your narrator has/making weird grammar mistakes because of translating word for word. So if you do do it this way, just be aware of the pitfalls and avoid them.
I know it's frustrating, but hopefully these things might make it a bit easier/more fun. Oh, one more fun thing to do, is use all the weird sayings and euphemisms you can only do in swedish, just for fun. I mean its not like they'd be easy to integrate in any of your english stories, so its sort of like a cool opportunity ;)
Anyways all the best for your writing!
Thanks! Those are actually great tips. It’s like, I was great at writing in Swedish as well just a month ago but then I started using this forum and using English over here all the time, and ever since I started with that I haven’t actually written a single word on my Swedish story. Then I tried to continue it and suddenly it sucked. I’ll try your tips, they seem usefull!
I'm glad they seem useable, now just to test if they actually are ;)
