Before I say anything else I want to point out that this is a decision I've been trying to make for a long while already.
I will stop translating my poems for now. How long that break will be, I cannot predict. I haven't made any deadlines or decided on any dates but this decision stands as long as it seems appropriate, as long as I feel like this.
I don't know if any of you feels disappointed because of that or any of you wants to know why but in case you do, I want to explain my decision to you shortly. Or not-shortly-at-all, I think.
I've been writing like crazy for the past autumn and winter. And yes, there're several reasons for that but I don't want to get into them in public. Nor do I want to talk about them in private. But I've been typing and typing like a lunatic, roughly 30 poems per month (though my record for last year is 41 poems in 31 days.). This has been going on for months now and I don't see an end to this in the near future. All of those poems have been in Finnish. (Plus I wrote and won NaNoWriMo this year, too. That's over 100 pages.) Sith Fisto is a busy university student and she's supposed to graduate this summer which leaves her very little time to translate my poems. I also know that my poems have grown longer and harder to interpret, too. She's been doing her best but she has a life of her own and I haven't paid her anything during the 1 ½ years she's been doing this. She's a real gem but unfortunately my creativeness is overpowering her. As well as me, because I don't have the time, will or energy to translate my poems myself. I've tried but I really, really don't even want to do it.
Nowadays I write my poems to myself and not for the audience. When I first started my English blog in 2008 (what a kid I was back then) all I wanted was recognition, feedback and readers. That's why I also started translating my poems, too. And I got all that I wanted, for a while. I also found dA and started posting my poems there as well which gained me even more, though more occasional, readers. It was wonderful and all I could have asked for. But then... I grew more mature, I'd say. I stopped craving for that attention so badly and I realized it can't be the reason why I write. Writing is like breathing or eating to me, I don't have to think or work hard to do it but I wouldn't function without it. And during the last year it became more and more obvious as I started to deal with my personal life and emotions through my poetry, my art.
I don't have that many readers in Finnish but actually it's fine. Right now I can't bring myself to be interested in anyone's opinions. Translating my poems was really just a way to reach more people and as I'm not interested in that anymore, translating seems unnecessary.
I'm not saying that I don't appreciate you, my dear readers. I've loved every comment I've received and sometimes they've really cheered me up when I've felt bad about myself. You've been really important to me but right now... I just don't have what it takes.
I've also felt that my poems just can't be translated perfectly into English. Even though Sith Fisto is really good at what she's doing, something is always lost on the way. The poems are not the same after they've been translated. I write in Finnish in purpose because Finnish is a perfect, the most suitable way for me to express myself. English just doesn't really compliment my work. It frustrates both me and Sith even though I don't know whether she's such a perfectionist as I am.
I will keep writing, there's no doubt about that. I just won't be publishing anything here. Perhaps I'll start again when the time is right and when I've found my passion and drive for translating and reaching out for the rest of the world again. But right now I want to concentrate on my original pieces, the Finnish ones.
I'm really sorry but this is something I had to do. It's nothing you did, absolutely no because you didn't let me down. My interests just changed. My life in total changed.
