Latest news with #creativeWriting
Health Line
12-06-2025
- Health
- Health Line
How to Preserve Your Sense of Self in a Relationship
If you are in a relationship, you may find that your sense of self is not as strong as it may have been when you were single. Here are four actions you can take to improve your sense of self. Your sense of self is your perception of the collection of characteristics that define you. If you are in a relationship, especially a long-term relationship, you may feel that you have lost some of your own identity. While this is natural and OK, there are a few things you can do to preserve or rebuild your sense of self. Maintain separate hobbies It's important to continue engaging in the hobbies and activities you like—or even pick up new ones that interest you—even if your partner does not like them. Moreover, hobbies can be beneficial for your overall health. A 2023 study of over 90,000 older adults found that those who engaged in hobbies experienced: fewer depressive symptoms increased levels of self-reported health higher levels of happiness greater life satisfaction If your personal health and happiness improve, it can also benefit your relationship. Doing what you love is also important for feeling a personal sense of fulfillment and contentment, and you should not give it up completely. Hobbies you can start (or pick up again!) If you are looking for something new to invest time into, you may consider some of the following: journaling or scrapbooking crocheting reading yoga or meditation walking or running creative writing painting or sketching cooking volunteering See your friends It can be easy to spend all of your time with your partner, especially if you live together. While spending time with each other is important, it is also equally important to maintain the other relationships in your life. A 2018 study found that strong friendships can help you cope with stress more effectively and decrease your risk of encountering stress in the first place. Another 2023 study found that friendships may improve your overall well-being and offer emotional security. Friendships can offer things that your relationship may lack. For example, your friends may enjoy doing different activities or talking about different topics with you than your partner. Overall, friendship is a different and needed kind of bond that is important to have in your life. Carve out your own spaces If feasible, having space to yourself in your living area can be beneficial. This area can be as large as an office or hobby room, or simply a designated chair in the corner of the living room that is viewed as your space. The idea is that when you are in this space, you can have time to yourself. It is ultimately your call on how much contact you want from your partner in this space—you may allow them to pop in if they knock, or tell them not to disturb you unless there is an emergency. Whether it is not feasible to have your own space in your home or you just want additional space for yourself, you can also carve out your own spaces outside of your home. This can mean going to cafes, stores, parks, or libraries by yourself. Communicate The key to all of the above recommendations is to communicate clearly with your partner. Be transparent about what you are thinking and feeling, and clear about what you need from them. The same should go for them. Establishing boundaries can be difficult at first if you have not established any boundaries with them previously. However, letting them know exactly what it is that you want can help them see your point of view and help you reach that goal. Your partner may also be able to offer insight into your own sense of self. They know you well, and they can share their perspective about what makes you, you.
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I dropped a C-bomb into Tolstoy': one man's quest to translate War and Peace into ‘bogan Australian'
'Bloody hell, Prince Vasíli, Genoa and Luca are pretty much just Napoleon's holiday homes now,' reads the opening line of Leo Tolstoy's seminal epic, War and Peace. It goes on to depict a 19th century St Petersburg populated by 'posh wankers', 'complete drongos', 'gorgeous sheilas' and 'massive pissheads'. They 'talk shit', give 'zero fucks' and drink 'cuppas', and before long, soldiers start 'fanging about'. Astute readers may twig that this is not Tolstoy's original Russian prose, published in 1869, or any of the widely available English translations now in the public domain. This is the 'bogan Australian' edition by Ander Louis, the pen name of a 39-year-old IT analyst and father of two based in Victoria. 'In 2019 I had no kids and no job, so a lot of time to pursue silly things,' Louis explains over Zoom from his family home in Melbourne's outer north. Louis had first read War and Peace just a few years earlier. He had always loved literature, self-publishing several novels and teaching creative writing to school groups – where he would jokingly tell kids that every aspiring writer needed to read Tolstoy's 150-year-old classic. 'But none of them do, myself included,' he laughs. The 1,200-page tome had always seemed 'unapproachable'. Then, in 2017, he joined a Reddit group that pledged to crack it in a year, communally reading one of its 361 chapters per day. What started as a challenge became a revelation, and soon Louis set out to translate his new favourite book into a more familiar lexicon, line by line. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Louis had grown up between Lilydale in the Yarra Valley and the coastal town of Wonthaggi, raised on a 90s diet of TISM, Full Frontal, meat pies and footy clubs, where Strine was like a first language among his extended family. 'It's a huge family tree, and there's a lot of bogans in there, all different types and shapes, which is a beautiful thing,' he says. 'It's a very specific and very informal vernacular [to use] as a lens to filter through this, like, aristocratic Russian novel. It's just kind of inherently funny.' Using an out-of-copyright 1922 translation as a source, he found Australia's earthy slang and class signifiers were strangely well-suited to Tolstoy's world. 'There is a spectrum of bogan, they're not all alike. There's a whole bunch of different types of bogan, so I wanted to have different characters roughly line up with different types of bogans. 'Tolstoy wrote the book 60 years after it's set, so the narrator in the book is actually anachronistic – he is able to refer to things that happened after the events of the book. So [my] narrator will refer in his analogies to, you know, a Four'N Twenty pie or a Ford Falcon – things that did not exist in 1800s Russia.' Neither did terms like 'strewth', 'a shit tonne' or the uniquely Australian usage of 'cunt'. Louis saved the latter's first appearance for Prince Anatole – a character hated by many readers, who Louis calls a 'total dipshit'. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion 'There was a weird sense of pride when I dropped a C-bomb into Tolstoy's War and Peace,' he laughs. At times the 347 pages he has translated so far recall the glut of remixed classics that flooded bookshops after the success of 2009's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. But Louis clearly isn't doing this for the money – the first two books were completed largely for the amusement of himself and a few strangers online, before he essentially abandoned it after becoming a parent. Then, in April, the American tech writer Leah Reich stumbled across Louis' work on Reddit, calling it a 'wormhole back to a different Internet. A better, more human Internet.' She posted an excerpt on Bluesky, and overnight he saw more ebook sales than in the previous six years. 'I think it's a beautiful thing to imagine that maybe some people that would have never read this book might now,' he reflects, still surprised by the sudden interest after Reich's widely shared post. 'I actually wanted it to be a real translation – that when you read my copy, you've still read War and Peace. The difference is now it's got an Aussie accent, and a little bit of humour injected into it, which breaks down that barrier.' Now Louis hopes to revive the once-dead project – he only has 14 books left to go. 'A lot of my favourite scenes in the book are yet to come,' he says. 'And then there are chapters that I remember finishing and going, 'What the hell was that?' 'I don't know what I'm gonna do when I get to those … but I've got a long time to figure that out.' Follow War and Peace: a new bogan translation on Ander Louis' Instagram and website
South China Morning Post
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
André Chiang on Raffles Singapore homecoming as chef and writer, and why hotel is a mosaic
Raffles Hotel Singapore has named Taiwanese chef André Chiang, best known for his genre-defying modern French cuisine at the now-closed Restaurant André, as its newest writer-in-residence. Advertisement The hotel has long been associated with literary greats such as Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad, who were among its earliest guests. The programme, launched in 2019 and now in its fourth edition, was designed to nurture creative writing talent. Chiang follows in the footsteps of Oxford-born travel writer Pico Iyer , Singaporean poet Madeleine Lee, and New Zealand author and journalist Vicki Virtue. Notably, he will be the first chef to take part in the programme. Chiang's new book Fragments of Time will be sold at Raffles Singapore and online. Photo: Raffles Hotel Singapore As part of the project, Chiang has produced Fragments of Time, a 200-page meditation on heritage, light and the art of preserving tradition. Advertisement
