The exercise for this week is write a second scene in which the couple and the new neighbors (from last week's exercise) interact at a social gathering of some sort (a block party, BBQ, public pool, etc).

@Reg Would you help me please?

I'd like to know if the Russian bits of this story sound natural, or if they holler "some girl who doesn't speak Russian wrote this!" It's short.

The password is meowkitty.

@Mr.Shiny You can tell me what you think too, if you like.

I glanced over it and then remembered that I don't understand Russian. And I literally thought "Kit! At least do it in Chinese!"

Haha. Chinese doesn't have the same mystique.

But it should be readable without knowing Russian.

Chinese doesn't have mystique? It's like, totally mystique! That's why they keep using it

> I couldn’t sleep,” she said, “But the darkness came for me anyway.

"anyway"?

The darkness comes in her sleep, you see.

And this theme just fits Russian better than Chinese.

I'm sure you have your reason for having a russian spider in your story.

I don't think the spider is Russian.

But anyway, it is certainly not Chinese.

There are three more parts in my head.

It's kind of different than what I usually write.

You should put "to be continued" at the end of all your drafts so that we know if we should reserve judgement on the story or not. :)

You don't need to reserve judgment. I have a thick skin.

That isn't what I mean. I mean, it's hard to know if I should try to judge the writing based on it being a complete work or a fragment. Because the criteria are different. Also what you can read into a fragment is different. So if it doesn't fully make sense, that might be ok.

@KitFox I think I have no objections. Everything seems to flow smoothly and naturally. You might wish to cross-check it with Vit, though. He's more immersed in the language. In particular, I'm not sure if сестрёнка suggests an age difference smaller than you had in mind. I'd ask my wife but she's not fluent in English, so it's pointless.

Oh, and there is of course no need to capitalize Баюшки.)))

Like, the title. I read the title as being the russian guy and an allusion to a certain spider-loving russian we used to know. But now you're saying there's more to it. So I have to discard my earlier opinion.

@RegDwightАΑA I wouldn't know a capital from a hole in the ground.

Баю-баюшки-баю, не ложися на краю.

Lo and compare.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 There is something to that, but I don't want to be presumptuous. Let's say there is a certain amount of inspiration only.

^A capital that's a hole in the ground

rofl

@RegDwightАΑA OK, so rounded is lowercase.

And did you get that he thought the movement in his living room might be his cat?

@KitFox Yes

or rather, might not be his cat

Sweet. Parfait.

@KitFox yes.

It's gonna take me forever to learn Cyrillic.

Here's a better capital hole (same city: Guatemala City)

it doesn't even look real

OK, I have to head home. Thank you both for taking the time to look at that for me.

np

that looks like an amazing game

Oh, it is!

Even my wife plays it. And she never plays any other video games. She refuses to so much as touch the controller.

You can get it on Xbox 360 Arcade for like five bucks. Perhaps ten.

if I had an xbox 360, I could