Hello. I'm Gustavo, from Rio. I'm a Latinist, and I've been having ideas for a book about Romans in the imperial period. It's a long project, but one that interests me. I've written something before, not much, and not good. Let's see what comes from this Roman project... I'm not fluent in Latin yet. I'm trying... English was easier to learn... As a writer, I consider myself a beginner. I hope I'll find people to interact with here, to exchange, to learn. That's about it. See you around.
Ps. I intend to write in my native language, which is Portuguese. I'm definitely not yet able to write effectively in Latin... Portuguese will be more natural. I could try to write the stories in English, but there's no reason to do so with these stories, and it would be challenging too (although I think I could get to do so, in the end, but it wouldn't sound so natural, because it's a second language after all, and I believe people can tell I'm a foreigner...).
@meisenimverbis, I would recommend you write in Portuguese and sprinkle some Latin words in there for flavor. That is what I did with The Eagle and the Dragon, a Novel of Rome and China. That was set in 100AD, and wound up being of epic proportions, 240K words, 550 pages. However, it is doing well and has won several awards. BTW I get the 'even words" in your user name but "meis"?
lol I'm not fluent in Latin, so writing in Latin was never the idea... (Although I'd love to...) Meis goes with verbis. Meum verbum, mea verba, meis verbis. Enim has mostly no meaning... Even would be right, or for, or because... In Portuguese it's pois (for, therefore). Meis enim verbis, "for in my words" or "therefore, in my words", or simply "in my words". I use it for my (main) twitter account. Thanks for the welcome!
I should have known that!!! Dative, dative, dative! Good luck on your work. I liked to use original Latin for interesting words, always followed by translation on first use, like "He rode with a vexillation detachment of cavalry." A vexillatio was a detachment of troops from a legion sent on a special mission, or to another area to support someone else. It is related to English vex, to annoy, and I had a humorous aside where two soldiers were discussing how they picked soldiers for such duty, "the worst ne-er-do-wells, cowards and thieves, promoted one to centurion and sent them off hoping they would never return." Putting together a detachment to support someone else must have been a big annoyance for a legion commander
Portuguese has a different relationship with Latin than English, and it's my intention to break a few vices. (It's ablative, by the way... "in/by my words". Dative would be "to my words".)
That's okay. Dative and ablative always have the same form in the plural... Singular is better marked, plural is -is or -bus for both cases. So meis verbis is both dative and ablative, without a context. It was I who said what I meant with it, but a Roman would wait the rest of the sentence to find out what I were trying to say. lol