This is a response to Rick Harrison's blog on conlangs being "in the
shop." I suppose I'm not the only one who tweaks their conlang. I even
have a list of "tweaks" needed or planned or made that I need to
remember. I'm just curious to hear from others how much of this goes
on and how you deal with it.
In my case, Tsajan, I've spent years and years tweaking it. I actually
thought I had it finished at one point - about a year ago - and I
started dreaming up conlangs II,III and even IV, V and VI. Then, I
got looking at my original conlang, the one I'd spent all those years
perfecting, and suddenly realized I didn't like it. I didn't like the
way it sounded. With some reluctance, knowing, as Rick said, how
difficult it would be to live without it while it was "in the shop"
for major repairs (in this case), I had to stop using it was fixed.
Well, actually, I didn't stop using it. I just quit using it as much,
knowing anything I wrote would need to be changed once I figured out
how I really wanted it to sound. Anyway, it took me... Oh, maybe six
months to a year, I guess. I was in a hurry, of course, but I knew to
be patient, and just let it come naturally. And then just a couple
weeks ago, I made some final tweaks, and realized I'd actually
finished it. Okay, finished is such a strong word. But the tweaks now
are so very minor - I can attribute them to the natural growth of a
language over time (so what if my language evolves over weeks and
months instead of over years and centuries?) But now it's "out of the
shop" and I can use it again. And I like it even more now than I ever
did.
Anyone else care to share their story? I'd also be curious to hear if
anyone else's conlangs have a set of fundamental rules or a guiding
philosophy that are unassailable - no matter what other tweaks or
changes you might think of, these are never challenged. They're like
the core of what makes that particular conlang what it is.
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