One Peril of the Publishing Industry:

Lead time.

There's that expression that goes: "Hurry up and wait." That is the publishing industry, from an author or translator's perspective.

You hurry up to get that manuscript to your editor...and then wait nine months to see it in print.

You get super stressed about finishing it, and tweaking it to perfection, and you're so excited/relieved when you finally do...only to put all that excitement on hold for the marketing push next season.

Or even before contracts are signed, you translate a new sample or write a new story as fast as you can to send out to all the magazines and literary journals and agents that you can...and then try not to sit around waiting for the response to hit your inbox, because it won't come for a very long time.

Then, when everything's done and you're finally ready to share your work with the world, and accolades start coming in...you're not allowed to publicize the reviews until they get published, which could be days or weeks after you're notified about them.

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In my younger days in a children's chorus, we worked with a wonderfully eccentric performance artist. At lunch one day, he got everybody's attention, because he wanted to share a poem with us. "It's called, 'Waiting,'" he said. He cleared his throat. Exhaled slowly. Gazed at the ceiling in preparation. Took a sip of water. Made eye contact with every single person gathered around the table. Stood up. Straightened his vest, brushed the crumbs off of his vest. Planted his feet in a firm stance. Clasped his hands in front of him. Took a deep breath.

And bowed, to giggles and a rapid crescendo of applause.

That was it. And it's the only poem I remember in its entirety from before age 15.

Hurry up and wait.

Hey, it worked!

Well, Sandy came in. And left again. Left quite the wide swath of destruction behind her. I'm one of the lucky ones. We're high and dry in an inland suburb of NJ, on a hill. No flooding. Also, no downed trees, which were the big worry, with the giant pines in the backyard.

We still have no power, but we have running water. Running hot water. Oh glory hallelujah. Seriously. And gas, too. We've cooked at least one hot meal a day so far. And, there's a fireplace, where we've had a roaring fire for the last two nights. Power and internet are starting to be found, and cafes and the library. Life is actually pretty good.

AND! Here's the other thing! My goal to do more work, more uninterrupted work, has actually been achieved! I've finished the first draft of a big project, most of which was using pen and paper. I've fleshed out much more of a second project. And I've even done a lot of research on pirates -- I had borrowed some library books over a month ago, lugged them places with the intention to read them, and never had. And now, I'm done with an entire book, and halfway through the next, with rich new treasure troves of vocabulary and linguistic ideas to show for it.

Life is really good.

Sandy offers peace and quiet, if you know where to look...

Some eagle-eyed readers will know that I live on the Eastern Seaboard of the US, just a few short miles away from where the exact center of Hurricane Sandy is scheduled to pass over within the next day or two. I was trained well for emergency situations, and I was in NYC during Hurricane Irene last year, so my preparations for this storm have entailed checking the stock of flashlights and batteries (fine), non-perishable food (one more tin of nuts would be nice, but otherwise fine), water (another couple of gallons bought), and figuring out the safest place to be in the house if trees start coming down (the basement -- no other rooms of this house are windowless). Now, I get to sit back and enjoy the storm.

I would actually be okay if the power went out, which is a pretty likely situation. All the loose ends on my computer have been tied up as of an hour ago. While it would pretty much suck to be without electricity and Internet for a while, not only am I prepared to deal with it, but that kind of situation would greatly diminish the amount of distractions during the workday.

Call it a house-arrest/forced writer's retreat. I could sit down with a good, ol'-fashioned pen and notebook, and really concentrate hard on translating. On the voice, and the rhythm, and the word choice, finding things from my own brain, instead of relying on the crutch of online dictionaries and thesauruses (thesauri? whatever).

Maybe it's nostalgia for a simpler time that never existed; maybe it's a burning curiosity to see if I really can be persuaded to work without the onslaught of my usual tools; maybe it's just wishful thinking. Here's the thing -- everyone will be staying home from work tomorrow. Everyone will be here. And bored.

Distractions galore.

Oh well. Maybe I can retreat to a dark corner of the house and blow out my candle. No one will find me then!

How Do I Procrastinate?

Let me count the ways...

1. Reading the New Yorker.
2. Facebook.
3. RSS blog feed.
4. Funny things on the Internet.
5. The Internet. Period.
6. Singing along to the radio.
7. Staring at a blank Word document.
8. Staring at a French document I'm supposed to be translating.
9. Reading all the novels I'm currently enthralled in.
10. Eating yogurt and kettlecorn and fruit and hopefully not too many Reese's.
11. Composing a blog post.

How do I deal with procrastination, let me count the ways:

1. Standing up and stretching.
2. Shutting down the Internet.
3. Going for a quick walk.
4. Making a to-do list to cross things off of.
5. Feeling guilty that I'm not working.
6. Doing laundry.
7. Spreading out my workweek to fewer daytime hours, more evening and weekend hours. (It still averages 40-45 hours/week, or more.)
8. Picking one of those long-term business tasks to work on (mostly marketing and grant applications).
9. Composing a blog post.

Good. Now it's time for a walk.

Behind the Scenes of Walking the Walk

Setting:  Doing a translation of a French cantata libretto for a chorus' December concert, for program insert and possible supertitles.

What they see:

After a conversation in which I try convince them that a more complex (read: not as literal) translation is preferable, citing poetic flow and the like, I offer to do a sample of the well-known lullaby-like section to prove my point, that the rhyme scheme can kept intact without sounding forced.

They receive the sample shortly thereafter, and see that yes, indeed, the rhyme scheme makes it easier to read, without sounding disjointed.

What actually happens between the two events:

Oh FRACK rhyming is hard, I mean I knew this already but it's still hard, where's that rhyming dictionary gone to, oh FINE now which of these rhyming websites works best, WHY isn't there a rhyme for "angel" besides "archangel" because that just defeats the purpose, this doesn't make any sense anymore, I've completely lost the original meaning, well crap, start over, okay, now here's a list of all the words that could possibly be at the end of this line so do ANY of them match up with ANY other words that could possible be at the end of the NEXT line? no? okay, square one, right then, time to MAKE UP WORDS, English is stupid anyway, it's so freaking hard to rhyme in English, I mean, mother and father are fine feminine rhymes but that sounds so WEAK and the original libretto is so simple here so why is it so HARD in another language? oh right. translation. hard. fun, yes? fun? I guess, sometimes, maybe, so wait, can you make "lowly" rhyme with "woe" and "grow," maybe if it's at the end of the first line which runs into the second so you can fudge a bit and say that the second syllable really belongs to the second line not the first because that obviously makes TOTAL SENSE (sarcasm) (but maybe not, because Shakespeare did that, or did he only do that with different words of the same sentence, not different syllables of the same word) oooooh, hey, "abhorred" is a good word, but maybe it doesn't work in context, maybe it's too complex of a word, but WHY is it too complex? the "b" next to the "h" is unusual? it doesn't look English? or just that no one uses it ever, even though it's only two syllables, so maybe it's not that complex after all...hmm, I wish I knew more about linguistics, because there must be a way to quantify if a word is complex or not, and I wonder how many variables there would be, and if they take its usage in common speech into account -- STOPIT. you're rhyming, not leading a research on word complexity, you chose THIS field, not computational linguistics. okay. translation. ooooh, "Lord" rhymes with "sword," and "abhorred" actually DOES work in context, this could be kinda cool.........

That happens.

On a loop.

For three days straight.

I love my job. :-)

Things I've Learned: Ask the questions that need asking

This starts with the contract. So many questions that you'll have along the way can be answered while discussing the contract. Feel free to start with the offered contract, or with the PEN model contract, and work from there. Figure out WHY things are done the way they are. For example, if your contract is a work for hire contract, that actually means that you'll most likely have little to no say in the editing process, for better or for worse. But ask up front. "How involved will I be expected and allowed to be in the editing process?" Will I ever see my translation between the final draft and the published book?

Another thing: payment. Maybe you're going to get paid upon final delivery. Great. But is that payable on receipt? Is it Net 30? You'll feel better if you know when your money is coming in, and if you know it sooner rather than later.

Next, before you even start translating, talk to the editor. After you've read the book send her/him a list of stylistic questions. "How do you want me to handle the historical present tense?" "How much slang are you comfortable with this character using in English? There are equivalents to XYZ in the original."

Just ask. Ask your editor, the admin assistant, anyone who's involved. Don't be afraid of asking stupid questions, because chances are, they'll all be important at some point.

P.S. This was a tough love letter to myself. Dear Allison, I'm writing to you. Fix your mistakes. Learn from them. Do better next time. I know you can.

Exit Waking World, Enter Subconscious

I had a very vivid dream this morning just before my alarm clock went off.  It was an Indiana-Jones-meets-video-games puzzle, a carnival booth in a dank cave in which I had to open a chest in order to receive my prize, or move onto the next level, or not die (dreams are sometimes weirdly non-specific about motivations).  There were pressure plates, and supplies for small explosives, and pulleys and levers, and buckles and snaps, and lots of sand.  And an egg, but I don't think that's relevant. I had to use contextual clues to figure out how to open the chest, plus a healthy dose of trial-and-error.  What happens if I connect this buckle to this pulley, then to this pressure plate?  Nothing explodes?  Okay.  What if I connect all six pressure plates to the same weight?  The chest moves closer?  Great.

Of course I woke up before the dream ended, but I'm still intrigued.  Puzzles!  Logic!  Mental tests!  Tips from the context!  Trial and error!

Oh.  I must be translating literature again.

:-)

Just Say No

Drugs are harmful to your body.  Just say "no" when offered them.  It's as simple as that.  Or so all elementary-aged American children were told in the 80s and 90s.  Simple?  Maybe.  Peer pressure builds up, though. Now, we're older.  Some of us are freelancers.  Sometimes, we get offered jobs -- or offered the possibility of jobs -- that we know we shouldn't take.  Why?  We'll have to deal with demeaning project managers.  The work is mindless.  We'd be translating very poorly written copy from the source language.  We'll lose an entire night's sleep to get the job done.  It's harmful to our bodies, and to our sanity, and especially to our happiness.

Even so, when a new agency approached me with the offer of possibly working together, we haggled on rates a bit, I listed my specializations (at their request, which is important for later), and I agreed to do a small test for them.  I stipulated that, since the test would be unpaid, I'd only do a small one, less than 250 words.  A reasonable amount of work for a test.

They then sent me three tests to choose from (nice!).  But wait...all the tests were over 500 words, and none of them fell even remotely within my specializations.

Enter the psychological pressure: "I'd really like the work."  The brain rushes through countless excuses for why I should just buckle down and slog through the test, but they all boil down to "I'd really like the work."

Let's be clear.  I don't know if I'd get any work, or if I'd be at all qualified for the work I'd receive (based on these tests), or if I'd enjoy the work that I was qualified for.  But still, brain goes, "I'd really like the work."

Fortunately, I have an Other Half.  He reminds me that I can, in fact, overrule my worried brain with logic.  What's the point of doing a long, unpaid test that may lead to work that's most likely not in my area that I probably wouldn't enjoy for a lower rate than I normally charge?  None.  There's no point at all.

Just say no.

(Do so respectfully, of course.  But just say no.)