Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Russian Translation Unearthed

So there I was--cleaning up my iMac hard drive and deleting off various junk that I'd acquired when I stumbled upon something surprising. Although I'd paid for the Russian language translation of Alphabet All-Stars: Be Safe This Halloween, I'd forgotten that I'd done the same for another widely-translated title of mine: I Love You, Teddy. At first I thought it was a mistake. I'm pretty good when it comes to these types of things, or so I thought. But after I opened the file and scanned it over, I confirmed the embarrassing discovery--that I really did have all the necessary text to publish a new work of fiction.

How do these things happen? Well, life happens. And when you stop writing for weeks or months at a time, it's easy for these things to fall through the cracks.

But a complete translation, really? I know, it's bad. What can I say? Dementia runs in the family. (And I won't even comment about the short story that I'd forgotten I'd written and had to read through to the end because I had no idea where it was going.)

So upon discovery, I swore that I wouldn't delay any longer. The title would get done, that very day if possible, but likely the following day. Now it's 99% done, and I'm just waiting for a Russian friend to look it over and give me the go ahead to publish it. It's a simple bilingual book, and if I remember correctly, the translator did a good job the last time around. (Or I'm confusing him with someone else and am in for a nasty surprise when my Russian friend gets back to me with a list of corrections. Hey, these things happen.)

Whatever the case, I'm glad I finally did something with it. Not only was there a small sum of money invested, someone invested their time to get the translation done and open the door to a whole new audience. I hate that I dragged my feet on it, but it's done. Almost. Soon...

Until then, enjoy the cover I put together--which looks exactly like the other variations of the same title, but with funky characters. (And who doesn't like funky characters, right?)