Finished. Again.

[desperance]

This last fortnight, I've been reading through & revising 'River of the World', by editorial request: basically cutting some of the wading-through-water passages (it's a very wet book, and much of it happens in the sewers of an alternate Istanbul) and fine-tuning the end. It's the kind of work that can feel like the definition of diminishing returns: the first time through, last month, I cut 36,000 words; this time, it took just as long and just as much concentration, and I cut 4,000 words. It is necessary, though, this second pass; you need the rough-cut of the first pass to take out the gross excess verbiage, before you can begin to see the true text peeping through. First you cut, then you polish; first you chisel, then you grind. Etc, for whatever craft you care to think about.

And then, in this craft, you get the copy-edited manuscript back, and you go through it again; and then you get the proofs, and you go through it again. All in too-short order. Surfeiting, the appetite sickens, and so dies; is it any wonder that very few of us revisit our own texts, once they're published? I've almost completely lost touch with the writer I used to be.

Still, the revised text has gone off now (two weeks early, for which I expected praise and credit and love; what did I get? An out-of-office autoreply. Sigh...) and for the rest of the day I can be that completely different kind of writer, the kind that doesn't actually have to write anything. I'm going to Sunderland, to look at something new of Bryan Talbot's, and then to eat and drink and be happy. Grindstones are tomorrow's promise; tonight we blunt our noses.

Comments

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Proaobly, yes, but you mentioned reading through (throughreadings? readthroughs? Argh, whatever...). The piecemeal tango is a different thing. I hear some people can dash off brilliant stuff that doesn't require tinkering and fidgeting and adjusting and testing as one goes along. I'm not one of them; reading and re-reading a specific paragraph, sentence or word is in itself part and parcel of the process.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Probably, yes, but you mentioned reading through (throughreadings? readthroughs? Argh, whatever...).

You're right, I did; and yes, four times is minimum and therefore optimal. First draft, read through, rework for my own satisfaction; second draft, read through and rework for editorial satisfaction; copy-edit, read through to put back all the necessary stuff that the copy-editor has taken out; proofs, to find all the dreadful errors that have somehow eluded me throughout all of the above.

Seriously, does the process of translation need more than that?

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

It depends on the book, sometimes it depends on the deadline. But, yes, four times is optimal, and more is better, on some books.

First draft sets down the whole bulk I'll work on, second passage corrects the inevitable mistypings, too-quick readings, skipped sentences or paragraphs, sets some words back with the knowledge gained through working out the problems on the first pass, determines whether it's content or sound, or both, that matter at such and such point.

Third one polishes the style with the original out of sight, so that the text can sound as if it had been originally written in the new language.

Fourth is getting back to the original where I have strayed too far in the third phase, and trying to snip the last typos that are still nested here (some shall slip through, nonetheless: death, taxes and typos).

Afterwards, I go back and polish, and try to refine all the subtleties of the original I've ferreted out, trying to get the right word. Comes a point where I'm just switching words back and forth, and that's when I consider there's nothing more I can do.

Of course, once the book is out of my hands, all the regrets start flocking in. But that's what proof correcting is for. Besides, it's all a variation on post-partum depression, I think. The minute there's nothing more I can do, I become convinced my translation is utter crap.

Beginnings are best. Endings are something you have to endure.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Hey! That's five full readthroughs (or whatever), then!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It is. That proves it: you work harder than I do. Why do I feel guilty about this?

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

No idea! It's not a competition, and *you* have to think up the actual story, while I just have to follow the dots. Not the same animal.

Remember, I was just saying I probably *read* the text more than the author does!