alexpgp | A habit formed early...

I did not quite understand just how much work was involved the day I agreed to undertake my first translation for pay.

The tale has been told before, but the short version is that a translation went missing in an issue of a journal that fell within my purview as "production editor" for Plenum Publishing Corporation. The technical editor turned his office upside-down looking for the missing article, to no avail. It was Friday, and too late to engage a new translator. I volunteered; my boss sneered, but gave me until Monday to come up with a translation, adding that if the technical editor didn't like it, I would not be paid.

I agreed. I delivered, and the technical editor said my work was actually better than what he usually saw from translators. It wasn't real "writing," but it paid money.

If you only knew what that first translation cost me, in terms of nervous energy.

I must have looked up every second word.

Twice.

I was reminded of this today, while working on The Partisan Job™, when I ran across a sentence in which a speaker is expressing himself in a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. Slang.

That kind of thing helped today be a mere 1600 word day, although I did do some of The Routine Stuff™ as well.

Other factors contributed to my lack of productivity, including a comedy of errors that included a key ring—no, make that two key rings, and a hammer, among other implements of destruction. It's a tale that must be carefully expanded into something to be cherished and passed down through the family for generations to come. Then again, perhaps I will wake up tomorrow and decide otherwise, who knows?

Cheers...