for Tracker had been transmitted electronically just before the big computer blow-up, and I’d flat forgotten. My e-mail is still wonky: I never know whether something has been sent or not, and sometimes it has and sometimes it perhaps hasn’t.
At any rate, yesterday I got a frantic call about ‘where’s the galleys?’ and had to drop everything and re-read Tracker for errors in the final, galley-type pdf. Started yesterday, reading for things like periods instead of commas as well as bad hyphenation divisions between pages and outright oopses in the text, so it’s a different kind of reading than just reading. Tiring.
I got on it about 3pm yesterday and finished the whole book about 1pm today. And the corrections, about 15 in number, are phoned in and made the deadline. It’s going to production as of 5pm Eastern.
Now I feel as if I deserve a vacation, and have Bren’s I’ve-been-working-hard headache. But I need to get back to the book I was writing, which was right at a major turning point.
It’s sure a lot easier than it was before the industry started going from computer scripts, which is why it’s a real good thing to be good at punctuation and spelling in this career. Thank goodness for a language background.
Did I mention we’ve had the first Great Blue Heron of spring? I think the season is headed in that direction. He flew off, disgusted by the netting that covers the pond. The koi have begun to put their noses out. But we’re still wearing down coats.
Grey and overcast here, and has been for a week: humidity quite high. Spring in the Inland Empire, on the skirts of the Selkirks, and between the Spokane and the Palouse rivers. It’s wet.
Jane just came in, after I’ve heard drilling and fastening as she puts up shelves. Seems we have a ceiling that isn’t flat. And her overhead calc is, after drilling, apparently not exact. Mmm. Frustrating.
Her computer memory which was supposed to be winging its way here has not been through a Post Office scanner in, oh, three days. We are giving it a little grace for the big Eastern storm with delay of planes—but pretty soon we’re going to need to complain.
My computer is functioning fairly well, except the mail thing. Thank goodness: if I had lost the file, we would have missed deadline, and there would be 15 mistakes in Tracker which now will not be there.
So a productive day, give or take my mail, Jane’s ceiling, and missing memory chip. I am asking myself if I really want salad for supper—I am getting very tired of Caesar dressing and spinach salad and chicken. But if I cook the chicken with curry spice, I think I can tolerate another go. Lynn A. gave us this lovely fig balsalmic I’ve fallen in love with, and pouring a little of that on (not Jane’s cuppa, but certainly mine!) may make it pretty darned good.
I have been dealing with the powers-that-be on another island, and am about to declare a pox on all bureaucracy. I am tired of having paperwork sent back for failure to cross and dot as required, for fairly manini issues that nonetheless prevent people from getting paid, etc. I tried to get a prescription refilled, only to be told that I must see my doctor for an office visit. Despite the ‘preventative maintenance’ aspect of it all, I don’t like going in unless I actually feel ill, which I don’t. All this cruft pales in comparison to trying to cope with having your main writing machine on the fritz, with a deadline looming.
No one who has been suffering thru East Coast weather wants to hear about January in HI 😀
The local herons are clever. I’ve seen them hanging out on the banks of the brackish streams here as kids feed the carp and whatnot, waiting for an incautious fish to surface while grabbing bread, then wham! Fish dinner, in more than one sense.
Try Oriental sesame dressing for a change of pace.
Wow, proofing a book the size of the Foreigner novels in one day is quite a feat! I haven’t timed myself lately for reading speed, and that differs from proofing and markup by a bit. I seemed to have a knack for it, though my vision was better then. It requires concentrating on the type, the glyphs, on one level, and the wording and stylistics on the higher level.
So great congratulations are in order for getting it done in a rush! Amazon is still aware I’d pre-ordered the ebook, and I think now it’s close enough, I can pre-order the hb without risk of the pre-order being dropped.
BTW, when I last looked about what was available in ebook formats, I saw Chanur’s Homecoming still hasn’t made it, but Chanur’s Legacy has. The two omnibus editions, the Chanur Saga and the Chanur Endgame, also haven’t made it yet. — However, all vmehoolumes of the Foreigner series to date are now out in ebook format, with Tracker forthcoming.
Um, any chance of Merchanter’s Luck, Finity’s End, or the Faded Sun trilogy in ebook format? (Pant, pant, pant.)
Meanwhile, the book search turned up an edition entitled simply, «Chanur» in French, with a very pulp-style cover. The cover, however, reverses the roles actually in the book. But its exuberant pulpiness and a desire to test my rusty French, had me order the book. Therefore, I’m about to take my Larousse and the book to bed to read a while. Oh-là-là! I’ll likely “have to” reread the Chanur books for, hmm, however many times that is by now. It’s my intention to make some notes, including if I discover any obvious typos. (I recall one edition of Pride or Venture had a couple of occurrences of Aia Jin instead of Aja Jin. I wouldn’t claim to know if there are typos in the ship-to-ship hani and mahen chiso, though. Heheh. I’m excited to see how well I do with the French edition.
—–
Chondrite surprised me by sending a small jar of mango jam, quite unexpected and quite welcome! It’s delicious! … But I’m out of tortiallas or bread until I either go to the store or use my bread machine. I think the bread machine may be busy this weekend. 😉
I had to toss some items from my pantry this week, and so I thank you for the reminder for vinegar, balsamic or otherwise. Mm, and Oriental sesame dressing sounds good. There was some plum sauce that also, alas, had to be tossed out. (Had a can go bad and didn’t know until too late. It left other cans and jars in, hmm, such dubious condition that I decided, better safe than sorry.)
This was a week for a mixed-up initial auto-pay that never took. So my gas was off over the weekend and hooked back up this week. This uncovered a minor problem with an electrical switch and a minor heater repair. But unless things improve greatly, still no expectation of an A/C compressor repair by the start of summer. Maybe-maybe I can improve my income enough before then to fix it, but I am expecting to, ah, embrace the “naturist lifestyle” this summer, within, ah, the privacy of my own home. Ahem. I’m anticipating a hot summer, because our winter has been weirdly too mild and warm, even for here.
Although I’m still feeling flummoxed about finances, I’m in a little better position now…except that income still hasn’t improved permanently.
So, well, progress is progress. Once that electrical switch is fixed, I’ll likely have dodged a more major issue down the line, sometime. One hopes. But once the initial fears of a massive bill were abated, aside from the A/C compressor, well, I’m making it again, month to month, and so I’m calmer now. (He claimed, and managed not to jitter.)
Again, much congratulations, and enjoy a good supper!
I’m off to read! À bientôt!
Hmmmm… I wonder if aia is a curse word in some mahen language or another…
Heheh, “Aia!” I could see some mahe not telling the hani translator program what that really meant!
I’ve always liked the mahendo’sat almost as much as the hani. I like the stsho better than when I’d first encountered them, when they seemed strange and well-done aliens, but (at the time) didn’t capture my interest quite as much. Over the years, they too have drawn me in. The kif, knnn, t’ca, and chi? All were most strange and amazing. (The 7×7 matrix-speech actually worked well, I thought.)
(You have no idea how many times I just fought with auto-incorrect about those alien words. Not hand or kid or inn or stash! … Rag-eared translator algorithm!) (It turns itself back ON regularly, despite my insistence I want it very much OFF, thanks.)
In looking more closely at the French edition, it is indeed a translation of The Pride of Chanur from J’ai Lu. The book has an unguessed history from its origin in France to when it arrived at my doorstep in Texas. The book was printed in around the mid-1980’s, not too long after Pride itself was published in America. At some point, the book crossed the Channel into England, from which it was sold to me by a used book seller on Amazon. It then crossed the Atlantic to arrive at an American port, and then to my city, with both international airports and a shipping channel leading to the Gulf of Mexico. (I’m in Houston, referring to the Houston Shipping Channel, which leads out near Galveston.)
In its many years, the book has been well read and well loved. Its cover is a bit creased and beaten up in places, but not severely so, and the spine, though bent, is not broken. The pages and cover are now old paper, but not so weathered as they might be. So I would say the book was cared for but read, before it wound up in a used book shop and then was sold and shipped to me.
The trip, first to a neighboring country and then across an ocean, passing through two to four ports by ship or plane, two languages and two dialects, fits the book’s tale.
I’ve found my French is better than I’d thought. Being familiar with the English text helped a great deal, though. I avoided picking up my Larousse for what I read last night (just a few pages before I got too sleepy) but tonight, I’ll have my dictionary handy and will make a few notes. Most of my French grammar knowledge is intact, but iffy on a few finer points now. It’s my working vocabulary that really needs expanding. I think I’ll look for a French-language 365 words a day calendar, something like that, or go through my Larousse as a new habit. I also need to brush up on my Spanish, which was about as good, back in college. A few of the words in the French text escaped me entirely; some, I am fairly sure of, but they likely have connotations I’m not thinking of. Then there were surprising cognates, either borrowed into English from French, or the other way around, which I hadn’t known about, and a few words for sailing that are surprisingly cognate. My accent is still good, but just as in college, I have what I think is an odd tendency to sound out letters that are silent in spoken French. (Written French and spoken French differ, because older forms were retained in spelling and as learned, literary usage, whereas spoken French has changed more rapidly in the past few hundred years. French spelling and sound correspondence are usually better and more consistent than English, but both languages are bad about overly-conservative spelling versus actually-spoken sounds in the current language. That, and French retains “literary tenses” not used at all in modern spoken French, but kept and still used somewhat in written French.)
CJ’s writing style makes for a challenging, college-level reading style in French, but holds up well in the translation so far.
I was amused, though: Reading as a francophone would read it, alien words come out very French instead of more English, and Meetpoint comes out as La Junction, the Junction, which is, after all, a point where things meet and connect. So kif becomes more like keef, hani becomes ‘ani, mahendo’sat becomes man-‘ahnh-doh-saht or possibly ‘aenh instead of ‘ahnh, Chanur becomes shah-newrh, and so on. The captain and crew are specifically female, because French nouns and adjectives are marked for gender (oh, I’ll bet they get confused with the stsho!) so we have «la capitaine» Pyanfar (p’yahnh-fahrrh) and kehr ‘Eelfee, and so on.
Even more interestingly, I wasn’t sure if it was a matter of noun/adj. agreement, or a careful nuance, but it seems that initially, the lurking alien creature is assumed to be female, at least in grammatical gender, but perhaps also in assumed natural (physical) gender. This would actually tend to fit with hani assumptions and world-view, even though hani like Chanur are well aware of mahen and kifish males as crew. This was a very fine touch for the translation, I thought, very fitting. I haven’t yet come across how they handle the mahen trade pidgin. That should be fun. Or the surprise when they see Tully is male, but not a berserker like hani males are assumed to be.
One item threw me a bit, and I don’t recall it and haven’t yet looked it up to be sure. L’équipage seems to refer to the crew, not equipment, which I think is l’équipement, now that I think of it.
An English note: My NeoOffice Writer’s spellchecker tries to insist that crewman, crewmen are single words, but that crew woman and crew member ought to be two words each. I think I’m going to have to customize it to insist otherwise. It’s aware of starship and starships, but not starbase, starbases as single words. One suspects the programmers need to read more science fiction. However, they do appear to know some genre words, or else those are (surprisingly) in the common dictionary.
I could most definitely wish there were a way to tag the language in one’s word processor as “other, unknown, or alien language,” which seems not to be an option; one must instead select some known language or leave it untagged. That is most…unharmoniously uncategorized.
One could also wish that one’s word processor could transform paragraph styles and character/word styles into good, correct, simple CSS and HTML, unlike the awful jumble that results. (One has found no word processor that does this well, and one regrets that WordPerfect is not available on the Mac and Unix platforms.)
I’ll be reading more in (L’orgueil de) Chanur tonight, dictionary in hand. — I’ll likely think of Py and Hilfy, but also of Bren reading from the old library at Malguri, as I do.
I wrote a reply which seems to be caught in the filter. One suspects it’s waiting in Pyanfar’s mail bin because there are alien words and French therein. Not to mention that my replies look more like epistles…. 😉
Was so warm here that my heater didn’t come on all night during my Downton Abbey marathon. Season 5 has started, and it had been long enough since season 4 that I started in with season 2 and have been catching up — both on TV, and on this baby afghan that I’d like to finish before the kid is too old to need/want a blankie. . . . This must be finished before I start on another project, such as a sweater for a small person who lives chez Fancherry Gardens. . .
I am all excitement about a new Foreigner novel — when exactly will it be turned loose on us?
I attest that a blankie is still desirable at least into one’s 59th year. One might try using pearl cotton or tatting twine for summer sweaters for small persons. Thick tapestry needles with pony bead heads might be useful for certain persons to learn kitting on. I can picture what the younger of the elves would make of the elder’s project and ‘yarn’ skeins!
The usual time, end of March, early April. They’re headed into final production, which is about as down to the wire as you can possibly turn in corrections! I was very grateful to get a phone call to say ‘Where is it?’ because it would have had to go in as-was if I hadn’t.
When I looked last, Amazon had the release date as around April 3rd, I believe.
WOL, Though you were kidding, I would dare to say a blanket would be welcome for alittle guy or girl for several years before they outgrow it as a security blanket, but likely welcome for years later.
Er, I personally didn’t go quite as far as (brave) Linus, but I was very late giving up that blanket and sucking my thumb at night. I did outgrow it, but late. I don’t think it does any harm if the kid gets the comfort he or she needs from it. Does it indicate there’s emotional or social immaturity? More like a greater need for comfort or security, I think, and some lack of it, or the kid would give that up around the usual age range.
Anyway, it’s a very sweet gift that will make that kid feel better for years.
And Linus is terrific. 🙂
Ah, one hopes the smallish persons of the more elfin kind will quite enjoy a sweater or two. They have been fairly quiet of late, at least outwardly. Probably not hibernating, though. Hmmm….
Tracker is listed for April 7th, according to Amazon.
I belong to a knitting group and we had a Christmas party which was attended by a lady who also spins. Totally out of the blue, she gifted me with a hank of handspun yarn. Just enough to make a sweater for a young man of the BJD persuasion. The intended recipient of the blankie, which is a baby afghan, actually turned 1 year old in December. If you’ve ever seen one of those knitted dishcloths, this baby afghan uses the same pattern, only “on steroids” — It’s nice and thick, and soft done in stripes of alternating colors of a baby blue and mint green. https://theowlunderground.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/yer-doin-it-rong/ BTW, I really need to do a blog post about taking a microfleece twin size blanket and turning it into a laprobe. They will typically go on sale come spring, and the twin size selection is usually much better than for regular, queen or king — although I made a “blankie” for my 6’2″ dad from a king size microfleece blanket as he wanted one that covered not just his lap, but from toe to chin. I ended up making him two.
Wol, the colours in that blankie are lovely, and I really like the edging you’re putting on it. Is there a pattern for that?
I just started knitting again, for the first time since highschool (when I made 2 sweaters and a cardigan, and a very simple shawl and that’s all). I’m starting off with some legwarmers to go over my kneehighs under my trousers, so I can wear them to work without anyone noticing, and I can wear my regular shoes instead of fake-furry boots even when it’s cold. As no-one will see them, they’re good practice-projects, and quickly done. I’m already looking around for what to make next, and a knitted instead of quilted baby-blanket looks like a good project. Is it very difficult?
Would it be easier to knit the stripes vertically instead of horizontally?
Wol, I like the edging you’re knitting on that blankie. Is there a pattern for that?
I am pleased to note that all my quiltmaking projects were completed on time (sometimes down to the wire!) and presented or shipped to their various recipients. I’m thinking of getting ahead of the curve and knocking out a couple of baby blanket sized quilts in case I discover one of my friends or relatives is expecting.
Zorro has recovered from her oral surgery and is her usual bouncy self, including demanding food. If I gave you as much food as you wanted, cat, you would make a good doorstop! She seems to have no problem dealing with kibble, either.
I am sitting here with the fingerless gloves next to me that my goddaughter requested for Yule by no means finished (one wrist of the Fair Isle=2 different colors of yarn being almost done). Partly blame it on my new nephew Leo, who arrived almost 2 months early and is acquiring a fair number of unplanned knit bits from me for when he comes home soon hopefully from the hospital – and partly blame it on, well, an inability to accurately factor the number of hours/days before Christmas against the number of gifts dreamt of. My extended family is all too familiar with this inability of mine.
Raesean, I was similarly premature, by a bit more than Leo. His mom and dad should be sure to have his eyesight checked, as even now with preemies, this is a serious concern.
As I understand it, it’s a tradeoff between caring for the newborn overall, with enough oxygen for his young lungs, versus a risk of oxygen exposure to his new young eyes, likely still developing. This affects the inner surface of the retinas and can affect teh eyes generally. So it’s very critical to have his sight checked early and begin corrective measures (glasses, other adaptive visual aids, training in how to do things).
Other developmental issues are, of course, possible for preemie babies, so a good thorough checkup at each time is needed.
Being preemie, he’ll be small at first and will do a great deal of catching up in growing. But by late elementary or early middle school, he’ll likely be caught up.
Hopefully, Leo will do just fine and won’t have trouble.
My parents went through that in the mid-to-late 1960’s with me. Things have improved somewhat since then. School systems, for instance, try to do better, but even their trained teachers and counselors often may have only limited actual experience. So…tell Leo’s parents to hang in there. (And resist the urge to be overprotective.) Leo will do fine. — He was eager to get here early, after all! Gotta give the little guy props for that. 😀
BCS, thanks for your advice and good wishes. I too was born early, at two months (and five pounds, my mother indeed confirmed last night) a couple days and half a pound or so earlier/lighter than Leo. He’s indeed a fighter, though, and named himself Leo for that (his parents thought they had a couple months more to debate a name. I think his attitude became the tie-breaker). I will pass on the warning on eyesight. He still has a thin oxygen tube but is otherwise off lines, drips and stuff, I believe.
Good to hear he’s doing so well! Leo’s a good name.
amazon.com.au doesn’t even show it. 🙁 I’d like to pre-order it though, while I still have the cash…
Ah, never mind: I found it on amazon.com and ordered it from there.
*bounces*