The Pub Discussion Board

I get it.  There are days I may write 10-12 thousand words, and others where 2000 words are very difficult, or almost impossible to squeeze out.  Not just because it may be a difficult project, but frequently in such cases because I'm feeling really down, tired, or burnt out. Writing is an intellectual endevour, so quite dependent on how you feel, or your disposition on that particular moment. Stress doesn't help much either, whatever the source of it.

Once or twice a month more or less, while also getting a free card once in a few months.  And it´s not the same writing you do, as I´m actually a translator. Anyway, 12 thousand words takes me some 20 hours work straight. I can translate at a speed from 300 to 800 words per hour, depending on the difficulty of the source material. Usually around 600 words/hour.  It does get crazy sometimes.  I have even went so far as working that way for up to five days straight for a few huge but also very urgent projects. But after that I take at least a week to recuperate from the lack of sleep, and once even had a tunnel carpal syndrome in my right hand for a month as a consequence. It happens. 

My wife was a court reporter for some time.  She would sit in court six hours a day and come home and type for another 6-8 hours five days a week then type 14 hours on the weekend.  I am not sure how many words per day she typed because it was mostly listen to the tape, figure out what they said, rewind, check it twice move on.  She was making 75k per year but it was killing her so she stopped.

Eric have you considered moving to the "amazon" publishing idea?  For example, John Conroe, Chris Nuttel and Guy Antibes are basically doing what you do.  They have come up with some serials that people like, they write a book then post it for sale.  You could have had six books out there available for sale by this time on Woodward alone.  I think John Conroe is on book 10 or 11 of his vampire werewolf fallen angel series.  Books are available between 6 and 12 dollars each and they are reviewed on good reads.  Their method allows them to write when they want without a fixed deadline.  They just announce a new book on their website or blog and peeps run out and buy it.  They get far more exposure than you do with their method thus more sales.  You are certainly in their class or even better in some areas.  Just a thought.  I personally came accros you when you wrote camp on storiesonline.  You are the only author I read on this site.  I have read some of the others here but their content or writing style does  not get my attention past a couple of chapters.  I am sure other love their works.

Not really Eric. While it may not be the same writing you do, translation is still creative work, not mechanical typing. Translation is not transcription. You must take into account what was meant by the original text before translating it in a way people reading it in another language understand it as similarly as possible to the way it was meant originally. Which may not me possible in some cases.  It has happened to me that one particular sentence takes more time to translate that a whole page, just because of the convoluted way it was written and the fact that some concepts are specific to each country, or even region with no real equivalent in the other language.  Not quite as easy as you think it is. Also I´m not competing with you on number of words written per day. I was just sharing the fact that I understand your struggle as there are days I'm also too stressed out, or even feel burnt out to do any real work.

As far as doing up to 10-12k words per 20 hours (usually more, as I do have to eat and such) again it´s the time I spend on in on such days. 20 or more hours is quite a lot of time, plus a few energy drinks and so on.  1000 words  would still take me up to  3-4 hours. Just writing the same amount may take more, or less time, depending on what I´m writing about and if I do have a clear image in my mind of what I want to say, or not.  Same as you I can type much more words than 600-800 an hour. May be not 3600/h, although I have never tested it.

Regarding carpal tunnel syndrome, I know what you mean. My position is pretty ok ergonomically. But if you were to type 15-20 hours a day for a week, it´s quite likely you would get such pains too, as the cause of the syndrome is repetitive movement, and a correct position of your hands just alleviates the problem, doesn´t eliminate it. At least in my case. My keyboard may not be anything special, but my chair and table is designed for computing use, so my wrists remain mostly straight, which is the idea behind ergonomic keyboards.

>Shadowpayne:   I imagine it would. Any work that takes 14 hours a day even on weekends would burn out a person after awhile. Your wife was factually pulling out double-shifts without any rest days all year long.  In reality any writing job is not an easy one. Most are not very well paid either, unless you become a famous author. Which sometimes may depend a lot on luck, not only skill.

Agreed. I have some simultaneous translation experience, but if it comes to arguing parties, it certainly becomes very difficult if not impossible. That´s why in simultaneous translation the rule is a translator can´t work more than 2 hours continuously, preferably no more than 1 hour without rest. If the event requires more time, and additional translator is required and they either work each one one hour then rest for a while, or more commonly work interchangeably and when one translator freezes on a concept, or starts lagging behind the speech flow, then the other translator takes over.  Still on the last eight years I have been working almost exclusively with written translation projects, because I moved from Europe to South America, while still working for clients in Europe. This makes performing oral translation services a little difficult, so it´s mostly texts now.

Last edited by Augur (2017-03-08 03:15:28)

My wife is from France.  She studied the Russian language while in University.  She backpacked several countries and picked up Spanish and English.  She was a serious student of Tai Kwan Do and studied under a South Korean Master and learned that language.  We both live in Canada now.  I met her through Martial Arts while she was in Canada.  She now works for our local government as bilingual court clerk/customer rep.  We have two official languages in Canada, French and English so she found a job that could use her skills.  It amuses her colleagues when she is able to communicate to so many people from different parts of the world when they drop by for court services.  In fact today they had a customer from Germany who was having difficulty communicating in English.  She tried Russian with him as a guess and found that he spoke that far better than English

She has been reading your posts and talking over my shoulder about what I was typing earlier about translators.  In her courtrooms, translators are called one per case.  If the case lasts six hours (with breaks), it is the same translator.  She has never seen two translators for a single defendant or accused at any time.  She also mentioned that out of ten translators that translate languages that she understands, 2 are fantastic, six are ok and 2 are horrible.  The excellent ones seem to be a very rare find and they are way undervalued.

Well I have had only a single experience in a court, it was three hours long and only one translator. But being that I didn't have to translate everything and I could do it more or less in a consecutive (non simultaneous) way most of the time, it wasn´t so hard. I could even ask the defense attorney, or the judge to confirm some information or aspect of the case before translating key information to the accused. It was a procedure to explain the accused the charges leveled against him. What I´m talking about several translators was when there were high level public conferences, like an EUROSAI (European Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions) conferences, or a parliamentary meeting/talk with Cuban dissidents and such, there were always at least two translators for each language combination. While in a visit of the King of Spain, his wife the Queen and entourage there were multiple translators (me being one of them), but it wasn't simultaneous translation and the number of translators contracted was so as to allow easier intermixing of the different members of parliament and key members of the entourage of the King,  ministers and such. The fun thing about being a translator, at least if you do oral translations, it's the people you sometimes meet.

If she had to translate simultaneously (meaning that you translate while the speaker is speaking, on the fly), then at the very least rest breaks are absolutely necessary. Simultaneous translation requires a lot of concentration and after an hour, hour and a half you may start making mistakes, or even freeze at some moment, forget part of what the current speaker was saying, etc. In simultaneous translation you can't ask the speaker to repeat what was said.  As for the qualification level, that's more or less the way it is. Quite a few people try working as translators while having only a basic understanding of one of the language pairs. Sometimes (in the case of rare languages) the client doesn't have many options, or isn't willing to pay the prices of a real professional.

Anyway I'll repeat myself, that your wife seems to be a very interesting person.

Last edited by Augur (2017-03-08 05:33:18)

Augur:

Wasn't trying to suggest that translation wasn't difficult or in some ways creative... but I'm kind of hoping you're not actually "making stuff up" while you're doing translation. 

Eric Storm

PS:  Always been my worry about translators:  How do I know that what you said he said, is what he actually said???

OK my frustration level has caused me to try to take constructive action.  I was not anxious or anything but curious so finally found this in the forum, not your fault eric it is my own incompetence on computers.  Anyway caught up on the board here and will try my best to not lose this and to communicate.  Side note eric just renewed my contribution, apologise I will try to keep better track on that also. I had a bank card get renewed and stopped all my automatics.  I come from a Navy background and consider contributing just like mess dues just our duty.

EDIT  correction I tried to renew and failed miserably.  I may need to have someone lead me through this I really do not do well with computers

Last edited by ChiefRock (2017-03-08 18:29:05)

Update for March 8, 2017:

The Woodward Academy, Year 7, Chapter 3 is finished.  It is with Keeshaba now.  When she has finished with it, I will let the reviewers have it.  I will not wait for their reviews, however.  I will proofread and post the chapter tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Those people whose special access has expired already this month will have it extended, to compensate for the delayed posting.

I will be starting on WAY7-4 as soon as possible.  I'll be planning it out tonight, and if possible, I'll start on it tomorrow.

Eric Storm

That´s great! Thank you Eric.  Can´t deny I have been really waiting for the new chapter. Knowing it´s just one more day is wonderful news!

*Kicks and screams with excitement*