Zanski: Blog

I just submitted Game Trail to the posting queue.

Frankly, prepping it was a lot more work than I anticipated. First, it was longer than I remembered (Duh!), then I tripped over a major time misalignment, and finally revamped what I decided was an untenable plot development (What was I thinking?). And a few other things.

A few comments:
Apologies to Texas, especially the Rangers. (Don't want to get on Chuck's bad side.)
Polish expletives I've left untranslated; Google Translate provides some bland interpretations. Interestingly, the word "cholera" was a curse in several north and eastern European languages. Never realized that's what Dad was saying when I was a kid.

In going through the formatting of Game Trail prior to posting, I've run up against a plot detail that, when I read it this time I thought, 'That would never work.' It's a detail that recurs, now and then, through the remainder of the book, as well as in the final book, Hard Trail, so this may take a few days.

It's been a couple years since I've re-read Game Trail, so I'm not exactly sure how much will need revising, but I am sort of amazed I thought the idea would work in the first place. Go figure.

Game Trail is on deck.

I am still figuring out the special formatting applications and have hopefully discovered that the solution has been right in front of my nose all along, right in the stansard formatting and style selections in LibreOffice Writer. Go figure.

I'll apply those formats while I go through Game Trail as I prep it for posting. I'll probably wait until I post the final book, Hard Trail, before cleaning up the first three. The formatting I'm talking about is text blocks and italics. They're not essential, just really helpful. Sorry for my rookie errors.

I just submitted the Feint Trail file to the queue. This is the longest book in the series.

Technical stuff: The file is.odt written in LibreOffice Writer. I have continued to experiment with ways to show block text (e.g., for quoting a character's entire written message) within the confines of what actually transfers. This time I added an extra marked line break before and after, as well as decreasing the text line spacing. I doubt the reduced line spacing will transfer and I'm worried the line breaks will cause the text to center. We'll see.

The title: The choice of the word Feint was deliberate as both feint and it's homonym, faint, have applications to the plot. I figured it would either intrigue folks or they'd simply think I didn't know how to spell. Besides, the titles of the Arenoso Trails Series progress in alphabetical order and I needed something that was a familiar modifier of Trail and also fell between False and Game, and faint didn't. So I changed the title to Feint and re-wrote the book. Kidding.

A kind reader has pointed out deficiencies in some of the Spanish translations. I am honored that a reader felt involved enough with my story to want to take the time to contact me. Moreover, I am in no position to diagree with the reader's critique because I do not know Spanish. For that same reason, I am unable to agree with the reader.

I use Google Translate. I'm aware it can be inconsistent, that idioms are often lost in translations both ways, that word-for-word translations can be awkward to the point of ridicule, and that colloquial and regional variancces are a problem. On the other hand, amateur human translators, even native speakers, are often subject to some of the same vagaries and may not even be aware of it simply because of their own unconscious and intuitive language facility.

In addition, we have the element of time, of contemporary versus historical language. Just as English varies in diction and vocabulary over the years, decades, and centuries, so do other languages. For instance, the characters in the Arenoso Trail Series are, in presumed context, speaking the borderland variant of Mexican Spanish of the late 19th Century. Supposedly. Obviously, Google Translate does not have that sort of fine-tuning -- nor do human translators, other than those of particular scholarly expertise.

Here, then, is my rationale concerning translated language:

1. The translations into non-English languages are only representative of that language with the presumption of relevant general context.

2. It is not my intention to represent non-English languages with the same facility as I may represent English language. My use of non-English languages is not intended to exemplify them.

3. Using Google Translate affords me the protection of not deliberately including erroneous or offensive content.

4. While I may be glad to discuss most any facet of my novels, I am categorically unable to respond intelligently to issues of non-English vocabulary, diction, and grammar or their practical applications and use. I wish I could.