Lost and found in revision

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This morning, braced by a good sleep, I went through my manuscript scene by scene, listing the changes I would have to make were I to change the Mortemart mansion to the left bank, where I now believe it did exist. (See my early post: here.)

And decided: I would make the move.

Making the decision is half the battle. Making the changes will be painful, but I like the security of place, the foundation of fact. Plus, there's an excellent floor plan: how delicious.

To see my findings, a map and the floor plan: click here.

Translator Love

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There are many surprises in becoming a published writer: suddenly one has an intense relationship with readers, bookstore clerks, editors. But the relationship with a translator is the most intimate of all. A translator really knows your words, has lived and wrestled with them for months, has had to dig deep to recreate your world into the words of another culture, another history. This is akin to magic.

I recently got a very moving letter from Hana Brezakova, the woman who translates my work into Czech for Talpress in Prague. She has given me permission to quote from it here:

Dear Sandra,

Accept my warmest greetings and my deepest admiration. My name is Hana Brezakova, I'm from the Czech Republic, and for almost 18 years I've been working as a translator for the publishing house Talpress from Prague. It could actually be said I'm their "Court translator." There have been many beautiful books I translated during those years, and some of them thoroughly enraptured my heart. I don't dare to compare the work of a writer and a translator, but in some ways it's similar, as I give the story, the novel and its characters a new life in quite a different language, and in doing so, I more often than not have a deep relationship with some characters and their fates.

One of my favourite "heroines" was Josephine, Napoleon's wife, and truthfully, I consider The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B., Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe and The Last Great Dance on Earth the best ones I've done so far. It was a happy period of my life when I was translating your books.

By the way, the Josephine B. Trilogy was very well accepted in the Czech Republic, and met with great success. A friend of mine has read them three times; they have become her favourite ones....

At the moment I'm translating another book of yours — Mistress of the Sun — another enchanting and breathtaking story that thoroughly enchanted me.

My life has changed a bit since Josephine, and whilst then I lived in a little village not far from Prague, now I'm working on my translation practically on the bank of the Okanagan Lake in Canadian Kelowna, BC, where I'm with my Czech-Canadian friend for a couple of months. Life can turn upside down now and then, but I'm happy all in all, and living through the fate of lovely Petite when I work on my translation for several hours a day helps me a lot.

With best wishes, your admirer and translator of your books for Czech readers,

Hana

It's awkward to follow-up such a moving letter with details of day-to-day life, but I do want to mention that yesterday I also received a book ordered from France: Madame de Montespan et la Légende des Poisons by Jean Lemoine, a French historian I admire greatly. I inhaled this book, eager to know his thesis — his verdict regarding the guilt or innocence of Athénaïs with respect to dealings in Black Magic, Spanish Fly, infanticide. The plot of The Next Novel hinges on this crucial question: was she guilty? I'll be posting more on this on my research blog: here.

The Black Hole of Research

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I needed to get the wheels going once again on my concept-outline of The Next Novel. In no time at all I had fallen, like Alice in Wonderland, into what I think of as The Black Hole of Research. I emerged at 1:30, eyes-crossed, brain-numb, having forgotten to eat, much less even move.

1652: young Athénaïs is at her family chateau in Lussac and the Court is near-by in Poitiers. All I wanted to know is what Lussac was like, and what her family chateau looked like (and if it still existed). As well I wanted to know where the Court would likely have been housed while in Poitiers. In all this day, I didn't find out very much about Lussac, and I didn't even get to Poitiers.

As for the family chateau — there is a museum of prehistory that claims to be housed there (or what's left of it): so I got that far. But no images. Perhaps the most sparky bit of information I got in all this is that her family's motto was "Ante mare undae" — "Spirit surpasses matter." That's a sweet little detail.