Reviewing my edited translation of Di Zi Gui

Got a call from AsiaPac Books today - my translation had gone through two rounds of editting, and they want me to review the current proof.

Quite excited actually, like getting back my essay or college paper and see the "marks".

Not too bad - the editors shortened several passages which I would have done too, except I was bound as a translator to render as faithful a translation to the original Chinese texts.

Wasn't given much time, I was asked to rewrite a couple of passages to shorten further to accomodate more pictures.  Meanwhile, spotted some errors which I wonder how the editor missed it.

Sometimes, looking at it though, it's like having finished a sculpture, and then being asked to go back to refine it.  Spent so much time on it the first time round, I'm actually a bit reluctant to even look at it again.

Meanwhile, the subject of actual fee hasn't been brought up.  I have in mind to use it to buy a small laptop to do more translation assignments, if any were to come my way, or submit some of my own work for publication.

Then again, Snowylady wasn't too pleased with the late nights spent of my first translation assignment, and isn't keen for me to do more.

Last week, out of the blue, a colleague dropped in while I was lunching in the pantry.  She began talking about getting more out of life, and since I'm always reading something or other during office breaks, she asked me if I considered writing professionally.

Frankly, I had many ideas about being a writer and what I could write - almost all related to history, China, and, some detective stuff.  Another thing at the back of my mind is I would do well to nurture a sideline, an alternative career, something I do not need to worry about retirement.

But it is a daunting thought - doing something "original".

Perhaps I should get better learning experience first, and stick to translations.

Zhan Guo Ce might be possible - the only English translation published seems to be by Rev Bramwell S. Bonsall, and that was almost a century ago in the 1920s.  It was a rather straight forward translation though, without annotations or commentaries to the backgrounds of the events or the entities.