This has been an odd week for Puntitas. She received another book rejection. This one was far more discouraging than she expected. The letter was not a form letter, though it was as sterile and formulaic as some she’s received, and something about the specific wording gave Puntitas the impression that her manuscript was rejected because … well … it sucked.
The rejection was so discouraging, in fact, that Puntitas didn’t do any of her usual procrastination and work avoidance in order to dream up book tours and Nobel Prize acceptance speeches. She actually spent most of her time working on her big, ugly translation, a tedious editing job, and a short translation, the last of which went quickly and smoothly enough to restore Puntitas’ faith in her own abilities, a faith seriously shaken by the big, ugly document.
This week Puntitas also scanned more of the bilingual legal dictionary and started learning Trados, An overpriced application which is designed to make projects like the big, ugly translation easier, but which Puntitas has resisted because she has a good memory and is well versed in Word features like cut and paste and search and replace. Her initial efforts (thanks to the help of other translators) went well, but they’re definitely initial efforts and will probably not help much with the big, ugly translation itself.
Another factor that added to Puntitas’ general productivity was the temporary demise of her mp3 player, which allows Puntitas to lose herself in audio books while engaged in less exotic activities. Nevertheless, the yucky rejection letter was so devastating that she continued working after the device came back to life. It is hard to believe that there’s any point in developing one’s craft when one’s writing … well … sucks.
Puntitas reads _The Winthrop Woman_ by A. Seton.
