A case of losing things in translation. (Oh, is that where my car keys went?)

Today I'm tweaking website copy for one of our clients, a Spanish-speaking country. "Tweaking" is too kind a word. Let's try "massive overhaul," "rebuilding," "intense cosmetic surgery"... I think you get the idea. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts, published exactly the way they were translated:

Starting at Castillo de san Felipe located at the encounter with the sea close to Livingston; you will find amazing paradise places of extraordinary beautifulness. Among the hot sun from the tropics, the breeze from the sea, and the Caribbean humidity, this large territory concentrates the essence of this region.

I can't decide which part is my favorite: the paradise places of extraordinary beautifulness; the muddled contrast of the hot sun, the humidity, and the sea breeze; or the territory's furrowed brow as it concentrates the essence of the region... do they bottle it? I'd like a pocket-size "Eau de Region," please.

The route is fulfilled of mangles and jungle.

Ah yes, I hear those mangles are quite fulfilling, although most drivers advise you go around...

Here you can fish with hook or take a bath. It is surrounded by a fragrant pine, which shadow has been built small cabins and places to cook.

Oh dear. Must I choose between fishing with a hook or taking a bath? That is a mighty large pine, to be surrounding a lake.

Occasionally, you can observe there cultural manifestations of local type.

Can't say a word. I just can't!

Hello, I'm Jess, and I'm a copywriter. This is what I do for fun! (I'm a little off my rocker, aren't I?)

I find I journalize too tediously. Let me try to abbreviate.

I was reading Jeremy Hixon's website this morning, and being that he's a User Experience Designer/Developer, he uses a lot of words, abbreviations, and acronyms that make no sense to me.
At this point, I have to fill you in on my game: I'm a writer. I make stuff up. And when I see abbreviations or acronyms, my silly little mind jumps in and makes up meanings before I can puzzle out the real one. So here's my take on Jeremy's skill set:

PHP: Post-Hysterics Pouting, Pitiful Health Plan, Planetary Holographic Photography...
XAMPP: Xylophonic Actuary Mapping Pre-emptory Principles, Xanthide-Anthropomorphing Militant Practicing Proctologists...
CSS: Christian Services Sic, Calibrated Single Systemology, Computer-Sanctioned Stereotypes...
HTML: Her Tiny Majesty's Library, How The Mackerel Laugh, Help! The Mac Lives!, Human Takes Mandatory Launch...
AJAX: After Jack-in-the-box Attack Xxxxxx, A Jointly Adept X--... I always run out of ideas when it comes to X...
OS X: Oh, Shit! X... That's all I've got - see it every time.

Whew! That's enough for today. I foresee re-visiting this acronym theme again.

Present your argument clearly, arm yourself with cutting wit and of course, bob and weave!

We are debating in the office today. I asked, "How do you spell sike?" The answers were varied, vigorously defended, and came from surprising parties. See if you can follow this (and perhaps interpret?):
Web developer, male: It's psych. (No evidence or reasoning; he held firm that he was just right.)
Office manager, female: It's sike. I speak ebonics, look it up online! (Adamant)
Copywriter, male: It's psych, as in psyched out. Sike is a misspelling, and it should always be psych. (Used dictionary - traditional and urban - to point out original spelling was psych; sike is a deterioration; therefore it's psych.)
Front end developer, female: It's sike, because while it may have originated as psych, if you're using it in a sarcastic manner at the end of a sentence, of course you'll misspell it. (I agree with her reasoning.)
Creative director, male: It's psych. (Listened to mine and FE dev's reasoning.) That makes sense. (He's neutral.)

We're at an impasse here, people! What do you think?

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

My Dear Roommate and singularly best friend, Rachel, is a photographer. She also likes to adventure. So we road-tripped to Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsdale, AL this weekend on a mini-adventure. We talked about a lot of things along the way, but one thing really sparked our imaginations. I mentioned NaNoWriMo to her (peer pressure = motivation, and since you lot aren't commenting on any of my posts, I've gotta get it somewhere!), and she said, "I wish I could write 50,000 words in a month."

We invented a photo challenge for her to go hand-in-hand with my writing challenge. So we're inviting you (if you don't write), to join Rachel on her adventure. Here's how it works:
November 1st to the 30th
10 photographs a day
NO editing/retouching/critiquing/whining

By the end of the month, you'll have 300 photographs (or 50,000 words) to show for your efforts, and then the editing can begin! So I'll be blogging here about the weirdness of WriMo, and Rachel will be blogging about the Create and Dream Photo Challenge at onthEdge Creations. Dare to push your boundaries! You're not alone... we'll be slogging along with you!

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

See if you can identify the word I didn't know in this sentence: "The personality might slowly elide until it is no longer recognizable or regainable as itself; it may cease to be the personality that goes with a particular self." (Larry McMurtry, from Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, in "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression," by Nell Casey)


elide: to omit, or suppress; to merge, as in "whole periods are elided into mere seconds on the silver screen;" from the Latin for "strike out"


McMurtry's essay explores self-hood after a quad bypass. It's frightening, yet puts words to things I have always wondered about (anaesthesia, major surgery, and the emotional/spiritual effects). The book is a collection of essays by writers on depression, and as morbid as it sounds, it's very well-written and engaging.


The book only confirms my private opinion: all writers suffer what I call "Virginia Woolf days": days when you feel those dark voices nibbling along the edges of your mind, when the clouds press down on your shoulders, when all you can see before you is a calendar list of like days and your mind simply refuses to open up enough to consider the possibility of sunshine. Woolf filled her pockets with stones, walked to the river's edge, removed her shoes, left her stick in the grass, and walked into the river. Her letter to her husband is a beautiful, bitter-sweet testament of their marriage, his courage, and her sensitivity:

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.
I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V.

On that note, I'm going to look at some LOLCatz...

Truth is truth - to the end of reckoning.

Adaptation of a Stephen King quote: All fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.
I've found in past writing experiments (and we're talking strictly fiction, here, people - the stuff I really love) that the truth always shines through.
By truth I mean this: the things I believe, the principles I base my life on, the hardest core bits of me that will never break up no matter the intensity or pressure from the outside. I think we can argue that fiction is fabricated so it can be completely separated from the person who made it up (and we do argue this to protect ourselves - from pre-judgements, from pigeon-holing, from criticism).
But at the same time, I think it can be argued that creators - no matter what medium they use - must infuse the work with some of themselves. A sculptor cannot create a piece of art without touching the stone, running his hands over the planes and textures, dripping sweat onto its surface, scraping his knuckles against it. In the same way, a writer cannot write a piece of fiction without leaving traces of herself in the work.
I would have it no other way! While it makes the writing process infinitely more painful - picking at threads of your soul and weaving them into a story other than your own leaves you frayed, to say the least - the end result carries that ring of truth that we all search for in books. It becomes a human work that speaks the same language as its readers.

All of this is going somewhere, I promise.
I've been encouraged to join NaNoWriMo this year, and I have. I'm terrified. I don't think I've ever written for a month straight. I am full of stories, though, and the terror is tempered by a building excitement.
So if you're interested (thousands of people all over the world writing 50,000 words in one month? curious...!), you're welcome to follow me: here at the WriteMe blog and on Twitter @ScribbleMeJ. Beginning November 1st, this blog will be a scratch pad for the NaNo process. I'll try to get the fancy word count widgets and such, but I make no promises (I suck at computers).

By fairy hands their knell is rung.

I've been schooled this week.  In words, I mean.  And I totally blame being sick for my failing wits.

First, "soporific" means "sleep-inducing" (which even my mom knew!).  I guessed something along the lines of "droning," "over-indulged," or "soaking in."  [Editor's note: Just because I provide three different definitions for a word doesn't mean I'm confused.  It just means that I'm really good at making stuff up, and the stuff I make up is really creative and rather convincing.  You know you're jealous.]

Second, "querulous" means "contentious, prone to argument."  I was close with "whining, protesting; a feeble attempt at contradiction."

Third, I learned this morning that it's "jibe," not "jive."  As in, "The story you told about your mom's vacation doesn't jibe with the photographic evidence of her whereabouts that weekend."  And "jive" has always made so much sense!  (Think about it: dancing - one set of facts either dances well or doesn't with the second set of facts... Sad loss.)  Although it must be noted that I prefer the British English spelling of it to the American English: gybe vs. jibe.


In other news, I've had a lot of downtime this week (what with my mind being clogged and work being slow).  So I've indulged in a lot of fiction reading.

I re-discovered the Endicott Studio website, managed by Terri Windling, Ellen Datlow, and Ellen Kushner (to name a very few).  It is a collection of visual, literary, and academic explorations of the Mythic Arts - I've literally lost myself within the pages of it for the last week.  I've been reading through the Journal of Mythic Arts' fiction and non-fiction archives.  [Second Editor's Note: This site is of particular interest to me; my college thesis examined re-centering myth and fairy tale.  I've immersed myself in all things mythic for the last 6 years at least.]

So after reading all morning, I came home yesterday with a panicky urge to re-read my two favorite books of all time: The Hero & the Crown and The Blue Sword, both by Robin McKinley.  They were not on my shelves!  I searched, but know my book filing system, and they weren't there.  All I could conclude was I'd loaned them out (God knows why), and they hadn't come back (for the same reason most loaned books don't come back).  I penned the dogs in the kitchen and bolted to Grumpy's (my old place of employment and the nearest used bookstore), but only came up with The Hero & the Crown.  It will do for now, but I must find another copy of The Blue Sword - these are the only two books I've ever read more than once.  I must have them on hand at all times!  [Third Editor's Note: Only librophiles will understand this compulsion - I can't explain it.  But I have never felt more urgent about reading a book than I did yesterday.  And I couldn't rest until I'd found it.  I almost considered driving across town to the accursed McKay's.  Almost.]

Their hearts and sentiments were free, their appetites were hearty.

Robust.

I hate that word!  Ok, I don't hate it, but I strongly disapprove of the way it's been misused recently.  "Robust tool," "robust system," "robust software platform," "robust this," "robust that."  It's killing me!

I hold that robust should be used for
1. Men
2. Coffee
3. Beer
and in that order.

I'm done.

We must learn to welcome and not fear the voices of dissent. (Fulbright)

Malcolm Gladwell is speaking at UTC tomorrow evening here in Chattanooga.  I'm excited! I first heard of him four years ago - the speaker at our graduation ceremony quoted some ideas from Gladwell's book, Blink. Since then, I have read Tipping Point and have the other two on my list (Outliers is the third).

The way I understand him, Gladwell is an economist who studies trends. Only he doesn't study economic trends (he touches on them), but I would categorize his as "social" trends.  So naturally social media came up this week in an article he wrote for The New Yorker.  Summed up, he says:
Facebook is an emotional support because it's easy and removed, but people are reluctant to do more than "thumbs up" a cause or group.


Social media has no hierarchy, no controlling structure; it's herd mentality at best. How much long-term success can a stampede of information bring about?


Gladwell concludes:
"It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact. The instruments of social media are well suited to making the existing social order more efficient. They are not a natural enemy of the status quo. If you are of the opinion that all the world needs is a little buffing around the edges, this should not trouble you. But if you think that there are still lunch counters out there that need integrating it ought to give you pause."

Read more at The New Yorker.com.


I'm looking forward to hearing Gladwell speak.  It's refreshing to hear a logical, no-nonsense approach to trending ideas these days.

Hey, Mike. Can't afford punctuation.

Ford's recent commercial really grates on my nerves.  They have skads of money, but somehow the ad got through the copy editors with terrible punctuation.  Mike's face shows up (and he's cute - I like Mike), but he says (far too fast for expression), "People say, Hey, Mike. Why Ford. Why now."  Except some brilliant director thought, "If people could visualize these words, they would retain them and then be able to recall the rest of our promo!"  So he threw the words in next to Mike's face.  And what they ended up with was something akin to a toddler's version of sledding: Daddyandmegoeddownthehillfastanditwassomuchfun!

"PeoplesayHeyMikeWhyFordWhynow."

Granted, if someone had written it as "People ask, Hey Mike - Why Ford? Why now?" maybe the question marks wouldn't have been overlooked.  Saying implies periods.  Still.  I have no respect for an international company with the size (and reputation) of Ford that can't properly punctuate its commercials.

How hard can it be.