Posted on April 22, 2008 - by MG
Report from my sick-bed
I should be in bed in bed but I’ve been there most of the day fighting off dengue fever. Okay it probably isn’t dengue fever but it’s plenty unpleasant enough and I brought it from Brazil. It’s my fifth day so I’m feeling a bit pathetic.
“How come you aren’t better yet, Mummy,” my six-year old asked. And then paused before adding, “Cos Daddy’s better. He got better right away. He’s been doin’ shoppin’ and cookin’ and other good things.”
It’s always got to be a competition, hasn’t it…?
I managed to rouse myself to beginning Joshua Book 3 today. Hurray! Only other writers can appreciate how big an achievement that is. I haven’t written for six months, astonishingly lazy underachiever that I am.
And before you cry ‘false modesty’ – University academic friends of mine are expected to write scholarly tomes whilst holding down a full-time college fellowship and University lectureships. Last year one of these friends, with four kids mind, published a book and also ended up delivering a speech at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. Another – who has two kids – was voted Woman Of the Year.
So – I know what I am. Lightweight and proud of it!
Gosh my head hurts. I only started this post really to alert you a recent issue of New Scientist, which I have been trying to read between bouts of languishing feebly. It could have been written for me! Articles about the possible collapse of civilisation, the real-life possible existence of time-travel and telepathy and a groovy little thing about an upcoming innovation in social networking Websites that neatly solves a plot problem for me.
Anyway. I’ve tried non-pharmaceutical remedies all day – cold compresses, cooling gel patches, Tiger Balm. Nothing. So I’m going to cave and take some proper medicine.
Ah. Sweet oblivion of an anti-histamine mild sedative combined with OTC analgesics.
That’s me out for at least 12 hours.
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April 23, 2008
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Hi there!
To lighten up your day: I’m Frank Boehmert, your german translator, and just about to finish the translation of Book 1 for Dressler Verlag.
Josh will hit the Continent in autumn. Like a bombshell, I’m sure.
Get well soon,
Frank
P. S. I saw you like movies based on stories by Philip K. Dick. Well, I’ve translated some Dick too
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April 23, 2008
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Hallo Frank! Wie geht’s? Very excited to hear from you. I am slowly recovering. Managed another 1200 words of Josh 3 today. Autumn hey? Wow that’s brilliant!
And…you translated Philip K Dick?
I’M NOT WORTHY!!!!
Where in Germany are you? I love Germany and haven’t been for YEARS. Would love an excuse to go. I keep going to Switzerland but they speak a strange kind of German there…
MG
xxx
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April 23, 2008
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Wie geht’s, wie steht’s? I really love your british accent
You ARE worthy. (Or, to put it another way: who says that I am?)
I’m living in the Hauptstadt, Berlin. Well, perhaps you will come to the Frankfurter Buchmesse or so? Does this fit as an excuse to come?
(And wasn’t there a biographical connection to Frankfurt too?)
In a hurry (coz there’s a little more work to do),
but with best wishes
Frank
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April 23, 2008
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There was a connection to Frankfurt, yes. The German connection is mainly via my mother – a Lufthansa employee for many years and then a Germanist at Manchester University. There was much talk in our household about Goethe and Herder and Bohl von Faber – whose letters she had just begun to translate when she sadly died.
Berlin – cool. I’ve never been – isn’t that ridiculous?
It’s never occurred to me to go to book fairs…aren’t they for all the business people, not the authors? What would I do…just wander about in a daze with no-one to talk to… Oooh – I could be a Booth Babe and hand out leaflets and say ‘Do come to our seminar on such-and-such…’. Yeah! I’d be good at that!
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April 23, 2008
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Well, Frankfurt book fair can be fun for authors (and translators), but Leipzig definitively is. It is called “the reader’s book fair”, with literally hundreds of readings, signings etc in a wonderful kind of very big greenhouse (much much more books than plants, that is) and all over the old town itself.
If Frankfurt is fun for the Booth Babes, I don’t dare to consider. But they are nice to look at.
Especially to avoid being in a daze while wandering about.
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April 23, 2008
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Wow Frank, Leipzig sounds brilliant! Germans do Kultur SO well!
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April 23, 2008
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Hello,
Your still ill? With Fever? Aw, shucks. I’ve only ever had fever once and it really sucks. Get Well Soon.
Germany is just like some distant place in my mind, i’ve never been. And i suppose that might be because i couldn’t speak German to save my life!
Book 3? Already? Well, you say that’s “Lightweight” but book 2 isn’t released yet! Well, i suppose, if you have a love for writing, why not?
Lukas
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April 23, 2008
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But Lukas, this is my job! If I don’t produce manuscripts for my agent to sell I don’t get paid! And in the past years I’ve produced rather more by now than I have so far this year; i.e. nothing.
It’s okay though. 2500 words in two days on book 3 is a good start. I’m really enjoying writing again.
And thanks for the get-well wishes. I think I may actually leave my house tomorrow…and go for tea with Susie.
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April 24, 2008
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2500 words in two days with a fever!? Now that’s something to be proud of! Glad you starting feeling better though.
Indeed it is your job, and a good job you do of your job too! Well, i’m not complaning, just simply pointing out that book 2 isn’t out yet, though, if it means book 3 could be out earlier, i’m not complaining!
Hope your feeling even better.
Lukas