Thanks for the advice, Kathy. I'm meeting up with my publicist in the morning, and visiting their booth thingy, and then I'm off to walk around and grab stuff, then sitting through the awards thingy.

I'm pretty fond of Pete Wentz's response to the scarf thing: [link]

I know nothing about him except for his Celebrity Marriage but that is hilarious.

I saw the scarf kerfuffle in yesterday's Globe (DD being a local institution and all) and meant to post it, but spaced on it during the day. What a joke. Granted, given the original source of the whole thing, I can't say I'm surprised. Fox News must be getting desperate at this point.

ETA - the Pete Wentz thing is awesome.

It's just a little maddening to stumble across these things and have some idea from the English context what they're saying, but not to KNOW.

Um, Susan, are you doing that in your own book? Or are you doing the thing where authors repeat the other-language bits in English as well. As a reader, I'm just as happy to read, "they were speaking French" as opposed to having to skim over some actual French. FYI. IMO. BBD.

Boyz II Men, ABC, BBD - Mm-hmm

BBD

Sadly, I now read this as Book Bound Date.

I saw the scarf kerfuffle in yesterday's Globe

Michelle Malkin is one of the leading forces behind the kerfuffle. That says all I need to know.

Um, Susan, are you doing that in your own book? Or are you doing the thing where authors repeat the other-language bits in English as well. As a reader, I'm just as happy to read, "they were speaking French" as opposed to having to skim over some actual French. FYI. IMO. BBD.

I always provide translation, and I don't do it that often. I mean, y'all have seen all the French that's in my manuscript, which is 340 pages/75K words so far. I do things like this:

“T'as entendu ça? Je t'ai dit qu'il était pas mort,” his captor said in a deep voice full of righteous triumph. Pained and dazed as he was, it took him a long moment to interpret the words as Did you hear that? I told you he wasn’t dead.

Or, later in the same conversation:

“Je peux marcher,” he said, forcing the words out through gritted teeth.

“You can walk?” Fabrice guffawed, his laughter echoed by nervous chuckles from most of the soldiers surrounding them. “I very much doubt it, but why should we let you? You might try to escape.”

I'm using the French for flavor, and to remind readers which language the characters are speaking at any given moment, but only when I can provide an internal translation without being too awkward.

(Bearing in mind this is a rough draft, so it's allowed to be a little awkward.)

Boyz II Men, ABC, BBD - Mm-hmm

The East Coast family!

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Holy crap.

t goes back to frantic editing, why does everything always blow up at the same time, goddamnit