Now that the text of Book One is complete, I’m beginning to question whether my choice to write it in a language that is not my native tongue was a mistake — although that was precisely the vision we had as a team six months ago. The editors certainly faced challenges cleaning the Augean stables of my initial “English” draft, but every additional day invested in refinement undoubtedly benefitted the Land of Amun universe.
I can’t help but share what an awesome team is working on the Land of Amun book series!
Editors
Vladimir Kuzneсov
Vladimir, with over 25 years of experience in multiple language-related fields, is passionate about high quality texts and would enhance them infinitely.
Our collaboration began with a straightforward request: I encouraged him to flag any poorly worded passages immediately and without hesitation. This is how — harshly, succinctly, yet invariably in a civilized manner — seasoned magazine editors communicated with me fifteen years before when my stories were first published.
Vladimir delivered. We rapidly brought around a hundred pages to life, moving forward without the usual delays or formalities. Yet, the list of suggested revisions and additions was extensive, necessitating extra support. To ensure we didn’t lose momentum, we enlisted Nikolay to take on the editing tasks.
Nikolay Latushkin
Nikolay, a professional translator, editor, and avid reader with over 20 years of subject matter expertise. The editors worked on various sections of the draft and then proofread each other’s work. Nikolay, his perfectly healthy fastidiousness bordering on obsession, was tasked with finding faults while drawing on his fresh perspective. Thanks to his contributions, the story gained a sense of integrity, and any lingering inconsistencies and contrived coincidences vanished.
At yet, the sheer volume of technical corrections had left us feeling overwhelmed. We were so bogged down in details that we felt we were losing sight of the bigger picture and realized we needed some bigger guns…
Proofreaders
Vladimir’s elder brother Andrey, a chronic grumbler with a courteous attitude, over 30 years of experience in translations and 40 years in reading fiction, was fed a polished version of the draft and appeared to be quite pleased with it. However, he recommended a radical approach: rather than just adding depth and clarity, he suggested breaking the first book into two separate volumes…
This was a significant shift that took us some time to come to a consensus.
Ultimately, I was supposed to complete nearly 50 new pages, while the editors would need to proofread those as well. With the introduction of new storylines and a restructured ending for the first book, I understood that was a necessary minimum.
In the end, after several rounds of edits, Andrey became somewhat weary of constant scrutiny, leading us to bring in Alexei, an enthusiast of videogames and fantasy novels, but most importantly a meticulous linguist, for a fresh eye. His role was to review everything from the ground up, ensuring that no detail was overlooked.
By this point, the quality of the book had significantly improved, and the changes Alexei suggested were minimal. All that was needed were a few careful refinements, which would require just a couple of weeks of focused, yet unhurried, work
Bottom Line
For each of us, working on the book served as a much-needed outlet and distraction. We worked entirely in our free time, approaching the text with careful consideration, slowly, and genuinely enjoying the creative journey. In fact, as evidence of our commitment and passion, the entire team is currently engaged in the development of our second book, and we have no intention of stopping there.