Janna Yeshanova's Blog: Life? Spark It! - Posts Tagged "second-chance"

I recently had the opportunity to do a Q&A session at the Goodreads group Romance Readers Reading Challenges. Here' some of the questions and my reply:

Jane (PS) wrote: "Hi Janna - welcome to our group :)

From your outlined background I'm guessing that English is not your first language - did this present a significant challenge in the construction of your novel? ..."

Hi Jane!

Thanks for your warm welcome! That's right! English is not my native language. It's my third language. :) My native language is Russian. The book was first written and published in Russian, and the thought of translating it was very natural and simple. When the translation started I was horrified. I could not find right idioms, that would carry the same weight of the words. I felt if I deviate from translating the details that one can feel, will betray my book. I wanted to preserve and convey the juice of the language that expresses environment, relationships, jokes, and everything else that we live in.

I worked with several editors. My Russian book was on my lap and we were going sentence by sentence through it. At that time I had a feeling that they all hated me simultaneously. :) Two of them were native English speakers with PhDs in English.

After the editorial work was over, the manuscript was read by many people from different professions, different ages, educational level, and when I realized that they love the book, I decided that it was time to publish it.

I am admitting that to translate and edit the book was much harder then to write it in Russian.

You can check out the entire event at:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Love Is Never Past Tense is available, in both English and Russian at

http://www.loveisneverpasttense.com

and the new cover edition is available as an ebook at

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Is-Never-P...

It is also available as an ebook at SmashWords. In celebration of the SmashWords release, Love Is Never Past Tense is featured on Christoph Fischer's blog :see http://ow.ly/ridPP I will stop by to answer your questions today, Friday November 29. I hope to chat with you there.

I am listening, on the phone and Skype, to friends who live in Crimea. Some of them are ethnic Russians, some Ukrainians, some western Ukrainians... Everybody has a different vision on current events in Crimea, everybody has a different agenda, but all of them want peace… spring and peace.

Spring comes by itself...Peace is less reliable...

Crimea is one of the most beautiful places on Earth... Crimea, with the stroking blue-green waves of the Black sea... Crimea, with its dormant volcano Kara-Dag. Crimea, where people gather for vacations, enjoy the fresh air, the pebble beach, the smell of the sea weeds in the coastal breeze... Crimea, where people meet and become friends for life, where they play guitars on the shore under the starry sky, where they listen to the music, fall in love, and carry back home memories that last for life.

The thought to leave my country came while I was in Crimea, when events in Moldova and Chechnya were evolving as they are evolving in Ukraine now.

'The days flew cheerfully in Koktebel. In the evenings we gathered at Anna and Vladimir’s home, local residents who provided simple living for people on vacation. We sang songs with a guitar, told jokes, laughed a lot, drank plenty, and ate heartily.

“It is time to split.” Boris said.

“You’ve only arrived! Why do you have to leave?” I asked.

“But not in this sense …” Boris stretches his words in thoughtfulness. “There is no place to come back to, as a matter of fact.'

Before our departure from home, someone scratched a cross on the door of our house…” (From the book Love Is Never Past Tense)

I got a chance to go back to Crimea a couple of years ago where the Russian version of Love Is Never Past Tense was published.

It was the same Crimea, like it was years ago — but at the same time it was not. I tried to compare my feelings to the ones I had there before, but I could not. The same sea, the same sky, the same horizon…

What made it so different? And it struck me: dogs! Hungry dogs in the streets all over. They can run into you even on the beach. “Where are all these hungry dogs are coming from?” I thought.

I hardly passed a grocery store without buying another kilogram of hot dogs to help hungry animals.

Near a side wall of one store, I noticed a little mommy-dog with several, maybe one week old puppies. She looked at me with such pain! She was hungry. So were her babies. I dropped three hot dogs in her mouth, one after another. They hit the bottom of her stomach without being chewed.

I thought “who will feed these guys tomorrow?” I returned to the store and asked the sales person to feed the doggie for the next two-three days with my hot dogs. She agreed and I handed her the whole package.

When I shared this story with a Crimean friend, the reply was “The sales person will take the food to her kids. She will feed them first. Forget about your dogs…”

Now, tanks are rolling down the streets of Crimea, trying to “enforce peace”. Can peace be enforced? Let’s hope that agendas will merge! Let’s hope a vision will be shared!

Flags on government buildings come and go. Perhaps this is why peace is less reliable…

Wishing you peace in the coming spring!

Janna Yeshanova
Love Is Never Past Tense
http://www.loveisneverpasttense.com
Buy it on Kindle