I’ve joined the Clarion West write-a-thon: my goal is to have 50,000 words of my (untitled) novel set in a post-apocalyptic, colonial Paris completed by August 2 (ok, maybe by end of August). Can’t say much about it (I *hate* talking about what I’m writing while I’m writing it), but it’s got fallen angels, Vietnamese dragons and immortals, and plenty of magical fireworks.

You can see a snippet from the WIP on my write-a-thon page–as well as information for donating, and links to all the pages by fabulous other writers such as Rochita Loenen Ruiz, Stephanie Burgis and Floris M Kleijne.

One of the things I really love about a language is listening to the music of its poetry/folk songs/etc. (I spent a lot of my formative years in English reading the Norton Anthology of Poetry); and it’s always fascinating to see how different languages approach poetry, even though it means that poetry has to be the most untranslatable form of text. Vietnamese poetry doesn’t put quite so much emphasis on rhyme as French poetry (mostly, I suspect, because it’s really easy to make words rhyme in Vietnamese). The major feature is how it uses the tonal system to create its patterns, and it takes great advantage of the language’s conciseness to deliver its punch. I can’t really pretend I understand much of how it works, being only a novice, but here’s my attempt at dissecting a poem.

The source is John Balaban’s Ca Dao Viet Nam, basically folk songs from the villages; the poem itself is interesting in that any attempt at faithful translation is bound to be much, much longer than the original, not only because of the language issue, but also because the text itself is filled with Buddhist imagery that doesn’t translate all that well in English.

“Thức tỉnh hồn mê tiếng chuông Linh Mụ
Dặn dò nợ trần duyên rửa sạch
Qua đò đã tây phương.”

“Thức tỉnh hồn mê tiếng chuông Linh Mụ”
“Thức tỉnh” is “to be enlightened, to see reason”; “hồn” is “soul”, mê” is “unaware, unconscious”, I think in the sense that said soul hasn’t been enlightened yet. “tiếng chuông” is “the peal of a bell” (but in this context, it’s interesting to see that “tiếng” also means language). Linh Mụ is a famous pagoda in Huế.
So the sentence would translate something like “The sound of Linh Mu’s bell awakens the unmindful soul”

“Dặn dò nợ trần duyên rửa sạch”
Dặn dò is “advise, recommend”, “nợ” is a debt (a karmic debt, in this context), “trần” I’m not too sure of (the dictionary suggests “ceiling”, “maximum”). “duyên” is a completely untranslatable Vietnamese word that means “bound to meet as lovers or friends [in a future life]“. “rửa sạch” is “wash”. So probably something like “Reminds it to incur no debt, washes it clean of worldly bounds”

“Qua đò đã tây phương”
“Qua đò” is “cross over/board a ferry”, “đã” is the past indicator, and “tây phương” is the Western Place, a Buddhist paradise. So “[has] already crossed over to the Western Place”. What’s missing is the subject of the actual sentence–from context I’m assuming it’s “the soul” of the first sentence, but I could be wrong…

So, putting it all together, should be
“The sound of Linh Mu’s bell awakens the unmindful soul
Reminds it to incur no debt, washes it clean of worldly bounds
Helps it to reach the Western Place”

And you pretty much see why this is hard-as-nails to translate properly, as I had to leave half the meanings out of the translation; not to mention that this is a really ugly translation, word-wise…

(Of course, I never pretended to be a very good translator, and poetry is as hard as nails to get–there’s a couple words I’m not sure I understand properly, and while I understand every word in the last sentence I’m not entirely too sure my interpretation is the one that’d most likely occur to a native speaker. But I figured it’d be fun to share my struggles)

(still swamped, in case you had doubts. What little time I do have is spent napping…)

This will be very brief as I need to pack before leaving for the airport, but wow. Apparently I looked grey for about 30 minutes after the awards were done, to the point where N.K. Jemisin very kindly badgered someone into brewing me orange herb tea (and I remembered the half-consumed bar of cereals in my bag). Pregnancy memo: NEVER ever forget your blood sugar levels… (also, that adrenaline rush that I was counting on to keep awake? I think the pregnancy hormones screw up with that…)

If someone had told me I’d win a Nebula when I was younger and marvelling at all those books and short stories that had won the award… I would probably have laughed in their face, to be honest (which just goes to show how wrong you can be). Like I said yesterday, thanks to Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace and the rest of the team at Clarkesworld; to everyone who spread the word, nominated and voted for “Immersion”; to all my fellow nominees (it was a really strong ballot this year full of strong stories, and I wouldn’t have minded losing to anyone in my category!)–to Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, without whom this story wouldn’t have happened; and finally to my family–to Matthieu, my parents and sister, for putting up with me and my crazy ideas; and a particular thanks to my maternal family in Vietnam who made our visit there such a great experience, and planted the seeds of what would later become “Immersion”.

Thanks I didn’t have time the coherence to give in the speech: to everyone who read and critiqued it (Glen Mehn, and the crew of the 10th VD workshop: Ruth Nestvold, Sylvia Spruck Wigley, Floris M Kleijne, Stephen Gaskell, John Olsen, Nancy Fulda); to everyone who kept me awake and coherent and encouraged me yesterday; and everyone with whom I’ve been having conversations on this topic of cultural identity and cultural imperialism over the last few years (you know who you are!). And big big thanks to everyone who helped put the Nebula Awards weekend together and made it such an awesome experience (special mention to Steven H. Silver, who spent a lot of the weekend making sure I was OK and offering me chairs to sit on–which is much, much appreciated when you can’t really stand still for long…).

I have to admit to some intellectual curiosity as to what other non-native Anglophones won a Nebula? (as in, English not their native language, and not currently living in the US/UK/Anglophone West?) I know about Italo Calvino, Johana Sinisalo, etc., but it looks like they were non-winning finalists?

If I ever needed confirmation that pregnancy plus jetlag is a bad combination…

Today is the big day; I’m counting on adrenaline to keep me awake until the Awards ceremony (a nice idea in principle, but in reality I’m not really sure how much I have to spare). Off to have a shower, and to hunt down my breakfast.

Meanwhile, am still jet lagged. Will go grab breakfast.

Flight was eventless if a bit long, and I was glad to lie down by the end of it. Have to admit am not looking forward to return journey…

But in the meantime, Nebulas! Fun! (and naps. The snakelet insists)

Ebook cover

Aka the shiny… Art courtesy of Nhan Y Doanh, and cover layout thanks to Janice Hardy–thanks to both of them for putting up with my (short-term) deadlines and producing such beautiful things. (MC is Linh; the older woman in lower right-hand corner is Quyen. Slightly more detailed view of the original watercolour is here if you’re interested, since Doanh had to cut bits of it off to fit the cover format).

The ebook should be live on amazon within a day or two if I didn’t screw up the Kindle upload…

(and remember you can still get the limited edition hardback with Melissa Gay’s artwork direct from Immersion Press, while stocks last…)

Night over The Red Trees. Clarisse rises from the bed, casting a glance at the moon that slowly seeps into the room. Raoul, asleep in his bed with his arms outstretched towards her, groans and shifts, looking for her, but he does not wake up. He used to, when she first came here months ago; but he soon got used to her wandering through the house every night–and tonight of all nights, he knows she won’t be able to sleep.

Within her, the magic pulses–a steady beat like the waves of the sea, like the call of a drum–but she’s been listening to it for months, and she knows this night is its last night. After all, nothing lasts forever, not even the spirits’ gifts.

Tonight is a time for endings.