My Beta reader, Brian, pointed out that I had used inconsistent spellings for the same term. This happened because transliteration of Russian words are not standardized. So I had to go back and revise Mission One, all because yefréytor and efreitor were the same word.
I had been under the mistaken belief that yefréytor stood for corporal.
Instead, both words are transliterations of senior private. OK, perhaps I should have guessed that, but I had taken my original source at face value. And furthermore, to add insult to injury, the Russian Army doesn't have corporal's. There's no rank between between junior sergeant and senior private.
I made the mistake of not double checking my original source.
Sigh...
Anyway, a book arrived to brighten up this week. GURPS: Russia by John Ross.
I found a copy for a reasonable price of £13.50/$19.00 on eBay. I've seen it offered for exorbitant amounts, so I snapped it up. A cheaper option, for those who prefer, is the PDF. I read that Steve Jackson Games plan to eventually offer all their GURPs titles as POD books. Though this will cost at an estimated $35.00, which makes the copy I found still look like a bargain.
This RPG game supplement is simply stunning. I spent most of a day reading it, and learning stuff. The bibliography is excellent. And for me, I found it most helpful in understanding the way Russia thinks about things.
By that, I mean what stories they tell themselves.
And useful facts. Like after Moscow, Kiev is historically considered by Russia to be one of its the three most important cities. The other two are St. Petersburg (better known to me as Leningrad), and Novogorod.
More to the point, it's a bit of an oops for Russia, since Kiev is now the capital of the Ukraine. For me, knowing this puts a totally different perspective on the current political maneuvering's going on there. And serendipitously feeds into my The World of Drei series.
So, I found myself making notes and planning what to write next, which was all well and good until I found I had two characters with the same name in Break Out. So, instead of writing, I spent a whole day double-checking every name, and constructing a series bible that has all the named characters listed in alphabetical order.
That was headache inducing.
Also, my internet friend, Jason, sent me a bunch of Russian military information too. So I now have a lot more reading ahead of me.
Therefore last week I only managed to write 461 new words, over the course of about two hours, which is 230 words per hour. Too few new words, I know.
Plan
Finish Break Out and send it off to my Alpha reader
Finally finish the editing of Strike Dog done so that it's ready for publication
I came across yefreitor recently (those Russian space marines again), and it seems to have been brought in explicitly by Peter I from the German/Austrian/Swiss gefreiter.
ReplyDeleteI went for efreitor in the end, as to my eyes it reads easier. Not that Russian words read easy, but easier.
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