Woke early for some shopping, a rare and happy morning trip with Deborah. How I wish for normal times. It been over a year since we could relax together indoors, but apart we must stay for now. The Covid-19 situation in Britain looks positive, and, on average 40 to 50% of the western world has had at least one vaccine dose. Many who haven't been vaccinated appear to actively object to it and prefer illness to health. Evolution in action.
In the afternoon I wanted to work on the Chinese translation of my version of Songs of Innocence and Experience, so I finalised the English ebook in Calibre first. I realised that I hadn't included a Table of Contents, which is an essential part. I also needed to add a new page for the Transcriber's Note; this was attached to the colophon in tiny writing in the print book, but it makes more sense to put it on a separate page here. The print book is 'landscape' format, so I needed to design a 'portrait' eBook cover. I did this a few weeks ago:
The Chinese version involved finalising the English epub file then making a duplicate, and copying the Chinese text into the HTML over the English. I did this line by line at first, but it was taking a long time, as you might expect, so I started to copy larger chunks of text and then add the HTML formatting tags corretly; still per line but it was faster this way.
This took until 3pm. Then I needed a Chinese cover. Wu Yi, my brilliant translator supplied the text, and I thought I would embellish the lettering in a similar way to the English cover:
I hope it makes sense! I also used an image of this lettering in the book. By 6pm the first draft was complete and sent away for proof reading and checks. Errors are inevitable, this is one thing I've learned and have grown to accept.
I then uploaded the English file to Smashwords and it is now instantly available for free worldwide. There is little point in charging for this, the English version. The poems are widespread online, and the beauty of this book is owning the colour print copy, so perhaps people who see the online book will buy a print copy. The Chinese translation is new and unique however, so will be sold.
I feel exhausted again, my energy levels at times feel so very low, but I think this is a response to the high energy and anxiety of my recent days; I'm merely calmer now. I expect that I am 1000 times more productive and efficient than William Blake.
In other art news, I donated my Liza Minnelli painting to Barnardo's in Macclesfield today, so it will go on sale there to 100% benefit the charity. It was one of my earliest works and my first multi-layered painting; this itself helped the work because the underpainting is strangely sad and drooping, its lugubrious strokes visible beneath her translucent skin. Her complexion is pale, like her skin in Cabaret. The dark eyes are stark, the 'sky' and green mountainous landscape strange and dreamlike, like the whole image. It is sad, and slow, like the Weimar era, like a disintegrating past, and life. The painting contains so much about Liza Minnelli. It's a mysterious and magical work with the unique, and instantly magnetic, feeling that all great paintings possess.
Tomorrow I may get back to painting. My eyes are now fizzly, my head aching on the borderline of migraine, as happens at the end of many days now. Forwards we fight, with youth, vigour, genius magicked from the divine air.
