My first book!

[prosodic]

Most of last year, I spent a good deal of volunteer hours working on a book for the Family Support Center (now known as the Airman and Family Readiness Center, for whatever stupid reason). Anyway, it's mainly a glossary in German, Dutch, and French to help people do their shopping, eating out, banking, auto repair, etc. It was a collaborative effort, although I actually wrote the bulk of the book and did the graphic design on a small amount of it (using a program I have now come to hate called MS Publisher). We borrowed liberally from a similar book that the Canadians published (with their permission, of course) and I added a significant amount of content to that.

I was thinking that the book would never see the light of day. But lo, it has! I went to the Family Support Center today (I don't care...I will ALWAYS call it this), and Tina presented it to me. I guess it was first published 3 weeks ago.

I'm ridiculously giddy at the moment. Fifty-five pages, but lots of work went into this! It's just so cool to finally see the fruit of my labors!

Front cover (I didn't design it, by the way)

sample pages (menu items in English, German, Dutch, and French)

back cover (I think it's kind of funny that one of my co-authors didn't even get credited for this. She hardly did any work on it, and what she did write ended up having to be re-written by me anyway)

Comments

[bluedots98.livejournal.com]

At least now the FSC seems to be encouraging people to actually go out and try local restaurants and (gasp!) actually translate the damn menu instead of steering them to the ones with english menus.

Big pet peeve of mine.


Looks fabulous, well done!

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Well, I think Tina Bastien can be credited for that. She has done so much work on getting people out there, teaching them how to use the train (and use the ticket machines in the train station that don't have English), and encouraging them to try the local restaurants instead of driving to the nearest McDonald's.

She's leaving in October. Nobody will be able to fill her shoes. She is a fabulous person, and I've learned a lot from her and she's become a good friend.

[mrs-picasso.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Working on this thing really wore me out. I was worried that it would never make it into print.

[bookharlot.livejournal.com]

That is so cool!!!

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

It's also quite useful. I got an education writing it. And even now looking through it, Tina added some stuff since I last looked at it in the layout stage. I've been living here now for almost 3 years, and I still find some useful things in this guide.

[lijepanena.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! =)

[ex-roanoke414.livejournal.com]

WOW! Cool! Congrats you!

[katzies.livejournal.com]

Very cool! Didn't they have a German proof-reader though?

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Yes, Nadja is German. She's from Aachen. She also speaks fluent Dutch, and I think French. I know Aziz would not be a German name, but maybe her father isn't German...she looks a touch exotic.

[katzies.livejournal.com]

Aziz sounds Turkish, maybe? I was just asking because there are several mistakes on the pages you posted. Nothing too bad though, it definitely won't stop the book from being helpful but I'm a nit-pick ;-)

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Well, don't blame me. :) I either pulled this off the Canadian publication, in which case, the mistake is their fault...or I pulled it out of one of my German language books if it's something that I added in. I had to lug around huge German and Dutch dictionaries to do this thing.

[katzies.livejournal.com]

Haha, no I'm not blaming you! I was just wondering, that's all.