Starting a Newspaper?

The other day, I was awakened by a phone call from an old friend. She abruptly told me that she wanted to publish a local paper in her town, and wanted to see me for an advise. I went to see her and heard all about her project.
She told me that she has been thinking about it ever since she came to the town 25 years ago when she married a local man from a wealthy family. He died a few years ago, leaving her some real estate to support her life although they are not so much for a luxury life. Now she wants to start her own life while she doesn't have to worry about daily bread and butter. A free paper that will carry many useful information for her local life, sponsored by local advertisers, came in her mind. Actually, she once helped a local paper in another town before she married. She thought she has experiences, resources and a chance.
The chance she wanted to catch was the great merge of local autonomies in Japan. Japanese villages, towns and cities have been merged into much larger units, although they are still called towns and cities. Usually, three or four villages, towns, and cities are merged into one city. I don't think it is suitable to call such a wide area "city," but nonetheless, the forests and hills now belong to a city. Whatever the name is, the purpose of this great merge is to make efficient local governments to govern people more efficiently. I don't like this idea, either. But who cares, the great merge is going on, and my city will be a greater city absorbing three towns by the next year.
Her local town will be merged into a city with three other towns. And people from other town will be lost in their own city because they didn't know what's going on in other towns. This is the chance she didn't want to miss. A local paper for the new city will be needed, and she can publish it.

I advised her many things about editing a newspaper. I told her how much budgets will be needed, and I estimated the ins and outs of the project. She thanked me for giving her many useful information, and promised me to hire me when she needs a consultation. I told her that I can give her assistance to get started, although I will not be able to be an editor for the paper. It will not be my job.
Three days later, she called me again, and told me that she thought over, and wants to stop the project. She made some excuse, but the reason I felt was that the project will too large for her to handle. She didn't realize how hard will she have to work to start a newspaper, even if it is a small local one.

Between two different languages

The other day, I was asked to write a draft for a patent application. My client invented a software, and want it to be patented. To make a patent application, there are patent lawyers who can handle many complicated paper works, including writing an application. So, he went to a patent lawyer, but he was told to come back again with a draft that describes his invention precisely. The lawyer said that his explanation was too vague and he couldn't figure out what he has to write in the application.
As a translator, I have translated several patent documents. He remembered it, and asked me to help him write down a draft. This was a strange assignment for me, either as a translator or an editor. But I accepted it for I thought it would be just like writing an article on an interview. He would tell me all about his invention, and I would write it down for the people, this time for the lawyer, to understand.
Usually, when I interview someone to make an article, I don't bring a tape recorder. It makes people nervous and makes me distracted. I tend to be careless on the conversation with a recorder because I know I will be able to check what has been said afterward, and this carelessness makes my question unfocused. I end up regretting that I should have asked more questions when I listen to the recording. I'd rather not to use those equipments, but stick on to the old fashioned pencil and papers.
I met my client twice on this project, and made up a report. It described his invention, but was never be a part of the patent application itself. Writing an application is a lawyer's business. I only made a document to clarify his idea for the lawyer to understand. I think I did a good job.
The lawyer argued if I was a co-inventor with my client after he read it. He thought I invented a part of the invention because he found in my document a new idea which he didn't notice before in the meeting with the inventor. But it was clear that I was not. I only wrote down what the inventor had said. The lawyer hadn't noticed what I noticed. It made the difference.
On my business card I gave him, I put my title as a translator. He told me that now he understood what I do. In a way, an inventor and a lawyer speak different language, or different dialects. He told me I translated between them.

What does an editor do?

When I was a kid, I loved to read a lot of stories. I was enchanted by books, and thought it'd be wonderful that if I could make books when I grow up. I thought it was a writer who make a book. But a writer seemed too faraway for me. I didn't think I could be. Then I found that it was not a writer, but a printer who actually make a book. I thought a printer may easier to be, but somehow, it sounded not attractive. Maybe it was because of my uncle who was a printer. He was specialized for stickers, and didn't make any book.
If I knew a word "editor," I would have thought it was what I wanted to be. A writer writes a story, but he will not make a book. A printer may prints, but printing is not making a book. It is an editor who makes a book. Somehow the dream of my childhood had come true, and I became an editor. I've made many books. But still, I find it difficult to explain my job. What is an editor anyway? A writer writes. A printer prints. There is a designer, proofreader, typesetter, DTP operator, and binder if you need. What do you need an editor for?

I don't know much about editorial in other languages, but in Japanese publishing, there are many odd jobs that an editor has to do. He writes, do layout, proofreads, and designs. He makes up plans, finds a writer, reads manuscripts, and gives an advise or two to a writer. Sometimes he encourage a writer, and sometimes discourage him. Often, he doesn't put his hands on layout and book design, just assign them to a designer. If time and budget allows, he doesn't proofread at all, just give it to a proofreader. In some cases, he writes or rewrites most of the book he is working, and does everything by himself. In other cases, he doesn't do almost nothing at all, just pass a script to a printer. In many cases, he does something in between, depending on his status, ability, and nature of the book or plan he is working on.
Now you know why it is hard to explain what an editor is for. You can make a book without an editor, while an editor alone can make a book. He can do everything, but he doesn't do everything. Sometimes as an editor, I feel that I don't know what I am doing. I do what is needed to make a book, but I always know that the book can be made without what I am doing. Am I working in vein?

But you need an editor to make a good book. I know it in my experience. You cannot make it without an editor, although he sometimes doesn't do anything at all.
What I do is a series of many odd jobs to make a book. I call it editing. What an editor do is editing, and editing is what an editor do. I know this explains nothing, but that is life as it is.

How I Became a Translator

There are some people in Japan who keep insisting on to make a translator a certified qualification, like an accountant or an attorney. Luckily, they haven't succeeded in those decades, although they have issued their certificate for a "qualified translator." I am not the one, never learned translation in the collage, nor passed an examination. I once attended a course taught by a distinguished translator, but I never finished it. In my opinion, a person is a translator not because he is qualified, but he is practicing translation.
Then, people will ask me how I became a translator. A person will be a translator when he starts practicing translation. Then, how will he start? It is still a mystery to me. Some start their career as an in-house translator. I am now working with a young translator, who once worked for a trading company. After she quit her job, the company asked her to translate their documents, and she became a freelance translator. I know another woman who simply asked a translation agency to give her a job. There is a patent specialist who once worked for a patent office, which she left to marry. After several years, she started her own translation agency with the experience and connection of her previous job.
My case is much more specific and personal. It is a long story to tell. Actually, I once wrote a book on it in Japanese. I don't want to repeat it here. I will just tell you a small episode in it.

I was trying to be a translator when I was young, but didn't know how. I thought I could be, and was looking for an opportunity to come, which never came. Sometimes I was confident enough that I can do any translation job given, and sometimes I felt so frightened that I would mess up the job I would be given. I was just imagining. Nothing real happened.
When I felt so small that I will never be able to handle a proper translation job, I wondered that if I actually could endure the pressure of the work. What I didn't know about myself was, that if I could write a long script. I never wrote a document longer than a page or two. I had translated many documents as my training, but they were all short ones. I wondered if I could handle longer translation, say, hundred pages of a book. It was just my imagination I was wondering. You can laugh at, but a young unexperienced man is always afraid of imagined troubles.
One day out of this fear, I decided to translate a whole book. This way, I should be able to prove myself that I actually can translate a long document, and be confident on this. I didn't know how long it would take, but I started anyway.
I chose a book out of the shelves of a book store, just because the author's name was familiar to me. The name was Richard Brautigan, a famous poet and writer in the beat generation. I have read some of his stories in Japanese translation, and found them interesting. I knew this book I chose was not translated yet, so, there was no need to worry that I would make a cheating on myself; I had to translate it all by myself. And most of all, the book was not too long. It had just a right volume for a beginner.
I translated the book in a month or two, and became confident enough to be a translator. And that could be the end of the story. I was confident, but the job I was looking for never came. My confidence didn't help me much, because I still didn't know how to be a translator.
Several month had passed, and I was surprised one night, browsing a newspaper, to find out that Richard Brautigan, the author of the story I translated personally, was found dead in his house. Apparently, he made suicide with his gun. I felt shivered because the story I translated was on a bullet to kill a boy. I almost felt it was the same bullet that hit the author himself.
Out of my shock, I sent my script of the translation to his publisher in Japan. I didn't hope nothing. I only wanted to express my condolence to someone somehow. The only one I could think of who knew Brautigan in Japan was the publisher, and I had to send my script to prove that I had something to do with the author. It was the era long before the Internet age.
I sent them, and forgot about it. But the publisher called me. They wanted to publish my translation. Out of blue, I became a translator.

You may call me lucky. But what luck do I have if this all happened with the tragedy of a lonely poet? I was happy to be a translator, but regretted on the way it happened.
I still feel uneasy. I feel like a ghost still haunts me. Is it a ghost of the dead poet? Or the shadows of the sadness I felt in my younger days? I still don't know.
And I still don't know how to be a translator, that I am.

Editing and Translating - as an Introduction

I have been an editor/translator more than twenty years. I've never worked for a major publisher or a major magazine, but walked many back roads, done many odd jobs. Still, looking back, what I have done are either editing or translating, nothing else. I cannot call myself other than an editor or a translator, or both. For instance, I once worked for a small political party for one year. I never made a speech of propaganda, nor try to organize people. All I did was editing political paper and books on politics. After that, I worked at a health food company for two years, and what I did was translating documents and editing publication for the promotion of the company. I never sold one product.
Editing and translating, those two jobs handle Japanese words. I do not call myself a linguist, but I know much about my tools which is a language. So, I started a creative writing course on a website. It is very strange that they never teach creative writing in Japan, at least in high schools. Sure, they teach "sakubun," composition, in elementary schools and junior high schools, but it lacks all essential of how-to-write-a-good-story. They always tell you "express yourself" without giving you a hold. It is impossible. As an editor, I found many writers mess up their story just because they don't know simple theories of paragraph, sentence, and story. I always gave them advises, and their work always improved. If they know the basic of writing, my work will be much easier. That is why I started teaching. If I were not an editor, I couldn't start my class. This way, I am an editor, rather than a teacher.
I have written some essays and interviews on magazines, contributed some articles for books, and published stories on the web. But I don't call myself a writer, or a journalist. I once worked with an old journalist, a woman worked most of her life for the liberation of women in Japanese rural area. I adore her work. She once told me, "A true journalist never speaks, but let people speak." It gave me a shock. At the time, I was trying to add a "writer" to my career. She taught me that those who speaks loud, writes clever, are never be true journalists or writers. I was ashamed of what I was. I was only trying to be a famous, distinctive writer, didn't care what writers for. And when I started to think what a writer should be, I had to conclude that I was not one.
Of course, there are many things that I do in my life other than editing and translating. I am a musician playing guitar and was a climber whose records were published on magazines. But they never gave me a cash. I cook good foods, grow vegetables in my garden. But not a cook or a farmer.

I have been an editor/translator and will always be. In this series, I will write whatever an editor and a translator have seen, and will see.