Confessions of a Translator! A bit of insight into my translation process after the jump!

Chapter 962. Translator: Deathblade. Translation Checker: anonpuffs. Chinese Grammar Consultant: Madam Deathblade. Proofreaders: Courtrecords, GNE, and Lingson. Memes: Shu. Meme Archives: JerryDaBaws. Master of Cuteness: Baby Deathblade.

This is the 8th chapter of the week.

Actually, my process has not really changed very much. I've done mostly the same thing since even before I started working on ISSTH, so some of you who have been reading my chapter updates for a long time won't find much new information here. The main difference now is that there is a team involved, and also, I pump out A LOT more chapters than long ago. First important point is that I like to let the chapters sit for a while, then look at them with fresh eyes and edit them before release. Now I have proofreading/editing and translation checking as well.

Another important aspect to my process is that even though I release at least 2 chapters per day (including weekends), I don't want to translate on the weekends themselves. Therefore, I translate all the chapters during the week. Of course, those chapters have to be looked at by the team, plus worked on by me in a last edit. That final editing and posting process can take 30-60 minutes, so that means that even on Saturday and Sunday I'm looking at a few hours of work, maybe more for double releases. Also, the proofreading and translation checking sometimes doesn't get finished until right before I edit and release the chapter, no matter how many chapters are queued up for review.

To answer a question that has been asked before, I do have a small chapter buffer in case of emergencies. More explanation below. For now, take a look at how I keep track of my productivity during the week. I have a huge whiteboard above my work station with this in the upper left hand corner:

Low tech I know. However, one thing you can see is that however many chapters I translate directly correlates to how many I release. Starting 5 weeks ago, I released 20 chapters, the following week 16, then 17, then 18, and last week 12. On the board you'll see I only translated 11 chapters last week. That's where that buffer comes in, just in case something happens and I get too busy to translate (like last week with my parents arriving in China).

You can also see that two weeks ago, I had a horrible Wednesday, then went crazy on Thursday to translate more than usual and get to a total release of 18 chapters that week. That Thursday went almost perfectly, and I set a record of translating 5 chapters in a day. The result was I was super exhausted, and don't plan to do such a thing again very often. Another thing you can see is that as of this posting, I have already translated 15 chapters this week. That means that even if I took tomorrow off, we would still have at least 1 double or ninja release over the weekend. Of course, if I'm productive tomorrow, we might be able to have 2 or 3 extra chapters! (Sorry, I already know that I can't get 4 done because of BDB's class, and some other things I need to take care of. Also my dad came down with a fever today. Hopefully it gets better, but if not we might need to go to the doctor/hospital tomorrow. Stay tuned....)

Well, I hope this was interesting and informative to all of you. I think now you can see why I usually save the double/ninja chapters toward the end of the week. Over the next few weeks, my parents will still be here in China, so the chapters won't get up into the 18-20 range. After they head back to America, though, I will be ready to bust out!