a day in the life...

dawn. wake up, get up, walk animal(s), feed animals, turn on computer, make coffee, sit down at computer...
it's just another workday.
so i warm up with a little press clipping for a corporate client. i could skip coffee, but i can't start working without this warm-up. facebook also helps pass the time. when i finish that i get down to real stuff.
these days's it's been a friend's father's memoirs. the serb uprising against the fascist croatian puppet-state in the second world war. i finished it last night, but it's been a hell of a trip the past three months. the guy's got a good sense of humor, and even though he's talking about various killings (some that he witnessed first-hand) it isn't a difficult read. but his language is complicated. we're temporally, geographically, linguistically, and educationally distant. it was a good challenge. and it was nice to exchange comments (mainly linguistic) with a 90+ year old by email.
but i spent three months in someone else's head. and it can be tiring. to consider the person's life experience, everything possible i could learn about them and the place/time that they describe, to make educated guesses about that which i cannot know, time and  again... the entire time thinking about the reader and the explanations that i might have to add. and then keeping the integrity of the text, the language, the style...
and then it's over. it's like a child you raised and its time to release it into the world. you've done what you've done, and its time to say farewell. these experiences stay with you...