Book 1, Lap 1 – Check!

Our First Loop Through the Trilogy

As everyone knows, Tales of the Wandering Mists (or as we call it “The Book”) is headed to the printing presses and digital distribution! Publisher Charlotte has been juggling the daily details, and we’ve all been busy with countless finishing touches, and some days have found us making multiple passes at the same tasks repeatedly. Let’s just say we’ve had a few unanticipated hurdles to jump as we finish this first great lap with Book 1 of Oleg’s trilogy. Thankfully, we’ve had our laughs too, added to each others’ music libraries, and even had virtual snowball fights!

“As a total newbie to the how-a-book-gets-published world – much less one that requires intense and detailed translation, handled across multiple time zones, and with an author active in a war zone – this has been an incredibly eye-opening and awe-inspiring process,” Kelly said.  “I’ve learned so much and never would have imagined the layers and layers of work, and many different creative minds, behind pulling off a project like this.” 

Among the more enjoyable tasks: we recently worked on getting the acknowledgements in place – and like award acceptance speeches, we’ve wrestled with way too many to thank appropriately, too little space, and so many pats on the back due for help given all along the way to bring this project into being. And it’s not just the production team who gets the credit.

“I was delighted to be able to give my own dedication for the book, but being a wordy sort, what I really wanted to say didn’t all fit! It just so happens that it dovetails beautifully with this Team Update post,” Kelly said. Here’s what Kelly didn’t have room to say in her printed dedication: 

“For the Lisas and Jonathans who don’t know that they have it in them and who have yet to start their journeys. For all the other characters in life who challenge, nudge, and support us along the way.”

And it is “Team Oleg,” not just the actual book-production team, but The Team – all of you out there – who are those “other characters in life” for each of us involved in bringing this book from Oleg’s heart and amazing creative mind into your hands. We can’t express enough how much the comments and cheering, and of course the pre-orders and extra donations, have given this project wings to fly – and the sturdy boots to trudge through as needed.

“I’m sure at times to some this seems like a literary love-fest among the team — well, I guess it IS! But it is lots of labors of love too.” Kelly continued, “It hasn’t been easy – individually or collectively – to pull this off. It has been a lot of hard work, sacrifices made by all, and sometimes just difficult stuff to work through with each other – or in the text itself.”

Each of us would agree that in our own specific ways, we have all had challenges and have grown from them in the course of working together on this project. In fact, reading back through the history of our team chat space, we can see how often this very sentiment is shared among us. And that sure gives us good feelings and fuel when we’ve needed it! 

Addressing these difficulties we face through this project produces just that very effect – it carries the heart along. Kelly added, “I’ll go out on a limb and say that I think the very best ‘jobs,’ as well as relationships, are those that present challenges — ones that we respond to and then rise up to, by stretching through the discomfort and growing.” And we think readers will see that’s really what this beautiful work of Oleg’s is about — and not just Lisa’s story (but shhh, we don’t want to spoil anything!)

But back to the love-fest… It has been chock-full of good spirit — and incredibly fun too. We worry mightily over Oleg and his brothers-in-arms. And like our friends on X and Bluesky, we wring our hands over slow-moving fundraisers for critical life-saving equipment. And we hold our breath when things go silent for a while…until Oleg pings one of us or pops up in our Team space replying to threads of messages that have been building layers in his absence.

And yes, we go a little off the rails at times – The red shoes club? Homage to coffee makers? Torrid typos? Bitmoji parties? Worry, stress, deadlines, crossing and conflicting time zones, day jobs, sick pets (and people), and late-nite unwinding have added humor to team chats – and likely raised eyebrows or rolled eyes once we pipe down and Oleg’s back online catching up! It’s made this working group actually “work” interpersonally— and made us like a family of sorts. (Eccentric aunties and all — but we won’t say who that is!)

So as we near the final stretch to the finish line in getting this first volume of the trilogy, Tales of the Wandering Mists, in your hands, we are sharing a little bit of our own tales and wanderings! We know the readers are going to love this trilogy and we hope there’s a real sense of following along on a journey, uncovering treasures along the way. It has certainly been like that for us in reality. 

Just today in translating parts of Book 2 in Oleg’s trilogy, Marina uncovered a little gem that links back to one of Oleg‘s childhood stories about green apricots. Hopefully you read that in the last installment of the Odesa of My Childhood series. “Yesterday I connected dots between a character’s image and a thinly veiled reference to another great literary work — something that just hit me out of the blue, though I’ve read the same description countless times,” Kelly noted – and it’s true that the book is chock FULL of things like that.

Or working with our graphic designer to get something “just right,” we marvel that he’s so gracious about our nudges and tweaks: “No Luis, how about a little less ‘real’, more sinister — smudgy… how about smudgy?” we say. And Luis replies, “Yes, I see what you’re saying! This will be good – I can do it!” And he does! 

Publishing this book is just like that–you feel that the vision is vast, the purpose is vital, and the story deserves the sleepless nights to get it just right. Marina added, “To be part of a team that is willing to go back to bat again and again to honor the shape and context of this narrative, to choose the right words, the right punctuation, the right detail to the image–that’s made all the difference.”

Marina captured the process, and product, so well: “Translating a story is like opening up shutters and cleaning a window into a hidden, peculiar little world. As you peek through the window of Oleg’s fantastic imagination, we hope you can appreciate every elaborate detail and shade of this story.”

We can’t wait to hear your feedback – and see the smile on Oleg’s face when he’s finally holding that printed volume in his hands.

Thank you, all, for making this dream a reality!