[Shahida] What I'm working on

[Christoph]

Very nice!

What are the differences between the Italian and English edition? Especially, how is it possible that the Italian version is published before, when it seems the English one was finished recently? Did you actually write the Italian version?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Christoph,

Work on this project met a lot of adversity, ranging from otherwise very good things like the births of my children (2007 and 2009), to very bad things like some kind of viral infection that more-or-less ruined me throughout 2011. I was able to progress in terms of information but not so much in writing. Every time I'd get really going on it, something overwhelming would happen.

I currently have a contract with the Italian company Narrattiva to translate my games; they've already done Trollbabe and Spione. They've been pushing me to finish Shahida and have been very supportive, not the least by having me attend InterNosCon to promote a preliminary version last year. This year, I'm going to Lucca with them, having assured them I'd be done with it in time for the con. So it was a self-imposed deadline but perilously close to meeting someone else's deadline - not my preferred way to work, but I realized that without some kind of externally-imposed constraint, I would find this project sidelined indefinitely. As usual, the summer provided extensive crises or unexpected time-sinks which led to the initial post of this thread.

Anyway, so as I finished chapters in English, I farmed them over to their translators, and their production mechanisms whirred into action, I suppose. As you probably know, no writer is ever really done with a manuscript, so especially since I have zero distance from the work at the moment, I am not able to call it "done." But the project of writing the whole thing is done, so any changes I make to what I'm soon to publish in English will merely be refinements. Not of the game - that's solid as it is.

Let me know if that answers your question.

Best, Ron

[Christoph]

Great, thanks. I'm looking forward to the game!