Bijna verloren

Hey J,

In all honesty, I left the writing style of the first book of the series for what it is. I found I felt more comfortable staying close to the writing style of the author of the original, if that´s all right with you. And I want you to know that your instructions made a world of difference. You said that you were not looking for a one-to-one, literal translation, remember, and that the final deliverable should feel natural to a native speaker, as if the book were written in Dutch in the first place 

Bearing that in mind I had no qualms about losing or adding words, or even reconstructing entire sentences, while proofreading and editing the first six chapters, although I had stayed as close as possible to the English text while making a first draft. At all times my two leading questions were, 1. what (sensation, message, sentiment, and so on) does the author want to convey, and 2. what does it make an easy read for the educated native speaker?
`Screenagers´ might well regard some expressions as being obsolete, which they are not of course — they just don´t belong to their everyday vernacular. My fellow students at university used to admire my huge vocabulary. If your proof reader, however, feels that I´m overdoing it, please let me know.
Uh, does this make any sense at all? 

Furthermore it may be worth mentioning, that I changed the punctuation quite a bit, as a phrase like »“Hello, M. I´m C,” she said.« would translate as »“Hallo, M“, zei ze. “Ik ben C.”« 
You can imagine, I´m sure, that it´s quite an extra effort — especially as most chapters contain a lot of direct speech — but … hey, that´s life 

And, yes, you were absolutely right about sending me the first book for context, because the second book keeps referring to the first one, as the storylines are tightly interwoven. So, it turned out to be very helpful to have read that one first, last Friday. 

Anyway, I guess what I want to say is, that I´m enjoying the ride so far. I know that translating legal documents or editing scientific papers is so much more, no offence, lucrative. But, this is … so much more fun! 
I know that you´re going to say that that´ll probably wear off over time, especially with lesser authors, but right now I´m enjoying myself immensely. Thank you for the opportunity. I so much wanted to see what it would be like. It almost feels like … oh, I dunno … like … coming home? 

I´d better stop now, before I get all mushy.

I do hope to hear from you soon. Have a great one! 

All the best,
Jaap