For Your Consideration

For your consideration
Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>
10/6/14
to Drawe
Hi Max,
Please find attached as promised a list of some edits for your consideration. In my humble opinion, these
improve the reading of the book. There may be some more of similar nature. Thanks for your time.
Best,
M. Drawe <mdrawe@da-pub.com>
10/6/14
to me
Many thanks, Rene. - Will look at it today.
to me
Hi Rene,
The edits are all fine. Many, many thanks you for your diligence. I
think there are only 2 or 3 instances where I would have to look at
the whole paragraph to decide what feels best. - Did you already make
those changes in your version? - I would actually try to avoid sending
any more versions around. I settled on one final English file and will
make all changes there if you don't mind. I will send you a blackline
so you see that I applied the changes and how I did it. - There will
always be a little flaw here and there but I think we cought almost
all of them. - Best, Max
to Drawe
10/6/14
Thanks, Max. No, I have not made any changes in my version and that's the reason why I send them over to
you. I also realize that you sometimes make the characters in the novel say slightly different things, or you omit
a thing or two from one language to the other. That's why I send them to you, so that more than re-translating,
you decide what to do with the suggestions and have final say on the story. I also think that we shouldn't have
many versions around but yours only. So in other words, I will wait for your blackline and will consider the file
the one final to draw from. I remember I told you I was doing this from passion in the story. I made the changes
not to impress you or anything but simply because it's the right thing to do.
----- Original Message ----- From: "M. Drawe" <mdrawe@da-pub.com>
To: "Ren Alfaro" <alfaroren@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2014 4:50 PM
10/7/14
to me
Here it is, Rene. - Good morning!

I made almost all changes according to your suggestions. In ten
percent of the cases I rendered it slightly different because I
thought it sounded better this way. Please note that this is my final version (formatted for Kindle), so
it has a smaller font and no page numbers.
One addition at the very end: "About the creation of this book" - I
won't comment on it, just read it and let me know what you think.
Best, Max
10/7/14
to Drawe
Good morning, Max,
Thanks for the new and final version. The idea behind the suggestions was not to impose the changes on you
but to help you to find ways -as the author - so that you could express certain things better as in the case of the
piano being hauled with the help of the other squatters.
I just read the "About the creation" section and I love it, but I must confess I am kind of familiar with it as a
similar text is included in German at Amazon DE as part of the author's profile. Only a girl is included there...!
Now since I have to meticulously account for your changes into my already translated Spanish version and
"migrate" into the new format, I will deliver the assignment till late tomorrow. So please bear with me. Thanks,
Max!
Best,
Ren Alfaro
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 6:40 AM
to me
No problem, Rene. - You do not have to change the format of your

Spanish version of course. I will do the formatting for Kindle. - But
I know it will be a little more time consuming to match the two
formats when doing the final edits. - I just try to not get confused,
so I always make changes in the version I will actually upload to
Amazon. When it appears in Amazon it looks like the version we are
working on. If I had uploaded our 18 font work version, the font would
have turned out insanely large on Kindle.
Regarding the "Creation" - I had a real bio before but it was just
insanely boring (like the bios of most of the authors). Nobody cares
about who won an award and where, or who was nominated for the heck
what (only the author himself).
I took out the part with the girl because it was a bit too much and
also too long. The way it is now, it kind of fits in with the
squatters. - And I REALLY had a blackberry with a trackball. I've
bought a new one, now, with a track pad, but I've kept the old one.
On Author's Central (there is a German and an English one) you can
actually add several photos. I am planning to add a photo of me
peeking out of a tent on the beach, one where I (overweight as I am)
climb a coconut tree, one where I play an accoustic guitar in front of
the tent, and one where I fry an egg !!!! over an open fire. And one
of the "writer's tool" - the beat up blackberry with the track ball,
backcover long gone, battery held in place by a rubber band. - THIS IS
VERY BRAZILIAN, or to be precise CARIOCA. All of this will be done
DEAD SERIOUS and I don't plan to give away that it is a joke. - You
won't believe it but some people I knew in the past but haven't seen
in 20 years (Germans and Swedes) took the German version with the girl
without front teeth and the can collection FOR FACE VALUE. They were
absolutely shocked. I loved it.
I actually already have photos with "Sandra" but I think our writer
needs to be single to be available for female readers. What do you
think? I can keep "Sandra" - The photos look totally real. She sits
in a beach chair beside me, arm in arm.
And now get this: I had the idea with the coconuts and then just 2
10/7/14
days later, I really saw a couple working together, picking Coconuts

in Copacabana. - I will send you the photo shortly.
10/7/14
to Drawe
Thanks, Max. You just made me laugh! I think the author needs to be single as singers do who, despite
married, don't say it aloud to preserve their aura of availability. But if "Sandra's" pictures are nice and in good
taste and they add to the Carioca feeling, then try to go for it. I laugh again when I read about your friends
being shocked at your living under a tent, picking up coconuts, the toothless girl, and all the other stuff. I
laughed at it when I read it in German and understood it quickly to be a joke, a prank of sorts but humour is
dead on some other peoples... Please send the coconut-picking picture, or any other, my way, whenever you
want to.
Regarding the formatting. It is understood that you do the migrating yourself into Kindle. But just
accounting for the changes alone, I have to be very careful. Remember I am working on a previous version, so
I have to go with the Blackline paragraph by paragraph seeing either that nothing inserted is left out or that
nothing omitted gets in. As I once said, this process is necessary because of the creation that takes place
before our very eyes in writing a book. This is not a legal treatise but a live creature! Thanks again.
Best,
Ren Alfaro
10/7/14
to me
Don't want to loose the "single singer"" factor. - The way I imagine it is a continuation of the squater vibe. - It's a
celebration of a "carefree" and "liberated" life. No "tristesse", but happiness in simplicity (I see this every day.)
I already know how our writer makes his money. He builds elaborate sandcastles on the beach and charges the
tourists who want to take photos in front of it.
Will send you a photo of "the author's sandcastle" shortly.
Apart from being beautiful, the sandcastle is a big symbol of course.
10/7/14
It sure is - the castle symbol. I understand symbolism, free life and to not have "aucune tristesse." Let the
singer be single for idealism. Preserving in writing the squatter's vibe so that the reader can feel it himself is a
great realization and no small feat of yours. Please send it. Thank you.
10/7/14
to me
The "mulatas" are below him. He knows that "sex sells" but he wouldn't
want to go that low. He prefers to build a real, elaborate castle.
10/7/1
4
to Drawe
Nice! Nowadays there's hardly an artist that doesn't try to sell anything with sex. Funny Don Quixote comment!
10/7/14
to me
I don't know if you've noticed, but there's not a single "slippery" scene in the novel. - I don't find it necessary to
describe how exactly they mate. It's not the subject of this story. - Longing, desire, betrayal and heartache, yes.
Graphic sex, no. - This way I can even give it to my mother without blushing.
And, let's be frank, at the bottom of it all, we do it for our mother, don't we?
10/7/14
to mmdrawe
I DID notice that there are no lewd scenes, no debauchery - just the allusion to them because your focus was
shifted to other human endeavours. Yes, we want to make our mothers proud even at our age. So you kept it
respectable but sexy at once.
10/7/14
to me
I still feel like I am 25. Just that I'm a bit more patient, now, and (unfortunately or fortunately) a lot more jaded.
My mother knows of course that I went through several artistic endeavours already, and she knows that I was
working on that story, but she has no idea that I already published it. And I am glad I could keep it a secret up
to now since your ideas greatly improved the dramatic effect. The text is so much more "light and transparent",
now.
And, as you know, an "eternal mother" appears in a phone call. She does have traits of my own mother (and
many other mothers I've met over the years)
Her birthday is November 12. I plan to reveal the secret then. I hope it will impress her to know that the
"stylized mother" does not only speak German but also English, Spanish, Portuguese (and maybe French if
we're able to put it up by then). - She does speak a bit of English. She didn't speak any when she visited me in
NY the first time. I sent her to school and she picked it up. When she came back the second time, I sent her to
school again. She can't discuss philosophy but she can at least order a beer, now (she loves beer). ----Original Message ----- From: "M. Drawe" <mdrawe@da-pub.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 12:05 PM
10/7/1
4
to me
My mother's best friend is an Algerian woman. She speaks broken (but very charming) German but perfect
French. Would of course be a killler if my mother could present the French Amazon version on her birthday.
It's funny what you say about your father. Mine is the similar in a way. He was a total control freak at a time and
a pessimist who could really spoil your day. Whatever the issue you could be sure that you felt bad after he was
done with you. At a time I avoided even talking to him on the phone. He has the gift to turn EVERYTHING into
something negative. General vibe: "It has never been worse!" And: "Just wait a little, my friend. It (something
horrible) will happen to you, too." - Just like your dad, only now in his old age, he mellowed a bit. In his youger
years he was (and looked) very much like me, but in his mid-thirties he had a deep crisis. He was an alcoholic
and a chain smoker, a highly addictive personality. When he stopped drinking and smoking (both several times)
he drank 3 liters of coffee every day. - He's highly intelligent (a self taught intelectual) and does have a funny
streak, but when you let him "simmer in his own juices", he develops a very, very dark outlook on life.
My mother is the contrary. She's happy go lucky, a good sport and fun to be around. Almost everybody likes my
mother. But intelectually she's on the lighter side, reading gossip papers and such. With my mother I can't talk
about Schopenhauer. With my father I can. It was he, who introduced me to him.
10/7/14
to mmdrawe
It will be. I will end up translating it in El Salvador, I am almost sure but I promise you to give it my best to
finishing it by that date, if not before even if something comes up. I have had some Algerian and Moroccan
friends myself, but in time we've lost contact, sadly. Yes, old-time fathers were cut from the same cloth as the
saying goes. With my parents is the other way around, mom is the heavy reader and poet. Dad was a classic
guitar player, but cantankerous nonetheless. When you say broken German, I love the way the Turks come out
as very much happens in real life. Couldn't help but laugh...

For Your Consideration

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For your consideration

Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>

Many thanks, Rene. - Will look at it today.

Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>

Here it is, Rene. - Good morning!

Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>

No problem, Rene. - You do not have to change the format of your

days later, I really saw a couple working together, picking Coconuts

Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>

Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>

Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>

Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>

Ren Alfaro <alfaroren@gmail.com>

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