I began the process of restructuring my book, not changing it so much, as moving things around to try and make the beginning more interesting before getting into the real story. I have added some verbiage to the title, which now reads "The Diary of Aimee Roth - The Girl Who Lived in Colours". I want to finish and have it ready to submit to a publishing house by the end of February. The changes are in response to my not being satisfied with how it reads and the response of agents who were kind enough to provide constructive criticism.
I'm also working on my short story, which is titled for the time being "The Cover of A Book". I am probably 60 percent finished with the initial writing, and want to finish that by the end of next week. And then, the rewrite begins. I'm going to attempt to complete the story as close to 5,000 words as possible. We'll see how that goes.
Later today I am going to retire to the upstairs and do some drawing, hoping to return to the mood whereby I can do some more watercolors in the near future. Having sold one, my "inventory" is down to four. I plan on taking one of those to the store where I sold the last one, and add it to the selection, see what happens.
Tonight, we will venture into the cold and drop by Border's to see if there is anything there we can use our coupon on. This time of year, not many new titles become available, what with most stores trying to pare down their inventory in order to take inventory.
I am reading yet another two books in addition to the two I was reading. I decided that these two would be classified as "the Starbucks Books", and I would take them to read when we go, whereas the other two, "Don Quixote..." and "The Red Wheel" will be my afternoon and bedtime books. I'm just about half way through Don Quixote, and almost a third done with the other one.
One of the two I am reading at Starbucks is "The Angel's Game" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It is the second novel I have read by him, the first being "The Shadow of the Wind". He has other books out, but they have not been translated into English as of yet. I hope they are. These two are really well written, and tell very interesting stories. This one is set in Barelona, Spain, and having been there when reading about the city it beings back nice memories of places we've been and seen.
The other is a graphic novel titled "The Photographer" by a French artist and writer. It is also the second book by him that I have read. The first book, "Alan's War" was a graphic novel that for some reason was incredibly interesting even though Alan, a real person, did nothing exceptional during the war, never fired a shot in anger, and survived without any injuries. Perhaps it was so interesting because of that. Alan, at the end of the war, opted to stay in France and lived the rest of his life there. What he did for a living over there is not covered so much in the book, but he did meet and get to know some really interesting people later in life.
The book "The Photographer" is another true story about a photographer who accompanied a group of doctors, member of the organization 'Doctor's Without Borders', to captur a mission they went on into Afghanistan when Osama Bin Laden was one of the leaders of the rebels fighting the Russians. I just began this book, and find it interesting how the artist incorporated actual photographs into the story line and his artistic representations.
As you can see by what I am reading, none of the stories were written by American authors. Sad to say, since the writer's like Leon Uris, Herman Wouk, James Michner, Upton Sinclair, Theodore Drieser, John Steinbeck, Hemingway, and others of their time and before, no longer write, there's not much written by current American authors I find that interesting in the world of fiction. I find that the foreign authors I have read are more interested in writing a good story about people then they are in creating titillating physical scenes, bloody scenes, or chase scenes. Now, if I want to get disgusted by a persons actions, or depressed by the state of things, I need only to look at C-span and watch our senators and congressmen and -women in action...
