Episodes
Tuesday May 29, 2018
Ep. 177: Feeding Vicki’s Corpse
Tuesday May 29, 2018
Tuesday May 29, 2018
Writing is an exciting exploration into your characters and their backgrounds. If you are writing a plot-driven novel perhaps you needn’t worry so much about the characters but I write heavily character-driven books and they can sometimes control the plot and story as they wish.
Case in point: In Feeding Vicki’s Corpse I, the writer, assumed the main character - McCorkle, retired Boston policeman - was haunted by the death of his wife. In the course of writing the novel, I was informed that his wife wasn’t dead, but his daughter was.
Now, the woman with McCorkle has changed from a girlfriend to his actual real and very much alive wife. So who died? In keeping with the rest of the characters and plots of the novel, I was equally informed that the dead person in Boston, the death of which sent McCorkle across the country, was Vicki, his daughter.
Feeding Vicki’s Corpse is Book Two of the Oregon Coast Duology. The first book, spoken of a bit in Episode 173: Mistakes, is City of Cocks (with a rooster motif, by the way.)
Monday May 21, 2018
Ep. 176: November
Monday May 21, 2018
Monday May 21, 2018
Today I talk about two kinds of book covers: the book cover artist’s design that has thought and work in it and the bookbinder’s cover that has thought, work, experiment, and defeat and victory in it. I have been experimenting with both. The book artist cover is more difficult than inlays and insets.
I also talk about a Work in Progress titled Eating November’s Ruins. A novel of discovery for the protagonist that takes place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, specifically, on the Congo River and the city of Goma on Lake Kivu. Illusions and references to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness are spread throughout the book, but the protagonist knows nothing about it, of course.
tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com
facebook.com/tedorigawa
Tuesday May 15, 2018
Ep. 175: Drama! (And more Education)
Tuesday May 15, 2018
Tuesday May 15, 2018
First, my facebook page (now that people are leaving it) Facebook.com/tedorigawa.
I have access to PhotoShop and the learning curve seems quite lengthy, at least for me. Do I want to play with it or should I forgo the joy and stick with sewing, binding, writing, and printing out my novels? Given the amount of time in a day (24 hours) I might let others have the thrill of Photoshop.
Speaking of novels, I have a new cover for The Priests of Hiroshima (a time-traveling love story that takes place in 15th century Mainz, Germany and present day, Istanbul). What do you think of it? Too blue?
Friday May 04, 2018
Episode 174: Education?
Friday May 04, 2018
Friday May 04, 2018
I have set up three books on the computer using InDesign and have printed out two. One more to print and then I have to finish writing another novel titled Feeding Vicki's Corpse. What are the three books I set-up and why do it again?
I set them up again because I have been reading about interior book design: leading, font sizes, margin widths, and content for the headers and footers (mostly the book title, the author's name, and pages). In each article I read I see something that could improve my own books, so I edit what I have to, I hope, improve them.
At the same time, I edit the content. I fix spelling & grammar mistakes, correct mis-used words (their there they're) and improve (again, I hope) plot points, characterizations, banish lazy writing, and try to eliminate clichés.
The first book is the second book in the Calvado Pentalogy — Calvado: A Deadly Love Story about a man with a deadly disease. It's deadly for the people he likes, not for himself. And he likes Calvado, once he meets and gets to know her. So, of course, he must leave her alone. He is a low-level scam artist and a struggling jazz singer. She, Calvado, the star of the Calvado Pentalogy, is a medical school student and a fashion model. Drug dealers and crazy people are involved.
The second book is the third book in the Calvado Pentalogy — The Priests of Hiroshima: An Historical Love Story. In this story, Calvado is in Istanbul and discovers a unique antiquarian bookstore that deals only in books more than four or five hundred years old. She also discovers a cat with a mysterious power and portals to another time; a time when the modern book was being born and a forbidden love between a priest and a nun.
The third book I set-up is the fifth book in the Calvado Pentalogy — The Venetian Slime Woman: A Biological Love Story. An EPA water quality specialist falls in love with a biological freak, so to speak. The woman is from a small island off the coast of Venice but she is born from slime mold. The CIA — or is it the FBI or Homeland Security or just a rogue agent? — wants to capture her and experiment on her body.
My next assignment from myself is to produce e-books of the Calvado Pentalogy and sell them on either Smashwords and/or Amazon and/or iBooks. Or all three. Any suggestions?