EP. 268: One 272-page Diary

Bookbinding

This month or so I was lazy, I procrastinated, I was lethargic, and sick but in the end I worked harder for four days and cased in three books. Two are notebooks, one with graph paper and the other with nothing. 

The notebooks are pocketbook size (A6) with 100 pages in five five-page signatures. One is called The Banana Book of Thoughts and one is called Face. For no apparent reason other than I wanted to name them something.

The third book I cased in is a 272-page 2022-2023 schedule. There are 17 (17!) signatures of four pages each (20 real pages when imposed), and it has about 60 pictures. Every Sunday has a picture and every birthday has a picture. It also has two different colors of thread. Because, well, why not?

This schedule was an experiment in putting on the spine piece. I usually measure the text block and make the spine piece equal to that. This time I measured twice (29mm) and subtracted two millimeters (for 27mm). This was the width of the book boards. The book opened very nicely, so I was pleased. I also expanded the width of the hinge between the spine piece and the book board from 5mm to 7mm. Next week: 10mm!

All-in-all, I was pleased with how all three books came out and learned a bit on each one.

Fiction

Two novels are spinning wheels this winter. The first, The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver is struggling to find its center.

It is about a woman in the 1860s onward who can tell when people will die and how. She learns this while weaving, which is her specialty; it's what keeps her family afloat after her husband died.

Most people don't believe her. Even when she predicts the death of a crude weaving mill boss.

I think I'll have to do more research in later 19th century lifestyles in the Lowell, Mass are before it gets uncorked and flows like Spanish festival wine during harvest time.

The other book, Surfing Osaka, (Formerly Molly Bright) is progressing slowly but it is progressing. It is obviously coming close to the end where the good guys find the kidnapped victims and reunites them with what family they have left. But discovering the kidnapped victims is not the point of the novel. The point of the novel is each character discovering something inside them that they want to change. And change they do.

For example, Molly stops being a corporate employee who buys cheap handmade furniture in poor areas and turns to making the furniture herself. 

This is an old cover. The new title, which I'm to thrilled about is Surfing Osaka, but it needs something more kidnappish-conspiratorial-character-driven. I'm working on it.