Ep. 280: A Massive Wait UpEnded!

Every three months is a schedule, isn’t it?

Bookbinding

This week in Bookbinding we have two A6 (pocketbook) blank notebooks with colorful covers. Mostly. Why? Because my  printer broke. This saves you all the time and effort of reading what is inside but gives you the opportunity to write whatever you wish! A win-win situation for all.

The First Book is A6 blank notebook with a Japanese protruding rectangle on the front covered in a Chiyogami paper. 100 pages (five signatures of five folios each). Suitable for drawing, notes, and scheduling podcasts. 

On the back we have a small protruding item; a hanger from a local internationally known shop. These two notebooks are coptic bound which means the front and back covers can touch each other and the book can lay flat, making it suitable for drawing and using the entire page rather than up to the spine edge.

The spine is covered with sticky black book cloth; the kind you don’t need glue for. I figured the black cloth coupled with the pale greenish cover would make the Chiyogami stick out more.

This book was two or three things to me. One: an experiment using doubled up thread. A bit tricky at first but useful. I think I’ll loop the thread over itself in future bookbinding adventures.

Two: an attempt to match stations of the thread with the book; painstaking measurements were required but for the most part faithfully carried out. Three: make the pages tighter. This, too, was a success.

The Second Book was fun. It is also A6 (pocketbook size), coptic bound, 100 pages, blank notebook but with dramatically different covers. The front is predominantly red with the same Chiyogami-esque paper on the spine edge with another design on the fore edge. Plus a bit of an envelop with International Priority Airmail printed on it.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I was using whatever materials I could muster up. Scraps of  Chiyogami paper, book cloth, random items garnered from whatever caught my fancy. This is evident when we examine the back of the second book. It has a larger portion of the design that is on the front of the book in a smaller size.

It also has the Chiyogami design on the fore edge with a cut out of a bell with animal shapes closer to the spine edge. Where I got that from, I don’t know or remember.

This was also double-threaded but I pulled the thread through itself to make it a bit more secure. I liked it and will try it again the next time I’m make a double-threaded coptic-bound book.

Which might be soon. It is tourist season and I have ideas for a book tourists might like. And a couple of stores that might stock my books. Fingers crossed.

Fiction

Yes, I have written fiction. In fact, I’ve worked on a couple of the novels I talked about earlier, but not oddly Heart of November. I have mostly worked on My Year of Drinking Kanazawa; research is invaluable. More importantly, I only need to finish three of the thirteen stories. Of the three, one is nearing completion (and is the longest and last). It is also the thirteenth store, a bonus story. Like the thirteenth donut in a baker’s dozen.

This collection of short stories has a bit of a Twilight Zone vibe to it. Ghosts. Strange occurrences. Unsolved mysteries. 

The other books are coming along. Slowly, slowly, like a thirsty turtle in the middle of a expressway. 

Thanks for reading. Catch the podcast. Read a book.