Ep. 288: Fast Change

Bookbinding

My first year in Japan I was surprised at how fast the seasons changed. One day it’s summer and Boom! the next day it’s fall with a drastic fall (pun?) in temperature. Over the decades I’ve gotten used to it. But this year of record high temperatures? September 30 it was about 33˚ (96˚) with humidity in the high 50s. October 2? About 20˚ (68˚) with the humidity in the mid-50s.

Which meant working in my work space was tolerable. And I got two books cased in.

The first book, an A6 100-page blank notebook, found me practicing the French Link Stitch after a long time of not using it. Five signatures of five folios each were stitched onto a brocade-like thick paper that was folded over. I added a chopped up ticket to a music performance here in town, keeping the location, time, and seat assignment. I don’t remember the exact concert but feel like it was probably a chorus group or two.

I stitched this book twice. The first time it was too loose. I also made a couple of mistakes inserting the thread into its proper place. I took it apart, glued in some cardboard to make the covers stiffer (so I can hold it in my lap), and re-sewed it. Much better, I think.

It is destined to be my notebook for learning a foreign language; foreign to me, native to native speakers.

The second book is a B6 100-page blank notebook but with the thread doubled up for a thicker and tighter stitch. Again with five signatures of five folios each. I used a link stitch on four stations and the French Link Stitch on one, near the bottom, for an artistic flair.

I covered it with a used envelope from a local university and added cardboard to make the cover stronger and stiffer. This book is destined to be a art/doodle/sketch notebook as it opens quite flat and is of a reasonable size. 

I have a third book on my workbench. It will be 140 pages, A6, blank notebook using a French Link Stitch (which for some reason I insist on capitalizing), with an experimental cardboard cover. Hopefully. 

Fiction

Still working on Heart of September, which I hoped to finish in September, but it had other plans. Re-reading sections I find not just typos and confusion but instances, sentences, and dialogs that hinder or slow down the plot, the action, or the emotion. I need to fix these before sliding on to the next chapter, paragraph,   or sentence. 

For instance, one of the main characters (A French drug smuggler who calls himself different names depending on who he’s talking to – Tristram, Joseph – but his main nom de pseudonym is Kurtz. Kurt Kurtz), is driving a car. 

An innocent act anywhere, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Except to get to the city (Goma) where the main action takes place, he flew. Where’d he get the car? I had to devise a scene or dialog about him getting a car. One that fits five people and their luggage. And that he doesn’t mind abandoning when the going gets tough.