Ep. 360: Abacus Longing

Bookbinding

A few years ago, maybe five, I wrote a novel called Abacus Longing. It’s about the relationship five people have with an alien with four arms. And the FBI training to arrest her. The friends are her physicist friend, a computer program designer and her boss, and a math wiz and her manga-ka friend.

Recently I gave the book to a friend and while taking transportation to his city, I leafed through it, saw – as many writers do – saw things I wanted to change. I made the changes and bound the book again. 

It is 160 pages, B6, and strangely bound together. My original idea was a French link stitch; made two mistakes, and opted to case it in to hide my mistakes. One mistake was looping through too many signatures (not a major problem). The second mistake was punching the holes in one signature backwards from the others. As the holes were not symmetrical, that required me to punch in more holes which make the French link stitch ugly so I decided to add a spine and case it in as if it were a real book. The final (ha!) mistake was not aligning the title on the spine correctly; it hovers into the hinge gap.

Fiction

Dmitry has been arrested by Japanese immigration. He has fooled them into thinking he is Ukrainian (not Russian). His lawyer convinced Immigration to deport him to Italy. He is now in Italy. With a surprise guest who can only stay in Italy for two weeks. 

He has a job as a janitor and he suspects his lawyer has ties with gangsters in Italy and in Japanese Immigration or that he bribed someone somewhere. 

I noticed I misspelled scrivener. I was thinking scribe while typing scrivener so I came up with scribener. I changed it.

Talkies / Flicks

In YouTube we have TDGB 103 up for your viewing pleasure. I describe the three mistakes and explain why one is ignored, one is unchangeable, 

and one is fixed.

Book

This novel of a relationship between a retired Japanese teacher and one of his students is available at Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Rakuten.

One reviewer called it Sensitive and Lovely while another said he cried at the end.

Apple Barnes & Noble Kobo