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Creating Handmade Books and Writing Fiction in Kanazawa, Japan 金沢市
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Wednesday Dec 12, 2018
Wednesday Dec 12, 2018
I distributed copies of my Hunting Kanazawa: a guide book and language text to several (okay, six) of the restaurants and coffee shops in the book. First, of course, I measured and cut the endpapers, the book boards and the book cloth. Second, I glued the endpapers to the text block, and glued the book cloth the the book boards. Next, I glued the text block to the covered book boards. Sounds simple enough but it’s amazing how long it can take. I did ten in one day and have six more to finish. Only, so far, one mistake (the day a restaurant is closed.)
The Covers! Five of the covers are regular light blue (looks white in the photo, but it’s not) and dark blue. Both have the opposite colored marker on the front of the book. The marker mimics the title piece on a Japanese-style book: rectangular and vertical. Each Hunting Kanazawa is A6 in size. (148 mm x 105 mm. About 6" x 4" for you USA-centric readers; i.e. about the size of a paperback.) They are approximately 100 pages so suitable for carrying around in your pocket. Also, there are 38 pages available for doodling and scribbling notes to yourself or others.
The Other five covers are ripped from two different kimono. One is a darker and thicker cloth which is fun to hold. A very tactile cloth. The other four kimono covers are silky and thin. I gave all the shops a choice of kimono-clad book or regular book cloth-clad book. I was surprised that most chose the kimono-clad one, because I was told re-using kimono cloth was not something done. Maybe they were talking about expensive kimono, not the ones I can afford to buy.
A mostly positive response from those who have seen and read bits of it (except for the one error. I hope there’s only one.) The language section was praised in that the waiter can point at the Japanese and the non-Japanese customer can read the English equivalent, assuming they can read English and vice versa.
email: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com
YouTube: Tedorigawa Bookmakers
Facebook: Tedorigawa
Instagram: Bookbinder 2015
Wednesday Dec 05, 2018
Wednesday Dec 05, 2018
This year’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) say me drop 20,000 words short of the 50,000 word goal which will result in me working through the novel during December and offering you, my loyal listener, a free book. My first novel in a genre I didn’t really like when in high school despite the fact my father had hundreds of the things lying about the house. I’ve read some (Heinlein, Asmiov) but never really was too interested in them.
Until 2018! When I started
The Sinking of the Saavedra Maru!
TSSM takes place in outer space, of course, on a multi-generational ship to populate another planet. The main focus of the crew is Guzman89, Flynn, Markus, Kokkei, Wade, Williams, and the captain, Gynere. Guzman89 is the 89th version of a cloned person and she is in charge of the cloning/medical coma section of the ship. The others range in age fro 20 to about 140.
Rather than put people in deep freeze until they need to be thawed out (something most interstellar novels include), they are put in a medical coma and given anti-aging chemicals as discovered by Nobel-prize winners May-Britt Moser and Carol Greider (not together or in the same year).
However, Gynere is attacked and Flynn & Markus are ordered to find the attacker. They must question everyone including their boss (Guzman89), their subordinates (Kokkei, Wade, Williams) and others.
Also on board are two very strange comatose patients. One, called the Hermit by others, is very old. He was, perhaps, involved in a war on his home planet but deemed valuable enough to save by the rulers. He’s dipped in a coma until his injuries can be healed.
The second is a brain-dead young woman whose organs continue to function normally. With no blood. Why would the spleen clean and recycle blood that no longer circulates in her body?
Success! For you. My plan is to finish The Sinking of the Saavedra Maru before the end of the year and make it available online for three or four people to read, if they wish. A Free Book! For you! If you want it.
I will make the appropriate announcements when the novel is finished.
Saturday Nov 24, 2018
Saturday Nov 24, 2018
Spent a few hours cutting and gluing some endpapers on Hunting Kanazawa (a guide book with Japanese language lessons and restaurant recommendations) but have 10 more to go and I need to speed things along. Samples of these books need to be in store owners’ hands before December as there is a 2019 calendar included. I’m really really late, I know. Let’s consider these as samples of what to expect Next Year (2020) and hope next year I manage to finish by October or earlier. I’m thinking of dropping the restaurant recommendations for two reasons: one, they disappear quite quickly either because they don’t have the customers or the owners have decided to quit or move on to another adventure. Two, there are too many to seriously cover in such a small book.
This Giant Frothy Thing: Love & Terror in Tokyo is the next book I will have for sale both digitally in all the familiar places plus as a real book made by me. It is six stories. The main characters of each story experience either love or terror. They also run into at least one character from another story. Usually, but not always, at a coffee shop. They all order a giant frothy thing; something Starbucks has opted to name a frappuccino.
For example, in Obayashi, Obayashi, a woman who just graduated from college, after drinking, goes to a coffee shop with a male and very drunk female fellow graduate. The female tells Obayashi a secret, which upsets, irritates, and saddens Obayashi. The man makes a move on the female, going so far as to cope a feel and expose her in the coffee shop. Obayashi and the man get into a fight (not a shouting match; coffee is thrown). The coffee shop manager calls an ambulance for the overly drunk female.
Three things happen. First, Obayashi storms out of the coffee shop. She rushes across a park to grab a taxi. In the park, she runs past a man composing music. She jumps in a taxi and discovers the driver loves playing shogi and Bottecelli. As does Obayashi. They decide to get together to play shogi and talk art. Second, the man in the park gets his own short story (Aikawa) and we learn what he does and who he meets. Third, the coffee shop manager gets her own short story (Suehiro) after she meets someone who has the same love of travel as she has and we learn what happens to them.
As you might be able to tell, I don’t have a cover for This Giant Frothy Thing that I am comfortable with. Any suggestions? Let me know.
Don’t forget: The Merchant of Venus & Other Stories is for sale on Apple Books, Amazon, Nook, and Kobo.
email: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com
YouTube: Tedorigawa Bookmakers
Facebook: Tedorigawa
Instagram: Bookbinder 2015
Wednesday Nov 21, 2018
Wednesday Nov 21, 2018
I’m deeply involved in making 16 books, all Hunting Kanazawa, a guide/language book for tourists to Kanazawa who speak or read English and want to use/learn a bit of Japanese. Or people who read Japanese and want to read in English about this fair city.
I’m also hoping to get an ebook up before the end of November. This one is called
This Giant Frothy Thing: Love & Terror in Tokyo.
People in their daily lives run across other people, ghosts, disembodied voices, and love in Tokyo. Hopefully, a couple of stories will be listed either here or for free on all the old familiar shopping sites such as the fruit that keeps a doctor away and the Brazilian river one.
This week you can see a short (if you consider 18 minutes short) video of the ocean as I say my In a Quiet Little Bar on the Coast short story from my short story collection, The Merchant of Venus & Other Stories. If you can cast your mind back to last week, the audio of In a Quiet Little Bar on the Coast was featured here. Now, on YouTube, it has visuals to go with it (mostly waves. And a seagull.).
The video is here: In a Quiet Little Bar on the Coast.
The book from which it was taken, The Merchant of Venus & Other Stories, is on sale here:
By the way, you can ask me if you want to know how I make my audio for this podcast and/or the videos for my YouTube channel. Or even, how I make my books — my Real Books. (Hint: It involves an iPad, a desktop, InDesign, and my brain. Ouch, on that last one.)
Friday Nov 16, 2018
Friday Nov 16, 2018
The first paragraph of In a Quiet Little Bar on the Coast, a short story scattered with magical realism, time-warping, and realism.
I’m sitting in this quiet little bar out on the coast. It’s a small bar, not a lot of walk-in customers, you know what I mean? A few locals, a couple of working ladies. Josh, the bartender, likes it quiet. Loud bars attract too many noisy policemen and Josh, well, he’s had enough of the police for one lifetime. Anyway, it’s not a busy place, right? Then about noon, this guy walks in. Plunks a well-travelled suitcase on the counter and orders a beer. Cold, he says, like he’s had warm beers in places like this before. He sniffs, looks around, sniffs again and finally blows his nose on a stained handkerchief while looking at Magda, the older working lady.
Reading this and other stories is possible in The Merchant of Venus & Other Stories available at all the usual places:
Nook, and
Kobo.
Monday Nov 12, 2018
Monday Nov 12, 2018
I’m sitting in this quiet little bar out on the coast. It’s a small bar, not a lot of walk-in customers, you know what I mean? On the ocean side of a two-laner wandering up the shoreline. The building, low and fat against the wind, waves, and rain, sits stubborn like. A few local working people hanging around after their shifts; a man who says he’s retired nursing a beer for twenty years, and a couple of working ladies.
That is the opening paragraph of my short story In A Quiet Little Bar on the Coast, one of the Other Stories in The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories. I’m doing two things with it that might be of interest to you all. First, I’m making changes, corrections, and improvements. Second, I’m recording it to upload somewhere as an audio short story. It will be posted here, of course, and perhaps another online source; I’m not sure where yet.
By the way, the cover photo is by Dutch photographer Lode Van de Velde.
The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories is available at Apple Books, Amazon, Kobo, and Nook. If Nook is still in existence these days. Looks like Barnes and Noble is on the ropes, doesn’t it?
The other thing I hoped to have finished by last week is 15 guidebook/Japanese lesson book/blank notebook journals of A6 size, about 100 pages and useful for tourists wandering around Kanazawa.
What is finished are schedules for 2019. In the photo you can see five, two with book cloth covers (red and white) and three with kimono cloth covers (blue and flowery).
The Schedules are for sale on my store at: Tedorigawa Bookmakers.
email: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com
YouTube: Tedorigawa Bookmakers
Facebook: Tedorigawa
Instagram: Bookbinder 2015
Sunday Nov 04, 2018
Sunday Nov 04, 2018
I’m making an edition of 15 for my Japanese notes/guide book called Hunting Kanazawa. It includes phrases that tourists who don’t speak Japanese might need while in a Japanese-speaking area of the world. Phrases like “Where is my hotel?” and “How much is this?” and more useful questions like “How old is this?” It comes in English, transliteration, and Japanese so if you find yourself not being understood by speaking either Japanese or English, you can show the question to the target of your inquiries. Useful. Convenient!
I’m also working on two other audio endeavors. First is a video of me making The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories. It is definitely not a how-to video; never do as I do, always do as I say (they are often complete opposites). It will show the book being made from writing it to adding the covers. There will be narration, so be forewarned, eh?
The second is an audio book of one of the stories from The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories: In A Quiet Little Bar On The Coast. It will have visuals not necessarily related to the story and the occasional sound effect when called for. When finished, I may post it here first. An exclusive for You Wonderful Folks. Then on YouTube for everyone else.
Remember: The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories is available on Apple Books, Amazon, Nook, Scribd and Kobo for your reading pleasure. If you would like a real book bound by me, the author, slip me an email and we can discuss the details.
email: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com
YouTube as Tedorigawa Bookmakers
Facebook as Tedorigawa
Instagram as Bookbinder 2015
Wednesday Oct 24, 2018
Wednesday Oct 24, 2018
I have a book of six short stories for sale called The Merchant of Venus & Other Stories. It is available at Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo. It will soon be available at the 800 lbs gorilla in the bookosphere, too, I assume.
Two of the short stories are available at those sites for free. You can check out two of the stories: The Merchant of Venus and Monkey, Dick, and I before buying the book. Perfect for gift giving as well!
I talk about both The Merchant of Venus and Monkey, Dick, and I on my YouTube video TDBG Sales Plan. Along with plans for the next two or three books.
All books mentioned are available as Real Books i.e. made of paper and backcloth and bound by me, a bookbinder!
email at: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com
YouTube as Tedorigawa Bookmakers
Facebook as Tedorigawa
Instagram as Bookbinder 2015
Sunday Oct 21, 2018
Sunday Oct 21, 2018
Here are five Ninja Schedules for 2019 that include a ninja on random pages. Also included are calendars both yearly, and monthly. With Japanese holidays included. There are, obviously, three made from kimono or hakama cloth and two made from book cloth (pale white & red.)
I made the Book Cloth out of the kimono and hakama by backing it with calligraphy paper and adding copious amounts of glue. And an iron. And waiting. I have more kimono book cloth waiting for Hungry Kanazawa, another book of mine for tourists. It includes a schedule, language hints, and reviews of restaurants I like.
2019 will be the Year of Frustration for calendar makers. First, the current emperor is scheduled to retire in May. The new emperor will begin the same day. However, the current emperor’s birthday is in December; after he retires, it will no longer be a holiday. The new emperor’s birthday is in February. Since he will become emperor in May, his 2019 birthday will not be a holiday. In 2020, the new emperor’s birthday (in February) will be a holiday. However, the government is thinking of making the day of the abdication and acension to the throne a holiday. This will give the fine people of Japan a 10-day holiday in April/May. The longest ever. Calendar makers are gnashing their teeth: An extra holiday or no?
This book, Stealing November, is nearly complete. The main characters are in mid-escape and, with luck, will escape. It has three basic plots and four main characters. The three plots are: exploring the Congo, finding a unique and old book, the relationship between the main character and his girlfriend/wife (same person, different times). The four characters are: Hairball, Sakombi, Kurt Kurtz (an alias), and Hairball's girlfriend/wife who has a name but it might very well change in the next draft.
Check other facets of myself on Facebook, Instagram, andYouTube
email: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com
Also, in progess, an Instagram page.
Monday Oct 15, 2018
Monday Oct 15, 2018
Nearly two months since the last episode. Way too long for me. How about you? Here is what I’ve been doing in the two months since... sweating. As most of the world, Japan has been hot. Hot, hot. Record high temperatures in many places. However, I was not completely idle, sitting in front of an air conditioner in a crowded coffee shop, no, no.
I made a video (available on, of course YouTube, at https://youtu.be/e1P56sDyd8w). I made five small schedule books with information about where to eat here in Kanazawa. I wrote three-quarters of a novel which I will talked to you about in Episode 179 (https://tedorigawabookmakers.podbean.com/e/ep-179-planning-samples/). And I started my first science fiction novel which has no name as of yet. It is geared to be my NaNoWriMo novel (https://nanowrimo.org). In other words, I hope to finish it.