Ep. 328: Where is Rhino River?

Ep. 208: Making Books / Writing Fiction

I made a book this week out of the book I sewed in the TDGB 16 video about using a link stitch. It has an upraised section that might resemble a skyscraper, but I had no real thoughts about it when I added them.

Three things about this book.

• First, it has a black strap to keep it closed.

• Second, it has a red book mark so you can find your place.

• Third, is has a new feature (for me): an envelope to hold receipts and slips of paper you collect over the course of a day. This version of the envelope is too stiff but it is the first version. I hope future versions that I make will be easier, much easier, to use and stuff with paper. 

I know that normally the strap on the back page is usually under the endpaper and not above it. However, I wanted to have the light brown endpaper contrast with the dark brown envelope while the black strap accents it all. I don’t think it worked and will probably keep the strap under the endpapers from now on.

Fiction

I am continuing to write on both Giapan and Botchan’s Bartender. And, again, both are nearing their ends. I probably added about two or three thousand words to each. The main advantage of going so slow is that when I read what I previously wrote, I make changes which I think improves the book, and I correct mistakes which definitely improves the readers’ pleasure.

I’ve also written about 10,000 words on a genre novel (most of my stuff can be categorized as literary fiction) about war, conspiracies, and terror. At the same time, I try to make the characters as real as possible.

I want this genre book plus the others (Calvado Pentalogy & Japanese Pentalogy) I have written online soon. Wish me luck.

Also you might have noticed this post was divided into Making Books and Writing Books. The podcast is similar. People who want to hear me ramble on about bookbinding can listen to the first part while people who want to hear me babble about writing fiction can skip merrily to the second part. Usually it will be half and half, but sometimes one will be longer.

TDGB 16: Link Stitch

 

 

 

Ep. 207: What Does This Cover Say

A trilogy of terror, violence, manipulation, politics, and war has plummeted into my lap. More importantly, the client has bequeathed covers to my desk. The question the client has – and I wonder, also – do they reflect the character of their contents?

Books 2 & 3 are not yet completed, but Book 1 is racing toward the finish line. However, the question remains:

What does this cover imply?

If you see this thumbnail on your online bookstore webpage or in a real store (if they still exist), what kind of story would you expect to be reading?

This, from the evidence provided, is Book Two of a three book series which covers War, Uneasy Peace, and Prelude to another War. It follows the main character (as most novels do) from his time as a soldier to his election into the main governing body where he finds himself caught between the Hawks and the Doves in a debate that may lead to war.

On the other hand, I have been slaving feverishly over two of my books: Giapan and Botchan’s Bartender. Or, rather, to be honest, I have been writing on Giapan and re-reading/editing/re-writing the parts of  Botchan’s Bartender I have already written. The main problem in  the latter novel is trying to find the killer. I think I have found the murderer so it is only a matter of molding the novel toward its end and laying enough simple small clues to justify the choosing of that character as the murderer. Is that clear enough? I hope so.

For Giapan, we are getting closer and closer to the ending. The tunnel at the end of light is in sight! (The cover has to be nudged closer to the final product, too. Covers, however, morph and evolve over time.). The main characters – The two soldiers (Teubner and Barahona) will, maybe, be separating from the nun (Galatea) and the Japanese artist (Giapan).

However, two things have to be resolved first. One, how do any of them change in the course of their travels? Two, does anyone fall in love? At the outset of this novel I firmly told myself in no uncertain terms that No! No one is going to fall in love. However, now, it looks like two characters are inching toward the precipice of that emotion. We shall see.

As I look over the past few posts I realize the number that are about bookbinding has decreased. This is a failing I must rectify. And Soon!

 

Videos to Enjoy.

 

Ep. 206: Novels Unfinished & A New Cover

Like too many authors, I have four unfinished novels, three of which I have talked to you about. Two are from my Japan Pentalogy: Botchan’s Bartender and Giapan. One is a murder mystery with a strong homage/influence from Cervantes: Caraculiambro. The one I haven’t talked about recently takes place in the Republic of the Congo and is an adventure/crime/ story: Heart of November. Why are they unfinished? Why, indeed.

I think one reason is I can’t see the ending. Giapan is episodic so it can go on forever, if I want it to, which I don’t. I haven’t solved the crime in Caraculiambro or Botchan’s Bartender yet. I have suspects in the latter, but not the former. This is a problem.

I don’t know why Heart of November is unfinished. Maybe it is but I forgot? The cover has bullet holes in it; not that the Congo is dangerous, but that the main character is shot at a few times and he shoots back. “Murder” is even in the sub-title, right? A dead (pun) giveaway.

 

 Link Stitch

Ep. 205: Botchan’s Bartender & a Cover Rant

First, in the last (204) episode you heard the first page of my as-of-yet unfinished murder mystery Caraculiambro. This makes it the fourth! novel I have not completed. Four! Two are in my Japan Pentalogy and are Giapan, which takes place in 17th century Spain, and a novel which takes place in a small town in Japan:  Botchan’s Bartender. The fourth is Stealing November, of which we shall not speak at present, okay?

Botchan’s Bartender is a murder mystery but the most important part of the novel is not the murder but the characters that populate the small town. Included in the story are high school baseball players, a not-so-famous chef, the murder victim’s brother, a high school-aged woman, a smallish cult leader, an alcoholic policeman, and the bartender of the title.

The bartender is a woman who is escaping her past by hiding in plain sight by owning a very small bar in a very small town. She just might be a character from another of the novels in the Japan Pentalogy: The Year Without Days, about a very successful cult in Tokyo. 

I am hoping to finish Botchan’s Bartender sometime in the near future. Like, maybe, in a month or less. I want to finish Giapan, too, as they are the last two books of the Japan Pentalogy and I want that particular group of novels finished soon.

By the way, Botchan is a famous book by Japanese author Natsume Soseki and is now a word to mean the son of a rich family who dresses up nicely but has no real understanding of street life.

On YouTube is my latest video: TDGB 16 Link Stitch. Please check it out.

TDGB 16: Link Stitch

An SF-ish novel about a woman who cannot die and the government agency that wants her dead. Will an EPA water specialist save her? Or die trying?

Ep. 204: An Old New Novel Caraculiambro

I made three books one of which is the Speaking & Eating Kanazawa guide and Japanese language assistance book. After photographing and talking about them in Episode 203, I started another book; a graph paper notebook. What I should have done instead was edit and write Giapan and Botchan’s Bartender, two of my Japan Pentalogy novels which should be finished before you can say Procrastination. However, I didn’t, so there you are.

In the photo, the book with the kimono cover on the right is the Speaking & Eating Kanazawa book. If you’re coming to Kanazawa and don’t speak Japanese but do sometimes get hungry, this is the book for you. The kimono-clad book on the left is a graph-paper blank notebook. The red one in the middle with the closing strap, is a graph-paper blank notebook on light brown paper.

In this episode, I read the first page of a novel I began hundreds of decades ago. Well, at least half a decade ago. Caraculiambro: A Giant Mystery.

Caraculiambro was a giant Don Quixote talked about in his eponymous novel. He is never actually seen, just put up by the knight as what would happen if he ever came across a giant. In Giapan, Caraculiambro appears as both a giant, mean, and helpful (eventually). In this book, he is a giant and a private detective. 

 

Page One of Caraculiambro: A Giant Mystery

Call me Caraculiambro. Some years ago, I forget how many, I was forced from my home in Olympia - home of the gods! - by intolerance. By the small minds of ordinarily-sized people, of which I can proudly state I am not. They called me names to my face, whispered behind their hands whenever they saw me, and the younger, more hot-headed ones would often chase me with baseball bats or tire irons. They always chased me in gangs of five or more for they knew fewer would not be able to subdue me.

The ordinarily-sized people called me names like Frankenstein or Quasimodo. They obviously did not know Hugo’s mythological creature was a short, misshapen hunchback and Frankenstein was the deranged medical student of Ingolstadt, not the poor hand-crafted creature of his insane experimentation. As if these poor people could read. If a comparison could be made I would dwarf Frankenstein’s nameless creature by more than two feet. And I would tower over Quasimodo like the spires of Notre Dame over-shadowed that poor misshapen man’s entire life.

My doctor hesitated using the word ‘giant’ around me but that is what I am. I am a giant. Twice the height of a normal man and twice everything else: weight, hand size, shoe size. Everything. It is for this reason and this reason only the people I encounter fear me. It is as if they believe if I were no longer on the planet, they would be better. A common misconception among ordinary people: if there were no differences between us, we would be happier. 

The most intolerant were the zealots of religion; any religion. I was, in their view and words, an abomination, like pork, lobsters, and homosexuals. I’m convinced the more zealous the zealot, the less they are able to read. If they had read Genesis, they would have discovered that I am a Nephilim, the offspring of female humans and the gods that roamed the earth after God created the day and night, stars, and life. They think I’m joking, of course. Perhaps I am. I must face my life with humor or my tears would be a river that will flood the earth anew.

After a group of thirty youths brandishing clubs and bats chased me out of town, into the woods at the base of Mt. R–, and through the night, I decided to fight back. Not against all thirty that night, of course, that would’ve been suicide. And not with my fists and muscle, which would have been easy, but counter-productive in the long run; violence and hatred only begets more violence and hatred. And I would probably have landed in jail. No, I decided to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, Siddartha, and Hester Prynne, she of the lettered stigma.

As intolerance forced me from Olympia, I fled to the city of S–, which I refuse to identify. I established myself in S–  as a private detective. I investigated mysteries that ordinary people could not understand. I was determined to be both the best detective and the most indispensable. I would, like Hester, who became the perfect Puritan woman, become the ideal businessman, and a run a very profitable business. Ordinary people would have to accept me because successful people can not be denigrated by the smaller people. At least, that was my goal. It worked out slightly differently.

After this, he gets involved in a land speculation conspiracy that leads to a murder and the disintegration of an extended family. Want to read more? Let me know.

To see me talking about Speaking & Eating Kanazawa, click on the logo

TDGB 015 Speaking Kanazawa

email: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com

Ep. 203: Three Notebooks Plus Fiction

I cased in 3 notebooks last week and two of them are lined notebooks available for purchase. More on that later. I was going to case in five notebooks but I discovered some Horrendous errors in two of them: a printing error that made the page shift to the right waaaay too far making the photos in it unusable. Plus a pagination error. I mean, 45 shouldn’t follow 68, right? Am I right on that? Good.

One is Speaking Kanazawa which has both language assistance (Japanese and English) and reviews of coffee shops and restaurants.

Speaking Kanazawa has proven popular with several citizens of this city and is in the process of being edited. There have been some errors! In Japanese! That must be repaired before it is released into the wild.

Speaking of jumping into the public, my two murder mysteries, The City of Cocks and Feeding Vicki’s Corpse have Still! not been edited! I must be the laziest human in this room. Please wait for exciting updates on this possibility!

 

 New Video!

TDGB 013: Three Notebooks

tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com

Ep. 202: Six Notebooks for You

I had ten days off from ‘real’ work so I spent a lot of time at home doing home things. But once I rambled back to the studio here I started making books. I have six paperback-sized books (A6) that soon will be available to everyone! I hope to make editions of 12 of each book and sell them rapidly, as we all do. The covers will probably include kimono and indentations.

 

They are:

1. Yes! Moat Boat
2. Yes! Moat Banana
3. The Seriously Humorous One
4. The Seriously Humorous Notebook and, of course,
5. Hunting Kanazawa, which has been renamed to Speaking Kanazawa.

The first four will probably cost around $8.00 (or ¥800) each. Three & Four  are graph paper notebooks of 100 pages each with no pictures. One & Two have small pictures on one page of inspiring people.

Yes! Moat Boat has pictures of people related to books such as the inventor of paper (Cai Lun), the inventor of movable type (Bi Sheng), the popularizer of movable type (Gutenberg), and folks like Peter Shoffer, Nicolas Jensen, Aldus Manitius, John Baskerville, and Claude Garamond, who invented the typeface you’re seeing here.

Speaking Kanazawa is a language guide and tourism guide to selected restaurants, coffee shops, and bars in Kanazawa. Very useful if you don’t speak Japanese.

Ep. 201 Writing & Editing. Slowly.

Following my inspiration from Europe, I have experimented with better (?) more creative covers. Things are not going exactly to plan, but that’s the point of experimenting. I’m working on adding designs to the backcloth covers that I currently make. This first picture is of bookcloth on bookcloth in geometric design. 

Following that cover, I made several more smaller covers. Not actually covers but experiments in construction. First, I made the design slightly bigger than the whole I cut in the bookcloth. Then I realized I didn’t have to do that, I could just make the design cloth bigger than the hole. 

Here we have the back of another pair of covers. I’m using leftover bits plus a postcard to a Jun Tada exhibition from last year as endpapers. 

However, once I made the design paper slightly bigger than the hole, but bigger, I realized when I ran a bone folder over the cover, the design paper formed an edge around the hole which wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted the edge to be in the same shape as the hole. If I make the hole square, no problem. If I wanted a letter or number, it is a problem.

I must continue the experiment and continue improving my art ability (if I actually have any art ability, that is.)

Check out my YouTube channel for two new — and mercifully short (about one to three minutes) — videos about these covers and my two jobs at Tedorigawa Bookmakers.

 

Ep. 200 European Inspiration

I jetted off economy to Europe for three weeks and thoroughly enjoyed myself in Vienna and Budapest. I learned a lot about both places, visited museums, attended a concert, ate great food (of course), and talked with people — in English, I might add as I am among the unfortunate who speak neither Hungarian nor German. 

Here is a photo of me standing beside a Gustav Klimt painting titled Blind Man which is found in the Leopold Museum in Vienna. I thought the red of my shirt, the red of the wall, the whiteness of the portrait’s subject’s hair and my beard made for a nice photo and memory of my trip.

Also on plans for soon is a lined & graphic paper paperback-sized (A6) blank notebook with photos of people who are either inspiring and/or have something to do with bookbinding such as the creator of the Garamond typeface (this article is written using Garamond), Claude Garamond; the creator of the Baskerville typeface, John Baskerville, as well as the inventor of paper (Cai Lun) and movable type (Bi Sheng). Hopefully, their faces on your notebook will inspire you.

Another project includes finishing Giapan, my Don Quixote-related novel about two guards, a Japanese artist, and a defrocked nun in 1600s Spain and placing it for sale as an ebook and as a Real Book with interior design by me.

A one-minute video about my European Inspiration can be found on YouTube with the inspiring title of:

European Inspiration

Speaking of which, here is my

YouTube Channel

and my

Facebook page.

 

Ep. 199: Don Quixote and Me!

I have completed two more schedule books. They start in April 2019 and continue until April 2020. They are both Coptic-bound with seven signatures. They include 2019 and 2020 calendars plus 13 monthly calendars/

They are personalized in that the clients sent me photos they wanted included. I have duly included them and now, for a very small fee, they have unique schedule books unavailable to the common person on the street.

However, you, too, can have a personalized schedule book - for a small fee. Just email me at tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com and include the following:

• size: A5 or A6 (pocketbook) The red and black book with the red pen is A5.

• binding: Codex (looks like a real book, like the book with the red pen) or Coptic. The blue book is coptic bound. The advantage of a coptic-bound book is that it can be opened completely. They can be opened 180˚ which makes them very useful for artist’s books or diaries.

For details (in Japanese at the moment), go to For Sale on my website.

You can send up to 10 photos (jpg) and I will include them somewhere in the schedule book for free. Over ten and we need to discuss pricing. 

The second book I finished uses a recycled box. It is also coptic and A5. It has photos but is primarily a blank notebook with graph paper. It is also light weight as the client wanted something they could carry around on long trips without getting tired.

 

Finally, I am writing a novel that takes place in 1600 Spain. A nun is escorted to her home town by two violent bodyguards and accompanied by a young Japanese artist. The novel is loosely based around (not on) Cervantes’ Don Quixote in that some characters in Cervantes’ book show up in my book. Plus, both books are episodic. Now, a poet Cervantes’ knew was Barahona. Barahona wrote romance-style novels and Cervantes called him on of the best writers in Spain (they actually met, I believe.) Naturally, one of the characters in my novel is called Barahona as well. For two reasons: One, Cervantes knew the real Barahona. Two, bara in Japanese means Rose (the flower) and hona is very close to hana, which means Flower in Japanese.

Caraculiambro is a giant in Don Quixote, although he never appears; Don Quixote just tells Sancho Panza about him. He appears in my book which, by the way, is called Giapan.