手取川製本 ~ Tedorigawa Bookmakers

Ep. 180: Binding Again

I’m getting back to binding soon after quite a few podcasts about writing novels and loading them on to InDesign. I have five novesl to bind including two copies of Feeding Vicki’s Corpse which I plan to give to friends. The current plan is to sew all five books with a link stitch. Then glue on the mull, the paper spin bit, and headbands. After that I will case in Feeding Vicki’s Corpse first, then the other three novels. Also part of the current plan is to do them in the next week or so. The best laid plans, of course, and all that. Here we have the five textblocks lined up with pencil marks to indicate where I should punch the holes for sewing.

Here are the five books. The one with my picture is the back cover of Feeding Vicki’s Corpse which you can see the front cover of directly below it. To the left of Feeding Vicki’s Corpse is Book Five of the Calvado Pentalogy The Venetian Slime Woman and to the right is Book Two of the Calvado Pentalogy: Calvado. Above Calvado is Book Three of the Calvado Pentalogy: The Priests of Hiroshima.

Simultaneously, I will continue to make my third edition of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and continue to write Stealing November, which I have talked about in the previous two podcasts.

Want to know my far-in-the-future plan? To make my second edition of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. I mean, with what I have learned with InDesign in the last year, I feel I can make a better edition of the eight volume book than the one I made before.

 

Contact: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com

See: facebook.com/tedorigawa

Ep. 179: Planning Samples

In the last week I printed out one copy of Feeding Vicki’s Corpse and may require two more copies. I plan to give them to friends whose names have been attached to fictional characters in the novel. It is ready to be bound, now, along with Calvado, The Priests of Hiroshima, The Venetian Slime Woman, and, perhaps, another edition of Frankenstein. Frankenstein may also end up as an ebook.

An acquaintance has asked to see a copy of a diary I made for 2018. She may want to buy one for 2019. So, to please her and to have samples of my work, I will be making two samples: one coptic and one encased, like a normal book. 

And finally, I made a new cover for Stealing November which used to be called Eating November’s Ruins but that title, while random, didn’t fit the context of the novel, which is more attuned to theft than consumption.

The older version was lighter and the red & yellow band was horizontal while this one more closely matches the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s flag minus the yellow star. Which one do you like? Which one is more... inticing?

Ep. 178: Finished! And Unfinished.

A writing update. First, I have finished Feeding Vicki’s Corpse! Second, I am half-way through Eating November’s Ruins. Third, I need to finish Giapan and Botchan’s Bartender. When I finish these three novels I will have 14 novels available for the reading audience. I hope to find a reading audience, too.

Eating November’s Ruins involves a high school student who travels to the Congo to experience life and ends up very close to death. I’m about half way finished. The colors of the Congolese flag are repeated on the cover, by the way.

Giapan is about a Japanese ronin who ends up in Cervantes-era Spain (1600 or so) just before the Spanish Armada and his involvement in religion, a nun, and art. It’s about 2/3rds finished.

 

 

 

Botchan’s Bartender is a murder mystery involving a small town and all of the gossip and rumors that go with that when a stranger opens a bar that seems to have no customers. It’s bordering on 2/3rds finished.

Ep. 177: Feeding Vicki’s Corpse

Writing is an exciting exploration into your characters and their backgrounds. If you are writing a plot-driven novel perhaps you needn’t worry so much about the characters but I write heavily character-driven books and they can sometimes control the plot and story as they wish.

Case in point: In Feeding Vicki’s Corpse I, the writer, assumed the main character - McCorkle, retired Boston policeman - was haunted by the death of his wife. In the course of writing the novel, I was informed that his wife wasn’t dead, but his daughter was.

Now, the woman with McCorkle has changed from a girlfriend to his actual real and very much alive wife. So who died? In keeping with the rest of the characters and plots of the novel, I was equally informed that the dead person in Boston, the death of which sent McCorkle across the country, was Vicki, his daughter.

Feeding Vicki’s Corpse is Book Two of the Oregon Coast Duology. The first book, spoken of a bit in Episode 173: Mistakes, is City of Cocks (with a rooster motif, by the way.)

 

 

tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com

facebook.com/tedorigawa

Ep. 176: November

Today I talk about two kinds of book covers: the book cover artist’s design that has thought and work in it and the bookbinder’s cover that has thought, work, experiment, and defeat and victory in it. I have been experimenting with both. The book artist cover is more difficult than inlays and insets. 

I also talk about a Work in Progress titled Eating November’s Ruins. A novel of discovery for the protagonist that takes place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, specifically, on the Congo River and the city of Goma on Lake Kivu. Illusions and references to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness are spread throughout the book, but the protagonist knows nothing about it, of course.

 

tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com

facebook.com/tedorigawa

 

Ep. 175: Drama! (And more Education)

First, my facebook page (now that people are leaving it) Facebook.com/tedorigawa.

I have access to PhotoShop and the learning curve seems quite lengthy, at least for me. Do I want to play with it or should I forgo the joy and stick with sewing, binding, writing, and printing out my novels? Given the amount of time in a day (24 hours) I might let others have the thrill of Photoshop.

Speaking of novels, I have a new cover for The Priests of Hiroshima (a time-traveling love story that takes place in 15th century Mainz, Germany and present day, Istanbul). What do you think of it? Too blue?

Episode 174: Education?

I have set up three books on the computer using InDesign and have printed out two. One more to print and then I have to finish writing another novel titled Feeding Vicki's Corpse. What are the three books I set-up and why do it again?

I set them up again because I have been reading about interior book design: leading, font sizes, margin widths, and content for the headers and footers (mostly the book title, the author's name, and pages). In each article I read I see something that could improve my own books, so I edit what I have to, I hope, improve them.

At the same time, I edit the content. I fix spelling & grammar mistakes, correct mis-used words (their there they're) and improve (again, I hope) plot points, characterizations, banish lazy writing, and try to eliminate clichés. 

 

 

 

The first book is the second book in the Calvado Pentalogy — Calvado: A Deadly Love Story about a man with a deadly disease. It's deadly for the people he likes, not for himself. And he likes Calvado, once he meets and gets to know her. So, of course, he must leave her alone. He is a low-level scam artist and a struggling jazz singer. She, Calvado, the star of the Calvado Pentalogy, is a medical school student and a fashion model. Drug dealers and crazy people are involved.

 

 

 

The second book is the third book in the Calvado Pentalogy — The Priests of Hiroshima: An Historical Love Story. In this story, Calvado is in Istanbul and discovers a unique antiquarian bookstore that deals only in books more than four or five hundred years old. She also discovers a cat with a mysterious power and portals to another time; a time when the modern book was being born and a forbidden love between a priest and a nun.

 

 

 

The third book I set-up is the fifth book in the Calvado Pentalogy — The Venetian Slime Woman: A Biological Love Story. An EPA water quality specialist falls in love with a biological freak, so to speak. The woman is from a small island off the coast of Venice but she is born from slime mold. The CIA — or is it the FBI or Homeland Security or just a rogue agent? — wants to capture her and experiment on her body.

 

 

My next assignment from myself is to produce e-books of the Calvado Pentalogy and sell them on either Smashwords and/or Amazon and/or iBooks. Or all three. Any suggestions?

 

 

Ep. 173: Mistakes

First, I made the cover too small, then I made it too big. Finally, I measured it more carefully and managed to put it together. However, when it was too small, I spent a few days editing it: adding words, spelling other words correctly, erasing whole sentences, and adding scenes and depth. 

Then I decided to case it in anyway. I got some endpapers, glued them up and put them in nicely. Even the square was good; something I often don’t get right. And then... Yes! And then... I discover I put the cover on upside down. Practice practice practice, eh?

YouTube videos up at YouTube at Tedorigawa Bookmakers including, soon, one of this novel The City of Cocks.

Ep. 172: Video? Yes!

I have joined the video online bandwagon and have three or four or five videos up at YouTube. If you cruise on over to YouTube you can see, so far, four videos of me making books - or attempting to make books. If you enjoy them, let me know.

Here is a photo of a blank notebook made from used parts. It is slightly smaller than B6 and has 140 pages, about. It also has graph paper and coptic binding. With a handy strap on the outside to keep important documents safe as you cross international borders. Or keep a pencil in it.

This is apparently the back. I’ve already started to use it and it is indeed, handy. I’m using it to make one of my novels a bit better. I’m taking notes and making corrections plus making a list of main characters and minor characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a small book the size of a pack of cigarettes. It contains two short stories that I hope to sell to an art company that is using old cigarette vending machines to sell art. Do they accept short stories? I will find out.

 

Ep. 171: Schedules Behind Schedule

Finishing a project is exciting and wonderful. It sways you with a wave of accomplishment and power. Or at least it does me. However, this euphoria is somewhat tempered by the fact that the projects are a tad late. Late. Not extremely late, but, yeah, well, late. In fact, they are so late that I am beginning work on a 2019 Schedule this week; one I hope to finish well before January 2019. I hope.

Both schedule books I finished were delivered to their owners well before March 1st. One was delivered about February 26th and one was delivered February 28th. Well after noon, however. Fortunately, the monthly calendars start not on January 1st but on March 1st. They both go from March 1, 2018 to March 1, 2019. Both also have plenty of space to scribble notes and draw doodles.

The first one, seen in Episode 170, is yellow and made from an old t-shirt.

The latest one – as you can see at left – is blue-on-blue, coptic binding, 160 pages, and is, despite a glaring error, a success. The glaring error is missing a hole in the front cover with the thread. I had to go back and start again. However, with this particular book, I started about four times. Each time the text block was a little off-center so I backed up and tried again.

 

The music is by Maya Filipic from her Stories from Emona. She has some music on Jamendo here: https://www.jamendo.com/artist/340652/maya-filipic

And here is some from YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJSoIxqezOQ