手取川製本 ~ Tedorigawa Bookmakers

Ep. 276: Books, Novels, and Substack, O My!

Bookbinding

This month, you have three items.

First: An A6 coptic schedule for 2023 complete with a 2023 and a 1938 calendar (the birth year of the client), and monthly and weekly calendars. Nine signatures.

Second: an A5 novel of 12 signatures (182+ pages) titled The New Crucifixions for a client whose father is featured on the cover.

Third: a graph paper blank journal (also A5) for your budding graphic artist friend / master doodler.

Fiction

In fiction, you have a plethora of novels in the throes of being written (or, at least, thought about).

First up: The Dancer, the story of a character (Merengue) from Molly Bright; his origin, why he’s called Merengue, and his life in Italy, the Dominican Republic, and scamming elderly women in Japan up until he falls in with Molly and her crew out to save a kidnapped bomb-building surfer.

Second up: The Sound of Fear, the fourth book in The Fear trilogy; a dystopian future of war and rebels. Matt fights for peace and finds deception and lies.

Third up: (an as-of-yet unnamed and not-thoroughly-thought-out) three detective/murder mysteries set in my current peaceful town of Kanazawa (The Other Kyoto).

Substack

I have started a Substack that will include works-in-progress; thoughts about writing, and a possible podcast (one episode is already up; I’m conflicted about inflicting more listening to the viewers.) 

The Lit Fic (literary fiction) section is already up to nine postings, readings, rather. Seven are short stories collectively titled This Giant Frothy Thing: Lust & Terror in Tokyo.

The other postings (8 & 9) are from Heart of November: A Congolese Tale of Love & Murder. From here on out until it is complete, expect more of Heart of November (an homage to Heart of Darkness) in which the hero encounters drug dealers, rapists, and dancers in the Congo. Afterwards, he is assigned Heart of Darkness in his high school English class.

Please have a read of my Substack postings; hope you enjoy them.

Ep. 275: Two More Notebooks Plus Novel Novel

Bookbinding

In the past week or so two things have happened: First, the sun has stopped torturing the northern hemisphere so my studio/house/city/country is not sweltering under 100 degree temperatures any more; this is good, in case you were wondering.

Second, I completed two blank notebooks. Both are pocketbook size (for the American viewer) or A6 (for the rest of the world) with approximately 100 pages. Both have straps to keep them closed. One has a bluish purple-ish cover while the other sports a green cover. The endpapers match the covers in color if not in style. Both are coptic bound so the author/artist who purchases them can use the entire page. 

The blue one has protrudences (outdents?) on the cover for a more tactile experience; three vertical columns and a modified ampersand (&) toward the bottom. 

In addition, I’m sewing up a B6 graphic paper notebook. I’m leaning toward making the cover a centipede cover. Hope I do. I want to see how it turns out.

Fiction

The Dancer, for which I have no cover, the novel about Merengue from Molly Bright, continues unabated! He is learning to dance both the tango and merengue and a variety of Italian-based dances; he excels, according to his dance teacher, in the merengue. He is paired with an Italian high school student who embodies the passion, joy, and spirit of dance; Lucinda by name. First, he dances in Bari, Italy; next he finds a missing CD player while learning bachata in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.

Also, in a rare bit of perspiration, four books I have already written are being edited (by myself) for speed, flavor, and action. The three are a series with the overriding title of The Fear (Fear Zero, Fear Itself, Fear the Dead, and Sound of Fear.) Yes, a trilogy with four books; not a problem, is it?

Plots:

The Fear tetralogy is sci-fi. Earth is run by a Conglomerate that controls Everything. They are battling the Jeeters from Jupiter’s moon Io. The main character, Matt, was imprisoned at the age of ten for murdering his mother, but now, he’s a master sergeant in the Conglomerate army vs the Jeeters and is charged with finding The Spy! He’s also searching for his friend from prison, Doro Ferrell, who was severely wounded in battle.

Ep. 274: Dancer Plus Three Books

Bookbinding

I have had a productive day, yes! Earlier in my life I folded six signatures of A5 paper into A6 size paper, made some covers, and waited. Yesterday, I put the covers and the paper together to form a blank notebook. Two of them. 

Both have straps to keep the notebook closed. Both have Japanese-style endpapers that coordinate with the covers. One book is yellow with green/yellow/light blue endpapers while the other notebook is red and blue with reddish-blue endpapers.

Meanwhile, earlier I printed out an unusual schedule: it starts in August and ends in March or April. There are only 18 pages (including yearly calendars for 2022 and 2023) and graph papers.

For both the red blank notebook and the yellow one, I used coptic binding because, since they are blank, the user will be able to use the entire page. Unlike Japanese binding which doesn't allow the page to open fully.

Speaking of Japanese binding. I used it for the August-March schedule since it is single sheets of B5. I added a bit of paper on the spine edge to allow the book to open more fully than with traditional Japanese binding.

Fiction

In Molly Bright there is a character named Merengue. He is a Japanese businessman who abandons the Japanese way of life and learns to dance. He walks everywhere and runs into Molly in Miyazaki. I have started a novel about him called The Dancer. He quits his job, moves to Italy and learns to dance. He has adventures as he travels to Cuba and the Dominican Republic and back to Japan where he takes up life as a vagabond/scammer who entices rich women to give him enough money to live on for a few months. 

In The Dancer is an Italian high school student, Lucinda, who learns dancing with Merengue. She becomes a successful dancer and dance teacher. At the end of Molly Bright, she and Merengue meet again.

Ep. 273 Molly Bright - Owari!

Fiction

Yes! I have finished the umpteenth draft of Molly Bright! During my Birthday Month! Yeah, me! I wrote the final four chapters first. Then I filled in the blanks from the previous final chapter to the New final chapter. And matched them up to complete Molly!

However, I discovered a new quirk I wanted to add. Molly and a Japanese person named Arisa have the same interests but they don’t like each other when they first meet. A sort of meet cute scenario but in this case it works out. Now, giving myself extra work, I need to find where Molly & Arisa meet and deepen their connection.

What does this mean for you? If means, if you read this, Molly will be available in the next month, which is August, for your perusal. At least a few chapters will be uploaded.

You may have noticed a lack of Bookbinding on this episode. That’s because nothing is happening because of a certain birthday boy’s laziness.

Ep. 271 Four Blank Notebooks For Doodling

Bookbinding

In the past few days I’ve made four blank notebooks. Small blank notebooks. For those us who have mastered the art of metrics, they are 150mm tall and 100 (approximately) mm wide (A5 in the vernacular). Pocketbook size for the Americans. They are also my first and fourth or more forays into Perfect Binding i.e. glued books instead of sewn. There are six signatures of five folios each for 120 unmarked pages.

All four have bookmarks and straps to close them with. The bookmarks are because there are no pages (as mentioned above), and the closures are in case doodlers want to put scraps of paper or a pencil in the notebook and not have everything fall out. 

They have really nice Japanese-y endpapers, too. Which is pictured upside down here! Fun! 

Fiction

Wow! Molly Bright is zooming! It’s zooming upward and onward in Two Ways!

First way: As I’ve said Many many times before, it is getting closer to the end. The Climatic scenes are approaching! Yes, this is good.

The Second way: I get thoughts about the characters to make them deeper, more real, more interesting, more exciting, and more moving. Subsequently, I have to go back and rewrite chapters, scenes, dialog. This is also Good. It makes, I believe, for a better book.

Bonus Third way: A New Cover! More red! More Osaka-esque! More, dare I say it, Mystery? However, the new cover badly needs a tagline. And fewer exclamation points.

Agnes Grout, not moving so much.

Ep. 270: Agnes & Molly: Their First Sentences

Bookbinding

I worked on two perfect binding blank notebooks. Perfect being a relative term; they are glued on the spine edge with nothing else holding the pages together.
Both are fifty pages complete with bookmarks, but no page numbers. They are 150 x 100 mm (for our metric-challenged American brethren and sisters, that’s about 2  x 4 inches; i.e. small, fit-in-your-pocket small). Both also have a printer’s mark on the upper left corner that are semi-hidden by the cover. 

Fiction

These two novels are coming along slowly but regularly. Agnes Grout is pushing 25 pages and is getting into the meat of the story slash the second act. While weaving Agnes ‘sees’ (or better: foresees) the death of her husband and employer’s son, who she tries to save.
Molly Bright is reaching the climatic end when all the characters smash together to save Sawako and her father and each confronts a life-changing decision.

Perhaps a sample of one or the other would be of interest to readers?

Ep. 269: Beatles Tunnel

Bookbinding

This is my third tunnel book. The first one was years ago and the second was just before I made this one. The second was a prototype for this one

I chose random photos for the content on the first one; this time I chose random photos of an old favorite band.

The outside is decorated with sheet music for “A Day in the Life.” The back page on the inside has the sheet music for “Something,” at least the first few notes. On the front are artist/bassist Klaus Voorman (designer of the Revolver album; he also appears on the Sgt Pepper cover), Buddy Holly, Billy Preston, and original Beatles drummer Pete Best.

Also included are photographer Astrid Kirchherr (influential for the Meet the Beatles cover although she didn’t take that photo) and artist/bassist Stu Sutcliffe (next to John and in front of elder Paul). 

Next up is an A5 graph paper notebook. It has five signatures of four sheets each (100 pages), a bookmark, page numbers, and bumpy covers.

It is one of three blank (or nearly blank) notebooks I will make in the next day or two. Blank, graph paper on the verso, and graph paper on both verso and recto.

These are being made for both practice at improving my bookbinding speed and to make both quick and artistic/error-free books people might like. I want to be fast but perfect with making better books is more important than making them quickly.

Fiction

In the fiction section of this blog, we have the perennial runners up of The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver and Molly Bright.

Both are progressing nicely although Molly Bright changed back to its original name because Kidnapping Osaka sounds like someone is kidnapping a champion tennis player and Surfing Osaka isn’t much better. It’s back to the original for me, then.

EP. 268: One 272-page Diary

Bookbinding

This month or so I was lazy, I procrastinated, I was lethargic, and sick but in the end I worked harder for four days and cased in three books. Two are notebooks, one with graph paper and the other with nothing. 

The notebooks are pocketbook size (A6) with 100 pages in five five-page signatures. One is called The Banana Book of Thoughts and one is called Face. For no apparent reason other than I wanted to name them something.

The third book I cased in is a 272-page 2022-2023 schedule. There are 17 (17!) signatures of four pages each (20 real pages when imposed), and it has about 60 pictures. Every Sunday has a picture and every birthday has a picture. It also has two different colors of thread. Because, well, why not?

This schedule was an experiment in putting on the spine piece. I usually measure the text block and make the spine piece equal to that. This time I measured twice (29mm) and subtracted two millimeters (for 27mm). This was the width of the book boards. The book opened very nicely, so I was pleased. I also expanded the width of the hinge between the spine piece and the book board from 5mm to 7mm. Next week: 10mm!

All-in-all, I was pleased with how all three books came out and learned a bit on each one.

Fiction

Two novels are spinning wheels this winter. The first, The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver is struggling to find its center.

It is about a woman in the 1860s onward who can tell when people will die and how. She learns this while weaving, which is her specialty; it's what keeps her family afloat after her husband died.

Most people don't believe her. Even when she predicts the death of a crude weaving mill boss.

I think I'll have to do more research in later 19th century lifestyles in the Lowell, Mass are before it gets uncorked and flows like Spanish festival wine during harvest time.

The other book, Surfing Osaka, (Formerly Molly Bright) is progressing slowly but it is progressing. It is obviously coming close to the end where the good guys find the kidnapped victims and reunites them with what family they have left. But discovering the kidnapped victims is not the point of the novel. The point of the novel is each character discovering something inside them that they want to change. And change they do.

For example, Molly stops being a corporate employee who buys cheap handmade furniture in poor areas and turns to making the furniture herself. 

This is an old cover. The new title, which I'm to thrilled about is Surfing Osaka, but it needs something more kidnappish-conspiratorial-character-driven. I'm working on it.

Ep. 267: Schedules and Sadness

Bookbinding

I've been working on my computer in an attempt to finish four 2022/2023 schedules and all four schedules are different. Different in:

• Size: A6 (pocket book) to A4 (computer paper);
• Language: Japanese, English, and Japanese & English;
• Layout: from one day for one page, to seven days on one page;
• Photos: from generic touristy to personal 

Fiction

Two novels in the making:

• Surfing Osaka (formerly Molly Bright). A chemist is kidnapped by a religious cult to make bombs. A band of strangers set out to save her. 

• The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver.

Agnes can see the future when it comes to people she knows dying. She tries to warn them. Some listen to her. Some die anyway. Agnes tries to grow rich with her visions of the future, but she always fails. She is a weaver and makes her living weaving, teaching weaving, and being a fabric/weaving artist.

Sadness

In college and beyond there were three of us. We were, in our minds, witty and creative. One was a poet, one worked on Broadway, and one was me. The poet got a government job which paid the bills but didn't damper his spirit or creativity. I got a job in Japan. The one who worked on Broadway enjoyed life; he traveled, took tours and sailed on cruises to many countries, he enjoyed wine purchased in far-flung places, he collected comic books, he played John-Bonhameseque drums, he knew the best meals in the best restaurants with the best views, and the best desserts. And walked everywhere.

I Zoomed him five days ago. He died this morning. Stage Four Melanoma that spread to his brain, robbing him of his wit and his life. But not our memories of him.

Ep. 266: Islamic-German Binding

Bookbinding

This is a paperback-size ( 文庫本 in Japanese, pronounced bunko-bon) junk notebook with an Islamic cover (the flap over the edge protects the textblock) but German (and English) writing on the front. Filled with eight signatures of leftover scrap paper from other projects.

First I cut out ordinary paper as a template for the cover. Next, I put the template on very thin card stock paper to use as a cover. Then, for some inexplicable reason, I glued the template to the card stock. And finally used craft paper as the cover knowing I was going to slap on some left-over papers I had stored up over the decades (the Austrian tram ticket is from, maybe, ten or more years ago). 

I made this primarily to practice Islamic binding. Especially gluing in the endpapers on the flap the lies over the front cover. Most corners for covers are cut at a 90˚ angle to the paper. The corners for the flap are not quite so straight forward and I had a bit of hit-and-miss experimenting before I got cut properly. 

 

Fiction

In fiction, as I said last time, I finished a novel (The New Crucifixions) in the first week of December. After that I looked through my messed-up files to see what other fiction I could find lurking about in the computer like digital vampires. I found a novel with great premise that I started about two years ago. I mentioned it here before. It’s called The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout: Death Weaver. Agnes was a weaver in Lowell, Massachusetts starting in about 1850 until her death in 2020 at 170 years old. Besides longevity, her main super power is the ability to predict the deaths of people around her and warn them to avoid certain activities or places to avoid death. Not all of the people believe her.

Aside from Agnes, I am working on another novel which was called Molly Bright but I changed it to Surfing Osaka because Molly, while a main character, is not the only character who changes. However, since most of the novel – a kidnapping – takes place in Osaka, I felt it only reasonable to use a different title.

The next installment of Calvado: A Deathly Love Story is up.