tedorigawabookmakers

Bookbinding

In the last week, I have made four or five books of varying skill levels. Mostly, I made three books to test out various hinge gap spacing. Some people recommend one size, others another size. I will talk about those books in a future Tedorigawa Bookmakers podcast, so be sure to subscribe to hear that one. Also on a future podcast will be Solaris Libri (The Sun Book) that will be left out in the sun, the moon, and the stars (plus weather) for a month (30 days). I’m currently making this book (again, A6, five signatures, 100 pages). Both a future podcast and video! Exciting, yes? Yes!

Today, I want to talk about my The Earth Book. The Earth Book was an A6-size book with, I think, five signatures of five folios each for about 100 blank pages. I buried this book in the back garden. Similar to the Snowbank Book that I buried in a snowbank when we had snow. You can see it get made, buried, and dug up on YouTube . Spoiler alert: it got wet.

The Earth Book was buried for 20 days (March 10 to March 30, 2025). And just before recording this podcast for you, I dug it up. Did I bury it? To see what happened. What happened?

As expected, it got wet. And dirty. What was expected was the 100 pages lumping together like a solid piece of paper. Plus, there was a gash in the front that might have been from me shoveling it out or from a vegan giant ancient worm intent on destroying the world. You guess is as good as mine.

Now the Earth Book is sitting in a sunny spot, enjoying a refreshing beverage and waiting to dry out to see if it will be a useful (i.e. profitable) member of society.

Fiction

I’ve been doing three things in fiction: 1. writing (good), 2. editing (also good), and 3. formatting for epub (time-consuming).

Writing is mostly The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. Making it more concise, more dramatic, more character-driven, and more suspenseful (I hope). Because of family matters, it is not going as quickly as I hoped, but it is moving forward. We are almost into the US Civil War (the one started in 1860). This requires a lot of research (i.e., Googling) about language and customs in the US pre-1860.

Did you know, for example, that before the Civil War, most African-Americans/Black people identified themselves not by their skin color, but by their tribal affiliation. For example, one slave in Agnes says she’s Ashanti, not Ghanaian or African.

Editing is me reading the books I read and running the pages through the free Grammarly online site. While probably grammatically correct, Grammarly seems to insist on clarity and, in my opinion, a kind of boring way of writing.

Formatting the books I want to upload is time-consuming and irritating because I have to upload them to iBooks (or another ebook reader) to see if they look okay, and often, they don’t, so I have to tweak them again. Hopefully, to the benefit of you, my reader.

Visuals

TDGB 45 Earth Book Pt 2 is up on my YouTube channel just waiting for you to watch it. Speaking of which, if you subscribe, YouTube will do all the work of letting you know a new video – just for you! – is available for your view pleasure.

Bookbinding

In Episode 306, I showed you a French Link Stitch I made in January of this year. Well, this week I cased it in with book cloth I made last year and chiyogami Japanese endpapers. It’s still seven signatures of five folios each for about 140 pages, but now it’s enclosed in a nice cover.

After casing in that book, creatively called Notebook January 2025, I made a similar book with a different name: Earth Book. I’ll talk more about Earth Book in the video section. It is five signatures of five folios each for 100 blank pages.

After casing in Notebook January 2025, I made another book called Blank Earth Book. (I might change the name to Clean Earth Book – is that a command or a description?)

It will not be buried like its brother book, but will be displayed and available for use (and purchase). It is, like Earth Book, A6 in size, with five signatures of five folios each for 100 pages, and blank except for a title page and the Tedorigawa Bookmakers logo on the penultimate page. It was also sewn on cords (well, two cords), but I don’t know why. Maybe just to practice sewing on cords?

It has not been cased in as of this podcast but is prepared for it as I’ve been looking for an appropriate endpaper. It might be mentioned in four weeks, as our next podcast is reserved for Earth Book.

Fiction

I continue to work on The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. This week, I saved her daughter’s life. My original plan was to have her die young in an accident. I wrote the scene of her death, but it didn’t feel right. I stepped away from the book to think about it. Both of her brothers get to live to be about 100 years old, so why does she have to die young? Because, as is mentioned in the novel, she’s touched? (Meaning, she has a mental problem that is never diagnosed in the book but is probably some form of autism.) So I rewrote the premonition Agnes has about her daughter’s death and substituted someone else. I believe it works out better, and we can expect to see some changes in the daughter.

I’ve also tinkered with chapter titles. I’m leaning toward including the year. For example, now it has a chapter title like The Youngest Ever. I might change the chapter title to: The Youngest Ever 1820. I think this might make it easier for the reader to understand what’s going on and where in Agnes’ life she and her family are. What do you think?

Video

Earth Book (mentioned earlier) was created following Snowbank Book, where I made a small, cheap, disposable book out of scrap paper and tossed it in a snow bank for 48 hours to see what would happen to small, cheap, disposable books. Earth Book is more substantial. Five signatures of five folios, cased in with proper bookboards and plain white endpapers. Its destiny? To be buried in the earth for 20 days (March 10 to March 30).

Earth Book is the subject of TDGB 45: Earth Book Pt One . Basically, it is me making the book and then burying it in the garden. Part Two will appear when I ressurect it, pull it from the earth, expose it to the elements on March 30th. You want to stay tuned for that, I’m sure.

Bookbinding

Two things happened last week. First, a family member fell sick. Second, I fell under the spell of norovirus, the stomach bug. Third, the family member physically fell and needed to be taken to the hospital; in the middle of the night. All of us are resting well.

Needless to say, making a book was not my top priority.

But, having said that, to relax, I made a small B7 not-blank notebook with five signatures of four folios each. Not-blank because the paper was leftover school handouts with writing on one side. It was coptic-bound with a paper mailer that is used to send documents through the Japan Postal System: thick enough. More about this book in the Video section.

Other than being ill (no fever but also no appetite), I was in no mood to get out of bed or deal with the joys and intricacies of bookbinding. I am now, though. Feeling much better.

Fiction

One thing a writer can do when they’re not feeling up to par is think. So I thought. About The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. I thought of ways to make it better. Ways to make it clearer to the reader what is going on. Ways to make it snappier not in a bon mot Frasier-Nyles repartee way, but snappier in a plot-and-dialog way.

Having thought of all those things, now I have to start writing, re-writing, and rearranging the novel. One person who read the first 50-some pages encouraged me to continue as they want to learn more about Agnes, her family, and what happens to them.

This is quite the encouragement; getting a reader to be so involved in an unfinished, unfamiliar story is a talent I’d like to have for all my books.

Video

I uploaded a two-minute (ish) video of me putting mull on a book. On, of all places, YouTube . Amazing, eh? With charming (?) music.

It’s called TDGB 43: Mulling the Signatures . All for your viewing pleasure.

Coming in soon! to a Youtube channel near you! is a video of the B7 not-so-blank notebook. It’s called Snowbank Book because after I made it (five signatures, coptic binding, cardboard cover — all caught on video), I put it in a snowbank to, uh, I guess, season it? Dampen its spirit? It’ll be in the snowbank for two days. When it comes out, I’ll figure out what the next step will be. Any suggestions?

Bookbinding

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been binding quite a bit; not crazily, but more than usual.

I made three A6 (pocketbook)-sized blank notebooks with between 140 and 160 pages. I’ve used kettle stitches and French link stitches; mostly to practice the French link stitch which I think looks nice on an open spine (similar to the Coptic stitch) but is more inspiring? creative inducing? artistic? Maybe all three at the same time. Let me know which you prefer when sewing a few signatures together.

The other reason I’m throwing myself into more bookbinding is to create covers. In the past, I have made covers with the titles on the front and the spine. I have made covers out of recycled paper. Now, I want to experiment with an Islamic cover. A few years ago, I made some Islamic covers but that was in the past. I need to renew my Islamic cover skills. Plus, I think they look good, especially on smaller books where people can shove receipts, memorabilia, and other memos they write on scraps of paper and insert them in their notebooks.

Fiction

The Post-humous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver (the title alone is a short story in itself) progresses as we speak (or as you read). Agnes is meeting a few political and business leaders. She is also having visions of people dying violent deaths which she can’t understand.

Her children are growing up and making their marks in the world, kind of. Ishmael, her elder son, will be a shipmaker/carpenter/nice guy who helps people in trouble.

Marlowe, her second son, is destined to be an artist working primarily in Vienna in the early 1900s (aka when Klimt and Schiele worked, lived, and died — 1918, the both of them).

Rebecca, her daughter, will succeed as a weaver, like her mother, but without the visions of the future but with the talent of making complex patterns seem easy.

Plus, the Oregon Duo of Feeding Vicki’s Corpse and The City of Cocks will be available soon, I hope. I haven’t uploaded anything anywhere but I wonder if the title of the second book is going to cause the gatekeepers problems, even though the final word is in some versions of the Bible and is the technical term for those in the chicken-breeding business.

I’ve proofread The City of Cocks and am formatting it this week. I proofread Feeding Vicki’s Corpse. As I proofread, I’m also making dramatic or clarifying changes. Feeding Vicki’s Corpse requires a bit of big changes. Major backstory has to be addressed.

Both novels take place in a small town in Oregon about twenty years apart. The protagonist in Feeding Vicki’s Corpse helps the local police solve a murder and a rape. The crime in The City of Cocks is a random murder.

Video (killed the radio star)

TDGB 41 is me attempting to sew a case-in book without skipping too much. A ten-minute video of me fumbling through sewing a kettle stitch requires a bit of dialog and I have included more. Not dialogs, but a monolog as I’m the only one talking.

If you’re interested in bookbinding, please check out Tedorigawa Bookmakers Video.

Bookbinding

In January 2025, I made my second attempt at a French link stitch on a 160-page, A6-size blank notebook called, appropriately enough, The 2025 Blank 160-page French Link Stitch Notebook.

It has eight signatures of five folios each for a total of 160 pages; the title page and the Tedorigawa logo use two of the pages. The other 158 pages are blank.

I used an interesting scrap of paper I found in my To Be Used Later pile. I glued this scrap to a thin upcycled envelope to make the front and back covers.

I found a chiyogami endpaper, also in the To Be Used Later pile for the endpapers. I think the cover paper and the endpapers work well together; one is mostly abstract while the other is more realistic (but not overly realistic as are most chiyogami papers.)

Finally, I sewed it all together using a French link stitch with blue thread. For the end stations of the signatures I used a kettle stitch.

The end sections use a simple kettle stitch but on future French link stitch notebooks, I’m going with the more traditional style which I believe looks a tad better.

Other than the end sections completed with the traditional style, what else am I going to change? Possibly to make the sewing tighter and the book less loose. But then I say that about everything I sew from Coptic-bound books to jeans.

Fiction

I continue to work on and confuse myself with The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. Two plot arches are shaping up. One, Agnes sees visions of people who are about to die or be injured or people who kill someone. Two, her children grow, become independent, and make their mark on society (or societies, in one case). She observes their growth but also “sees” in her trances their deaths, which she can’t prevent or warn.

A complication, at least for me as I’m writing this novel, is coordinating Agnes and her children’s lives with real life in a sort of Forrest Gumpy kind of way. Unlike Forrest, Agnes is not the center of attention for most of the historic action that takes place.

For example, she knows the grandmother of the person who assassinates a US president but not the actual assassin. She has a very tenuous connection with another killer who happens to be a greatx3 or 4 child of a person she used to work with.

A grand scope of a couple of centuries of change surrounds this novel; quite unusual for me. Most of my novels deal with one or two people and truncated time frames. Heart of November, for example, takes place in one month and concentrates on three or four people (with lots of minor characters, of course),

Video

My updated Tedorigawa Bookmakers YouTube channel .

Today’s video is me punching holes in paper for your tactile enjoyment. This time, I don’t shove the awl through my thumb. Success! TDGB Video 40 Punching Holes.

Bookbinding

Playing around with DaVinci and Gemini I requested a nun with a smirk on her face in an abandoned village. And got this lady with an uncharacteristic moon hovering above her head, a detail a living artist would not have included.

I turned her into a 50-page, A5-ish notebook. The recto page is 10x10mm graph paper. Verso is lined. I used Coptic binding with green thread.

The cover has three or four papers from my To Use bin under my workbench. As you can see the cover includes:

1. A very thin towel (called tenugui in Japan) turned into book cloth with the help of fusuma paper and glue with what could be called clouds or waves or fans. They are predominantly blue with shades of white;

2. A red vaguely Indian-designed thicker paper with a delightful design in gold;

3. A light blue slab of book cloth that has been hanging around in my workspace for at least a decade;

4. A dark green book cloth that has accompanied the blue book cloth for its entire life;
5. A rabbit offering a monkey a sip of water or about to scrub the monkey’s back (as they’re in water and the monkey has his or her back to the rabbit.)

6. And a red strap with a dandelion-style brush at the end.

The back has a similar motif. The blue fan-shell-cloud cloth is larger; the blue book cloth is thinner; the red & gold cloth is smaller and vertical rather than horizontal; the green book cloth is much bigger; and the monkey is sans rabbit and smaller.

All in all, a nice activity that is useful as well. The only change I would make if I were to labor over Grandma again would be to add pages. Fifty is too few. One hundred feels about right.

Fiction

I continue to be puzzled as I work through The Posthumous Autobiography of the WidowAgnes Grout, Death Weaver. First, this book juggles six major characters (so far) and progresses through about 200 years of life. Agnes, herself, lives to be about 215, mas o menos. I’ve done quite a bit of online research into such topics as women’s underwear and public transportation in the early 1800s.

Video

The first video is my gluing up the cover of a French link stitch book. French Link Stitch .

The second is a video of me writing Agnes Grout. If you’re a writer, you’ll understand the sentiment in George Stenson: Writing .

Coming soon, I hope, a video of me sewing the French Link Stitch blank notebook. Stay tuned!

Bookbinding

I delved into prefect binding – the binding that uses glue instead of thread to keep the signatures together; the style of binding most common in ordinary store-bought, factory-produced books that sometimes results in pages falling to the floor on the 787 flying to London, if you were so lucky as to be heading to Europe while re-reading Gravity’s Rainbow. Or your classroom floor.

I made three blank notebooks using the perfect binding. They are all in the landscape orientation to make it easier to use more of the pages as I envisioned them as notepads for artists.

Book One is A5 with brown endpapers and green tactile covers. It has maybe 50 pages. I grabbed a bunch of a massive amount of paper I got years and years ago from a printing company that was going to throw them all away. The spine edge is tinted blue and there are printer’s cut marks, also on the spine edge. The title is 303. It is pasted on the front using the same paper as the brown craft endpapers.

Why 303? I read about Lennon and McCartney talking about their song One After 909 and the journalist wondered why 909? I assumed it was either a train designation or a departure time. In the article, Lennon mentioned that he had an affinity and connection to the number 9 (Number 9 Dream, Revolution Number 9, One After 909) being born on October 9, and the Beatles first performing in the Cavern Club on Feb 9, 1961, and on Ed Sullivan three years later, also on February 9th. Well, if he had a connection to 9, I wondered, like the journalist, what number do I have a connection with (Other than my birthday and Mick Jagger’s being the same day (different year))? 303 was my draft number back in 1969 when the Nixon administration was handing out draft numbers so that 18-year-old men could know when to move to Canada to avoid the draft. Or plan their lives around being drafted. As it turned out, some draft boards began drafting men in reverse order. I switched my 2S student draft deferment to 1A available but was not called up. Whew, a long and winding road to explain a three-digit title.

Book Two is smaller. Rather than A5 it is A6 (about the same as an American pocket book). I used part of my supply of Chiyogami paper for the title (again, 303). The endpapers are the same brown craft paper as the first book.

This book is completely blank, so it’s useful for doodling or planning trips to Liverpool with your significant other to check out the Mona Lisa Twins (or on YouTube ) covering Beatle songs in the Cavern Club. It is small enough to fit in your pocket for easy access to sketch fellow travelers or musicians. It has about 60 plus pages.

Book Three is also A5 with the endpapers pulled from a local newspaper’s stock page. The front title is also pulled from the newspaper but the final 3 is a colorized advertisement for osechi-ryori which is a traditional meal prepared for the New Year’s holidays. Enough food, technically, to feed a person for three days. The colorized final 3 is echoed on the back cover where the 303 is duplicated but in a smaller size with the final 3 upside down. Book Three also has a title page: 303 Tedorigawa Sunrise and the Tedorigawa logo and QR code on the final page.

I’m not sure if I will be making more of these perfect-bound blank notebooks. I’m not sure if I will be using them or selling them. If you’d like one, let me know. I’m also not sure how long they will last as perfect binding is not known for holding the pages in for long periods, as I mentioned above about pages spilling out all over your classroom floor or the floor of your flight to Barcelona, among other European destinations.

I once bought a book that the entire cover came off about an hour after I bought it. The store clerk sympathized and offered to give me a replacement which, of course, I accepted with gratitude. The cover of that perfect-bounded book has stayed on for about 40 years.

Fiction

In fiction, we have two stories to tell. First, the Proust–Mann Connection. No, I’m not writing a novel called the Proust–Mann Connection (although that might be a nifty title for a time-warping adventure story). I’m reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (I’m in book three: The Guermantes Way) and Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. I have noticed some similarities.

First, they were published within two years of each other which means they were probably written simultaneously (in different countries and languages). Second, they both deal with memory or mis-memory or daydreams. One scene, in particular, is when the unnamed narrator in Proust daydreams about an activity he hopes to have with Mme Guermantes. There is a very similar scene in Mann when Hans Castorp similarly fantasizes about Madame Chauchat. Third, minorly, the unnamed narrator in Proust talks about a memory of his when he was in the Alps at a spa recovering from an unnamed ailment which, of course, is where The Magic Mountain takes place, in a spa in the Alps where the rich recover from lung diseases (probably tuberculosis).

In my fiction, I’ve worked a bit on The Posthumous Autobiography of Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. Now, for a long time, I was stuck on it. I moved neither forward nor backward. Then, while looking at a very partial and incomplete outline, thoughts appeared in my head about the structure of the life of Agnes. And a flood of revisions and changes swept across my keyboard (normally, liquid on a keyboard is a bad thing.).

Changes include a new opening chapter, a strengthening of three characters to bring them forward in the plot, and a very large narrative arc for one incident. This last one, the long narrative arc, starts early, includes hints along the way, and concludes near the end of the book. It is a vision that frustrates Agnes because her visions confuse or and most of her visions conclude several chapters after their introduction.

Videos

A blank notebook using a recycled bathtub lid (cleaned, by me), and suitable for spilling drinks on at your favorite coffee shop is available at Ofuro no Futa (Bathtub lid in the lingua franca of Japan).

Bookbinding

This week, we have a notebook called Blank Proust. I made it because I wanted to make a blank notebook with an interesting cover. Simultaneously, I’m reading Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. (I’m at the beginning of book three: The Guermantes Way). Combining the two, I landed on Blank Proust, if memory serves.

This A6-sized Coptic-bound notebook has nine signatures of five folios for a total of 180 pages. All but two are blank. One has the title: Blank Proust with a snapshot of Marcel. The other has Tedorigawa Bookmakers and tedorigawabookmakers.podbean.com . It’s not exactly A6 because the papers are off-cuts from a larger production that were given to me about 10-12 years ago.

The front cover is brownish with an Edwardian-esque (?) subtle design. The front has four photos of Proust (one a caricature in color; one other is in color, but two are sepia-ish). The back cover has, of course, and as expected, a picture of a few madeleine cakes. If you’ve read or heard about In Search of Lost Time, you’ll understand the significance of that particular dessert.

The endpaper on the front cover is the first paragraph of the first book (Swann’s Way) where the unnamed narrator complains about not getting to sleep.

The endpaper on the back cover is the last paragraph of the seventh and last book (Time Regained) where the same narrator contemplates the passage of time. Or, as Proust wrote it 102 years ago: Time (capitalized).

Fiction

Life, making Blank Proust, and reading The Guermantes Way plus another novel from the same period: Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, have put a crimp in my writing time. I have edited one book (Feeding Vicki’s Corpse) and dabbled in another (The Saigawa Strangler, a mystery). But mostly the fiction side of my brain has sat idle these past few weeks.

Not entirely idle. I have been editing Feeding Vicki’s Corpse. I’ve been both line editing it, developmental editing it, and proofreading it. In the overall story part of the editing, (developmental) I moved a chapter from about Chapter 10 to Chapter 1 because I thought it made for a more dramatic opening.

In line editing it, I, of course, found many typos and misspellings but I have also made it more unique and not so cliche-ish or stereotypical. For example, instead of someone ‘glancing’ at someone else, they ‘take a peek’ or ‘glimpse’ or ‘study surreptitiously’ look at someone. As if surreptitiously looking at some is possible, which I doubt, but I go with the flow.

Videos

Coming soon to a YouTube near you: something. Maybe. If I have the time and inclination.

Bookbinding

Today we have two blank red notebooks. Both are A5 (pocketbook) in size, about 100 pages each, and with stylish endpapers. Useful for sketching, scheduling, taking notes, or practicing ransom notes or whatever you wish to do with it.

Book one is entirely blank. Not even a Tedorigawa Bookmakers logo on the penultimate page. No page numbers, no title page. Freedom! It does have a bookmark to assist you in finding a page you find important. The bookmark is brown-purple (mostly brown) to match the endpapers. Yes, the endpaper is brown with a British empire-era-esque semi-floral design. I hope that makes it clear enough.

Book two is blank but for the title page, the Tedorigawa logo on the last page, and the page numbers. Similar to the Dibujo Sketch Book of an earlier post (296), this one has a train, rain, cloud, and umbrella on the page numbers. There are 105 numbered pages. The endpapers are a floral design with what look like pomegranates or peaches or kiwis (formerly known as Chinese gooseberries) or all three.

Fiction

I continue editing Feeding Vicki’s Corpse and formatting City of Cocks. This means other novels on my stove have been reduced to the back burner of such. Novels like The Posthumous Autobiography of Agnes Grout and Ferrell on Ferrell: An Autobiography Based on a True Story.

In editing, the most common change I’m making – but, by far, not the only change (other changes deal with timing, clarity, and suspense) – is deleting conversation markers. Those ‘he said’ phrases such as:

“You can’t pay me enough to steal his Munch-themed underpants,” he said as he hoisted a bale of cocaine into the airplane’s cargo hold. “Know what I mean?”

I change it to:

“You can’t pay me enough to steal his Munch-themed underpants.” He hoisted a bale of cocaine into the airplane’s cargo hold. “Know what I mean?”

A small change, but I think it reads faster and more naturally. Naturally, I put the ‘she said’ or ‘Roberta said’ in if it makes understanding who is speaking clearer. If I want to make the conversation clearer; sometimes I don’t for suspense, timing, or to make the reader feel as confused as the characters. If I want to make it clear he is speaking while moving product, I divide the spoken words with some action. Like this:

“You can’t pay me enough…” He hefted a bale of cocaine onto his shoulder. “…to steal his Munch-themed underpants.” He tossed the bale into the airplane’s cargo hold and caught his breath before turning to her. “Know what I mean?”

More difficult but maybe more important is putting in the characters’ emotional thoughts into the story via actions and language.

Ya’ll’sTube

Not yet. Coming. Soon. Maybe. Don’t hold your breath.

Bookbinding

I took a plane flight the other month. As soon as I saw the vomit bag (waterproof disposal bag, according to the airline) I thought: Book Cover! As one does when one makes books. On the same flight, I was given three pieces of paper to prove my existence on the flight: a yellow flimsy paper with my flight gate, seat, destination, etc; a formal boarding pass with the same info; and a pink paper with, yet again, the same information. And I, of course, again, immediately, thought: Book Cover!

So, I made a Barf Bag Book.

This barf bag is technically called, judging by the inside front title pages: Airplane “Bag” Art Sketchbook and Waterproof Disposable Bag Art. It is a 100-page A6 blank notebook Coptically bound so the artist/user can access all the pages.

The cover is made of the barf bag but bits and pieces of the paper are glued to both the front and back; more are pasted on the front than the back so users can tell which is which.

One difficulty with the barf bag book is that the interior of a waterproof disposable bag is waterproof; i.e. resistant to liquid substances, including glue. It took a bit of maneuvering to glue the bag to the book board but eventually, I succeeded.

By the way, the book board for the particular book was a thick envelope used by the Japanese post office to transport documents worldwide. Not quite so thick but thick enough to support this book. And a reasonable repurposing of a source that would otherwise end up in my city's incinerator.

Fiction

Aside from galavanting across the nation in relatively cramped quarters, I wrote a bunch on a few novels. None, of course, finished to my satisfaction. None, in fact, finished at all.

• The Posthumous Autobiography of Agnes Grout: Death Weaver. A young woman ‘sees’ deaths and accidents of loved ones as she weaves in 19th century New England.

• Ferrell on Ferrell: An Autobiography Based on a True Story. The fictional author of a series of tragic novels writes his autobiography which greatly parallels that of his fiction.

• KZMG #1. A mystery by Doro Ferrell about a thief in Kanazawa, Japan who continually taunts her victim.

YouTubeski

A short (about 5 minutes) Youtuberesque video of me unsuccessfully making City of Cocks into a book about six years ago. The Kanazawa Art College is no longer there; it moved several blocks away.

Bookbinding

Not much in the way of bookbinding this week, but I have an excuse: heat and laziness on my part. I did, however, purchase several tenugui that I will eventually turn into book covers. The latest (and second overall) book cloth I made came out very wrinkled. I attempted to iron it flat but I should've ironed it flat Before I added copious amounts of glue and backing (shoji paper, in my case.)

Fiction

Fiction‽ What can I say about fiction? I’ll tell you what I can say about Fiction! Creation and Forgetfulness.

First, the Creation part.

I started writing two novels simultaneously. One is progressing nicely while the other is kind of in the doldrums. The first is called Ferrell Baits Ferrell: The Autobiography of Doro Ferrell; Based on a True Story. It’s about the author who wrote The Fear Trilogy. This author is fictitious so it’s appropriate he has his own autobiography complete with AI-produced portraits (younger and older).

The second, doldrum-bound novel is called The Autobiography of Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. I’ve written about her before (Ep. 297 ). The reason it’s fallen off the charts is because I need to do more research into 1800s Lowell, Massachusetts factory workers, history, and environs. Not that it takes place in Lowell, MA but because Lowell is easier to research because people post a lot about it on web pages.

Now, the Forgetfulness Part

I’ve written before that I thought I finished a novel (Heart of September, about a high school kid’s tragic adventures in the Congo), but had not. I wrote the last chapter, but not several chapters before the last one. Having written the last chapter, my pen moved on. Going back to print and bound Heart of September, I discovered the missing chapters. And I finished them. (See Ep. 290 .)

Well, I did it again. I was editing a novel called Growing Slurry. I got to the Twelfth Chapter and it was going smoothly and as I was about to check the Thirteenth Chapter I made a discovery: it didn’t exist. Nor any subsequent chapters. Again! I hadn’t finished a book I thought I finished!

It gets worse. It gets worse in two ways.

First worse way, I remember writing a section about the main character of Growing Slurry doing some sleuthing in either Costa Rica or Guatemala. I can’t find it. I searched using the title and the main character and fraud and sleuth but I can’t find it on this or my other computer.

Second worse way, while looking for a chapter I remember writing for Growing Slurry, I found another novel I don’t remember writing. At all. Nada. Zip. And it’s 250 pages! How can I not remember writing a 250-page novel‽

First on my agenda, write the missing chapter and finish Growing Slurry. Second on my agenda, edit this new novel I don’t remember writing. Third, continue with Ferrell Baits Ferrell. Fourth, read more about the weaving industry in 18th-19th-century New England.

I’ll keep you posted.

Substack

In this month’s issue of Substack by Tedorigawa , ie me, we have Chapter 19 of Heart of September, in which a pygmy woman who is bought and raped wreaks vengeance upon the sinner, Tip Tipu, the slave trader. There is violence.

Bookbinding

We (meaning I, i.e. the royal We), made an A6-sized (pocket book) Coptic-bound, blank notebook with seven signatures of four folios for about 112 pages. Pages are numbered for easy reference. Unremarkable really as I’ve made a few of these bunkobon (文庫本) books in the past. So, what makes this edition warrant special mention?

First, 文庫本 is an A6 size book equivalent to what Americans refer to as a pocket book (but not a pocketbook which is an accessory for holding cash and credit cards). A pocket book measures about 4.25" x 6.87" whereas a 文庫本 measures 4.1"×5.8"

The remarkable part? I used tenugui (手拭い) as a book cloth. What’s tenugui? It’s a towel. A traditional Japanese hand towel (35 by 90 cm; 13" x 35") that dates back about a 1,000 years (to the Heian Era, if you’re interested in Japanese history – back when Lady Murasaki was writing The Tale of Genji).

It’s the towel that often gets wrapped around the heads of people who wrap towels around their heads to inspire themselves and others. And used to dry hands or sweat from brows.

I got the towel wet, applied a healthy chunk of glue, patted down some shoji (障) paper to back it, allowed it to dry for 24 hours, and cut it to size. Using the tenugui was an experiment on my part that worked out quite well, I think.

So, I hear you asking, What is shoji paper? It’s the paper used in those paper walls Japan is famous for but increasingly doesn’t use much anymore unless decoratively for a ‘Japanese’ accent in homes with tatami mats which are also not used as much anymore.

One advantage of using 手拭い for a 文庫本 book cover is that I can get two book covers out of one 手拭い. Plus, many 手拭い have quite stylish designs. (And you thought you couldn’t read Japanese, you silly goose (gachou – 鵞鳥)).

Fiction

Whilst waiting for somebody to get her act together, I started fooling around with my computer and wrote a title then started writing a story to fit the title. Over the last fortnight I finished it. Called The Gangsters of Love, it sporadically includes lyrics from Steve Miller’s The Joker while maintaining a plot about a missing woman, her daughter, and an attempted murder all seen through a first person narrator with synesthesia. It is a short story topping out at about 25 pages.

Plus, after a few hours of research into Lowell looms in the 1800s, the novel The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver continues unabated. But with a few changes.

One big change is pushing the birth of Agnes back a decade or so as I have her being born at about the same time the Lowell factory was fading out which was in the 1830s. Caused by, among other things, economic depressions esp the 1837 one; immigrants allowing factory owners to pay them less for their labor (owners already employed females because they could pay females less that males, a tradition that continues to this day); an oversupply of cloth driving prices down; unionization, which both the government and factory owners ignored; and the elevating of profit over people even more so by the factory owners.

Another change was learning that Lowell factory workers worked 80 hours a week plus had to attend church services on their only day off plus were encouraged to attend lectures to educate themselves.

Research is fun! Writing is work. Having written is Fun!

Substack

Check out Chapter 18 of Heart of September in which Hairball squeals on a fellow antique book buyer who is smuggling several valuable volumes out of England.

Bookbinding

We finished the renovation of a client’s well-used travel book. It got a new map, a new cover, and new endpapers. The client also requested a blank notebook so I sent two blank notebooks. Knowing that one book was going to an artist, I sent a coptic-bound book because coptic-bound books open flat and are much more useful for drawing and sketching than case-bound books. Case-bound books are your usual hardcover books.

Secondly, I finished a creative outlet book that had two purposes. One, to see if I could make a book in one day. Two, to see if I could use up some scraps of paper and other supplies I had laying around. The result: A Cat Balloon Blank Notebook.

Purpose #1 ended in semi-failure. I didn’t finish it in one day; it took two. Purpose #2 ended in success. Cat Balloon Blank Notebook has seven signatures of four folios. It is B6 in size. It has no page numbers because I don’t like my printer so I’m snubbing it. Plus, it’s running out of one color ink which means I can’t use it to print a completely different ink.

Fiction

In fiction, we have failed to write a detective novel in thirty days. It has been about 15 days and we only have the first three or four chapters. We have a dead body, though, so that’s a plus. My problem is research.

For example, the dead body is found in a lake. My questions: what animals that live in the lake would help devour the dead body and what is the timeline for decomposition due to those animals, bacteria, and the water. And it’s not just any lake because lakes in different parts of the planet have different creatures living in it. This is Lake Washington in the Seattle area which is sometimes colder than expected. It’s also deeper than people think. But the body was found in a small cove which is not so deep. How does the temperature and depth affect deterioration of a full-clothed (minus shoes) female? These are the questions that hold progress back but fill my brain with useful (?) information.

So I resurrected a different novel. One that deals with a character who can read the future deaths of people around her. And 18th century New England loom factories. Which lead me to a zillion other questions that required more research. (18th century loom factories, for one.) Titled:

The Post-Humous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout: Death Weaver.

And she lives to be 170 years old so that hit me with a lot of research into American history.

Substack

Ever wonder why news stands in court rooms were often managed by blind people? Thomas Gore (Albert Gore’s relative and Gore Vidal’s grandfather) can answer that. In this episode of Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly I write on the history of the white cane and seeing-eye dogs.

Bookbinding

We found ourselves finishing up two blank notebooks this week. One yellow and one mostly red with a slightly floral motif.

The Yellow One has a title on the front cover: Dibujo & Kaku (the Kaku being, in Japanese, 描く. Both carrying the meaning of Draw or Drawing. On the inside title page of the yellow one is a sketch of the front of a steam train, an umbrella, a cloud, and rain. The word Train is over the umbrella. T/Rain was the idea.

There are 105 numbered pages in Dibujo/描く. Each page has one part of the sketch on the inside title page: the train, rain drops, the umbrella, or the word train hovering over the page number.

Both the Dibujo/描く book and the red one have the same William Morris-esque end papers that give the books a bit of elegance to them.

The red one has a inside title page: Sketch 描く Dibujo and sketchbook in Japanese which is スケッチブック.

It also has 105 pages but it is not numbered so the artist/scribbler must remember approximately where in the book they scribbled or arted (?). It does, however, have a yellow band around the lower portion both as a way to discover the front and to use up a band of yellow book cloth.

Fiction

While I finished Molly Bright, I started yet another novel but this one a slight twist for me. There seems to be two (or more) ways of writing. One is outlining everything and being label a planner. The other way is to wing it, let the story meander about until the author discovers both a plot and character; this called winging it or a pantser (seat of the pants type of thinking). I wing it. Usually.

I outlined a previous novel. And lost interest because I knew where it was going so I never finished it. The one I just started I have outlined but I also set a goal of finishing it in 30 days (not unlike NaNoWriMo but not in November).

It’s a murder mystery set in Seattle with the main character (Max McKenzie) and his female assistant (JT Proust) being Seattle Police Department detectives. Titled: The Abandoned Corpse. But it isn’t just abandoned because the woman is dead, but also abandoned by a lover (jilted), and she in turn abandons several friends, ambitions, dreams).

The first Max McKenzie Murder Mystery explores the dark lives of rich people who abandon people and things to make, they think, their lives better.

Substack

Chapter 16 of Heart of September (formerly Heart of November and Eating November).

Amelia, Hairball, and Sakombí battle it out with some of Tipu’s henchmen. A very large snake attacks one henchman. He spills the beans about Tipu’s location. Our heroes march off to do battle with the Congo’s biggest sex & drug trafficker

Bookbinding

A client sent me a book that needed to be rebuilt, repaired, and improved. I need to fix the covers, the spine, and a map is glued to the back cover. Because I have to fix the covers I was thinking of updating the map, too. This is an exciting proposition because I have to investigate maps! Also, the client wants a soft cover so he can cram it in his book bag without fear.

Fiction

I finished Molly Bright!

I have included sub-plots concerning Molly (trouble with her boss), Merengue & Early (who want to help homeless orphans) and the marital problems of Keiko of Kyosuke. I have also, always, strengthened characters.

I wrote the ending where all the main characters are happy do what they dream of doing. Of the two bad guys, one begs for Frank to send for the police rather than have Frank take care of him. The other bad guy escapes in a shoot out and disappears into the Osaka night.

Other than Molly Bright I have been improving my four-book Fear Trilogy. More action, of course. More excitement, naturally. And fewer spelling mistakes, perhaps.

The Fear Trilogy (in four books) follows the life of Max McKenzie from his incarceration at age eleven for the murder of his mother to his status as a war hero in a dystopian society. In this society three things have happened: the Conglomeration owns and runs everything; beings from a moon from Jupiter have landed; the beings, called Jeeters, are severely discriminated against. The Conglomeration gives them third or fourth-class rankings in society; menial jobs, substandard housing, discrimination on a daily basis.

This results in a civil war between the Jeeters and the Conglomerate and the governments of Io send troops to aide the Earth-bound Jeeters. In the course of the war Max is made a foot soldier, then a manufactured war hero, an advisor to a Senator who becomes President, then a liaison between Jeeters and the Conglomerate.

Substack

The Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly focuses its paws on the canals of our body, our planet, and our nearest planet (Mars).

Bookbinding

In the last few days or weeks, I’ve created an A5 Blank Notebook with page numbers on slightly yellow paper with a bright yellow cover (red threads, though), and red headbands with a dark red (maroon?) bookmark for your viewing and using pleasure.

This monstrosity has nine (9) signatures of four folios each for a grand total of 144 pages. It also has a William Morris-influenced pair of endpapers that set off the yellow of the covers quite nicely, I believe. You are more than allowed to decorate the front cover as you see fit. You bought it, you name it (as Joe Walsh wants titled an album.) It opens nicely, too, so it can be used for sketching or doodling to your heart’s content.

In this project I believe I might have improved slightly on the spine. I've experimented with the space size between the cover and the spine quite a bit. I think I've managed to find the sweet spot for this book. You professionals might (or not) disagree but I feel like it's better than most covers.

The more I experiment with design and dimensions, the more confused I make myself. I have taken to writing down information for the Next book and sticking it on my cork board To Do panel that hovers over my workbench.

Fiction

This probably happens more often than not among writers. Taking a character from one novel and placing them in another novel. I’m not talking about a series like Harry Potter. I’m talking about a minor character in one book showing up as the major character in another book. Like Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet (consisting of Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea.)

Or, more recently, David Mitchell’s novels that contain many of the same characters with different emphasis in different novels (Ghost Written, Number Nine Dream, Black Swan Green, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet .)

I’ve done that with Molly Bright. One character in Molly Bright is a Japanese dancer who changed his name from the very common Suzuki (which is why Ichiro is called Ichiro and not Suzuki, too common) to Merengue (the dance, not the sugary pastry). When he worked in a medical supply company he called himself Suzuki but when he began meditating in an ashram in Bari, Italy and learned to dance, he switched to Merengue.

He is a free-spirited dancer who learned dance in Italy and the Dominican Republic. He continues to dance when he returns to Japan and is often rousted by the police for his unusual life style: no permanent job or home, sleeping outdoors, walking everywhere, holding no great quantities of cash.

I have put him in another novel in which he is the main character. He relates and learns from a variety of people in Italy and the Dominican Republic. He helps Molly and Early in Molly Bright with the police following Sawako’s kidnapping. This episode shows up at the end of his novel. The tentative title is Merengue or The Dancer Merengue or Merengue the Dancer but I’m not pleased with any of those titles.

Meanwhile, Molly Bright is staying the course and rapidly coming to an end. I need to develop all the characters a bit more, clean up the chronology a tad, fix typos, spelling errors, check my grammar, and make sure the plot is relatively hole free.

Hopefully, it will be wrapped up by the next episode of Tedorigawa Bookmakers. Don’t hold your breath; I’m also reading Infinite Jest.

Substack

On Substack you can read Chapter 15 of Heart of September / November. While you’re there, read about Tarzan’s connection to Electric Cars in the previous post.

Bookbinding

In my New Year’s Resolution (NYsR©) to podcast more frequently, I require more content. This is good for you the listener/readers. Thank you.

For this episode, I made two A6 blank notebooks which you can use for sketching or doodling during Zoom meetings or, and more importantly, taking notes during real face-to-face meetings with other real flesh-and-blood humans.

The first notebook is 112 pages in 7 signatures. It also has page numbers for ease of referencing and finding your masterpieces. The name of this book is Sketchbook in both Japanese – スケッチブック–, and Spanish – Cuaderno de Dibujo. And has a stylish yellow vertical sash. This indicates both the front cover and the fore edge.

The other one is 128 pages in 8 signatures. It is completely blank, no page numbers or bookmarks to differentiate pages. But it sports three titles: Japanese – スケッチブック–, Spanish – Cuaderno de Dibujo –, and English – Sketchbook. It also displays a chiyogami sash near the fore edge to give the artist/writer/user a front cover design.

Fiction

Molly Bright continues. Last podcast I told you about Sawako being related to water in all its forms including waterboarding and stale, scummy rain water in the corner of her cell where she’s being held captive. Today, you’ll learn about Molly herself.

She’s a businesswoman out of Phoenix, Arizona. She’s a buyer of home decoration furnishings. She is often worried about money: prices, costs, profits, and has no qualms about ripping off creators to make a bigger profit for her company. She assumes by making money for the company that the company will be loyal to her; this is a mistake she learns in the course of Molly Bright.

Substack

Chapter 14 of Heart of November (changed to Heart of September) is up and waiting for you to read it. Amelia meets her rapist. Violence ensues.

A new series called Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly is on its first issue. The first issue is about Soup. What is the relationship between a children’s game-show host and David Bowie? And what is the relationship between the children’s host and soup? What is the origin of Soup? All these questions are answered in

Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly: Soup

The next issue will be on Tarzan and Electric Cars. Only on Substack .

Bookbinding

In mid-December a client made a request for a 2024 schedule to be ready soon. By soon, I think they meant before January 2024, which, as you know, zoomed by quite quickly. I told them that was impossible because I was taking a short break for New Year’s and subsequent joys and regrets about failed New Year’s Resolutions.

However, I finished it and shipped it off. The client was disappointed that it came so late but not with the final product itself. I warned them it would be late. I guess the lesson here is I shouldn’t take orders for schedules so late in the year.

Each schedule I make is personalized for the client. I ask them to send 12 to 14 photos that they’d like in the book and in what order if they have a preference. I also ask what style of schedule they’d like. For example, if the week starts on Monday or Sunday, if holidays are named or just red. Plus other desires the client can think of. This all takes time, of course, but if I weren’t so lazy, I could probably do it quicker.

Fiction

Molly Bright is being edited nicely. I’m tightening up action, dialog, characters. Making supporting characters more in tune with the major themes of friendship, honesty, loyalty etc. Plus, the end is in sight! I mean, action and reaction, tying up loose ends, facing a lot of editing is in sight.

Themes for the major characters are occurring naturally. For example, the kidnap victim, Sawako, is linked to water: surfing, swimming, bathing, and waterboarding.

The first paragraph of Molly Bright. Any comments are appreciated.

Sawako loved the freedom of the sea, of swimming in it, of floating on it, of sailing over it, especially of surfing in, over, and on it. Sweeping down a wave; curling left or right. Dangling her toes over the front of the board or to the side. Crouching down to slide under the lip. Leaning back to flip away. Skimming over the water, her face inches from the wave hurtling down on her ready to crush her bones; the sea was liquid as solid as concrete. For a few exhilarating seconds her fear concentrated on the Here. The Now. The Wave. Not on them. In surfing, she was free. They disappeared.

Substack

I’ve posted here about why I haven’t posted on Substack which I’m renewing posting on. Sort of like many people promising to post more on all their various social media sites but then they fade away …

Actually, remember a novel I wrote about last podcast (listen here ) called Heart of September? This post on Substack is a recap of what I have posted on Substack up until February 14 of last year, so a year ago.

Bookbinding

The second book of 2024 (maybe I’ll stop numbering them. Maybe.) is a 2024 Schedule delivered to the client halfway through January of 2024; a bit late. But not as late as the next one.

It’s an A4-sized schedule perfectly bound (a style that uses a lot of glue, not that I bound it perfectly) of 16 pages (two for each month and some endpapers).

The cover is of a textured paper I acquired years ago plus two parallel red lines of the same type of paper indicating the front. The client then attached their favorite stamps on the front. The back is decoration-free.

The client complained the numbers for the days was too big taking up valuable writing space. But, fortunately, not so big the client requested a re-do. However, as the client orders schedules from me regularly, I’ve adjusted the letter size.

Fiction

I continue working on Molly Bright. In order to familiarize myself with the inner workings of the characters, I’ve started reading it from the beginning and editing as I go. I believe I’m making it clearer to understand, more dramatic, and further develop the characters. While it is basically an action novel, it is overall character-driven.

Here’s the basic plot:

Woman gets kidnapped; strangers try to find & help her.

Here are the characters:

Sawako, a Japanese computer whiz/chemist, spends five months avoiding a religious group who want her to make a dirty bomb.To relax she surfs on a beach in Miyazaki on her way to Kagoshima. The religious group finds her and snatches her off the beach.

Molly, a buyer for a housewares company, is in Japan buying housewares. She surfs on the same beach in Miyazaki on her way to Kagoshima. She sees Sawako get kidnapped. She also gets a good look at the kidnapper; the only eye witness.

Early, a recent vagabond, surfs the same beach (Ibii, Miyazaki). He sees the kidnapping but not the kidnapper. Together Molly and Early run to the police. At the police station they meet Merengue, a Japanese vagabond, who speaks English. They discover the kidnappers are in Osaka.

In Osaka, they meet Frank, an former gangster turned ramen shop owner, and Arisa, a craft maker with health issues, who help Molly, Early, & Merengue discover the kidnapper’s hideout. Violence ensues.

And there are a few important supporting characters:

Bald Headed Guy the man in charge of Sawako’s kidnapping and a religious leader;
Henchman, his second in charge who is not so enamored with the religion;
Keiko and Kyosuke, Sawako’s parents who are university professors (she in chemistry, he in English);
Tachibana, a former gang member turned university professor who teaches with Kyosuke.

Substack

I have revived a dormant Substack. Please check it out and subscribe if it pleases you. The current post is Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly: Soup. All about soup (not a recipe post; a history post.)

Bookmaking

The first book of the year 2024 is a B6-sized coptic-bound 100-page blank notebook with a nice endpaper, red paper cover, and a cup of cocoa which I thought was coffee, but it came off of a bag of cookies from Miyazaki (Miyazac ).

I can’t believe I started it last year. It’s been sitting on my workbench for at least two months. I finally finished it as part of my New Year’s Resolution(s)tm

Speaking of NYR(s)tm, one of them is to read more real books. I’m currently plowing through Joyce’s Ulysses (again; I read it in college, too.) and Marcel Proust’s Within a Budding Grove (Book two of his seven book In Search of Lost Time). I finished the first book, Swann’s Way, last year.

Another NYR(s)tm is to give you a podcast more regularly; that is to say, more frequently. Realistically, I’m hoping that means every two weeks. Now, in order to have something for you to listen to on this podcast every two weeks about books I make and fiction I write I’ll need to make books and write fiction.

See what I did there? If I make more books and write more fiction, I’ll have something for you every two weeks.

Fiction

I finished Heart of September! Oh, perhaps you remember last year when I posted that I was still working on it? Last November? Well, I finished it. This year. In January. It is complete.

With our heroes going there separate ways tremendously changed by their experience in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

• Our hero (who, by the way, is never named) is back in Madison, WI in high school;

• Sakombi is off to France to live with his sister and avoid being murdered by a warlord;

• Amelia is also heading to France to recuperate and recover her former self in a monastery.

However, in looking through my folder of novels cleverly named Novels on my computer, I opened Molly Bright a novel about a kidnapping in Miyazaki (see above about cookies) and redemption in Osaka.

To my utter horror a novel I thought I finished Two Years Ago was – you can see this coming – Unfinished! Another one! Now, yes, I’m working on it.

You can expect to see more of Molly in future episodes. I hope you’re looking forward to it.

An Observation on Real Life, if You would indulge me.

January 1, 2024 at 4:10 pm the Noto Peninsula here in Japan (near Kanazawa) had a terrific earthquake. The Noto Peninsula is about two hours by car north of here. Yes, we felt the quake. And it was one of the scariest earthquakes I’ve ever been in.

It lasted longer than most, it shook harder than most. Cars rocked back and forth; buildings swayed dangerously. It devastated a couple of towns in the Noto area. It killed about 200 people.

Survivors are dealing with lack of water, heat, and the destruction of their homes. As roads are blocked, helicopters are constantly in the sky carrying personnel and supplies in and injured out. One woman was helicoptered out and gave birth the next day. One 90-year-old woman was found alive after being buried in her house for four days.

It was a bad time, but things are looking up. Lives are recovering, but it will take a long time, maybe years, for people to get their homes back. We’re doing what we can (donating food and money).

Please, the world needs people helping each other.