by Tedorigawa Bookmakers
Creating Handmade Books and Writing Fiction in Kanazawa, Japan 金沢市
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
7/26/2022
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Phone Numbers
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April 15, 2025
Bookbinding I did something I should have done when I first started making books, but was too naive (dumb?) to do. I recommend new bookbinders do this activity. I made three A6-sized blank notebooks with five signatures of five folios each for a total of 100 pages. They were made with two different hinge gaps and three different spine pieces. This was a mistake. They should have been made with three different hinge gaps instead of two. Why did I make three books like this? Again, just to see how they all turned out. Also, to learn more about hinge gaps — the space between the spine and the book board — and spine pieces. The Liszt/McCartney Notebook’s hinge gap was 5 mm. The spine piece was the size of the text block (6 mm). This, I discovered, is too small for both the spine piece and the hinge gap. However, it has been my go-to-size for the hinge gap for far too long. The Harrison/Handel Notebook’s hinge gap was 8.0 mm, and its spine piece was the size of the text block plus one book board. The book board was 2 mm. This was a good size; I liked it and will remember these dimensions on my next book. My next book might well be Truckin’ which I’ll tell you about in a future episode, but for now, let it be known it is yet another experiment and deals with art with a capital A. Stay tuned. The Lennon/Mozart Notebook’s hinge gap was also 8.0 mm, but the spine piece was the size of the text block (6 mm) plus the size of two book boards (a total of 4 mm). This is the traditional measurement for the spine piece. However, I felt that it was too large. But the hinge gap was good. For my next book, I will make the hinge gap 7 mm with the spine piece a text block and one book board to see if it is as good as the Harrison/Handel Notebook, or if 8.0 or larger is the way to go. I have seen binders using 9.5 mm hinge gaps (Sea Lemon). I think 9.5 mm might be good for larger books (B5 or more?). For an A6-sized pocketbook, I like 8.0 mm. Maybe 7.5 mm? Who knows? That’s why bookbinding is such an Adventure, yes? Yes! Stay tuned for the next adventure. Fiction Naturally, I’ve been working on Agnes Grout. In one segment involving Polly, the Ashanti slave from what is now known as Ghana, I needed to introduce a new character: Cadwallader Milhous, a Quaker. And this has led me into Developing a Character. When first introduced, Cadwallader was simple. He was an info dump character. He was introduced to move the plot and nothing more. This didn’t sit well with me. I needed him to be more. I gave him the three requirements for a memorable character: language quirks and ticks, a body, and a motivation. Taking the body first, he was originally described as a tall, thin, angry man. He morphed into a rotund Benjamin-Franklin-ish fellow. Having a body kind of dictates how the character moves and movement can show the reader what the character means and desires. This is the least important attribute, but the writer needs to see her characters before she can use them in her novels. The language he uses has more tag questions than most people use: You’re Polly from Lowell, right? You want to be moving back to Africa, aren’t you? Plus, he interrupts himself a little bit: I’m from – we’re all from – Boston, you see? His motivation, which he doesn’t express openly because that would make him an Info-Dump character, is to guide Polly through the labyrinth that is the US judicial system in the 1840s, which didn’t take too kindly to runaway slaves. Which Polly wasn’t, but she was the wrong skin tone to argue the point. Visuals A video of the Three Books I made for your listening and watching pleasure is up on YouTube.
March 30, 2025
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.
March 15, 2025
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.
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