Ep. 315: Unfinished/Complete

Bookbinding

About two months ago, probably longer, I folded two sets of A5 sheets of paper in order to make two A6 notebooks (blank). Those signatures sat on my workbench for those months,  unfinished. I took a short trip to another part of Japan, visited friends, recharged my passion for living, and came back to Kanazawa (in a heavy rainstorm. I actually left Kanazawa in a heavy rainstorm, too.) 

After a couple of days relaxing from my not-necessarily relaxing vacation, I started to work on those two books and finished them today. 

The first one is a gift for a co-worker. It’s A6 with seven signatures of four folios each. It has my co-worker’s name on the front and her family name on the spine. It has page numbers and a ninja in various situations (left and right bottom and top corners.) Plus, a couple of shots of a local famous garden (Kenrokuen, if you’re interested). Plus, a very small, black and white, artsy photo of me that you can barely tell who it is.

The second blank notebook is similar: seven signatures of four folios each, but no page numbers or other decorations save for a photo of a local river (the Saigawa, if you’re interested). This one is called The Saigawa Committee Notebook for no apparent reason. Another future notebook will be called The Spanish Exploration Committee of the Saigawa Notebook.

On both of these, I practiced printing the title on the spine as my two other unfinished projects require it. Yes, after these two books sat on my workbench for a couple of months, I have two more unfinished projects. 

Read on.

Fiction

Speaking of not finished, incomplete, and shockingly surprised, I thought I had two novels that would be of interest to two people. The first friend is reading Moby Dick, and I wrote a novel called Growing Slurry, which has a heavy Moby Dick influence. Both main characters are re-reading the Melville novel; several chapters of Growing Slurry copy the style of different Moby Dick chapters, and one character is searching for a mysterious person (not a whale). I thought I would print, bind Growing Slurry, and give my friend the book.

To my surprise, I hadn’t finished writing Growing Slurry! I thought I had. In my brain, I’m sure I had. So now I’m writing it in order to give it to the friend who is reading Moby Dick.

My other friend lives where my novel Molly Bright begins (Miyazaki, if you’re interested), and I wanted him to read it and critique it so I can improve it. I opened it on my computer, read through it – scanned and skimmed it, really – and discovered — to my horror! — that I hadn’t finished it either! My oh my.

Now I have to finish two novels that I thought I already finished. Besides the two I know I have finished, but want to (Caraculiambro and Merengue, if you’re interested).

Video

And, yes, I have film footage of a couple of books that I have bound that I have not yet made into a YouTube video for your viewing pleasure. Incomplete, again! Goodness, am I that lazy? Or that busy?