The Plan and the Man

What have I been doing in these last 36 plus hours since I said I'd upload some snaps of my Japanese stab binding/cereal box? I have uploaded some snaps of my cereal box cover/Japanese stab binding But mysteriously posted them on  Tedorigawa Bookmakers. Why would anyone do that? A mystery, of course, but at least there is a link to another Tedorigawa blog with pictures. And sound.

Second accomplishment: I'm making - slowly but surely and with spurts and gurgles and the occasional push uphill by a semi and the occasional jumpstart - a radio drama. A detective drama for the ears called

Dead Men Don't Travel

A fairly original title, don't you think? It is not a stand alone drama but embedded, so to speak, on a podcast I do about Japanese, Chinese, English, and things in Japan. If you'd like to check it out go to Hokudai/Cast. The following episodes of Hokudai/Cast contain Dead Men Don't Travel shows. There are more sections on Hokudai/Cast episodes than just DMDT shows: A language lesson - Japanese, Chinese, English - vocabulary lesson, and music. Usually there is a timetable and you can find the DMDT shows easily by checking the timetable. I hope.

Let me look up some episodes for you.
Episode 51 is the first, I think, followed by
Episode 55,
Episode 57,
Episode 59,
Episode 60. 

Dead Men Don't Travel is an experiment in text-to-speech. It is first typed in TypeitReadit, then it goes through a tortuous editing process complete with sound effects and voice over. It's a film noir detective story for the ears. A radio noir, so to speak? Perhaps? I think it sounds good but I want you all to tell me what you think.

What's the plot?

A businessman is missing. Or is he? The detective, Vicki Bradstreet, has been asked to find the missing man. Everywhere she goes, she's one step behind a murderer. Is the missing man the murderer? Or is it his wife? His girlfriend? His business partner? Can Vicki find the killer before the Dead Man winds up ... dead?

japanesestabbinding

Here I am sipping some fine Japanese sake (Tedorigawa sake, by the way, brewed right over there in Hakusan City, Japan), thinking about my accomplishments over the past few days.

As you may recall, I wrote a movie for Script Frenzy in about 12 hours called Chimera Woman. It's about DNA cloning, genetic engineering, and murder. To better let the world know about yet another useless blog, I created one called ZipScripts: Scripts Written Quick. Yes, I know it should be Quickly, but that's the problem with creative writing: sometimes you feel like an adverb, sometimes you don't. Please take a look at it and remember: speed was of the essence.

Second accomplishment, kind of. Rather. Maybe. I bound a book using Japanese stab binding, folded over used paper, green, waxed hemp thread, and the cover is made of a Kellogg's Genmai (brown rice) Flake cereal box. I butchered the binding and sewed one too many loops around the book. It's a soulful mess but a pretty one. If things go according to plan over the next 36 hours, I should have One - count it - One photo of the bastard child of satan by tomorrow.

Script Frenzy Success!

I learned that Script Frenzy had moved from June to April on April 23rd, leaving me 7 full days to write a screenplay. The only trouble being: LIFE! I couldn't write everyday so I had to write when I could. I managed to write for three days total. THREE! And.... I finished! Hence the winner's logo to the left. What is the point? No point (except if you donate some cash so that the organizers can do some good in the world) except to prove to oneself that one can, given the deadline, finish a complete 100 page screenplay in a month. I managed it in less than a week. Cool. Next year, no sweat. Also, by the way, I finished a script last year, too. Both were film noir style movies. Why? Because I like Lauren Bacall/Kathleen Turner tough talking babes in movies.

What was this script about? Genetic engineering, chimeras, and DNA manipulation - where is the real human and what's the difference between designer people and androids? All encased in a mystery, a thriller, and a shoot 'em action screenplay Without a car chase (but with cars.)

Thank you very much. I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitresses and hey! Have a good time.

A Capella

A different media play with... Just a little a capella classical singing in a language I don't understand. German? Latin? Italian? About two minutes.

Alice by Evan

Just a little independent music from the Jamendo website.

This is Alice by Evan who, I believe, is from a French-speaking nation.

Sound Thinking.... Two Plus Choices.

This is another test of the emergency broadcasting system except with one minor change: no siren. Except a little one at the end that could be mistaken for a dead phone line. And an experiment with an embedded player. 

Please listen and remember, this is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency... well, you'd be SOL. Next week: more about books and less about experiments. Unless they have to do with bookbinding.

Click on the little triangle thingy to hear.

After the Prefix Lesson, a song by Seattle Standard Cafe


or here: a little drama about bookbinding.

Or this late addition:

Which player do you like? Let me know. 

Another blog. What's he thinking?

I have created a bookmaking-related blog or two at the following places in case you really, really need to read more about what I write in such a sporadic way. And who amongst us hasn't had that need? 

Site one is Tedorigawa Bookmakers and site two is Tedorigawa Bookmakers - clever titles designed to not confuse anyone except myself. The first is a blogspot blog and the other is a Podbean blog. Both now have sound (courtesy of Podbean) and I'm thinking of including one for this blog, too, so you can not only read what I write but hear what I say as you read. A plethora of media, wouldn't you say?

I've also updated and rearranged the links on the sidebar to your right. Exciting stuff, this, eh?

Once a Week?

Try as I might - not much - I failed at my 'weekly' entry. However, I made a box for a book - the book is called The Leap Day Book because I finished it, purposefully, on February 29, 2008; I made a short film (about a minute) called Waiting to practice filming, and I organized my office - which is still a work in progress. And I, uh, worked on another blog plus a website so I wasn't completely innocent of blogdom in my spare time. The box is here but it's sideways so you either have to turn your computer on its side or tilt your head or imagine it upright.

In other art news, I'm listening, slowly, to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring Cycle) which I have never listened to before. This is the opera from which we have our image of opera singers as being big, fat, (It ain't over til the fat lady sings) and wearing breast armor and helmets with horns. One opera - of course it takes four days to watch it - and it created a stereotype. There is a lot of yelling... I mean loud singing, but there is also some incredible music. (And not just the Ride of the Valkyrie of Robert Duvall Lt. Colonel Kilgore Apocalypse Now fame.)

Greetings from Afar.

Yes, months ago I posted a post and then fell silent whilst working on something called "life." But I have returned with a Bushite smirk and a song in my heart. What have I been working on, you may ask? Besides the day job, you mean? A variety of home improvement projects which, as you well know, consume entire bank accounts and reek havoc on the most innocent of lives with merely a whisper of thanks or warning.

Also included in this silence was the inclination of a total, again, revamp of 手取川 - Tedorigawa. Yes, again. The first Tedorigawa was a rampage of raamen. The second incarnation was a rambling of a lot of meandering rivers in the streams of consciousness. This, the third revival of a blog, will focus like a laser beam in on art. Art, I tell you. Not related to the Garfunkel of Simonand kind of art but of art in real life. Mostly, however, movies, screenplays, and books that I have seen, written, or plan to write. (See below: Dancing on the Arc of a Dream for further details on the written and plan to write phases of writing.)

I will, one hopes, promise (which, with $4 will get you a cup of java at your local caffeine outlet) to update this New Improved Revamped Revived Blog more often. Dare I say "Once a week"? We shall see. We shall see.

_____________

Next week: Text to Speech Suspense Drama -  Part One: The Invisible Client.

NationalNovelWritingMonth (NaNoWriMo) Winner

I managed to finish a Nanowrimo novel in November: The Priests of Hiroshima. The novel is about time travel, love, the little quirks of fate that change lives, Gutenberg, Istanbul, and a priest who falls in love with a nun. I blogged the first draft of my novel (still not completely up) which, if you're so inclined, you can read by clicking the blue words (indicating a link, as well you know) above. 

This all means that now I have more time to update Calvado, another Nano novel about love, the little quirks of fate that change lives, singing, modeling, and criminals. Calvado, our heroine in Calvado is also our heroine in The Priests of Hiroshima. You can read Calvado above.

It also means more time can now be devoted to Dancing on the Arc of a Dream, which I hope someday to finish and get up for sale someplace. It's the first draft/only draft of a bunch of hard-working folks trying to make it in Los Angeles. They are this close to making it, too. As stated before I'm not going to blog it so that whoever buys it will be the sole owner! Exclusivity! Great.

Dancing on the arc of a dream (continued)

Yesterday, Sunday, October 28th, a day that will never make it to the infamy top ten list, I sat in an outdoor cafe with my Mexican rice, coffee, and salad and wrote several... many pages of Dancing On the Arc of a Dream. So many, in fact, that I fear I may run out of room before the blank pages evaporate in a shower of ink and doodles. I'd write the story, doodle a drawing that may or may not be related to the story, and write some more. I discovered, half way through one scene that I had the wrong character interacting with another character so I had to go back and cross out the original character and enter in the proper guy's name.

Speaking of characters: here's a rundown of the main characters so far and which I hope will be the only characters, except for a few minor thugs and hangerson:

• Janice Jean J - the narrator; 20, the 'mother' of our little group, the glue that keeps the other two in orbit.

• Mel - 24, the disgruntled, angry young man who has made a very bad deal for drugs and a coffee shop.

• Syd - 24, a former drug dealer who was shot and lost quite a few IQ points; Janice Jean J takes care of him and Mel has a few soft spots for him, too.

• Red - Mel's dad, a scam artist.

• The Suit - a mysterious woman with too much money and a drinking problem.

• Mike - a rock star guitarist super-god, The Suit's boy-toy and perhaps a benefactor in Janice's coffee shop. The last I saw him he was getting beaten up by Red.

The plot, as we speak, is Janice and Mel are trying to get enough money to keep their coffee shop afloat. Mel borrowed some drugs from the bad guys (as of yet unseen) and was going to sell them to The Suit except someone did the old swithcroo on him (on Janice, she was meeting The Suit) and now they need money to pay for the drugs And the coffee shop. Red things he has a scam ready.

Exciting Semi-News

After a short break I have returned with a vengence upon Dancing on the Arc of a Dream. Tomorrow I will have escaped the rigors of any day job that might be lurking behind me on a dark street like a stalker about to pounce and will be devoting several hours to religiously creating more words, stories, characterization, and plot to "Dancing". For several minutes today, whilst listening to a web design podcast called boagworld, I re-read the some fifty pages of the novel so far, looked at the pictures, scribbles, and asides and this has bolstered my enthusiasm to carry on! To boldly split an infinitive where no human has split one before! To write, draw, and plot! Ah, the wonders of hand-written, hand-drawn, hand-bound novels. It sends a chill up my spine just thinking about it.

________________________________________________________
Check out my online novel, Calvado: Love Kills.

Dancing on the Arc of a Rainbow (con't.)

I enticed an artist acquaintaince of mine to assist me with Dancing on the Arc of a Rainbow. She is going to dabble in the margins and, perhaps, create a drawing or two of the action in the story. Being an artist, she is quick, she is creative, and she can do a doodle in 5 minutes that looks more like a complete drawing than a doodle. Amazing to watch work and encourages me to write faster.

The plot thus far:
Our heroine is about to get some major money to create an upscale coffee shop for the rich so that she can make enough money to pay back the loan her dead-beat friend got from gangsters Except, the dead-beat friend's father, a con-man from back in the day, is on the scene. What does he have in mind?

Shouldn't I be riding the dig-me! blogging wave and blog Dancing on the Arc of a Rainbow? I should and could except I wanted the finished copy to be the only one and computer screens, online sites, and Flickr are not too receptive to hand-drawn art, hand-written novels, and waxed Irish linen thread threaded through needles. At least and not keep their warranty.

A New Day • A New Post • A New Blog • A New Challenge

First!

I have begun blogging a novel called Calvado. 

Calvado is a love story between a street-smart, hard-living man and a woman of exceptional intelligence. Mack, the man, discovers early in his life that everyone he loves dies. He never gets close to anyone. Until he meets Calvado. Calvado was hired as a model when she was 14 but had planned to become a doctor since she was 9. They meet in New York City where Mack has gone to get lost. 

The novel takes place all over the time: We meet Mack in the final moments of his life, we meet Calvado as a young med student. We flash back to the many, many times they 'meet' but do not become friends. Then, we flash up to why Mack is escaping New York. 

It's being blogged slowly but surely over time. The first installment: The Delaware Water Gap is up now.

Second!

I plan to blog my NaNoWriMo novel this year, just to see if I can do it. The title:  The Priests of Hiroshima. It's an historical magically realistic story of Calvado (making her second appearance), Hiroshi (a Japanese college student hitch-hiking through Turkey), an as-yet-to-be-named used bookstore owner and his 657-year-old bilingual cat.

This fab four make their way through time and place when Hiroshi discovers that Istanbul is laced with tunnels that meander over the earth and around time.

They go from the Fall of Constantinople to the bombing of Hiroshima; they wonder at the birth of Genghis Khan, and visit the studios of Wang Zhen in Yuan China as he invents movable type 130 years before Gutenberg. They visit Mainz, Germany three times: to watch Gutenberg print his Bible in 1450;  to watch as Martin Luther sends his 95  Theses to the Archbishop in 1517; and to watch Hubert Schiffer, a Jesuit priest, receive his priestly robes. Schiffer is one of eight Jesuit priests who survived the bombing of Hiroshima.

Mostly, though, The Priests of Hiroshima is a love story between Calvado and Hiroshi.

Third!

And, no, I haven't forgotten about Dancing on the Arc of a Dream. It is still being worked on. It is still being drawn and hand-written. It is up to 50 pages and growing. I'm working on it when I have the time and because it is the first and only draft, I'm being careful about plot and characterization. It's not like I can hit the delete key 28 times really fast to eliminate a misspoken sentence.

Thank you and enjoy your life.

Dancing On the Arc of A Dream: A Novel Writing Idea

Good morning, everyone and welcome to Tedorigawa for August 7, 2007 and my new brainstorm.

Dancing On the Arc of A Dream

I stumbled upon a great idea at Plotastic.com via The Writing Show with Paula B. (on iTunes, of course, where else?). Seems Mark Putnam, creator/editor of Plotastic, wanted to write a novel but couldn't concentrate on any of his many ideas. He created Plotastic.com and a survey wherein people could vote on main character, plot points, motivation, etc cetera for Mark's novel, which he would write given the parameters of the survey. He is hard at work and as of today has about 35,000 words of his projected 100,000-word novel.

Dancing On the Arc of A Dream

Bear with me here; I'm getting to the point. Mark inserted a link to NanoWrimo on his website. NanoWrimo is National Novel Writing Month which is held each November. Your goal in NanoWrimo, should you decide to accept the challenge - and what writer can't? - is Simply? to write a 50,000-word novel in one month. I have dragged my carcass through NanoWrimo for the last three years and have reached the goal of 50,000 words each year. (Yeah, me!) Meaning, in my case, two completed novels (Calvado and Tristram's Printer) and one incomplete novel (Caraculiambro) but still over 50,000 words.

Dancing On the Arc of A Dream

Now, what does NanoWrimo, Mark Putnam's Plotastic, and me have to do with this great new novel writing idea I have? Read on, MacDuff, there's more. I also enjoy hand bookbinding. I'm a very, very beginner but enjoy it. Here is a link to one of my books on Flickr, if you're dying to see what a handbound book by me looks like.

Dancing On the Arc of A Dream

Get to the Point! I hear the one person who is reading this blog scream. Okay. Let's see what we can add up: bookbinding, NanoWrimo, me, Plotastic. What do you get? Me, handwriting a novel in one of my handbound books before the year is out.

Dancing On the Arc of A Dream

I've already bound the book and I've already started scribbling. I'm eschewing computers and anything more high-tech than a ball-point pen. I'm writing it without a net (no outline), and I'm editing it as I write In the Book! First draft is the last, all editing marks, crossouts, misspellings, doodles, and other aids to procrastination included.

Dancing On the Arc of A Dream

I have a title but no plot ... But! the plot is forming as I write! Talk about organic (see The Writing Show episode for July 29, 2007 with Anthony G. Williams "Scales" for more on organic.) And what is the title? Look: Dancing On the Arc of A Dream!

Ocassionally incredibly illegibly hand-written by George Stenson using pen, pencil, doodles, art, notes, and re-writes, Dancing On the Arc of A Dream is the first hand-bound, hand-written, first-draft novel written since 1450: the first and only draft of Dancing On the Arc of A Dream.

Here's the plot so far: Two men and one woman borrow money from the wrong people to open a greasy spoon coffee shop. They discover to their horror that they are in over their heads and have to beg, borrow, steal or print lots of money real fast. Murder, revenge, back-stabbings, double-dealings, drugs, rock and roll, and a woman known only as The Suit. Wish me luck.

Photos of Dancing On the Arc of A Dream are here: Dancing on the Arc of a Dream!