Thank you!

Last night's reading was small, but it went well in my book. Thank you to the people who came, those I already knew as well as those I met, and to Shawn and Woody for letting me hog their shop. :)

Reading Tonight!

At Evil Squirrel Comics, 6928 N. Glenwood, starting at 7 p.m.! Be there and be... well, round! (Shawn mentioned something about bringing treats for people, heh.)

The Process of Making a Book, pt. 3

Sandwiching the books between heavy objects and leaving them there overnight helps the glue in the binding to set.

See? Old college textbooks do come in handy.

One of those questions that MUST be answered...!

I had "All the Young Dudes" in my head earlier, and it caused me to wonder: What is a hoople?

A quick Google search informed that "hoople" can be found on urbandictionary.com. Though not many seem to be able to agree on its meaning, the range of the suggested definitions was quite amusing.

This is what I do while my pages are printing.

The Process of Making a Book, pt. 2

Most of my friends make big purchases that are exactly what you would expect big purchases to be. They buy televisions, or sound systems, or parts for cars that never quite seem to function well.

My big purchase this year, aside from the gas valve in the furnace, was a hand-binding press.

(Using it does not result in hands being bound together, in case you were wondering.)

There's not much to the idea of a hand-binding press; it's just a way of clamping pages together so that they stay nice and even while you work on putting them together. But, oh, look at that beauty. Aluminum bar to flatten the sheets, a clear, solid acrylic back that allows me to see if anything has shifted before I make the binding permanent -- it is easily the nicest piece of non-computer-related equipment I own. Heck, it might actually be nicer than my computer.

This wonderful press was made by Chet at gigabooks.net. I hear rumors that the original title of Queen's "I'm in Love with My Car" was actually "I'm in Love with My Fancy Hand-binding Press," inspired by quality tools such as this, but that the record company guys made them change it because it was too niche.

The Process of Making a Book, pt. 1

While I was making the very first copies of 'The People He Thought He Knew,' I decided that it would be good to take a few photos during the process, partly because I'm sentimental ("Aw, look at that! It's my first handmade book ever! Now get a picture with you holding it. Now one with it next to the flowers.") and partly because I could imagine myself forgetting what I had done if, by some catch of magic, I had gotten the process right on the first try.

In truth, I ended up not taking pictures of the first attempt. What you see above are the interior pages for the first five copies I made. These constitute the second attempt. When the first batch of pages came out of my printer, I was so excited -- Here it is! It's coming! My baby! My thoughts and words, collected and decently formatted! Then I inspected the pages.

The back side of each sheet of paper had been printed upside-down.

So here's a stack of the correctly printed pages that became the preview copies I brought to the San Diego Comic-Con.