How to Bind Your Own Book

This project came into mind when my mom kept nagging me that she wanted to read my own work. So, not knowing what I was getting into, I decided to bind a copy of my work together, by hand, to give to her as a gift  for Christmas after I had finished writing my book. As I worked on this project, I chronicled my adventure because it would make an awesome blog entry. After much lip flapping, here it is:

First, I had to collect all of the separate Word documents into a single one, and then put it into book format with five pages to a booklet. To say this was the most difficult part of the project would be a lie, but it did induce much screaming and banging on things. After fixing multiple formating errors, and after checking to see that I had sufficient ink and paper stock, I was ready to begin. 

I should note that a printer that prints double sided is a must. I have a nifty HP Photosmart Premium C410 series that does the job nicely. (Here is where I thank my parents for the pricy not-so-little machine that made my desk wobble every time it spat out my work like it was about to take off for space. [It has since been moved.] It is my favorite little office assistant even though it is expensive to feed.)

Here is the finished product:

My stack of freshly printed pages. What a pain to sort.

After printing I double checked for errors. The only problem is that you have to print off the whole batch. You can't go back and reprint single pages if something flubbed. It did pretty good, except the page numbers were on the inside margin of the page and not the outside. Oh well. Word didn't exactly let me see what the whole format for a book page would look like, a flaw they should fix. (As another note, I have Office 2010, so I'm not going to give directions since I don't know how earlier versions set up this format.)

Since the batch prints out at once, I had to go through and divide out the 5 page booklets and fold them.

The first five pages folded and ready for reading. 13 more to go.

This is why you need page numbers. Without them,  you're screwed.

Done. That was that was the easy part.

Now it was time for me to gather the rest of the supplies.

My folded pages, ruler, scissors, box cutter, pencil, packing tape, needle, thread, cardboard from my garage, and paper bags from the grocery store.

The only purchase I made. The whole thing cost me $1.99.

Once I had done that, I could get started on the assembly of the actual book. The first step: sew together each booklet so the pages don't come apart. (I know it seems like common sense, but I can see people forgetting this.)

This is where I discovered that I had to loop the thread around the end of the page and tie it to itself so it didn't slip through. I was impressed at how straight I could make it.

First booklet done. Now 13 more to do.

Back view, and I tell you, this was not coming apart no matter how hard I pulled.

The finished product, so far. My stitches were so neat I almost didn't want to cover them up.

This work was tedious. I ended up with a finger and thumb so sore using the remote control hurt. I had to stop every few booklets to recover. It was moments like this I wished I had a thimble, or a sewing machine. The worst part, tying 28 little knots. (To think I might do this again after the work I'm doing on Hands of Ash now.)

I did notice a slight problem after I had sewn all the pages together. The margins didn't look right. It was time for some trimming.

Cut on cardboard or you'll screw up your table. We wouldn't want that now, would we?

I used a box cutter to trim off half an inch because I was too broke to afford an exacto-knife. It looks so much better now.

Cover time. Using the cardboard I didn't trim my pages on, I measured out a 1 x 9 in spine, and two 5 x 9 inch covers.

Wha-la! Aren't they lovely.

After cutting out the pieces, I tested to make sure that my pages fit. The edge of the cardboard should hang over all the edges of the paper when moved in about a fourth of an inch from the fold. Then I laid them out and used the packing tape to tape them together, leaving about a fourth of an inch between the pieces. Use the tape only on the inside. (I tried doing the outside too, it didn't really work.)

Those spaces are important. I swear.

See, I said they were important.

Here is where my $1.99 came in. (All purpose white glue is perfect for the rest of this project.) I glued down one of the covers to one side of the grocery bag that I cut away from the rest of the panels to get one smooth piece of paper. Then I trimmed the bag so that it would fit around the edges of the cover.

Make sure the sections to be folded over are big enough to do so. Too small, and everything will just peel apart.

I had to improvise for the spine to make sure that everything was covered. A lot of this was guess work. Successful guess work.

Now you see everything take shape.

Remember those little spaces? Make sure to tuck the bag into them to make a little indentation. This will help strengthen the fold. Let the cover dry before you move on to the spine and so forth or else the book will fall apart and you'll have to start all over again.

After everything had dried, I added those colorful pages that line the book covers on the inside. The problem I had was that I had left all my scrapbook paper that I use for origami at my previous residency, and so used some pretty underwater paper with whales that had nothing to do with my story in anyway.

I folded it over to see how much I had to trim off, leaving the spine exposed.

Then I glued it down. See how good that looks.

Both sides done.

I don't have pictures for the next part, bear with me. It had to be done pretty fast.

I took the glue and put it all over the inside of the spine. Holding my pages together so that they were even, I pressed the folds down onto the spine and lifted the covers up to sandwich the pages in. I evened out any pages that had gone rebellious on me as I applied pressure to the spine and cover to make sure that the glue set. After making sure that everything was straight, I dug around for 3 rubber bands while I clutched my fragile project.

I left it this way for a few hours. Better safe than sorry.

After wrapping the rubber bands around the book, I added some glue on the spine at the edge of the pages. When done, it turned out this way:

Those lovely stitches.

Power outage = no title on the cover.

So glad the spine held together.

This is were I gloat and say what a damn good job I did. I didn't use a youtube video, or another person's blog. I did this all from memory. I cannot say how happy I was to do such an awesome job on this project, especially with the power outage that happened around the same time. My mother loved it. She even made me sign it.

I know that this blog probably isn't as helpful about binding your own book as another source, but whatever. Don't kill my happy.

All I Want for Christmas is Electricity

It's Christmas Eve today, and I'm now living in a hotel. Don't worry, it is temporary. Unfortunate, but temporary. How did I end up in this situation? The little substation that powers our grid flooded with water and blew, so now 60 houses have no power for the holidays. Yes, 60 houses filled with young families, many of them with children. I am grateful that I do not have to pay for this room that I type this from now, or that the rest of the families living here do not either, but my, what a shitty first Christmas.


It all started when my husband's pay was screwed up. Money was tight and I started to look for a job. I couldn't even afford decorations for the holidays. Then he didn't get the time off to see our families for Christmas because someone didn't send him, and the rest of dayshift, the email they needed. Things started to look up when I got my job at the bowling alley. After New Years things wouldn't be so tight financially because I was now helping out, but then yesterday morning there was no electricity. My husband's alarm didn't go off, and he ended up late to work along with the rest of the guys who live down the street from us. With no power, there was no heat. We spent the night huddled under piles of blankets trying to sleep. It was warmer outside than it was in our house.


This morning my husband called me from work to tell me that the inn on base was handing out free rooms, and here I am after wonderful help from a couple young ladies at the counter. At first I thought I was screwed, there was no room for us, but then they worked to find a place for me and my sweetie. I really couldn't appreciate them more.


The bad news is that they don't know when the power will be fixed. Rumor says it may only be a couple days to a week. Poor kids. I wish I could do something to make Christmas better for them and their families. At least they have a warm roof over their heads for the holidays.


Merry Christmas

What I Have Discovered About Writing Fantasy

This week, I am not going to bitch about how poor I am. Instead, I am going to talk about my nerdy little passion: writing fantasy.


I don't just write, as I have said many, many times. No, I write fantasy. I'm the person who dreams of places with weird names and weird species, and puts them down on paper. I watch as Microsoft Word freaks out with its little red and green squiggly lines as I try to type in words that its software brain cannot comprehend. (I have since become pro at ignoring the little buggers unless it is a true spelling crisis.)


Despite the frustration of trying to get my computer to respond to what I want, the truth is that I do not follow "typical" fantasy conventions as I have found out so frequently when my work on Book Country is reviewed. I have discovered that my work can be awfully polarizing, with people loving the wit and character interaction, and others spitting upon it for its lack of Tolkienesque details. When I set out to work on my book seriously sometime during my freshman year in college, I realized I wanted to write something that people would be able to read and connect to without being bogged down in unnecessary detail and background information like I had come across in fantasy so frequently.


To clarify, I do engage in world building to give people a setting, a place to escape to. The characters that are created must exist and interact in this world. You can't just throw in characters and not tell the audience what the laws, rule, or customs are. (Actually, don't tell. Show. But thats for an entirely different blog entry.) My point is that I don't like to overdo it. The people who don't like my work prefer whole paragraphs where I describe in minute detail what the street the character is standing on looks like, or the mountain top, or etc.


Too bad. If it isn't relevant, I don't put it in. I'm not going to describe the bar across the street unless my character goes into the bar at some point. For readers who want that kind of detail, read George RR Martin. The fact that I don't bog the reader down in unnecessary details is one thing those that like my work praise me on. I don't "let the genre rule me," as my creative writing professor told me once.


If there is one thing that I've learned from writing, period, is that people want action to happen with characters they can connect with. That is what I'm trying to achieve. I've come to the conclusion that if people can get that, then they might give it a try. With my work, I attract people who read just about anything from any genre, than those who read pretty much anything and everything fantasy. Those into "High Fantasy" really, really don't like my stuff. (I have yet to discover if this is a good or bad thing.)


For now I just keep chugging along in the hope that my audience will pop up and show itself. I've had from the "This is awesome!" to "Uh, no..." to those who missed every single important detail ever written down. For those of you who want to give my book a shot, here is the link: Hands of Ash.


I'll keep writing fantasy until my hands fall off. So all the naysayers can suck it, because I love being a such a geek.

Not So Very Merry Christmas

It has been a while since I've talked about anything but my writing. I feel that now is the perfect moment to introduce why I soon may not be working on said writing as much.

My husband and I are officially very, very poor. We have no savings, and all our money goes to bills and feeding ourselves. The reason why this has happened is a mystery to us. We have talked to the people that are in charge of the money that my husband makes, and they tell us that the government is making us pay them back money because they fixed how much he is supposed to make. It is a confusing and frustrating situation to be in when we have cut our spending significantly, but still it isn't enough. So now I am looking for a job. I actually might have to work two since all I've found is part time work. I hope I get the bowling alley job that I was interviewed for last Friday.

In other depressing news. I will not be seeing my family till December 28. No Christmas for me. Not even here. We can't afford to even make our own decorations.

Hope is hard to come by these days.

An Observation of Character

I've been cranking out the words lately, and I realized something about the characters that I create. Most of them are female, young, and don't like to follow the rules that society has set for them. They say that you put yourself in your writing, but I wonder if there might be an element of wishful thinking. They all do something that involves an element of bravery (or stupidity, depending on your perspective).

First there is my pride and joy, Melody. She isn't the best fighter, and probably not the smartest person to ever walk the earth, but she's got spunk. She wants nothing more than to be accepted for who she is regardless of gender or position, yet has a habit of inserting herself into other people's business. She's the main character of my novel Hands of Ash.

Then there is Tao. She's not the most pleasant person on the planet. Her cynical attitude and issues with the religious institution she's stuck working for make her difficult to deal with. She smokes like a chimney and will say a whole slew of unseemly things about your personality. She's rude and unseemly, yet is quickly turning into a fan favorite. Read her story here: Principium. She's also a character in my novel Hands of Ash.

The newest female protagonist to join my growing list is Scarlet the bandit. She came around as I was writing a story for a contest. The theme was to write a story from a villain's perspective. I decided to pick a female and go satirical. What I got can be read here: Why I Ain't No Hero. She's lewd and manipulative. Scarlet is perhaps the most masculine of my first two characters, and that's saying something.

In my current work I have a young woman named Mariann. Mariann is perhaps the meekest and most effeminate of my ladies. She keeps her head down and goes with the flow, but she wants out of the life she's been stuck with. Unlike Melody, Tao, and Scarlet, she's subtle. This was surprisingly easy to write for me even though my previous ladies usually have an element of loudness to them. Of course, this story is intended to be a tragedy, a sobering genre to begin with. I'll post a link for "Papers to Paradise" when I get it finished.

Not all my protagonists are female. There is Adamar. I have written one story about him, and have a second one in progress. (I actually didn't like the second one I wrote, so I'm rewriting it.) Unlike my ladies, he's quite and perhaps more mature. He also is more cerebral than the girls, but not  the scholarly type. To say he's a worrier is not an overstatement. He spends most of his time trying to figure out what it means to be a Warrior, and what is the purpose of war. Yeah, he's a tad on the deep side. His first story is here: Red Autumn.

I had started a story for Cyn Fang, yet it has gone nowhere beyond a couple hundred words. Like Adamar, he's on the quiet side. He's also calculating. I don't know what this says about my view of women and men, but for all those who like to psychoanalyze everything, there it is.

I think I've said enough about my characters. I'll let you be the judge.

Note: I don't know if the site I've linked the stories from will let nonmembers read more than one if linked to it like I have. Let m know if you have problems for those who are interested.