DIY Book Nut (Revisited)

Tuesday 7th July 2015

Spent the whole day at home. Took a while to bind a new morning pages book. Prompts I chose last night were awful. Didn’t use any of them. Keyed in some text and fell asleep for an hour. Listened to Queen and Dee Snider. Booked the venue for Jane Burn’s pamphlet launch. We’re going for the Jazz Café in Newcastle on Thursday 30th July. I made a couple of new group photos to promote the pamphlet on the Talking Pen page. Must do craft workshop prep tomorrow. Ok. 10.34 pm.

Wednesday 8th July 2015

Spent much of today preparing for tomorrow’s two hour bookmaking session at Mind. It’s a case of the Blue Peter here’s one I made earlier approach. Lots of step by step examples take time. I’m making little spined paperback notebooks and five hole booklet stitch for hand-sewn single signature hardbacks. Then an edit session which involves nine readers all having the same typed versions of work-in-progress to hand. Got all the typing done this evening. Still need to buy PVA glue and plastic rulers. Need to take trolley case to fit my magnetic cutting mat and metal ruler, ream of A4, lots of pre-cut A5, card for covers, assorted coloured endpapers, booklet stapler, silver pie trays for glue, my knife well wrapped up for travel. Will need to be in town half an hour earlier to set up. Hope it goes well. 10.26 pm.

Thursday 9th July 2015

Busy workshop making spined paperbacks this morning. Aftermath took 20 minutes to clear up. The group enjoyed it. Thanks for pix of process from Simon Green up on Facebook this evening. No word from the Jazz Café on room hire confirmation. No word from print shop. Bit hammered this evening. Lay on the bed for a couple of hours with the politics of poverty, war and the end of the world as a YouTube soundtrack. Some strange kind of lullaby nihilistic nap time. This evening I odered yet another toner cartridge. Listened to Hanoi Rocks, Souxsie and the Banshees, Michael Monroe and MC5. Watched a Savage Skills bike demo video. Used to see young Ben Savage win almost all of his tyketrials back in the mid noughties. He’s been riding sixteen years. Tonight I’m too lethargic to do much. Don’t want to look at books. Nothing on TV. Will just turn in early and put in a full day of admin tomorrow. 10.00 pm.

Friday 10th July 2015

Spent much of the morning reading back over morning pages from 2013. Late last night I looked at my NaPoWriMo poems from the same year. Hoping to make use of them for a future book project, but the Red Squirrel Press book is to be sequenced and edited first. Didn’t realise how warm it’s been outside until I nipped out just before nine this evening to buy a pizza. Should have made use of the sunshine to get some physical exercise but paperwork needed completion before new summer workshops commence. Jane’s pamphlets are ready to collect from the print shop. Weather prevailing I’ll pick them up tomorrow. 11.00 pm.

Saturday 11th July 2015

Up early to walk over to Leadgate Post Office to pick up Jane Burn’s pamphlets from Griffin Print. Checked them over and did promo online. Surfed the net for a while, had a shave then rode over to Jen’s place. Walked up to Tesco and got food supplies. Chicken bake and spaghetti then strawberry ice cream cone. Watched some 9/11 stuff on TV and a pretty brutal episode of Rebus. 10.43 pm.

Sunday 12th July 2015

Me and Jenni went into Newcastle this afternoon. Sat by the church near the university eating Panini and fries from eat4less. Checked out music mags and stationary in WHSmiths; then round to HMV, mainly looking at DVDs and guessing the tracklisting on classic rock compilations. Checked out the zines in Travelling Man then a quest for custard. £3.99 for a tub of ice cream – get in the fucking sea! Watched Les Mis documentary then a 94 minute bike ride home. 11.20 pm.

Monday 13th July 2015

I started sequencing my next full-length poetry collection “Laughter to Split Glass” this evening. Forgot how mammoth a task it is to put a book together. I have about a dozen big hitter performance pieces that I want placed in the most effective order with short suites of pieces running between and creating a thread line, if possible. But with close on eighty poems, most of them previously published, it’s a lot to whittle down to fit into sixty pages – the book will be sixty-eight pages, but eight will be taken up with title, verso, acknowledgements, contents list, etc. Living room floor is covered in A4 paper with poems typed on them. I got about ten pages sequenced in about an hour and a half, but I’ll probably have to take about three or four shots at it. Reckon I’m going to be pretty busy for the next six or seven weeks. 11.28 pm.