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A half-finished book is - after all, “A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.” - Franz Kafka, Mythtery book, So he said 'I'm going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in a library.' I thought 'That's a turn-up for the books.'- T.Cooper, There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Right here.
It has taken, and shall still take, much longer than any other being’s book in the universe to be published for many reasons, all of which are astoundingly valid. A fair-sized one is how it needs to be built. Most people write a novel or a book of poems, they have a story or a theme, they write the book, sort a cover out and then publish it. Simples, yes?
No, not for Esme because my book is a sculpture, it is architecture, and if it isn’t built and carved into the exact right shape it won’t work. It only has to work for me, but it would be a boon if others agreed. It will be an experience, not linear, but hopefully beautiful. It will be a hardbacked gold-embossed linen affair, most likely boxed, and may well come with a limited edition hand-printed linocut of one of the illustrations depending on how the wind blows, but certainly a hand-printed bookmark (along with the ribbon one that is a must). And that is another reason it’s taking time – the illustrations have to be right too. I have around twenty-five at present, however, many need the plates carving a little more and I absolutely must pen and ink some bees and woodlice.
I won’t give a month, I won’t even give a year for its arrival, but I’m now rather confident it will now be this decade. Please live long enough to read it if it pleases you to do so. If it doesn’t please you to read it you aren’t taking the right drugs. The same applies for living. – beams
It’s got a nice heft to it I can tell you (matron).
Esme's Cloud 
Wohooo! Applause!!
If there is a box (and please let there be a box) I hope the pages — when run through the fingers — feel like velvet, and when held to the nose smell like charcoaled Teak and chocolate.
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Ha! I like the way you think sir (as ever!) – notes down charcoaled teak and choccy with a reminder to not make a mistake and ask for soot and poo instead . Originally I wanted the covers to be gold embossed velvet, but apparently, that is neither feasible nor available this century.
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Hello John, nice to see you around old bean. I’ve been (myself an old bean, old bean) absent from the blogopshere for yonks (yanks won’t understand yonks), though rather miss the contact and insights of ones such as yourself. Anyway, I do hope you’re keeping well, and that sales of your tremendous books are holding up.
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Hey Hariod, doing great, although the country around me is doing pretty horribly with covid. Bit of a mess, but we’re in a bubble here in the valley, and it’s not too bad.
So, I hear Britain is about to go to war again with France. Yay!!! Been ages. Looks like the Goodies got it right with the Cod war, although they did get the enemy wrong.
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Yes, the bloody frogs are gobbling our fish again (so to speak) — a nation full of crap popsters, shite cricketers and indecipherable pseuds. Germany needs to invade them, sort the buggers out. P.S. I just bought Equinox for their Brazilian gold!
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Thank you so much, kind friend, for this schedule of hope based on dreams and framed in extraordinary architecture. It is a one-of-a-kind, unique adventure that spans planets and brightens minds. I look forward to a decade of anticipation at the doorway to wonder. A tome with heft, experimentation, and gentle magic.
I join with everyone waiting in the wings with genuine excitement — from an expanse of readers who await this tome with awe.
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Bill! Based on angels tears and hen’s teeth too sometimes, hahahahaha. I have the body, it is yet to be clothed and the limbs arranged, my Dr Frankensteiness is working hard on this mind. Thank you for your support and undying devotion to the Cloud, it is very much appreciated. I aim to have this in the arms of the typographer soon, sooner than the end of the decade too! ❤
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I am planning on living long enough to read it.
Here, Mak sends greetings to Esme upon the Cloud hoping she is keeping well
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That’s excellent news Mak, I’d hoped as much.
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Excellent! I am also putting together a work between good solid hard covers, each of which ridiculously limited copy will have a unique addition included somewhere within it, a doodle, ascribble, a line of translation, an illuminated letter…we need more unique, precious, ridiculously specialist books ensouled and ready to haunt the future.
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Ah, you’re from the same universe as me! Hahahahaha, I love that ‘unique, precious, ridiculously specialist books ensouled and ready to haunt the future.‘ – it’s so perfectly bob on. I’m very pleased indeed that you’re creating something as outlandishly unique and limited. Keep me posted!
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I have huge admiration for people with projects. I’ve landed in a place in life where just being is project enough 🙂
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Ha, that you are, and a fine one at that, however, I’d have thought your purchasing and selling of beautiful objects would count as an ongoing project, for such endeavours are always passions your house in all its glory reflects that well.
Esme covered in blueprints upon the Cloud
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I suppose I do see myself as The Saviour of beautiful things; a Messiah of sorts 😀
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Hello Pink. I hope you, Mike and the dogs are keeping well. Sorry not to have visited for long; I’ve just been hibernating for a few years. Love and best wishes, Hariod.
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You are missed!!!
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❤️
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Oh, that’s very nice to hear, Edouard, thank you for saying so. Due to unmerited restraining orders having been placed against my good name, I am currently detained in a secure unit with appallingly rigorous and conscientous staff surrounding myself and other inmates; but once my escape is effected I shall be back, and ere long too! No rush for that promised cookbook, by the way, as my culinary needs are being attended to (at predetermined intervals via a handy-but-squeaky fliptop hatch in the door). As before, love and best wishes to yourself, Mike and the dogs. P.S. Please send WD40 or some equivalent lubricant of your choice.
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Did you know that the feathers of owls smell like old books? Next time a Bufo bufo uses you as a perch, give them a good sniff!
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An owl sniffer eh? I know a few. – falls about – My most regular owl visitor is a Verreaux’s eagle-owl. Good of Verreaux to give him time off really. I’ll have a snort when they return. I always tell him he looks like a cat wearing a moth’s coat, pisses him off royally.
Esme knowing that hope may be a thing with feathers but owls are more frequently neighbours.
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I promise to live long enough to read it if you promise to live long enough to finish it.
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It’s a deal!
via GIPHY
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Having made a modest venture into this same territory myself in the previous decade, I’m aware of the monumental degree of graft it takes to bring a book to completion. Do let it take as long as it wants, Esme; after all, you’re clearly intent on making it something very special. I’ll gladly purchase a copy whenever it’s ready as I know it’ll be a wonderful read. With love and best wishes, Hariod.
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Thank you so much Hariod, you’ve been an absolute rock throughout the whole shebang and your encouragement and support has, and still does, help enormously. And what with you being a proper orfer an’ all sir, thank you sir curtsies several times and falls over I’m honoured.
Love back atchya in large buckets ❤
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This sounds glorious, Esme. A treat for all the senses, and maybe a bridge between the outer world and the inner. -hugs-
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Thank you Meeka, what a marvellous thought, you know too much, hahahaha. Most appreciated ❤
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Always a pleasure, Esme.
-Meeka adjusts the coke bottle bottoms attached to her eyes-
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Ha, ha! x
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Well, I hope to live another decade.
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I hope you do too Clare. Après the apocalypse might be fun.
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I don’t know who you think you are writing a book, AND pressing ‘print.’
I would buy it/might read it.
Probably about feelings. When I read your book I’ll find all the commas in the wrong places and I’ll e-mail you and all the e-mail will contain is commas. That’s like a fresh vision I just had. Could you do that?
It looks great, hero 🙂
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By printing it out myself it exists as a book already, canny eh? This means that should the Gods and medium-sized frogs dispense with my chatter for some idle reason there is a hard copy (misses), it isn’t virtually locked away. I don’t trust virtual files at all, plus, it seems madness to me to send a book off to the publishers without having read it in book form beforehand. Things look very different in real life (also due to scale).
Everything is about feelings, even books on the subject of lint. No-one could put it better than . . .
If you were ever to send me an email Matty I would expect nothing less (or more) than a job lot of well-meaning if not suspicious commas.
“It looks great, hero” – I’m very pleased with these words, thank you. x Don’t feel you now have to be horrid to make up for it, hahahahaha.
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