clues at the scene

clues at the scene

Friday, December 6, 2013

Know your Shinola

Detroit has a lot of pride despite a lot of crime and a lot of debt. One of things to be proud of is Shinola - a firm that manufactures watches, bicycles, and some great notebooks.

My new notebooks came today - putting Moleskin to shame. The binding is tight, the pages take ink better, and the overall feel says "quality." The cloth cover is even press bound with binder's glue and has a workman-like feel.

Better, look how they came - just because it is the holiday season! Gift wrapped without even asking!


I'm sold. I needed a couple of soft and a couple softback int he spare collection. Now that I have these which are actually made by a bindery here in Michigan, I won't be going back. I love them.

Link here:
http://www.shinola.com/shop/journals.html#shinola=qYodUV9wGxx

So - now I have a first-class notebook. I better be putting in some first class notes. That's actually a problem. All the little slips of paper at the end of the day. I really need to glue them into a folio of some sort (I'm a one-side of the paper guy). I hate to go to a craft store but maybe an extended browse in an office supply store could help. The bloody things multiply with snippets of dialogue and points that just come to me out of the blue.

So, enough with the sales.

I have an interrogation to write - you know: the scene where the protagonist confronts the fellow you think is behind all the trouble and then he rolls over revealing someone else as "Mr. Big?"  In my story I've filled a miser's bedroom with tinder-dry Christmas trees as he slept and my protagonist is enjoying an especially large Meerschaum pipe. Makes for an especially nice turn on the Marley-Scrooge conversation. No supernatural elements, though. Not much on Christmas ghosts.

So, mind the smoking in bed. It's been the cause of many a blaze and when you're bound hand and foot with actual silk ribbon, it can make getting away a real beast.

Off to play twenty questions. Maybe you should do the same. Pick up the pen and ask the antagonist all those pesky reader questions. His answers may surprise you.

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