2023, multiple editions
Hand-sewn necktie, unique edition
Thermal paper, multiples.

Overview

Intern is a short story about a hapless member of the marketing department who is about to be let go. It was published by Idle Ink on 4th March 2023 and two physical editions were made to coincide with the story’s release on their website. 

Background

So, it’s probably best to read the story on Idle Ink before continuing here. You’ll understand the rest of this a bit better and I’d like you to not know about the text before you read it. 

Done? OK, let’s proceed.

This was one of several stories I wrote at the end of last year, when I really wasn’t feeling enthused about making books and instead was just concentrating of writing. This happens. I swing between those two modes - the simplicity of writing against the potential complexities of designing and constructing narrative vessels - quite frequently. Each time I do, I convince myself that I’ve stopped oscillating and that this is what I’m truly about. Then, inevitably, I go back the other way. Perhaps one day I’ll realise that they are, in fact, not two polar opposites, but in fact two complementary parts of the same thing. Anyway, I was loving the simplicity of writing by hand on lined paper and one of the stories that came out of that period was this short thing about Tony the intern and his crushing failure to make an impact on the Director of Marketing, who - and let’s be categorical about this - was not letting Tony go because he was a giraffe. It was short, silly and also kind of sad. That’s exactly where I like my stories to land, so I sent it out for submission.

It’s a weird thing, sending stories out. The wheels of literature turn slowly. I’m sure even the smallest publications are inundated with stories so the process is a slow one. Sometimes you sort of forget what you’ve done with a story. Or you pretend to, because you’re always hoping that it’ll find the right home.

While Intern was out, it occurred to me that I could use the digital fabric printing at Contrado to make a really long necktie with the story printed on it. I had previously used their services for Primates and found them to be quick and of good quality. Instead of a fuzzy fur, I was looking for a silky feel. I decided on a fabric (Silk Sensation poly 90gsm ID 2924, if you’re interested) and laid out the text. Trying to get my head around cloth patterns was a bit of a challenge. Luckily, I’m married to an expert, who took me through the things I needed to know, like seam allowances and the importance of the bias. Some of this I understood.

The question then presented itself - just how long would a giraffe’s tie be? This graphic helped me figure it out:

By my estimation, that put the tie at around 2 metres long, at least for the story part. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t as long as I initially hoped. A six foot long tie didn’t seem as ridiculous as I’d wanted. One could imagine Donald Trump wearing one as a power move. But I told myself that this wasn’t some big joke - this was Tony’s tie and I had to remain true to that. Also, y’know, the story’s only about 1200 words long.

Working with a two-metre long document presents some challenges. The Affinity suite1 did… ok in this regard. Large documents are quite a lot of for my now-quite-old Mac and I think pasting the pattern inside a text box caused more problems than it should. Anyway, I laid out the long skinny tie and then, because I was ordering a sample print at A1 size, placed cropped copies of this document on a standard sized page. Then it went off to Contrado and within a few days I had a red silky pattern ready to be assembled.

This part of the process I had nothing to do with. I get the impression, though, that it was quite annoying to make. We had failed to account for the fact that a 2.5 metre piece of cloth is just plain unwieldy. Added to that, I had placed the pieces a little too close together, making the construction tolerances a bit tight. I thought it came out pretty nice, though.

With that done, I started to think about taking a couple of photos and posting it online for the fleeting glory of a dozen or so likes. What I wasn’t expecting was for someone to actually want to publish the story. Idle Ink, a nice website of weird stories, accepted it and I had a bit of a chat with the editor there and they agreed to mention the tie version of the story. 

The process of photographing the tie was frustrating. It felt like the tie needed to be seen in an office environment. That’s fine when you have a job, but you can’t just stroll into a random office wearing a six foot long tie and start taking pictures. (Maybe you can, but I don’t have the front for it.) In the end, we went round to the in-laws home office, which is much tidier and efficient-looking than either of our workspaces. We took some pictures there, but they didn’t come out quite how I would have liked. There was a combination of daylight and tungsten lightbulbs which gave everything a mixed pallor. Although the shots with the flash going off were accidents, they ended up being the ones used. Flash photography isn’t really a look I like, but it is at least a look. If I’d had more time, I might have done them again, but it was all thrown together quite quickly on a Sunday afternoon. So, thanks to Jemima and Sarah for putting up with an impromptu photoshoot taking place while they were still working. If you want a website made, get in touch with them at www.websitedepartment.co.uk.

Anyway, it was while doing the photoshoot that it occurred to me that it would be pretty easy to make a cheap paper version of intern using the Epson TM-88V thermal printer I acquired a while ago. It would be pretty straightforward to do, as I had all the files and so long as I got the print settings right, I could have a long, narrow strip of paper with the story on. These went out to mailing list subscribers on publication date. 

Some might say that three separate editions of one short and admittedly quite silly story is perhaps overkill. To them I would say… yeah… well… you just don’t get it. 

1. I switched from Adobe a few years ago. For the most part Affinity has been a pretty good substitute. Sometimes I miss the more esoteric parts of Creative Suite, but I never really did enough with them to justify the cost. ↩︎