erin

reading is fundamental

Did I babble here about how The Hunger Games is one of the best books I’ve read in ages and I loved it to little bits? I can’t remember. I babbled about it a lot, though, and forced it upon a great many people. Have you read it? Get off the internet and go read it if you haven’t yet. Seriously. Go. Now. Shoo.

Back? Wasn’t it good? Book two, Catching Fire, came out yesterday and I ran out to get it at the bookstore, something I haven’t done with a book on its release day since the last Harry Potter came out.

I am trying to pace myself. I’m about a third of the way through right now and I’m going to try to get to the halfway point before the husband gets home and I have to hand it over. We’re sharing, and being pretty good at it. He started it last night, I started it today.

It’s actually very good timing, since I figured out the last of my revisions yesterday and wanted to take a break before tackling the actual writing. I’ve still been jotting down notes and such but mostly I’ve just been curled up reading with pushy kittens who want to sit in my lap.

I am trying not to think about how long I’ll have to wait for the third book. Once, probably post-Harry Potter, I considered having a rule about not reading series until all the volumes were published.

That hasn’t really worked. Excuse me, I have to go read more now.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: mystery street

mystery street

mystery street

Mystery Street is a good place to find what you’re looking for, if you can find Mystery Street itself.

There’s a sign, of course. And it is somewhat near Illusion Square, which you can see only if you face it from the east. (From other directions Illusion Square appears to be a park full of small dogs catching large frisbees.) Once you cross Illusion Square, you take two left turns and two right ones (not necessarily in that order) and then you should be able to see the sign.

If you get hopelessly lost you can ask a cat for directions. Blue-eyed cats will only speak in half-truths, but half-true directions are better than no directions at all.

You’ll know you’ve found Mystery Street when you see the sign. After that, well, you should be able to find whatever it is you’re looking for. You can find pretty much anything on Mystery Street, once you get there.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago

creative messes

While I’ve been in revisionland I’ve been silently bemoaning how messy my writing process is. I’m not sure what I expect would be better, or less messy, but it seems to tend toward chaotic. I have handwritten notes scrawled sideways on paper in two different colors of pen. I have snatches of dialogue scrawled in between. I have a Scrivener file open with bits of potential new scenes written in no particular order and odd bits highlighted so I know where I need changes. I have a hard copy of the current manuscript that I’ve started to mark up with purple gel pen.

It’s messy.

But when I was working on the bastet postcard (already sold!) yesterday, I realized my art process is just as messy, particularly toward the end stages.

This is a picture of my workbench, taken right after I finished:

creative mess

There are several things in this photo that I didn’t even end up using (the gold metallic worked better than the copper, for example) and yes that’s my hand covered in Mod Podge. There was an incident. I promise my camera hand was clean. Comparatively.

So I thought, looking at this mess, why should I expect my writing process to be different? Just because it’s words and not paint doesn’t mean the process is all that different, I make writing/painting analogies all the time. Of course my writing process is going to involve weird notes and seemingly disorganized bits and pieces. Clearly, I am the type of artist that needs to put paint I’m not going to use on the table and get my hands dirty.

I used to have this complex about working messy with my art. I thought all the paint should actually end up on the painting and not on the table, on me, occasionally on the cats. I got over that somewhere around the time I started splattering things. It’s difficult to splatter things and keep paint properly contained. But I liked the finished product, I liked the way it looked and it’s become something of a signature technique now.

Time to apply the same train of thought to writing, methinks. At least writing messily doesn’t involve as much cleanup.

By erin, ago

revisionland

I realized I have been rather bad about actually blogging the current writing/agent search situation. Maybe because I’ve been talking about it nonstop and working so much that it just seemed like that would have shown up on the blog by osmosis or something.

But oddly, things only show up on the blog if I actually type them up and post them. So, this is the state of the novel-querying nation. In as short a form as possible, since it gets confusing:

I had an offer for my novel, but it came contingent on a pretty major revision. I alerted other agents that were reading and got some more input and suggestions and after a lot of thought decided not to accept the original offer outright, and instead I’m working on revising independently based on all the feedback I’ve received. I have three agents waiting to see the revised version when it’s finished.

So what does this mean? Mostly, it means I still don’t have an agent BUT THAT’S OK. Really, I’m happy with how things are going, it’s giving me a chance to look at my manuscript again and push it further and have the ball back in my court for the moment. It’s nice to have some control again, to have something to work on actively instead of sitting around waiting. Not that I didn’t have other things to work on, but the circus is warm and fuzzy and familiar and I like being able to play in it again.

And probably most importantly: I am 100% sure I am making the story better. I have a long list of suggestions/problem points/issues to address and I’m having a wonderful time working on it. Seriously, it’s like I’ve been given permission to have more fun with it. For about a week and a half I’ve been mulling things over and taking notes and saying “What if I did this?” to the boy (who has read every draft) and he’s responded with varying degrees of “That would be AWESOME.” Which is rather happy-making.

I’m still writing down notes and trying to get all the new ideas to fit with what’s there, figuring out what needs to be added and removed and changed. I’m starting to see the new version, or the idea of the new version, and while I still have a lot of work ahead of me I’m pleased with how it’s going so far. This week’s phase is combing through the current version with a purple pen to mark it up for surgery.

Though today I have mostly been writing snippets of new scenes and turning this photo of Tessa into postcards from the gods: bastet, which should be up on Etsy later today.

bastet tessa

So that’s where I am right now. Revision-o-rama. I’m hoping I’ll be done by mid-September, so I can hand it off to a couple of beta readers before sending it back to agents. And then I can figure out what to write for this year’s NaNoWriMo. It may finally be the year for Edwardian Boston Pirate vs. Ninja. Maybe.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: sweet oblivion

sweet oblivion

sweet oblivion

They line up for it, in eager rows. It is an honor to be chosen. They are extremely patient and on their best behavior.

It is what they were made for, what they anxiously await with unblinking eyes.

One voice of dissent mutters that four dollars is too low a price, but he is ignored.

It is an honor to be chosen, regardless of price. They all know that the price is just a formality.

To have all thought, all cares obliviated by sticky sweetness.

Nothing matters after that. Nothing at all.

About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.

By erin, ago

minor things

I spent part of this morning changing the layout of the flax-golden tales page over on dreamwidth.org. They’ve added more layouts since I started posting over there and I think this is an improvement. It’s a bit crisper and I like the lighter background.

I have tomorrow’s tale all ready to post. I actually wrote it ages ago and had forgotten about it, and it kind of insisted on being posted this week.

I’m having kind of an off-kilter week. I blame the combination of the weather and Monday being crazy concerting day. Getting stuff done, but more in little bits and pieces than any major accomplishments.

I’ve had this window open for about an hour trying to think of something else to add. Clearly, there is nothing else and I should just go make myself a cup of tea.

By erin, ago