erin

music post

I’ve been on a search for new music lately because I listen to music when I write. I can’t write in silence but I’m picky about what I can write to. I also like to put single mood-setting tracks on repeat. (I probably should have kept a tally of how many times I listened to Iron & Wine’s “The Trapeze Swinger” while I was working on the circus.) (There is, for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, a circus playlist over here.)

And writing music is an interesting balance, at least for me, because it can’t be distracting but it can’t be so mellow that it makes me sleepy, either.

My writing rotation changes a lot, I’ve been making playlists that are mostly jazz (Coltrane, Ellington, some Charlie Parker) and some other bits and pieces that I keep adding to whenever something reminds me of how I think the new book should feel.

I just got the soundtrack to The Great Gatsby and while I predictably adore the Florence + the Machine song the one that’s getting the constant repeat treatment is the Gotye track, “Hearts a Mess,” even though it bothers me that the title apparently does not have an apostrophe. I might put it on the writing playlist, haven’t decided yet.

But my favorite recent musical discovery is something different.

This is a band called Houses, their new album is called A Quiet Darkness.

I literally clicked on this album in iTunes because I liked the cover. I’d never heard of them, had no idea what kind of music it would be, just found the cover art aesthetically pleasing.

Most fortuitous iTunes click ever.

Only had to preview a handful of tracks before buying the album, only listened to the album once before also buying their previous album. I can’t even describe them properly, the sound is so lovely and ethereal and layered and it is perfection as writing music.

I tweeted about them and they tweeted back because Twitter is MAGIC and as a result of said magic I now have that beautiful album in LP form with nicely giant cover art, hurrah:

houses lpHighly recommended if you are looking for new music, and you never know what you might create while listening to it.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: numerical meanings

numerical meanings

numerical meanings

People always ask me what the numbers mean.

They assume I know just because I put them there.

I don’t, not in any way that I can articulate.

My mother used to say it was a gift but she doesn’t anymore. I think she also thought it would be a phase.

I tried to stop a couple of times but the numbers itch in my brain, whispering where they want to go and what order to carve them in and I can’t think of anything else until I do.

They mean different things, which makes it complicated.

Sometimes they’re significant dates or countdowns, others are coded messages (always in different codes) and once they were winning lottery numbers but no one realized until it after the fact and I think that might have been a coincidence, I can’t be sure.

I never know what to tell people when they ask, because the answer could be anything, it could even be nothing.

It’s hard to translate numbers into words.

 

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

By erin, ago

writing analogy in cocktail party form

I was thinking about doing a proper post about cocktails today but it was going to involve photos of my home bar that I didn’t have time to take to best show off the pretty bottles, and I still needed something to post about.

I’m in writing mode, finally, so I have writing on the brain. Over cocktails yesterday I was discussing writing and since I am prone to making analogies I made one that involved a cocktail party and I was told it is a good one so I am going to share it with the internets.

Let’s start with the party and then we’ll get around to how it ties into writing.

You are throwing a cocktail party. You’ve invited a fair amount of people and you vacuumed and came up with a lighting concept and brought out the nice glassware and there are lots of nibbly things, possibly on sticks.

One of your guests hasn’t met any of the other people there. Hasn’t even been to your home before. Is attending solo.

You want to make sure that this guest has a good time and feels comfortable, but of course, you need to be in host mode, too.

You take their coat when they arrive. You give them a drink. You introduce them to the other guests. You show them where the nibbly things on sticks are.

You get them oriented and check in occasionally, but you don’t hover. If you notice they need a refill, you can subtly swoop in.

You trust they can take care of themselves and have a good time while your attention is elsewhere.

Your guest will pick things up from listening to the music and conversations and wandering through the rooms.

The analogy part is kind of obvious, isn’t it?

The guest is the reader. Your party (and your home) are the story.

You make them comfortable but you don’t hold their hand. Trust them to go with things but maybe warn them about your dragoncat (or just assume that the smoldering paw prints on the carpet will speak for themselves). You don’t even have to tell them what’s in their drink, but they should probably know where the bar is.

It’ll vary from party to party, but the basics of playing a good host are usually similar.

You don’t need to explain every little thing but you need to give the reader something to hold onto, make them comfortable but not overly so.

Keep them on their toes, but make sure they know what kind of surface it is they’re tiptoeing on. Especially if you’re going to pull it out from under them.

So there’s your writing as cocktail party analogy. Use it or ignore it as you see fit. I tend to avoid writing advice beyond the “keep writing” & “rules are more like guidelines” stuff but I think orienting the reader is a sometimes tricksy thing and this seemed to me to be a good way to think about it, though I am overly fond of analogies. And cocktails.

(Next cocktail post will be about actual cocktails, I promise.)

 

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: a bluer blue blue sky

bluer blue blue skya bluer blue blue sky

I steal the color from the sky sometimes.

Sorry.

Though technically it’s not the sky’s own color anyway, it’s a reflection of the ocean. Also technically it is borrowing and not stealing because I always give it back.

I keep it in a specially made glass ball that I hang from a tree in my backyard for safekeeping until I decide to give it back. The glass is clear when it’s empty but when the sky is inside it turns blue blue and gets slightly heavier.

I should probably feel bad about it but I don’t.

I think people appreciate the blue blue sky more when they don’t see it all the time.

They miss it on the empty color sky days and the missing makes the returning happier.

And it makes the blue blue look even bluer.

 

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

By erin, ago

ponies! gala! i <3 kentucky.

I am attempting to not do many events this year because I have a book to write, but when I was asked to go to Lexington, Kentucky because they had chosen The Night Circus as their One Book, One Bluegrass community read the invitation said something about a “gala” and who am I to resist a gala?

First, though, there was proper library talking and book signing in Frankfurt on Friday night and then on Saturday during the day there was pony racing! (I admit, beyond the word gala the whole “ponies” and also “bourbon” thing made the entire weekend appealing, and it more than lived up to my expectations.)

ponies

Kentucky is just gorgeous, with stretches of green field and blue sky and wooden fences stretching as far as the eye can see. And I had never seen proper in-person pony racing before. I am really, really bad at guessing which pony is going to win. I didn’t loose that much money, though.

And then on Saturday night there was the gala. I’m not sure it can be properly explained, but it was amazing.

barn

 

My original event info that said “gala in tents & barn.” Now, I’m from New England. When I hear “barn” I picture something boxy and red or possibly white.

Barns in Kentucky do not look like that. Barns in Kentucky have chandeliers.

enter

I’m not sure I can even explain it properly. It was big and buoyant and there was so much to look at, from performers and musicians to countless guests in amazing costumes. (I had considered that I might be overdressed when I was packing my corset, I really had nothing to worry about.) There was an aerialist and a marching band and the whip guy! And cocktails in commemorative glasses and food and a silent auction of of beautiful art and jewelry and things and really the only minor negative is that it was chilly, which I realize upon re-reading the prologue of the book was probably my fault. Sorry.

And seriously, the most beautiful barn. It looked like a cake! All round layers and twinkly lights. I am told there were over a thousand people there, yet it always felt busy and bustling and not crowded, and everyone appeared to be having a fantastic time.

I’m already not entirely sure it actually happened, or if I dreamed it, but there appear to be a great deal of photos. (There are a few more over on my tumblr.) Even the next day when I spoke at the beautiful Lexington Library it seemed far away in a dreamlike haze. And now I’m home in NYC. No circus, no ponies. At least I have bourbon.

I am eternally grateful to everyone who spent so much time and effort in planning and coordinating a truly astounding feat, and to the performers and vendors and all the deliciously lovely people who attended. I was honored to have been there.

For future circus events, the bar has been set. It’s been set really, really high.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: possibly imaginary (but still perilous) sea journey

possibly imaginary sea journeypossibly imaginary (but still perilous) sea journey

We found a round old-fashioned map on a ball so we decided to take a sea journey because most of the map ball is oceans.

Parts of it are worn off and it has lot of lines and dots and numbers, with distances in “nautical miles” which we decide are what kilometers turn into when you are in a boat.

We toss our guide ball in the air so it can have a better view of where we’re going but it always says things are in the same place when it comes back down, it is very sure of itself.

We hit rough seas and almost lose our guide which would have been tragic but tragedy was averted because we held onto it tightly enough. We make a life vest for it out of a scarf and some string and we make it wear the vest and tie it down whenever the boat starts to sway too much.

There are sharks but they don’t bother us because we are polite and also because they just had their lunch which we suspect was fish but they don’t say, they only smile.

We travel along the blue dotted line from Yokohama to Honolulu because we like the sounds of the names but we get bored halfway there and drift in lazy circles instead.

We wonder if we are allowed to visit New Ireland before we visit Old Ireland, which we cannot find on the ball and assume it must be on one of the worn-off spots but we don’t know which one and we think guessing might prove dangerous.

A mermaid gives us a little flag with a clock on it when we pass the International Date Line and we let it flutter in the wind as we sail into the future or possibly the past.

(We are not quite certain which side is which.)

 

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

By erin, ago