erin – Page 94 – erin morgenstern

solstice

A very summery solstice today, with the kitten flop-o-meter already at a fairly flopsy flop.

Busy weekend, with my cousin’s beautiful wedding on Saturday. Photos are of the gargantuan floral arrangement we got sent home with, lots more photos on Flickr. I divided them up to put into vases and now the entire apartment is covered in flowers.

Discovered at said wedding that lots of my relatives read my blog. (Hi!)

Last night the boy & I went on a spontaneous date, first just for ice cream shakes at Sonic and then we decided to see if we could catch Toy Story 3 while we were out. We had perfect timing showtime-wise, though our theatre was full of teenagers who were having difficulty mastering that whole no talking thing.

Originally, I wasn’t that enthused about TS3 even though I love Pixar. But then the reviews were so good that I got curious, and I’m really glad we went. It’s wonderful. And the short that plays with it, Day & Night, is absolutely brilliant.

Back to the land of flopsy kittens and revising for the week. We’ll see how long the flowers last in the heat.

By erin, 14 years ago

flax-golden

flax-golden tales: restoration

restoration

My dad collects and restores these vintage machines, like a hobby. Maybe machine is the wrong word, they’re like, weird geeky contraptions you find outside supermarkets and at tourist attractions, gumball machines and those ones that squash pennies into miniature pictures of historical landmarks or whatever.

I can never tell what he does to change them, even though I’ve sat and watched him dismantle dozens of the things and then, um, remantle them again. He doesn’t add anything, not that I’ve seen.

But they’re all different once they’re working again. One of the gumball machines gives solid gold gumballs now. They’re rainbow at the top in the fishbowl-looking part, but the one that drops down after you put in your quarter is always solid, unchewable gold.

Gold gumballs I can deal with, but the latest penny-squashing thing takes your nice, normal penny and squashes it down into a printed copper oval that describes how you’re going to die.

I thought it was a joke until last week. Now I’m worried.

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

By erin, 14 years ago

miscellany

snapshots from revisionland

Writing.

Painting.

Kittens in boxes.

By erin, 14 years ago

flax-golden

flax-golden tales: poppets

poppets

You don’t get to choose your poppet. Some people like to say your poppet chooses you, but that’s silly. They’re just dolls, after all.

Matches between poppet and person are made by chance, not choice. You receive the poppet that you’re meant to have, because there are no other options.

Poppets are often returned. This is not what I expected, unsatisfied poppet recipients complain before they depart again, poppet-less.

But most are accepted gratefully, brought to their respective new homes and treated kindly. Given places to sit and kept away from dogs.

Happy poppets are the most effective.

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

By erin, 14 years ago

writing

summer in the revisionland hotel

I have extensive notes from my agent (my agent, yay!) in hand and I am gearing up to spend the next several weeks in the Revisionland Hotel. A summer of tiki torch nights and umbrella drinks and writing writing writing.

And it will be writing writing writing, because more than “change this, take out that” which might be nice and simple in comparison, for this next round of revising I get to dig deeper and add more and elaborate on what I have already.

Eep.

It is a combination of daunting and exhilarating. And I’m not sure how to do it yet, but I’ll figure it out.

So I am taking my own notes and pondering and mulling and trying to get things done while I note-take and ponder and mull, like the paintings I can finally start on because I have black paint again, and reading other people’s books (go read Rock Paper Tiger ASAP, it is marvelous and compelling and it will make you crave dumplings).

And today I got my latest BPAL order, which is always a happy occasion. I have moths & butterflies (bottles of Gypsy: Bourbon vanilla, Egyptian musk, tonka, white sugar, and cardamom & Paper Kite: Coconut, white sugar, angelica, and black pepper) and a Vanilla-based Chaos Theory, #95 to be exact.

Trying the chaos first. Beyond the clear vanilla the mystery notes are remaining mysterious. I think there might be white musk in there somewhere, but I’m not entirely sure. Overall, it is this gorgeously blended scent that’s bright and warm and creamy, even the vanilla that was so obvious in the bottle has calmed and faded into the background as a steady undercurrent.

And while I’m sitting here huffing at my wrists, I realize this is what the book needs.

The base notes are there. Maybe some of those bright top notes, too. But it’s those nuanced middle notes that take it from “that smells like vanilla” to “ooooooooh, what is that?” that it needs now. The in-betweens that tie everything together and make it richer as a whole.

Because I can make writing analogies about anything.