2014 thoughts & favorites

I am trying not to say things like “this year flew by” or “where did 2014 go?” but I am thinking them, very hard.

I was sick a lot this year. I had my wisdom teeth removed. In a lot of ways this year was about taking better care of myself and I’m not sure how well I did so hopefully that will be a continuing theme for 2015.

I had a comparatively quiet year but it was filled with a lot of things. I have a new niece. I learned to play croquet. I met Tori Amos. I turned 36. I saw Macbeth & King Lear. I redesigned my website. I celebrated Margaret Atwood’s birthday with some of my favorite writer people. I got to be Quentin Coldwater. My go-to Manhattan bar closed. I went to Vermont and Toronto and I’m typing this in Florida. I wrote a lot but not as much as I would have liked. It’s not book-shaped. That’s okay.

Most importantly in 2014, I got married.

I’m looking forward to 2015. I’m not big on resolutions but I really like Chuck Wendig’s 2015 Resolution for Writers.

2014 Favorites

Books.

bookends

I had a low volume reading year. There are so many books I accumulated this year but didn’t get to. I read less when I’m writing & I didn’t read much when I was sick and when I sorted through what I did read the list of books I really loved was particularly short. Though I think that’s partially because they are books I really, really loved. (The short list pictured with new favorite bookends, holiday gift from my darling editor.)

The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Stoner by John Williams

(Honorary not pictured mentions to The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld because it came out this year (I read it last year) and Get in Trouble by Kelly Link which I read this year but is not out until next year.)

Music.

Favorite new (or new-to-me) albums this year:

Lana Del Rey‘s Ultraviolence, Taylor Swift‘s 1989, Agnes Obel‘s Aventine, London Grammar‘s If You Wait, & Birdy‘s Fire Within.

Thought a lot about song of the year. Was tempted to go with Taylor’s “Shake It Off” for fun but went personal instead. (Someday, when I finish this book, this choice will make more sense.)

Movies/TV.

I didn’t see enough movies to warrant a movie section. I’m including it to make myself feel guilty and hopefully I’ll see more movies next year.

The only tv show we keep up with anymore week-to-week is Game of Thrones, which I am conflicted about but will probably watch week-to-week next season anyway. We also started watching all of Fringe which I never saw when it was on but is far more enjoyable than I’d expected, we have about a season and a half left. Also looking forward to more Orphan Black.

Games.

Of the video variety: I feel silly saying my favorite game of the year is Dragon Age: Inquisition because we literally only started playing it less than a month ago but I’m a little bit obsessed.

Of the tabletop variety: We started getting into tabletop games this year and by far my favorite is Pandemic.

Other media.

I am late on the Serial bandwagon but we binge-listened to the whole thing the other day and it is absolutely fascinating both on an investigation level and as a narrative.

 

(A minor resolution for next year: keep better track of books & such for end-of-year favorite list.)

happy birthday margaret atwood, the slightly belated event

Last night this happened.

atwood birthday

Me, Chuck Wendig, Lev Grossman & a surprise Neil Gaiman celebrated Margaret Atwood‘s 75 birthday at the 92nd St Y and it was magical and amazing and I think I managed not to appear quite as nervous as I felt.

For the occasion I composed 75 Imaginary Birthday Cakes. I only read about 50 of them, but all 75 were hand written on cards and placed in a little box and given to Margaret Atwood.

Here’s a sneak peek:

atwood cakes title

atwood cakes

atwood cakes box

 

(The box smells like cake, scented with BPAL’s Eat Me: three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants.)

Someday I’ll share the whole list but for the moment I’ll let them remain mysterious.

Still can’t really believe I got to be a part of this marvelous event with such fantastic people. Grateful & inspired & delighted.

 

happy birthday margaret atwood!

Today is Margaret Atwood‘s 75th birthday but on Wednesday, December 3rd I will be at the 92nd Street Y with a number of other lovely people to help celebrate this illustrious occasion.

I have been locked away in my writing cave and declining event invitations but I said yes to this one because Margaret Atwood. I am delighted to be a part of it. And also my friends Lev Grossman & Chuck Wendig will be there, so it is bound to be a fantastic evening.

happy hallowe’en

clue

 

Happy Hallowe’en, Blessed Samhain & a Merry NaNoWriMo Eve!

I am taking a somewhat Twitter-specific internet hiatus for the rest of the year, though I won’t be around much elsewhere, either. I will blog if there are blog-worthy things and I will do an end of the year post in December.

I am sort of doing NaNoWriMo myself. I’m going to attempt to add 50k to the draft I have. It’s probably going to involve word count math to get my progress bar to work properly. There are links to NaNo-related things in my post from last year. To those about to NaNo, I salute you.

I cut off most of my hair yesterday, shorter than it’s been in awhile. My head feels lighter. Maybe it will make it easier to fit more ideas in there.

halloween haircut

I realize that this is likely not that dramatic because most of the pictures of me on the internet involve equally short hair but it really is much shorter than it was yesterday. (Owl talon moon by bloodmilk, of course.)

So tonight I am going to have bourbon and mini Butterfingers and watch Hitchcock films and tomorrow I am going to retreat into my lighter-feeling head for a good long while so I can sort out what’s in there and figure out how to translate it into words.

october things

pumpkins

The end of September went by very quickly because my new niece decided she wanted to be a September baby and not an October baby as scheduled so she was early, but she is also adorable. I have already started buying her all sorts of books.

One of my very favorite authors from when I was young passed away yesterday, Zilpha Keatley Snyder wrote a great many books but my favorites were The Headless Cupid and The Egypt Game. I loved The Egypt Game so much I used to build temples in my backyard. I should do that again if I ever have a backyard.

I will be at New York Comic Con this weekend but I am not doing anything official. I will be flouncing around in a corset and wandering aimlessly and looking for the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab booth and possibly buying comics. If you see me, feel free to say hello.

This upcoming Monday is October 13th, which is of course the anniversary of opening day of the circus. To celebrate I thought I might do something I rarely do over on Tumblr & retumble some of the gorgeous circus-inspired stuff that’s floating around over there. (True confession: I never look up circus things because it makes me weirdly shy and also just looking turns up good things and bad things and for every thing I’m glad to see there’s usually something that makes me sad so I just don’t do it. But I peeked the other day and there’s really too much gorgeous not to share.) So all day on Monday I will be retumbling circusy things on my tumblr page. I’ll try to remember to tag things, I’m bad at tagging.

I haven’t been apple picking yet this year. I shall have to rectify that soon. Mostly I am writing a lot and wondering why this year insists on going by so quickly.

hello, september.

Welcome to the new and improved erinmorgenstern.com. It is still under a little bit of construction and I’ll be tweaking things for awhile but the major changes are done.

The FAQ has been updated, there is now a bonus page of book recommendations, as well as a contact form. Adam took most of the header photos. I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and how much I learned while working on it.

Also, Things I Did in August While I Was Not on the Internet, an incomplete list.

  • I got to play Quentin Coldwater in a dramatic presentation of a bit of Lev Grossman‘s The Magicians during the aforementioned Magician’s Land extravaganza. I was whiny. It was awesome.
  • At that Levapalooza event I also met Margaret Stohl, Michelle Hodkin, Lauren Oliver, and Austin Grossman who are all marvelous. I believe Greenlight Bookstore has some of the shenanigans available to listen to over here. Afterward I chatted with several lovely rêveurs which was great fun.
  • Speaking of things circus, I also received this gorgeous red scarf from Sarah The Sexy Knitter and it’s even more beautiful in person. I can’t wait for it to be cold enough to wear it.
  • I saw the Shakespeare in the Park production of King Lear, which was wonderful. We had tried to go in July but we got terribly rained on, so I’m glad we got a chance to go again.
  • met Tori Amos, which I still can’t really believe actually happened. I fangirled. I did. (It was also probably the best Tori concert I’ve seen.)
  • And I worked a lot. And got a lot done though the month flew by. September will still end up being busy, but I’ll be checking in on the internet more often.

Looking forward to fall, with pumpkin-flavored things and sweaters.