[enter title here]

This is what a book tour looks like in ephemera. In boarding passes and train tickets and accidentally retained visitor passes.

That’s not even all of it.

I am in something that I could probably call Tour Recovery Mode right now. It mostly involves looking at all the stuff that has been neglected in my absence, from several email inboxes to that not-a-novel-yet to the newly-home fluffy cats and not having the mental capacity to deal with any of it. I’m feeling really guilty about it, too, but it seriously took all my energy just to make myself gluten-free pancakes with strawberries this morning and I have been trying to write this blog post for three days. Make that four days, pancakes were yesterday. Also it’s dark at 4pm lately and that makes me extraordinarily sleepy.

Speaking of extraordinarily sleepy, Tessa is in love with the faux-fur blanket I got to warm up the sofa. Maybe because she so nicely color-coordinates with it.

I’m exhausted. I thought after a few days of sleeping in my own bed and not having to be on airplanes I’d feel better but I’m still exhausted. I think I feel worse, actually, that whole object in motion stays in motion thing, and that object in motion suddenly taken out of motion feels dizzy and nauseous.

I’m not sure what I really want to say in this post. I’m not sure I’m coherent enough to say anything, really. Here, let’s have some points in something resembling an unnumbered list, because I can totally not handle lists with numbers right now.

  • If you are waiting to hear back from me about anything, please be patient. I am only one person with a very overwhelmed brain.
  • My brain would be overwhelmed even if I were only dealing with book stuff and nothing else, but I have a lot of other things going on requiring brain time right now. A lot. I will spare you the gory details but I think the internet already knows I’m getting divorced and that’s just one of the non-book things. Life has a way of happening all at once.
  • I straighten my hair nearly every day and yet I still managed to burn my ear on my straightening iron this morning. This is likely indicative of how I’m doing right now.
  • I would really, really like to be able to write now that I’m a real writer and all, but it is baffling how many non-writing things are involved in being a writer. I did look at the novel-in-progress today and it didn’t look half-bad considering the unfinished messy draft stage it’s in, so that’s something.

Okay, I can’t handle any more list things. I think my attention span has taken a vacation with my short-term memory. I hope they’re somewhere warm with umbrella drinks.

I should probably wrap up this post before my typing skills and ability to form sentences decide to join them.

To those still NaNo-ing, I raise my coffee to you in a caffeine-driven salute for these, the Final Days. If you’ve already won: Congratulations!!! You rule. If you haven’t yet crossed the finish line: You can do it, you still have time! If you’ve already thrown in the towel: It’s okay, and remember you wrote more this month than you might have otherwise. Also, remember where you put that towel because a towel is the most massively useful thing you can have.

I am working on a proper post about writing-related things to cover some of the more frequently asked questions of late. It’s like a baby step toward having a proper FAQ. And I will have more tour musings eventually, possibly with photos if I can figure out how to get them off my old phone.

For now I am going to give up on figuring out what to title this rambling ramble of a post and actually post it.

how it ends.

I am done with touring for 2011.

I don’t think Thank You is enough for all the wonderful bookstores and booksellers, for all the readers (whether they’d read The Night Circus yet or not) who came to events and for everyone who organized so many festivals and signings and interviews and flights, but Thank You.

I am slowly re-acclimating to my normal time zone, which has involved sleeping a lot. I am also trying to catch up on things around here that have been neglected during the tour, like cleaning and unpacking things that somehow never managed to get unpacked over the summer.

I uploaded my photos from foggy Amsterdam:

 

More photos (and more fog!) over on my Flickr photostream.

It’s strange to be done, at least with the travelling. I have things to catch up on (if I owe you an email I’ll get to it soon(ish), hopefully) and the to-do list still seems never-ending and despite all that I know I need some rest. I am not used to so many things and people requiring my attention and I am still adjusting. Also, I’d like to be able to write again at some point.

It is an open-windows, reading in the park sort of day which is rare for this late in November. It’s lovely but not helping me regain my concept of time.

On the flight over to Amsterdam one of the in-flight movie options on the individual embedded in the seat in front of you televisions was Midnight in Paris. I had been told by several people that I would love it and they were correct, it is a marvelous magical fairy tale of a film and I loved it more than I have loved any new film in recent memory. And I’m not even much of a Woody Allen fan.

On the flight back to Boston I half-slept with DeVotchKa’s How it Ends on repeat. So I suppose that makes this the song of the end of the book tour:

greetings from amsterdam!

Hello internet!

I am in Amsterdam. I have a crush on this city. It has canals and kittens and art and pretty, pretty architecture! I wish I had more time to spend here, and I feel I simply must return when it is slightly warmer.

I have been here courtesy of my lovely Dutch publisher, De Bezige Bij. They have my gorgeous Dutch cover all over the place:

Including on the street, which is both bizarre and delightful:

(Am not certain what the pile of dirt was about. It adds to the surreality of it all.)

Headed back to Boston tomorrow but have had a splendid time here & I believe I am done with travelling for 2011 once I’m home, so I will hopefully be able to catch up with blogging and email replies and everything else that’s been neglected during the whirlwind of the tour.

Also, I have lost all concept of time. Am hoping I’ll re-adjust once I’m in one place for a while.

this is not a proper post

This is not a proper catch-up post, because that would have thoughtful things and links and artfully curated photos.

This is a post to say miscellaneous things with miscellaneous photos and possibly links if I have time.

Firstly, I am very sorry that my appearance at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville this weekend was cancelled at the last minute. This whole touring thing is extremely difficult and new and I am only one often undercaffeinated person. There were personal issues involved that the whole internet doesn’t really need to know about but I do feel badly and I hope I’ll be able to visit the Nashville area properly sooner rather than later.

I had my very first trip to the UK last week, there will be a proper adventure recounting post at some point with photos (took the real camera, hurrah) but I had an absolutely lovely time and I get to follow through on that whole “hope to come back soon” thing since I’ll be back in November for the Galaxy National Book Awards because I am nominated for International Author of the Year amongst some mind-blowingly impressive company. Am honored and humbled.

In general, I am mostly a whirlwind of forgetting what time or day or month it is and assuming it must be autumn because of crispy leaves and pumpkin spice lattes. I am off to Texas soon and then Toronto for the International Festival of Authors at the end of the month. It is still strange to be considered an author. My apartment looks like an explosion of laundry and cardboard boxes. I am dreadfully behind on emails and anything else that involves proper communication. I have been on more airplanes in the last month than in the rest of my previous life combined. I oscillate from giddy to exhausted and happy to sad so fast it’s nauseating.

I don’t know how to do this. I’m trying to take one day at a time.

Half the time I can’t even manage to straighten my hair anymore. Proof:

 

I took that photo sitting on the floor because that’s where the mirror is in the office because I haven’t managed to hang it yet.

Really, let’s move on to photos before I get all philosophical and maudlin with the typing.

I have visited so many beautiful bookstores on my tour with very little (if any) time for proper browsing, it’s such a tease. But when I do have time I’ve been shopping and having things shipped to me, so I am accumulating a pile. This is what has made it back to Boston so far, with more on the way:

(I have already read The Shadow of the Wind, of course, but I only had it in paperback and I found it at Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi in glorious hardcover and simply had to have it. And there are some other ones that have wandered out of the pile. Bel Canto is missing, likely because I’ve been reading it.)

And at Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee I also bought this adorable raven mug, because how could I not?

So that is the rather short version of Erinland at the moment. I hope I will have time for proper London photos and tour catch-up at some point, but it may be a while.

if you feel just like a tourist

I was in Boston for all of six hours last night before flying to London today. Now I am in a very cozy hotel room, unsure of what time it is and unable to blog properly but I have my nice camera with me so there should be proper photos eventually and I will tell you of other travels and adventures as well.

For now, though, I give you what is currently and likely will stay the official theme song of the book tour.