erin

miscellany & tessa in a bag

So far this week is all storybirds and sketching the tarot kings. I think I have strong sketches for all four kings now. I ended up starting them over and making them all a bit more modern and sort of formal yet casual and I think it works. I’m going to let them sit overnight and if I still like them in the morning I will start painting them tomorrow.

And then this long crazy tarot journey will be a happy squirrel and some detailing away from complete. Which is kind of baffling.

I am mentally dipping my toes back into revisionland again, though the holidays and the snow and something vaguely resembling a head cold are making it a bit difficult. I have Ideas. I am attempting to string them together into something cohesive. I feel like I’m deconstructing the old draft the way they deconstruct food on Top Chef and I’m worried that it won’t taste good but I can’t taste it properly until all the ingredients are on the plate. Someday I will be able to explain my writing process without metaphors but today is not that day.

Also, I got tickets to see Sleep No More a third and final time after the holidays. Sleep No More & revisionland are currently tied up in my head in this moody masquerade of darkness and tuxedos that smells like evergreen. There’s something in it that is precisely what the novel needs. If I can find a way to translate wordless immersive theatre into text.

But I’m trying not to worry about that too much yet. Here, have a photo of Tessa in a bag.

tessa in a bag

Kittens love the holidays. ‘Tis the season of bags and cardboard boxes.

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: the metal horses

metal horses

the metal horses

Please do not feed the metal horses. No apples or grass. No nuts or bolts or bits of string.

They grow overly fond of people who feed them.

They will follow you home and it can be somewhat… difficult to get them to leave.

They are fiercely loyal, but that can be something of an inconvenience.

They will insist on sleeping at the foot of your bed.

They will nibble on your lawn or your electrical wiring or the hubcaps of your car.

And of course, they will rust if they get left out in the rain, though they do so love the rain.

It is best to entrust their care to the professionals, no matter how sweetly they beg.

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

By erin, ago

life after nano

Things accomplished since the end of NaNo, an unnumbered list:

  • Read Tanith Lee’s The Silver Metal Lover in its entirety. Have been meaning to read this book for years. Lovely and heartbreaking. Totally made me cry.
  • Saw Sleep No More again. Definitely more magical the first time around but still amazing and wonderful and I found so many things that I missed the first time around. Also, witches gave me presents.
  • Started the epic rewatching of all 5 seasons of LOST. Season 1 seems like such a long time ago.
  • Brought out my notes for circus revisions and started poking at them, no actual writing yet. In my defense, my horoscope claimed today’s full moon was going to render me inarticulate or some such. I did, however, figure out how to possibly resurrect a very old section that I’d loved but had no use for in a different context, so that should be fun.

I am still somewhat in denial that it is December already.

By erin, ago

the end.

Finished my NaNoWriMo novel draft. Final tally: 80,154.

I think it’s pretty good. I know it’s better now than it was around the 20k mark or so. I’m pretty sure I want to very heavily revise it, including possibly splitting the narrative POV, but that can wait. It’s all rough around the edges but there’s something in there to shine up and make pretty.

For now, though, it’s going to sit for a few weeks before I pick it back up and read it all the way through. I’ll miss it, I think. It’s the most I’ve ever written in a month so I’ve spent several hours a day with these characters so it will be odd to not have to follow them around tomorrow.

So, note for the ages: I finished the very first draft of THEREAFTER on Sunday, November 29th, 2009. We’ll see where it goes from here.

And since I shared my favorite Rapunzel pic found in researching stages earlier, here’s my favorite Little Red Riding Hood, by John Everett Millais:

millais_ridinghood

By erin, ago

flax-golden tales: where the sidewalk doesn’t end

where the sidewalk

where the sidewalk doesn’t end

Would you walk me home?

Now, while there is still light? Before the afternoon turns to dusk? The light is fading quickly, so I’ll need an answer soon.

Would you walk me home along that line where autumn brushes against winter, and golden leaves melt into evergreen?

Where the sidewalk doesn’t end.

Where gloves do not require fingers to keep hands warm. (And you may hold my hand if you would like.)

It is a quiet kind of walk in this light, at this time.

I would appreciate the company.

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

By erin, ago

thanks.

Things I Am Thankful For in this, the last week of November in the year 2009

(an unnumbered list)

  • Kittens.
  • The husband, also known as the boy, also known as the bestest person I know.
  • Chocolate.
  • Lovely friends who live in my computer and listen to me babble about all manner of things via e-mail.
  • (Particularly Kaari, for the aforementioned e-mailing, and Carey, for the wonderment that has been flax-golden.)
  • New lovely people who live in my computer that I’ve virtually met this year and also, two of them make shiny things that you should buy: here & here.
  • NaNoWriMo in general and Chris Baty in particular, for giving me a framework in which to push my creative writing boundaries. (72k & counting.)
  • Azure Ray’s album Hold On Love, which is right music at right time right now.
  • BPAL‘s Now Winter Nights Enlarge, which is my new favorite scent even though it’s not really winter yet.
  • Punchdrunk & A.R.T.’s Sleep No More, which I get to see again next week.
  • The Absolute Write forums, particularly Purgatory, for helping me keep my sanity in this year of literary agent search crazy.
  • Mulled cider. Red Wine.
  • Fingerless gloves.
  • Everyone who reads this blog. Everyone. Seriously.
  • Lip balm.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating. Happy everything to everyone else. Have something with cinnamon in it for me.

By erin, ago