birthday

now we are forty-one

Today I am forty-one which makes the blog/website eleven years old. I would like to apologize to the blog for neglecting it so much in recent years and missing its tenth birthday last year because we were away for my birthday.

(Next year I will remember, when the blog gets to be twelve and I get to be the meaning of life, the universe and everything.)

Forty was momentous. I finished the new book, finally. People started reading it and seem to like it so far. It already has two starred reviews and no one has made bad “starless” puns yet. I got a kitten and Vesper did, of course, help with the book writing.

I watched a kitten turn into a small cat with more personality than I thought could fit in such a compact fluffy package. I read wonderful books and played Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild incessantly. I became obsessed with this smitten kitchen salad and drank a lot of sparkling wine and a great deal of gin. Adam & I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary six days ago in the mountains and had the most perfect anniversary sunset.

Forty-one promises to be a wild and busy and exciting year. Next week I will be at San Diego ComicCon which is apparently a real thing and not just a fever dream I had that one time in 2011. In the autumn/winter when THE STARLESS SEA comes out I will be many places and signing many books, I will post tour details when I have them. I haven’t left my house this much in a long time, I am still remembering how to be a person in the world and not just a writer hermit.

There is an article about THE STARLESS SEA over on Publishers Weekly and it has the most delightful headline.

And now THE STARLESS SEA comes out in less than four months. In the meantime if you are looking for something to read I highly recommend my friend Chuck Wendig’s WANDERERS. It’s the most recent thing I blurbed and I don’t blurb for friends as a general rule but I made an exception because it’s truly extraordinary. Here’s my full quote: “WANDERERS is a true tour de force, a feat of storytelling strength that remains with you long after the final page is turned. Epic yet intimate, speculative while hovering at the edges of the now and so masterfully told that it feels as though you are walking alongside these characters every step of the way.”

By erin, ago

now we are thirty-six

Today is my birthday. I suppose I am allowed to be thirty-six and still feel like I am just getting started, just beginning to figure things out, just happy and just married.

Thank you again for all the wedding well-wishes on Twitter & Instagram, I wish I could respond to everyone personally but I can’t keep up. I had a lot of comments about my bouquet (featured in another photo below taken on the High Line), it’s from AliciasOddities on Etsy, made from a combination of vintage brooches & handmade enamel flowers.

As mentioned previously, the last of the flax-golden tales will be posted this Friday. After that I’ll be taking a bit of an internet hiatus, if there’s news that’s worth blogging I shall blog it but otherwise it should be quiet around here for the rest of the summer, and hopefully at the end of the summer or early fall I’ll be doing a long-needed website overhaul.

But for now I am going to do birthday things and try not to melt in the heat and then get back to writing.

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By erin, ago

now we are thirty-five

Today I am thirty-five years old, which means this blog is five years old (and flax-golden tales are four).

Five years sounds comparatively short but July of 2008 feels like a lifetime ago. More than a lifetime.

I’m not the girl I was then. I don’t think that girl could have imagined this particular version of “where do you think you’ll be in five years?” and that girl had a very good imagination.

I don’t think she even would have believed that I live in Manhattan.

And as much as life is overwhelming at times and I’m still figuring it all out, I know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

At some point over the last couple of years I starting posting less about personal things and I know that was partially because more people were listening and also because there was (and is) a good deal of negative personal stuff that doesn’t warrant talking about.

But somewhere in there I stopped talking about the positive stuff, too. And I think it’d be nice to start this fifth year of the blog, this thirty-fifth year of me, with something positive.

This is Adam.

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We met at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto while I was on that first whirlwind of a book tour in October of 2011. We got to know each other through emails and Skype chats and visits and vacations and then he was my date to my sister’s wedding last summer and I never gave him back.

He does handstands and takes fantastic photographs and reads more than anyone I’ve ever met.

I know I don’t have to tell the internet about my personal life and I won’t be oversharing or even sharing all that much, really, but I’m tired of saying “I” when I mean “we” and he makes me happier than I have ever been. He’s a gigantic, important part of my life and I love him. He keeps me steady on the crazy roller coaster that is life right now so that I can actually enjoy it. I thought the internet might like to meet him.

So this is thirty-five. It sounds strangely round as a number. I have no idea what the next five years might bring but I’m sure there will be reading and writing and cocktails and cupcakes and birthdays and stories and unimaginable adventures.

We shall see.

By erin, ago

birthday!

Today is my birthday! I am thirty-four years old, which also means that this blog is four years old and flax-golden tales are three years old, and three is of course the magic number. My continued & eternal thanks to the multi-talented Carey Farrell for allowing me to make things up to accompany her fantastic photos.

We celebrate all of these things with the meta-wonderment that is a balloon covered with balloons.

 

Also there is wrapping paper featuring a very dapper cat.

 

And my favorite part, the birthday pony.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes both in person and via Twitter and comments, my day so far has been balloon and kitten and pony and pancake-filled, and later there shall be ice cream cake. Thirty-three was a strange, wondrous, roller coaster of a year. I’m curious to see what thirty-four will bring, and I’m going to assume a balloon covered in balloons is a good birthday omen.

By erin, ago