Erin Morgenstern's Blog, page 49

early night circus, uk version

I always expect Saturdays to be boring mail days but sometimes they surprise me.

Look what just arrived:

 

Bound proof of THE NIGHT CIRCUS from my wonderful UK publisher, Harvill Secker. They call them bound proofs, which is nice & easy & doesn't involve wondering what ARC stands for, precisely.

The cover makes me swoon:

It's an abbreviated version of the opening lines & the stars are shiny. And they're all stars but the fancy camera had to go and blur most of them. That's okay, it looks dramatic this way.

And this is the back:

flax-golden tales: meetings about nonconformist trees to which the trees themselves are not invited

meetings about nonconformist trees to which the trees themselves are not invited

 

They grew from the ground that way, so anyone who suggested that it was creative vandalism or a trick of some sort was immediately dismissed for being uninformed or unobservant.

The meetings were held so people could argue about what to do about them.

Someone suggested they might not even be real trees, but no one wanted to get close enough to check.

One person was dragged from a meeting by the guards after yelling that they were a Gift from Above and should not be touched.

It was a topic of heated conversation afterward, over coffee and stale cake, whether he meant god or aliens, which led to a debate about which god, but not which aliens. Someone pointed out they were more likely a Gift from Below since they grew out of the ground.

There were a lot of meetings, followed by a lot of similar conversations and more stale cake.

Eventually, they put up a fence.

It didn't really do anything, but most people seemed to find it a satisfactory enough solution to stop having meetings.

The trees still change colors, though.

 

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

also, since that last post was kind of heavy, here's a photo of tessa in a basket that is too small for her

unfolding

This is how my horoscope started this morning:

Even if your life seems to be unfolding as planned, you still aren't sure that you should trust the good news.

Sometimes my horoscopes are amusingly spot-on.

I mentioned it on Twitter which started a conversation with a longtime writer friend, Alexis Kienlen, about feeling overwhelmed by this whole publication process and fear and anxiety and how people don't seem to talk about that part of it much.

I said I'd blog about it, so here we go.

I was lucky enough to know a few people who had been on this publication ride before, so the fact that success feels so much like nausea did not come as a complete surprise, even though the practical advice was often hard to focus on with all the head-spinning.

But it hasn't worn off. It's mostly gotten worse.

I am still overwhelmed. I keep waiting to get back down to whelmed, but that does not seem to be happening.

I didn't really expect that after your wildest dreams come true you end up in this post-dream land that just keeps going and there is an extreme lack of informative signage to direct the way forward and you can't really go back.

And I keep thinking to myself, I don't know what I'm doing here.

All I did was write a book.

Remember this post? Yeah, I'm still there, expecting to be mauled or stabbed or something. I have good days and I have not-so-good days and I spend a great deal of time wanting to crawl under my desk and cry.

To date, I have not yet crawled under the desk. I've cried a lot, but I'm a crier anyway.

I find it surprisingly difficult to react with equal enthusiasm when someone says to me "this is so Exciting!" because it is Exciting but it's also kind of Terrifying and in my head, Terrifying usually wins out because Exciting tires easily.

I said in that post from way back in September that the best thing I can do is be honest.

So this is me being honest.

Today there is only a sad snowball worth of snow left by the tree outside my window. There is a fluffy kitten curled up in between my scanner and my printer because she seems to find that comfortable. I have half a cup of slowly cooling coffee on my desk and all my Arcade Fire albums on repeat.

I have two Scrivener documents open, one with tomorrow's flax-golden tale which needs one more sentence and a title, and the other with what appears to be my next novel. I am simultaneously in love with this not-quite-novel-yet and petrified that it will not be as good as the circus because it is very, very different. It's glass where the circus is paper. It needs more plot.

I am starting to get responses from readers with advance copies of THE NIGHT CIRCUS and they are amazing and delightful and they mean more to me than I can express properly. There should be better ways to say thank you.

I feel like there are a million things I am supposed to be doing but I don't know what they are so I end up confused and anxious rather frequently.

I had a mild panic attack the other day just trying to make dinner reservations. I am still upset about last night's Top Chef elimination.

I am wondering to myself why I feel the need to inform the internet that I'm scared, but I do.

And I feel like I need to resist the urge to fold my life back up again. Just a little.

The aforementioned horoscope for today ends with:

make a choice and then take a few healthy steps in the direction you want to go.

Still working on that. But I have new shoes. That should help.

not-quite-hiatus

This week I am curled up in corners with blankets, reading and writing and reading some more.

Tessa is "helping."

Am not quite on an internet hiatus, but I have a lot of non-internet things vying for my attention (including Tessa) so blog posts about shiny objects and various other subjects shall have to wait for now.

flax-golden tales: piano player

piano player

I stopped trying to explain why I wanted a player piano, even though everyone asked, including the piano movers.

They probably figured it was meant to be a curiosity piece and not an instrument.

"You already have a great stereo, lady," one of the movers said when they were leaving.

I just shrugged.

It's different, the way a real piano echoes. The way the sound reverberates in the air.

No recording can sound like real keys and hammers and strings right there in the room.

And learning to play a standard piano myself would defeat the purpose.

This way, I can pretend he still plays "Clair de Lune" for me.

If I close my eyes, it's almost the same.

 

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

the night circus trailer

Have I mentioned lately that I love everyone at Doubleday?

march miscellany

I still have tons of things to post about but some of them require photographs that I haven't taken yet.

Also, am baffled that it's March already. But March brings Sleep No More, and therefore I welcome it wholeheartedly, even in my skepticism about the passing of time.

I have been petting my shiny, shiny ARCs. A few have scampered off to new homes already, and the fates of the remaining ones are being pondered. I have ideas but I need to see how practical they'll be to execute.

I spent part of the weekend painting, because I haven't painted anything in ages and I had new old sheet music to play with.

They're a companion series to a trio of paintings I did last year called music for the apocalypse. This bunch is music for the apocalypse part II: nocturnes. They should be up on Etsy by the end of the week.

Other than that I'm all reading, writing & waiting for the snow to melt while I slowly work my way through my ever-growing to-do list.

There are photos of shiny objects forthcoming, too.

night circus advance copies

I received a rather rained-on cardboard box this morning.

This is what was inside:

These are Advance Reader Copies of THE NIGHT CIRCUS. Commonly referred to as ARCs, which I'm still not entirely sure stands for Advanced Reading or Advance Reader or some combination thereof. I'm pretty certain that the C is for Copy, though. Even though these say "Edition" on the front.

They're hard to photograph because all of the silver is metallic and shiny. They're really gorgeous, and this isn't even the final cover.

I have been dying to share a look at the interior design ever since saw a preview of it ages ago, because I absolutely adore it, and now I have permission to share.

I'd tell you I love it so much because I think it's evocative of both the Stargazer and the bonfire, but that wouldn't make sense to that many of you yet. Ah well.

I only have ten copies so I am thinking very carefully about what to do with each one. There will likely be some sort of contest/giveaway at some point.

And I kind of want to leave one in some mysterious location somewhere and give clues to find it. Maybe after the snow melts.

flax-golden tales: zombie snow squirrels on the rampage

zombie snow squirrels on the rampage

"There is no such thing as a zombie snow squirrel," I say, even though he has his serious eyebrows on. Normally the eyebrows are a good indicator as to whether or not he's kidding.

"You don't get out much, do you?" he asks, rhetorical because he knows the answer. "The squirrels go mad from lack of acorns and too much snow and when they can't take it anymore they go into this sort of undead coma thing and then they rampage."

"They rampage?"

"Yeah. Rampaging zombie snow squirrels are always a problem this time of year. I can get you a slingshot if you don't have one. It's a halfway decent way to fend them off unless you get ambushed."

I wait for him to laugh, but he doesn't.

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