A new regular blog feature debuts on Friday. It’s bookish, illuminating, interactive and addictive. I’m excited to share it with you. Are you in, dear readers? Come back tomorrow, and we’ll get the (nerdy reading) party started.
Casino de Paris by Louis Gaudin, 1931.
Once Upon a Time, little girls were told they needed fairy tales. The goal was to hear the words, “And they lived happily ever after. The End.” It’s a scary idea. It says so right there: the end. A closed book. Happiness trapped under glass like a dead fly. The problem is that, when you are working toward an official Happily Ever After, you miss the nuances of the journey through the Big Bad Forest, the meat and mead of life: laughter, tears, growth, absurdity, knowledge, companionship, heartbreak, fulfillment, frustration, accomplishment. Life is messy, irreverent. It brooks no happily ever after. Why should it? Life is its own complicated reward.
Write your own story, but write it honestly. Live your own life, without succumbing to complacent platitudes. Embrace your own beautifully cracked version of success and happiness. Mine calls for writing words the best way I can, in reading more than is healthy, in loving a complex, brilliant, imperfect man. It allows for dust in the corners of my house and budding laugh lines around my eyes. I love every second of this broken bliss. It’s a thousand times better than any sterile Happily Ever After.
This is in response to the Daily Prompt: Happily Ever After. “And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there?
The Lone She Wolf nominated us for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award, which looks like this:
Very Inspiring Blogger Award
The rules of the award are the same as the last time we were nominated. If you’ve forgotten, they are as follows:
Dear readers, I am seriously running out of things to tell you. I’d like to think I have a fun and interesting life, but it is not that amazing. Here are 7 things I don’t think I’ve told you before.
I nominate the following bloggers, because they are straight-up awesome.
Starting tomorrow, it is going to be raining Project 366 reviews!
Like this, only with books:
Rain by Hans Baluschek, 1917
It’s no secret that I love notebooks. They are tools of my trade, a bit old-fashioned, perhaps, but useful, evocative of an earlier time, and beautiful. I usually walk around with tiny Moleskines hidden in my purse and crumpled scraps stuffed perilously in coat or skirt pockets. Spirals of cheap school paper are stacked in the studio and by my bed. Since quantity counts, I cannot afford to be too discerning. I run through paper at an appalling pace (no need to worry, darlings, I recycle), and play a continuous game of hide and seek with the surviving notebooks. Fortunately, I came into a spot of luck back in January by winning this sexy guy:
Everyday I Love You Notebook from Smythson
Isn’t he divine? He originated in London and was sent to me via Austria, from the fabulously chic Nadine of The Flamboyante. The stars surely aligned when I won her December Smythson Notebook Giveaway. This match is meant to be: he’s already an important part of my creative process and is an inspiration in his own right. An unexpected bonus? I feel a lot more elegant dashing off notes on the fly. Maybe Nadine sprinkled magic dust on the notebook before mailing it off. I’ll never know.
A couple of weeks ago, Kelly Ann (aka NYMUSE88) of What’s Your Story? nominated me for the Blog of the Year Award 2012. I was too sick to accept it immediately, but I am still extremely grateful for the nod! It was my fourth star, which is exactly four more than I expected to receive. Since it is nearly February 2013, I’ve decided to abstain from nominating any more blogs for the award. I’ll settle for yelling my thanks and appreciation across the gaping chasm known as the Internet. I love all of the blogs I follow, comment on, and like. You all deserve hearty congratulations for being so awesome. Happy 2013!
Don’t forget to check out What’s Your Story?.
In an effort to make A Small Press Life as solid as possible in 2013 (and beyond), we are going to add some wonderful new features to the blog. Don’t worry; what you love about ASPL isn’t changing. There is simply going to be more goodness to go around. When will this deliciousness start, you ask? Soon. This month. Stay tuned for more details.
It has been a year (or thereabouts) since I moved A Small Press Life from Blogger to WordPress. It was a snap decision, but I haven’t regretted it for one second. Even though I have expressed this opinion a few times in the past, it is worth bringing forth once again: the WordPress community is awesome. A blog isn’t a blog without an interactive group of readers. With your keen commenting skills, you make every post an interesting, organic and unique experience.
2012 has been an incredible year. We have seen our stats steadily climb, and then soar. A Small Press Life was featured in both The Daily Post and Freshly Pressed. Then, again, there’s all of you. Heading into 2013, you can be sure of two things: that we are truly grateful and feverishly excited to make the blog even better (more on that soon).
“I stay cool, and dig all jive,
That’s the way I stay alive.
My motto,
as I live and learn,
is
Dig and be dug
In return.”-Langston Hughes
We spent Christmas Day at my grandparents’ house with my extended family. Up and back in one day, a smooth drive, no worries. We had no idea that, whilst we were opening gifts and eating entirely too much decadent food, a blizzard was traveling this way. It is here now, and I wish that I could say it is as pretty as a picture. It isn’t, so I am leaving you with these lovely paintings instead. Please look at them to your heart’s content; I will be off in the corner munching on left-over cookies and writing my blogging game plan for 2013. See you tomorrow!
Winter Landscape: Washington Bridge, by Ernest Lawson. 1907-1910. Brooklyn Museum.
Blue Snow the Battery by George Bellows. 1910.
I have physically returned from my southern vacation. Mentally, not so much. As I race around trying to catch up with my life and writing, I promise to throw you a few blogging bones: mostly photos of North Carolina and a couple of Tar Heel inspired musings. Thanks for your patience, and I cannot wait to be back full-time!
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 