Sunday, August 16, 2015

Happy birthday, hearth/myth!

I had a little time on my hands before we left for West Virginia. Can you tell?

Well, the blog is four years old as of today. I thought it was time to spiff things up a little. So I gave hearth/myth a makeover for a bloggiversary present.

But of course, the best birthday parties involve gifts -- and not just for the birthday boy girl blog, but for the guests, too. You know, like a door prize. Or if we're going to be truly classy, a schwag bag.

I'm fresh out of fancy totes and million-dollar watches, but I did manage to put aside $10 for an Amazon gift card, as well as a set of paperbacks of the Pipe Woman's Legacy duology, which of course I will sign for the lucky winner. All you have to do is help me figure out when Webb's birthday is.

See, when I was plotting Annealed, the final book in the Pipe Woman Chronicles, I had to know when Sage would make her appearance. She had to be born at pretty much the same time as Naomi was brokering the power-sharing agreement between Jehovah and the pagan pantheons. That put her birth in the general vicinity of May 2013. I also knew that I wanted Sage to be born on the Taurus/Gemini cusp. Gemini would make her creative and adaptable, while Taurus would make her grounded, but stubborn. After looking at the calendar and what I needed to accomplish between the end of Tapped and the mediation, I settled on May 15, 2013, as the date of Sage's arrival. And it fits her, doesn't it? Sage is creative, forthright, pretty well grounded for somebody who's been told since birth that she's slated to save the world -- and stubborn as the day is long.

Then, when I was planning Scorched Earth and realized Tess would need a lawyer, I decided to bring Naomi and her family to Washington for a visit. And I didn't want Sage to be an only child; a kid with a pedigree like hers needed a younger brother to annoy her. Hence, Webb.

The events in the Pipe Woman's Legacy books occur primarily in the fall of Sage's junior year of college, which makes her 20 years old. Webb is a senior in high school, which makes him 18. There's no discussion of a birthday celebration for him in either book, so his natal day cannot be any time from late August through early December. He's crafty in multiple ways -- he's a Trickster, allied with Iktomi, and of course his superpower is knitting and other types of fiber art. He knows the future. And he's extremely loyal.

So your task, should you choose to accept it (and I hope you will!), is to assign Webb a birthday. Post your suggestion someplace where I can see it -- in the comments below, ideally, but I'll accept suggestions at Facebook and Twitter, too, as long as you also enter the Rafflecopter.

Now, I know y'all will be tempted to give Webb your own birthday, or your brother's or whoever, but that's not going to cut it unless you can back it up with a reason. So: not just "it's my birthday!" but "Webb reminds me of So-and-so because (s)he knits/loves spiders/is very loyal, and So-and-so's birthday is this date." Or you could do some astrological-type research. Or whatever.

I know that's a lot of parameters, but you've got a week to work on it. Contest closes next Sunday, August 23rd. Good luck!

The usual and customary hearth/myth giveaway rules apply, to wit:

1. Friends and family may definitely enter.
2. Winners of previous contests may win again.
3. There will be a winner. I am getting these books out of my house, one way or the other.
4. As always, the judge's decision is arbitrary, capricious, and final.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


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These happy bloggiversary moments have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

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