It was ten years ago this month that Vogelein was created.

Yeah, it took me a while to wrap my head around that one, too.

Set the wayback machine to February of 1997: It’s cold and gloomy, and my buddy Jeff and I were both in the post-collegiate pre-real-life doldrums. We decided to cheer ourselves up by making a recipe from the “Llittle Irish Cookbook” — the kind displayed at the bookstore cash register, designed for impulse buyers. The recipe in question was “Dublin Lawyer” and its preparation is the stuff of legend: sharp knives, gore, and lobsters that refused to die, even after being split in half, and split in half again. We also lost our common sense somewhere along the way and, doubling the recipe, used a full cup of cheap irish whiskey for the sauce. Yeah, you can see where this is going.

So, heady with whiskey fumes and post-Valentine’s Day angst, we sat around and brainstormed up our newest story: a clockwork faerie. The rest, as they say, is history.

I wish I could be like one of the cool kids and do a bunch of neat promo images, or a fan art contest with spiffy prizes, or even write something more philosophical and erudite, but the truth of the matter is, if I take my eyes off the finish line for even one minute between now and June, the new book will not come out on time. And I figure, the best thing I can do for my fans is to give them a new book as soon as possible. So I hope you’ll forgive me the lack of fanfare and celebration and cool new images.

Still, it’s a really big deal for me to know that I pushed two entire books through to completion in ten years. That’s pretty awesome, and is one of those things I always hoped I’d be able to do. Hooray for stories, hooray for characters that make you want to write, hooray for good friends who set the ball rolling.

Ten years. Wow.