On designing my 40th birthday party

The party starts from the moment the invite goes out.

The party starts from the moment the invite goes out.

If we do it right.

Which is why I created thecircleofthewhitewitch.com—a dedicated site to my 40th birthday party, The Circle of the White Witch¹.

Imagine, if you will: you RSVP to a party and unexpectedly receive a link to a handbook of what to expect leading up to, at, and beyond the party.

The Book of The White Witch, as I’m calling it, is designed to generate intrigue and excitement among guests, because the party starts from the moment the invite goes out.

But The Book isn’t static. It’s a constantly-in-flux digital garden that will be evolving right up to—and likely even beyond—the party. I’m hosting it through Obsidian, which is the app I use to take notes. Picture me sitting and chatting about this event while I’m at dinner with a friend. An idea pops up. I open my notes app, add that idea to the relevant page, and instantly the concept is updated on the site as well.

The Book is a living, breathing experience. A labyrinth of interconnected concepts that not only allow guests to generate excitement, but it allows me to refine my thinking of what this party is actually going to be. It’s a scrapbook. Within—everything I know about the party as it exists in this moment, as well as all of the questions and unknown ideas that may or may not get conjured. I usually work through all of these details in private and do a grand reveal at the party, but this year I’m deciding to really show my work with the garage door up.

So I created the site for guests.

But I also created it for myself.

But right now it’s feeling pretty barebones. I’m happy with the concept but not quite with the current execution.

Something about my brain that’s interesting is that I do my best work on giant sheets of paper—think sheets the size of a table. I love a mind map. I feel as though until I actually write it all out on paper, I’m not fully going to be able to “see” it.

A messy af map from last year’s Dark Corners where we were working out the narrative elements of the party.

Obsidian even lets you view the site as a mind map. Still, I feel like seeing in on paper would be helpful. The very act of creating the paper map allows me to actually connect the dots in my head.

The original idea for the site was that you’d open the main page and see an image of a book. You’d click on the book image and it would open up and show you a table of contents. I quickly dispensed with that because it felt a bit too much like a website from the ‘90s. Instead, I just decided that The Book is magical—there is no table of contents or structure. The Book simply allows you to click around and find things organically.

Which makes sense practically and thematically, which I really enjoy.

But it’s surprisingly hard to figure out what pages I need. Too many pages and it’s overwhelming. Too few and it feels incomplete. One thing I’m going to try today is to build out the main page text to contain a link to every single page (versus going down rabbit holes and finding pages three clicks deep). Here’s the text as it stands now:

Behold The Book: a trove of spells, philosophies, and hidden preparations, belonging to all those within The Circle. What lies inside is not linear. There are no chapters, no sequence—only pages that appear as they must. Some pages read like prophecy, others like instructions. Both are true. As the gathering at The Cabin nears, The Book grows, revealing what you must know, what you must bring, and what you must leave behind. By turning these pages, you are already helping conjure The Circle.

The language is intriguing and I love the organic mentions to various sub-pages that you can click on.² But there are a lot of important concepts that aren’t currently represented in any way, like what does one actually do at the party? And that’s mostly because that’s still being worked out.

Ultimately, once all of the links are up on the site, I’d like to go through and make it a bit more of a wandering garden/maze of links instead of just having everything neatly presented on the landing page. But the first goal is to just get it all up there.

So come on by and read The Book of the White Witch, whether you’re a guest of the party or not, and feel free to leave comments or questions as you find your way through this mysterious and ancient tome.

1. My birthday is October 18th, but for many years I chose to celebrate November because I hosted DARK CORNERS—a Halloween party that always landed too close to the 18th. In the past few years I’ve been combining these two parties into one massive experience. And boy oh boy do I love it.

2. I’ve removed the links for now but you can see them live on the site.