Sorry about the font-mess of yesterday's post. I did it using Safari on a PC, and the result was hellish. Obviously these are not two things that work well together when playing with Blogger. And each attempt to clean it up on my part made it worse. (Thanks to the Web Goblin for fixing it.)
I did a second draft of the Waterstones "What's Your Story?" story (only a few words I wanted to change, but it meant handwriting the whole thing out again), and FedExed it off today.
My thanks to the Eagle Award voters -- I was thrilled that Absolute Sandman volume 2 won an Eagle Award for Best Reprint. (Last year it was Absolute Sandman volume 1. Next year the vote will probably be split between Absolute Sandman volumes 3 and 4, and something else entirely will win.)
(I was looking to see if there were covers for Absolute Sandmans 3 and 4 up yet at Amazon, and noticed that volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4 are all on sale for $62.37 [and that they are going to weigh a grand total of 29 lb altogether] and the last two have 5% preorders discounts up as well. Which I mention mostly for those people who write to me and grumble about the Absolutes being $100 books.)
And it's still true. (That speech is, along with another speech about tulips and comics, and an essay on how to do successful signings, available in Gods And Tulips, illustrated by Chester Brown, price $3 from the CBLDF commercial website.)(And for those of you after instant webby gratification, the whole Procon speech is up at the Magian Line archives at http://www.woxberg.net/gaiman/magian/3-2.h
I did a second draft of the Waterstones "What's Your Story?" story (only a few words I wanted to change, but it meant handwriting the whole thing out again), and FedExed it off today.
My thanks to the Eagle Award voters -- I was thrilled that Absolute Sandman volume 2 won an Eagle Award for Best Reprint. (Last year it was Absolute Sandman volume 1. Next year the vote will probably be split between Absolute Sandman volumes 3 and 4, and something else entirely will win.)
(I was looking to see if there were covers for Absolute Sandmans 3 and 4 up yet at Amazon, and noticed that volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4 are all on sale for $62.37 [and that they are going to weigh a grand total of 29 lb altogether] and the last two have 5% preorders discounts up as well. Which I mention mostly for those people who write to me and grumble about the Absolutes being $100 books.)
Not sure if the cover for Absolute 4 is a mock-up or the real thing. I suspect it's not the final, mostly because I'm pretty sure that face is from Sandman #1, and for Absolute 4 we'll be taking a cover portrait from somewhere in the last 20 issues.
...
Regarding the Julie Schwartz Memorial Talk at MIT on the 23rd of May: To reiterate from the other day -- over at http://cms.mit.edu/juliusschwartz/ticket
...
An ebay auction with a story... I've been rereading some old Batman comics recently, although I don't think I'd want these. But the story that comes with them is wonderful...
I'm worried and upset about the earthquake in China. From Nancy Kress's blog I learned that at least some of the friends we made in Chengdu last summer are okay -- and so are the pandas.
...
Rice pudding re-prompt! Once you get home to proper milk, of course. "Your general guidelines for a batch of rice pudding please, Mr. Gaiman!"Thank you!! ^_^b
I'm working on it, honest. Decided to figure out the proportions I'd used by a) finding a very similar recipe on the web and starting from there and then b) fiddling with it.
Two night's ago's rice pudding (the web recipe) was much too salty and wrong. I fiddled with the proportions and last night's was a lot better but now too sweet. Tonight's rice pudding would have been perfect I have no doubt but I forgot to buy more milk, so I didn't actually make one.
Dear Neil,
The press down here in Brazil have enthusiastically announced you'll be here for the Paraty International Book Fair, first week in July. But since you're also scheduled to lecture at Clarion, I'd like to ask if this is true. Or maybe you have a doppelganger. Or maybe the organizers here had a dream. Or maybe you're taking a weekend of from Clarion down here in Rio (if so, it'll be winter here, and rainy, not the best time to come...) Best regards,Eric
That sounds right, yes. (I teach Clarion the 3rd week in July.)
Hello hello hello,
To quote one of your other fans, “I have a question for you about writing”. I find that my own writing will echo the style of which ever author I am currently reading. Any idea how I might get around constantly mimicking others?
You write more.
I don't think there's anything wrong with copying other people's styles -- it's a skill you'll need, after all. Many actors begin as mimics. You don't worry about it, and keep writing, and after a while you'll have written enough that you can't help sounding like yourself, whether you want to or not.
Style is what you get wrong, that makes what you do sound like you. Style is what you can't help doing. Style is what you're left with.
(I just googled "style is what you can't help doing" because it sounded half-familiar, and I wondered who said it originally, and discovered that it may actually have been me, as I found myself looking at an extract from a speech I gave to an audience of comics artists and writers in 1997 at ProCon in Oakland:
We are creators. When we begin, separately or together, there’s a blank piece of paper. When we are done, we are giving people dreams and magic and journeys into minds and lives that they have never lived. And we must not forget that.
I don’t want to sound like an inspirational speaker here. "Be you." "Be the best you that you can be." But this is really important. It’s something that we mostly lose track of when we starts, because when we start in comics we’re kids, and we have no idea who we are or what our voices are, as artists or as writers.
Young artists want to be Rob Leifeld, or Bernie Wrightson, or Frank Miller, just as young writers want to be Alan Moore, or Chris Claremont or, well, Frank Miller. You’ve seen their portfolios. You’ve read the scripts.
We all swipe when we start. We trace, we copy, we emulate. But the most important thing is to get to the place where you’re telling your own stories, painting your own pictures, doing the stuff that one-one else could have done, but you. Dave McKean, when he was much younger, as a recent art-school graduate, took his portfolio to New York, and showed it to the head of an advertising agency. The guy looked at one of Dave’s paintings—"That’s a really good Bob Peake," he said. "But why would you I want to hire you? If I have something I want done like that, I phone Bob Peake."
You may be able to draw kind of like Rob Leifeld, but the day may come, may have already come, when no-one wants a bargain basement Rob Leifeld clone any more. Learn to draw like you. And as a writer, or as a storyteller, try to tell the stories that only you can tell. Try to tell the stories that you cannot help but tell, the stories you would be telling yourself if you had no audience to listen. The ones that reveal a little too much about you to the world. It’s the point I think of writing as walking naked down the street: it has nothing to do with style, or with genre, it has to do with honesty. Honesty to yourself and to whatever you’re doing.
Don’t worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can’t help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you’ll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don’t worry about whether you’re "commercial". Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.
If you believe in it, do it. If there’s a comic or a project you’ve always wanted to do, go out there and give it a try. If you fail, you’ll have given it a shot. If you succeed, then you succeeded with what you wanted to do.
And it's still true. (That speech is, along with another speech about tulips and comics, and an essay on how to do successful signings, available in Gods And Tulips, illustrated by Chester Brown, price $3 from the CBLDF commercial website.)(And for those of you after instant webby gratification, the whole Procon speech is up at the Magian Line archives at http://www.woxberg.net/gaiman/magian/3-2.h
Lu's Belly ... Let me shows you it!
( Lu's Belly Day 3 )
This whole thing is so fun and exciting.
Yesterday, Kelly and I were in the garage all day cleaning up and setting up an area for the [food] culture tanks for the baby seahorses for when they arrive. (Baby seahorses are called "fry" but to me it's way cuter to say baby seahorses lol)
Some of the garage is going to look like a big science lab station lol. I will post about that and what baby seahorse food is in a couple of days, when the tanks and lines and wires and all that stuff are up and running and I have photos.
( Lu's Belly Day 3 )This whole thing is so fun and exciting.
Yesterday, Kelly and I were in the garage all day cleaning up and setting up an area for the [food] culture tanks for the baby seahorses for when they arrive. (Baby seahorses are called "fry" but to me it's way cuter to say baby seahorses lol)
Some of the garage is going to look like a big science lab station lol. I will post about that and what baby seahorse food is in a couple of days, when the tanks and lines and wires and all that stuff are up and running and I have photos.
So I went downstairs to the rec room to look for some glue (long story), and I was bowled over by the foulest stench I have had the misfortune to inhale in a good long time. Now, the cat's litter box is down there, but I was doubtful that the cat could have produced a funk this pernicious, and also, it grew stronger as you walked away from the litter box. Well, we've had some really severe rainstorms the last week or so, and it turns out that... we have water damage. The carpet under a table (where we didn't immediately see it) got soaked. Reek ensued. We've had to call some people in (Serve Pro or something?) to come dry it out with industrial-strength dehumidifiers and carpet cleaners and fans and whatever. Which means: more money that we have to pay someone. And then my mother started talking about paying off her part of Sister Girl's student loans and I just put my hand up and said, "I can't hear about this until I finish the annotations. You can tell me then. But there's nothing I can do about it--except finish these annotations--so don't tell me now. I SAID, DON'T TELL ME NOW. I SAID LA LA LA LA LA." I already had a massive headache that lasted most of the afternoon as it was. And I know I said that I thought some of my tension was hormonal, but I'm starting to resubscribe to the palpable stress theory.
I have more linkspam than this, but I'm tired: ( Read more... )
I have more linkspam than this, but I'm tired: ( Read more... )
cheerful
I got back from Australia and realised that the Waterstones story cards were meant to have been completed and returned by last Friday. They were sent out on April 14th, but, due to human error, mine didn't reach me until I was in Melbourne last week, and I didn't even look at the date, just read it hastily, went "Well, that can wait until I'm not touring Australia any longer and I'll have lots of time to think about it...".
But, I discovered, I didn't have lots of time. I have about 24 hours, as it has to be in London at the end of the week. I looked at the card, guessed that I could fit about 250 words on it, and wrote a 250 word story (using the Pelikan flexnib that Henry Selick gave me from http://www.richardspens.com/. I'd been waiting for something to write with it, and this seemed perfect). I have two more cards, in case of disaster, and I might do a second draft tomorrow before FedEx comes. Or I may not. But I find myself, for the first time, a bit envious of Margaret Atwood and her Long Pen...
In response to your bee picture, my eleven year-old daughter said "It looks like an angry penguin." (Me)"Are you sure it doesn't look like an angry bee?" (Her)"Nope, an angry penguin."
Take care!
Gina
I love my job.
Hi!
I have a question about writing. I read your advice, and the thing is, I don't do it like that at all.
For one thing, I don't write a first draft completely, then edit it several times. I work with scenes. I write a scene, I correct it, a re-correct it, I edit it and so on. I usually have a story planned out in my head entirely, so I end up writing the scenes in any order, really, although it's mostly chronological.
I'm guessing your advice would probably be "whatever works for you", but the thing is, I don't know if it works for me. I've never finished a novel yet. Actually, my first novel (which is uncomplete) is resting right now because I met my husband, who's Canadian and couldn't speak French, and I stopped writing in French. I just though, what's the point of writing if the person I love the most can't even read it? I want him to read it /before/ everyone else, not years later.
So I started writing in English, and man is it hard. You think you're fluent in a language, and next thing you know you're struggling to find synonyms or words that have the right connotation, and your characters all speak the same way, because that's they only way /you/ speak. So I'm extremely slow.
I'm just worried that my approach might just be plain wrong, and lead me to never finish anything. I don't know who to ask for advice so I'm turning to you.
I guess my question really is, should I make sure to finish a first draft as soon as possible, even if what I write is crap and has to be rewritten later, or can I polish each piece, put them all together, then polish the result? Is it very important to have a whole to work with, and can that whole be in your head rather than written? (I always spend several months just thinking about a story for hours every day before writing it. By which I mean, that's the way I did it for the only two "real" novels I've started)
Sorry I wrote that much. Feel free to take an aspirin.
The biggest problem I can see with the way you're doing it is that it doesn't seem to give you anything finished. (If it was working for you I'd have no suggestions. There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays and every single one of them is right, after all.) The second biggest problem is that if you're writing a novel scene by scene, trying to get each scene perfect, you don't get to see how anything works when you put it all together, and that's important. A novel is more than just a sequence of scenes put side by side. It has its own rhythms, and you have to bow to them; a novel, or any long story, is something that has to work when you put the whole thing together.
If you're being forced by the nature of what you're doing (episodic comics or serial television, or even writing a novel at 200 words a day online or in a newspaper) to just write and hope it all works out, that's one thing. But if you're writing a novel determined to make each scene perfect before you go on to the next, and you're writing the scenes out of order, then you're making something that's either going to work or not work when you put it all together. (That's still "write the first draft any which way".)
But it won't excuse you from doing a second draft, because you'll get to the end, and put all the scenes together, and then you'll still have to do a second draft, if only because when you read it you notice that you've got two Wednesdays coming together, and someone's name or eye-colour changes between scenes. Or your heroine seems like a bitch, although that wasn't your intention, because you don't have a scene there that shows her humanity. Or a great scene you wrote and rewrote and honed and rewrote and polished till it shone just doesn't fit anywhere because the thing that's happening at the same time loses all vitality if you cut away from it.
I guess that's one reason I like things like NaNoWriMo -- it makes people write and finish things, helter-skelter and however. And once something's finished, you can always fix it. (The first draft of Good Omens took about 9 weeks. The second draft took MONTHS. And it wasn't until we came to rework it a little after that for the US edition that we realised that we had indeed, without noticing, created a week with two Wednesdays in it.)
Incidentally, I'm in awe of anyone who would even attempt to try to write fiction in a language not her own.
As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But -- and I wish it were otherwise -- books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents.
So think all you like, but don't mistake the thinking for the writing.
...
Remember the National Doodle Day doodles? (I talked about them at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/04/q-w
The National Doodle Day auction has begun. Proceeds will benefit Neurofibromatosis, Inc. (nfinc.org). Gillian Anderson's (Scully of The X-Files) brother suffers from NF. Click here (http://www.gilliananderson.ws/charities/n
We have 175 doodles on the auction block including many from The X-Files "gang": David Duchovny, Chris Carter, Annabeth Gish, Mark Snow (composer of the well-known X-Files theme music), Mitch Pileggi, and various XF Alumni.
You can easily check out all the available doodles by looking at our Doodle Guide at:
www.gilliananderson.ws.
And it's a family affair for Gillian. We have doodles by her sister, Zoë, her 13 year old daughter, Piper, and Piper's Dad, Clyde Klotz who also used to work for The X-Files.
To immediately access the eBay auction --
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZnfincch
Direct Links to Neil Gaiman's doodles plus his fave doodles on the auction block:
Ebay link to doodle #1
Ebay link to number 2
Kendra Stout: Ebay link here
Cat Mihos: Ebay link here
Fred Hembeck: Ebay link here
Sergio Aragones: Ebay link here
Gahan Wilson: ebay link here
There are some other pretty nifty ones as well I'd not seen the last time I posted about it (Simon Pegg! Robin Williams!). I was vaguely happy to notice that my first doodle, of something vaguely ifritish, seemed to be attracting more voters than the sort-of-Sandman I did next (thinking, they probably expect a Sandman).
...
This is cool, and I can't wait to read it: http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.c
...
And finally, from the Sandman 20th anniversary poster, P. Craig Russell's Lucifer and Mazikeen...
But, I discovered, I didn't have lots of time. I have about 24 hours, as it has to be in London at the end of the week. I looked at the card, guessed that I could fit about 250 words on it, and wrote a 250 word story (using the Pelikan flexnib that Henry Selick gave me from http://www.richardspens.com/. I'd been waiting for something to write with it, and this seemed perfect). I have two more cards, in case of disaster, and I might do a second draft tomorrow before FedEx comes. Or I may not. But I find myself, for the first time, a bit envious of Margaret Atwood and her Long Pen...
In response to your bee picture, my eleven year-old daughter said "It looks like an angry penguin." (Me)"Are you sure it doesn't look like an angry bee?" (Her)"Nope, an angry penguin."
Take care!
Gina
I love my job.
Hi!
I have a question about writing. I read your advice, and the thing is, I don't do it like that at all.
For one thing, I don't write a first draft completely, then edit it several times. I work with scenes. I write a scene, I correct it, a re-correct it, I edit it and so on. I usually have a story planned out in my head entirely, so I end up writing the scenes in any order, really, although it's mostly chronological.
I'm guessing your advice would probably be "whatever works for you", but the thing is, I don't know if it works for me. I've never finished a novel yet. Actually, my first novel (which is uncomplete) is resting right now because I met my husband, who's Canadian and couldn't speak French, and I stopped writing in French. I just though, what's the point of writing if the person I love the most can't even read it? I want him to read it /before/ everyone else, not years later.
So I started writing in English, and man is it hard. You think you're fluent in a language, and next thing you know you're struggling to find synonyms or words that have the right connotation, and your characters all speak the same way, because that's they only way /you/ speak. So I'm extremely slow.
I'm just worried that my approach might just be plain wrong, and lead me to never finish anything. I don't know who to ask for advice so I'm turning to you.
I guess my question really is, should I make sure to finish a first draft as soon as possible, even if what I write is crap and has to be rewritten later, or can I polish each piece, put them all together, then polish the result? Is it very important to have a whole to work with, and can that whole be in your head rather than written? (I always spend several months just thinking about a story for hours every day before writing it. By which I mean, that's the way I did it for the only two "real" novels I've started)
Sorry I wrote that much. Feel free to take an aspirin.
The biggest problem I can see with the way you're doing it is that it doesn't seem to give you anything finished. (If it was working for you I'd have no suggestions. There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays and every single one of them is right, after all.) The second biggest problem is that if you're writing a novel scene by scene, trying to get each scene perfect, you don't get to see how anything works when you put it all together, and that's important. A novel is more than just a sequence of scenes put side by side. It has its own rhythms, and you have to bow to them; a novel, or any long story, is something that has to work when you put the whole thing together.
If you're being forced by the nature of what you're doing (episodic comics or serial television, or even writing a novel at 200 words a day online or in a newspaper) to just write and hope it all works out, that's one thing. But if you're writing a novel determined to make each scene perfect before you go on to the next, and you're writing the scenes out of order, then you're making something that's either going to work or not work when you put it all together. (That's still "write the first draft any which way".)
But it won't excuse you from doing a second draft, because you'll get to the end, and put all the scenes together, and then you'll still have to do a second draft, if only because when you read it you notice that you've got two Wednesdays coming together, and someone's name or eye-colour changes between scenes. Or your heroine seems like a bitch, although that wasn't your intention, because you don't have a scene there that shows her humanity. Or a great scene you wrote and rewrote and honed and rewrote and polished till it shone just doesn't fit anywhere because the thing that's happening at the same time loses all vitality if you cut away from it.
I guess that's one reason I like things like NaNoWriMo -- it makes people write and finish things, helter-skelter and however. And once something's finished, you can always fix it. (The first draft of Good Omens took about 9 weeks. The second draft took MONTHS. And it wasn't until we came to rework it a little after that for the US edition that we realised that we had indeed, without noticing, created a week with two Wednesdays in it.)
Incidentally, I'm in awe of anyone who would even attempt to try to write fiction in a language not her own.
As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But -- and I wish it were otherwise -- books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents.
So think all you like, but don't mistake the thinking for the writing.
...
Remember the National Doodle Day doodles? (I talked about them at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/04/q-w
The National Doodle Day auction has begun. Proceeds will benefit Neurofibromatosis, Inc. (nfinc.org). Gillian Anderson's (Scully of The X-Files) brother suffers from NF. Click here (http://www.gilliananderson.ws/charities/n
We have 175 doodles on the auction block including many from The X-Files "gang": David Duchovny, Chris Carter, Annabeth Gish, Mark Snow (composer of the well-known X-Files theme music), Mitch Pileggi, and various XF Alumni.
You can easily check out all the available doodles by looking at our Doodle Guide at:
www.gilliananderson.ws.
And it's a family affair for Gillian. We have doodles by her sister, Zoë, her 13 year old daughter, Piper, and Piper's Dad, Clyde Klotz who also used to work for The X-Files.
To immediately access the eBay auction --
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZnfincch
Direct Links to Neil Gaiman's doodles plus his fave doodles on the auction block:
Ebay link to doodle #1
Ebay link to number 2
Kendra Stout: Ebay link here
Cat Mihos: Ebay link here
Fred Hembeck: Ebay link here
Sergio Aragones: Ebay link here
Gahan Wilson: ebay link here
There are some other pretty nifty ones as well I'd not seen the last time I posted about it (Simon Pegg! Robin Williams!). I was vaguely happy to notice that my first doodle, of something vaguely ifritish, seemed to be attracting more voters than the sort-of-Sandman I did next (thinking, they probably expect a Sandman).
...
This is cool, and I can't wait to read it: http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bios.c
...
And finally, from the Sandman 20th anniversary poster, P. Craig Russell's Lucifer and Mazikeen...
Over at Sara Benincasa's YouTube channel, you can see lots of videos made by Sara as she zoomed around in tunnels and behind the scenes in New York for the CBLDF a few weeks ago...
This is Why I Support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (the lighting means you can't see the black eye, I'm afraid). (If all four videos don't show up on your feed, then go to the original post.) (This one doesn't contain any swearing...)
Why Frank Miller supports the CBLDF:
(I think Frank's reply is my favourite. It's simple, personal and direct.)
Why Jeff Smith does:
and why Bill Hader does:
Feel very free to spread them around. (I hope that after San Diego this year we'll have a lot more of them to put up and spread around.)
Finally, here's me announcing the conclusion of the Gordon Lee case, at the New York Comic-con CBLDF event (I like the way the camera finishes on Magnetic Field and Future Bible Hero Claudia Gonson):
This is Why I Support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (the lighting means you can't see the black eye, I'm afraid). (If all four videos don't show up on your feed, then go to the original post.) (This one doesn't contain any swearing...)
Why Frank Miller supports the CBLDF:
(I think Frank's reply is my favourite. It's simple, personal and direct.)
Why Jeff Smith does:
and why Bill Hader does:
Feel very free to spread them around. (I hope that after San Diego this year we'll have a lot more of them to put up and spread around.)
Finally, here's me announcing the conclusion of the Gordon Lee case, at the New York Comic-con CBLDF event (I like the way the camera finishes on Magnetic Field and Future Bible Hero Claudia Gonson):
- Mood:
incredibly sleepy
...but I don't want to leave.
- Mood:down
We've moved! Not that far away from our previous office, but far enough to require a full investigation into local pubs and sandwich shops. I'll keep you posted if we find anything spectacular. Our previous office was very nice - host to a lot of food...( Please sir, can I have some more... )
- Mood:
busy
Hello, dearest readers.
Today's LJ post will consist of two parts. Please take part in the INTERACTIVE SECTION before proceeding to THE STORY. Thank you!
The Management
Poll #1186578 INTERACTIVE SECTION!
Open to: All, results viewable to: All
( Now, proceed to THE STORY )
Today's LJ post will consist of two parts. Please take part in the INTERACTIVE SECTION before proceeding to THE STORY. Thank you!
The Management
Poll #1186578 INTERACTIVE SECTION!
Open to: All, results viewable to: All
13 (14.6%)( Now, proceed to THE STORY )
- Location:awake in my room when I should be IN BED
- Mood:
tired
Resistance back on the air!
It's been almost a year since my last entry and many in the movement have expressed concern over the state of things. Is the Resistance done for? Has Tatsuya fled to another country with no extradition laws? And what's up with those Scientology ads on the main page? Has Xenu the Wicked Overlord of the Galactic Confederacy finally captured your dear leader? Calm your fretting, my friends. The Revolution is alive and well. This past year of radio silence was a necessary strategic maneuver to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. It was all planned out. I've got them exactly where I want them. They may think I'm a lazy slacker/loser/buttclown with negligent updating habits and no social skills whatsoever, but OH NO! I've been lying in wait for many a moon, plotting my glorious return. I leap into action now and catch them completely unawares! And I unveil the new Project Wonderful ad auction banner thing, which they may interpret as a desperate attempt to finance my five bags a day Skittles addiction, but OH NO! It's a bold and daring foray into experimental online business models. I've got it all planned out. Woop, the red phone is ringing. Probably Hillary again. Gotta go.
Viva la Resistance!
-T.
So, this just came in from Geoffrey Long, Communications Director of MIT Comparative Media Studies :
Hey, Neil --
Just saw the note on your blog about the tickets to the Schwartz event:
Alas, no -- it doesn't look like there will be tickets available at the door after all, due to their selling like hotcakes at the local shops like Million Year Picnic. ...I'm afraid when the tickets are gone, they're gone, and many of the local shops are already sold out.
The microsite for the event is here: http://cms.mit.edu/juliusschwartz/
Thanks again, and I look forward to seeing you soon!
Cheers,
Geoff
Which seemed a bit daunting, given that the hall seats 1226 people, and I'm taking it as a good omen for the first Julie Schwartz Lecture (who was Julie Schwartz? you ask. You can read about him here and you can read what Alan Moore wrote and I read at Julie's memorial here).
I've asked Geoffrey to let me know where any tickets may still be found for any of you, at MIT or in the Boston area, who want to come, and if there are any out there he'll let me know.
The Birdchick and her team won the Birding World Series, which is good news, and "Platypus" Bill Stiteler blogs yesterday's bee stuff along with what he did today (while I slept like a large, moss-covered, jet-lagged log) over at http://www.birdchick.com/2008/05/simple-p
Neil,
Thank you for signing my books after the literary dinner in Melbourne, I get a sense that you were tired, but I appreciate how generous you were with your time. It is always a treat to meet you (that was the second time I have met you the first was a few years ago at comics r us in Melbourne) though I get a bit nervous, don't know why but I do.
The episode of "I should be writing" where they list one of the three pieces of advice is to find Neil Gaiman and he will look into your soul and tell you what you need to hear is Episode dated 9/04/08 the third piece of advice.
Your advice was "keep doing what you are doing" and that was exactly what I needed cos I had not been writing very much up until a couple of weeks ago so that helped me keep faith.
I really wish that I could find more advice on second drafts I mean I got a lot information on how to complete a first draft and now I have to get a second draft finished.
What is the best advice can you give a writer about the second draft of a novel. I mean you spend months on the first draft and you finish it and let it lie for a while, and now you have to work with this thing that is a rough lump of clay, how do you form the book out of this mass of intention and thought.
Thank you for your time.
Karl
The second draft is where the fun is. In a first draft, you get to explode. The objective (at least for me) is to get it down on paper, somehow. Battle through the laziness and the not-enough-time and the this-is-rubbish and everything else, and just get it written. Whatever it takes. The second draft is where you go and gather together the fragments of the explosion and figure out what it is you did, and make it look like that was what you always meant to do.
So you write it. Then you put it aside. Not for months, but perhaps for a week or so. Even a few days. Do other things. Then set aside some uninterrupted time to read, and pull it out, and pretend you have never read it before -- clear it out of your head, and sit and read it. (I'd suggest you do this on a print-out, so you can scribble on it as you go. )
When you get to the end you should have a much better idea of what it was about than you did when you started. (I knew The Graveyard Book would be about a boy who lived in a graveyard when I started it. I didn't know that it would be about how we make our families, though: that's a theme that made itself apparent while the book was being written.)
And then, on the second and subsequent drafts, you do four things. 1) You fix the things that didn't work as best you can (if you don't like the climactic Rock City scene in American Gods, trust me, the first draft was so much worse). 2) You reinforce the themes, whether they were there from the beginning or whether they grew like Topsy on the way. You take out the stuff that undercuts those themes. 3) You worry about the title. 4) At some point in the revision process you will probably need to remind yourself that you could keep polishing it infinitely, that perfection is not an attribute of humankind, and really, shouldn't you get on with the next thing now?
Does that help?
Hey, Neil --
Just saw the note on your blog about the tickets to the Schwartz event:
It looks like tickets for the MIT talk on the 23rd are going fast -- http://community.livejournal.com/millionyear/34688.html -- although I believe that MIT are keeping tickets back to sell on the day.
Alas, no -- it doesn't look like there will be tickets available at the door after all, due to their selling like hotcakes at the local shops like Million Year Picnic. ...I'm afraid when the tickets are gone, they're gone, and many of the local shops are already sold out.
The microsite for the event is here: http://cms.mit.edu/juliusschwartz/
Thanks again, and I look forward to seeing you soon!
Cheers,
Geoff
Which seemed a bit daunting, given that the hall seats 1226 people, and I'm taking it as a good omen for the first Julie Schwartz Lecture (who was Julie Schwartz? you ask. You can read about him here and you can read what Alan Moore wrote and I read at Julie's memorial here).
I've asked Geoffrey to let me know where any tickets may still be found for any of you, at MIT or in the Boston area, who want to come, and if there are any out there he'll let me know.
The Birdchick and her team won the Birding World Series, which is good news, and "Platypus" Bill Stiteler blogs yesterday's bee stuff along with what he did today (while I slept like a large, moss-covered, jet-lagged log) over at http://www.birdchick.com/2008/05/simple-p
Neil,
Thank you for signing my books after the literary dinner in Melbourne, I get a sense that you were tired, but I appreciate how generous you were with your time. It is always a treat to meet you (that was the second time I have met you the first was a few years ago at comics r us in Melbourne) though I get a bit nervous, don't know why but I do.
The episode of "I should be writing" where they list one of the three pieces of advice is to find Neil Gaiman and he will look into your soul and tell you what you need to hear is Episode dated 9/04/08 the third piece of advice.
Your advice was "keep doing what you are doing" and that was exactly what I needed cos I had not been writing very much up until a couple of weeks ago so that helped me keep faith.
I really wish that I could find more advice on second drafts I mean I got a lot information on how to complete a first draft and now I have to get a second draft finished.
What is the best advice can you give a writer about the second draft of a novel. I mean you spend months on the first draft and you finish it and let it lie for a while, and now you have to work with this thing that is a rough lump of clay, how do you form the book out of this mass of intention and thought.
Thank you for your time.
Karl
The second draft is where the fun is. In a first draft, you get to explode. The objective (at least for me) is to get it down on paper, somehow. Battle through the laziness and the not-enough-time and the this-is-rubbish and everything else, and just get it written. Whatever it takes. The second draft is where you go and gather together the fragments of the explosion and figure out what it is you did, and make it look like that was what you always meant to do.
So you write it. Then you put it aside. Not for months, but perhaps for a week or so. Even a few days. Do other things. Then set aside some uninterrupted time to read, and pull it out, and pretend you have never read it before -- clear it out of your head, and sit and read it. (I'd suggest you do this on a print-out, so you can scribble on it as you go. )
When you get to the end you should have a much better idea of what it was about than you did when you started. (I knew The Graveyard Book would be about a boy who lived in a graveyard when I started it. I didn't know that it would be about how we make our families, though: that's a theme that made itself apparent while the book was being written.)
And then, on the second and subsequent drafts, you do four things. 1) You fix the things that didn't work as best you can (if you don't like the climactic Rock City scene in American Gods, trust me, the first draft was so much worse). 2) You reinforce the themes, whether they were there from the beginning or whether they grew like Topsy on the way. You take out the stuff that undercuts those themes. 3) You worry about the title. 4) At some point in the revision process you will probably need to remind yourself that you could keep polishing it infinitely, that perfection is not an attribute of humankind, and really, shouldn't you get on with the next thing now?
Does that help?
Page Summary
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif)
sinfestfeed : 2008-05-14: Sinfest [+2] ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif)
sinfest_mod :: ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
haloedone : Run Away 8 : New York Style Cartoonist [+3] - officialgaiman : what you can't help doing [+15]
- yayheaven : Lu on Day 3 [+4]
- cleolinda : It never rains but it pours [+58]
- kittygopounce : (no subject) [+5]
- nessreader : ship or sheep [+4]
- sinfestfeed : 2008-05-13: Sinfest [+3]
- sinfest_mod :: haloedone : Run Away 7 : Your Refuge [+10]
- officialgaiman : Beware the wrath of an Angry Penguin [+17]
- officialgaiman : Warning; contains language [+19]
- nessreader : nights at the circus [+0]
- restriction : </3 [+11]
- moocards : New home, new homies [+2]
- misshallelujah : Kyuu kyuu! Kyuu kyuu! 私のかれはピロット [+79]
- cleolinda : ALERT ALERT ALERT [+8]
- sinfestfeed : 2008-05-12: Sinfest [+11]
- sinfest_mod :: tydestra : Notes from the Resistance [+7]
- sinfest_mod :: tydestra : (no subject) [+2]
- officialgaiman : You put your (right-hand rear) leg in... [+15]
Designed by phuck
phuck