Michael Livingston pointed out this handy tutorial called “The The Impotence of Proofreading.” If only everyone who submitted to Shimmer would study this closely.
Comments? -- LinkThe Interstitial Arts Foundation is auctioning some pretty nifty items. Every day they add two new items. Check it out.
Comments? -- LinkIAFAuctions.com is part of the fundraising arm of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, a not–for–profit organization dedicated to the study, support, and promotion of interstitial art.
Currently, we’re auctioning off jewelry based on stories from the first Interfictions anthology.
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
( A Necessary Evil spoilers )
So, I was gone for a week to attend a WORLD business conference for one of the two twelve-step programs I belong to. It was very uplifting, if you dig being in a room with over 300 people in one hotel ballroom saying The Serenity Prayer in a multitude of languages. The volunteer coordinator was pleased with me and dubbed me assistant volunteer coordinator. It even said so on my badge and gave me that Dwight K. Schrute glow of satisfaction.
It was really uplifting to help others, get pats on the head, hugs and a boost of confidence that I really need and don't get at work. But I came back to work today just in time for The Day of Screaming Children and The Parents Who Don't Even Hear Them Anymore. My ears are still ringing.
I also got to work with a species I've truly come to dread: The Completely Computer Illiterate Person Who Is Going to Have a Coronary Right Fucking Now If They Don't Get Their Resume Out Right This Fucking Second. Love it. Just love it. If they'd just calm down and let me click the mouse button once or twice we could wrap it up in seconds, not a quarter or an hour.
But I'm back now with an adjusted attitude. I would also like to crow that I am (as of today) four years, two weeks, and three days sober and I also have been abstinent from my eating disorder for 315 days. (Struts around room). I also clock my last depressive episode around Xmas 2007.
- Mood:
awake
"When I hear a man say, "I could have told you that at Cardosa," or at Poughkeepsie, or wherever, I think I know something about that man. He is the kind who says, 'I told you so.'
"Nobody who says, 'I told you so' has ever been, or will ever be, a hero."
- Mood:
busy
Nonetheless, I am behind on photo posting, so here are some pics of my days in Bangkok:
Set 1- First day in Bangkok, Wat Po, Giant Reclining Buddha and local street scenes
Set 2- Second Day in Bangkok- the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Street scenes and random things I caught with my camera
Enjoy!
B
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adeliedreams who worked with me trying to get Connor working right. (nice talking to you again and on occasion the little one)Verdict, get a new one. Yeah, I kinda figured that. It has the memory. It doesn't have spyware. It's slowing down badly. The DVD/CD player is a dead duck. I've never had a Dell live longer than 3 years and this one is nearly that and never worked right out of the box so...
I'm not sure what to buy. NOT Dell. God, never again.
I would love an Apple. Naturally it's completely and utterly incompetible with most of the software I need at school. I'm not sure if that is true for the fancier Apples that can do windows but I'm pretty sure I can't afford it (Am upon AD's suggestion going to look into educator discounts)
Suggestions? And no, it won't be a laptop either. I wouldn't mind one but that's not really what i'm looking for
( meme )i wouldn't say I'm soothing but i do like to be in charge.
- Mood:
cranky - Music:Family Guly
A young woman of mixed heritage, Alissa has always been an outcast from society, allowed to venture into it only when the people of the plains and foothills mix on market days. Though her father, Meson, taught her his people’s ways, she’s never believed in magic. Her mother, however, does, and eventually sends Alissa from their home to seek the Hold Meson spoke of for training, much to Alissa’s consternation. Strell is a young man from a well known potter family from the desert beyond the plain who returns from six years as a minstrel on the coast to learn his family died in an unexpected flood a year after he left. During his angsty wandering(it’s fairly impressive, actually) he meets Alissa, and learns that she can read the strange map he traded for along the way. When Alissa realizes the map is a map to the Hold, they decide to travel together and try to beat the winter snows to the Hold, only to get there and learn the current Master of the Hold is Bailic, the man responsible for Meson’s death, and are trapped with him by the same snows they were trying to beat.
What the hell....?
I've read on the message boards that those wonderful Trinity statues we oohed and ahed over are not part of the regular exhibit, so they appear to have been specially developed for museum gala. And pictures are not allowed either, which I can understand, but it's still sorta a shame.
I found the May 2008 Vogue. The Gwyneth Paltrow shoot is more Metropolis/steampunk to me than Iron Man, all gears and metal. I don't usually like Tom Welling, but he looks pretty good with his hair slicked back. And after some digging, I found the psuedo-Grecian Wonder Woman layout I'd read about. The model is Isabeli Fontana. The actual theme for the photoshoot was that staple of WW -- satin. Huh? I guess Vogue took satin tights literally. I actually like the first two looks.
And further on the Diana von Furstenberg's WW collection. The stars look like something straight out of the WW tv introduction.
Now, that's pretty heinous all by its lonesome but not one but two of my co-workers sat there doing NOTHING!
There's no security guard on duty in the morning and they said that didn't know if "[they were] supposed to call the police." There's a man masturbating within feet of children and you don't know if you should call the police??????????????????????????????????
They just sat there being uncomfortable and staring until the guy figured out that he'd been made and left the library.
One of the women had the nerve to call her husband while this was happening to tell him. Apparently, his dumb ass didn't tell her the call the police either.
I came in a few hours later and pretended that I wasn't blowing a gasket at the news. Should I attempt to beat them? Would it even help?
In addition, a massive earthquake struck China's Sichuan province yesterday. The death toll so far is in the tens of thousands, and tens of thousands more are still missing.
These people need help. I know the Myanmar government is being weird about accepting it so far (I think they're worried that people will use this chance to smuggle help to its rebels and smuggle rebels out), and I'm not sure how the Chinese will be about accepting help, but they need help, and plenty of it. If you're interested in donating, here are the websites of my two favorite agencies for international disasters:
Oxfam
Doctors Without Borders
There's also <a href="http://www.redcross.org/>the Red Cross/Red Crescent</a>. Their site says they are already on the ground in China distributing food, so this may be one of those times when the Chinese don't mind getting help from the outside world! The one good thing about times like this is that people come together for people they don't even know, families from half a world away who got dumped into a lot of trouble by Nature. Most of you may already be donating at school or through your church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. If so, don't mind me. But if not, I figured I'd show the ways I try to help!
- Location:home
- Mood:
sad - Music:"Shifting Peat and Feet," Peatbog Fairies
Meanwhile, my extracted bit of colon tissue has made an appearance. I am pleased to see my insides so directly
May be home Thursday, but still on very low energy/highly reduced schedule mode for a week after that point.
Doctor soon. Later days!
- Location:OHSU Hospital
- Mood:
happy - Music:hospital racket
As you can see, I've already spent the money in some form already. It's just a matter of where I decide to mentally put the tally.
In other wonderful news: I've finished grading the finals! I'm done with the grades! The semester (and the year) are officially over! I'll have to go back one day this week or next once I get the student evaluations and fill out my faculty report so I can (hopefully) get a raise next year, but other than that it's over. I can now devote all of my time to
Signing and Meet & Greet! Tomorrow, May 14th, from noon to 3pm I'll be at the Binghamton University campus bookstore signing my books and desperately trying to get students to spend some of their book buyback money on . . . more books. But fun books! Fantasy books! With an assassin and thief and kick-ass heroine! I don't expect much luck with this, since (like me and the stimulus check) I'm certain the college students have already spent their money on beer and condoms. At least in their head. *ahem* *refraining from typing something naughty*
But ANYWAY, after the signing, there's a Binghamton alumni Meet & Greet at Antonio's in Endicott (or perhaps it's Endwell) at 5:30pm where any alumni can stop on by and chat with me over a drink or five. Informal. With books on hand in case anyone gets drunk enough they feel like buying them all in hardcover. *grin* I'm sure non-alumni can stop on by as well, so feel free.
But AFTER tomorrow's little promo blitz, I hope to be writing on the novel on a regular basis. I need to at least finish off the sucker before the end of May, if not be hip deep in revisions by then. And I can see how those revisions are going to go, meaning I can see how good the book COULD be if only I could write. No, no! That's not what I meant! I meant if only I could find the time to write!
You can tell the hyper-high has hit from finishing the grading, can't you?
- Mood:amused
( Epic buildup is EPIC )
EDIT: I just realized...if Volume 20 ends up having 5 chapters again, then this will be the chapter that it ends on. PERFECT ENDING. Does this mean the build-up chapters are over now? Should we expect to start seeing BIG things happening from now on?
- Mood:
excited - Music:"calling location" by Nakagawa Shouko
telophase, a 1930s test to see if you make a passable wife(or, if you're a guy, should trade yours in.) It has a system of 50 merits and demerits calculating value, and links to a copy of the first page. I am particularly fond of this bit:although I note that an item mentioned in the article - "reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress" - is not among them, but was apparently worth 10 'merits'. This is equal in value to "Religious - sends children to Sunday school and goes herself".
(I guess it could never be a factor that, you know, he's doing it wrong if she isn't having the time of her life...not that such would always be the case, mind you-it can go both ways-but...yeesh.)
OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE!!!
Last night,
calixawatched what is possibly the worst romantic movie ever made. It is, perhaps, best explained by what I believe is the next-to-closing line:When we opened her skull, we found her brain was beautiful and transparent, shining and clear, as glass. Her life was only five days long, but I believe she was happier than anyone else.
I can have no closing line to surpass that.
But about the insanity... I am able to drive now, at least short distances (potholes are evil, though), and I can walk as far as the pharmacy now, so I am not completely housebound. This is a time I am definitely SO glad to be living in the city! So much is in easy walking distance that now that I can walk more than a block or two (I think I can do four!), I'm not isolated from the rest of the universe.
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officialgaiman : what you can't help doing [+7] - wabbitseason : Necessary Evil review [+0]
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library_mofo :: clawdya : I'm back from vacation...and now I want to leave again [+6] - nanomowhinging :: silvrethorn : Check this out [+0]
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