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| 07:55am 15/05/2008 |
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mood:  cheerful
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So, for those that don't know, I've been shipped off to Vienna for a few days. This is annoying as I wanted to be at the Brisol Gilbert and Sullivan Operatic Society DVD evening tonight to see our show with a group of people - it's totally different to watching it on your own.
So, I missed that, but today was totally full of adventure (this is posted after today - tuesday - to get round hotels charging for internet access - something I totally disagree with by the way, but that's another story). it all started ( tuesday morning...... )
So, all in all, day of cock-ups really..... and they don't appear to be stopping :-)
PS - still can't hear properly out of my right ear..... it's rather annoying.
K. |
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| Brief Trademark Ponders |
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| 01:45am 15/05/2008 |
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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/brief-trademark-ponders.html A few interesting links related to Trademarks (not to be confused with copyright, but people do, and so do I). For example, the Open Rights Group (of which, last time I looked, I was Patron, but I don't have to do anything except be on the letterhead and possibly make the cucumber sandwiches) posted http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/05/08/bbc-removes-doctor-who-fans-knitting-patterns-from-the-web/ -- the story of a fan who was told by the BBC to take down the Dr Who knitting patterns from her website. Interestingly, the Head of Communications at the BBC left a message on the ORG blog, and amplified it on the BBC news site, pointing out that their problem was not with the creator but with the people who were taking her designs, making the toys, and selling them on eBay.
One commenter said, My own opinion is that the BBC would be correct to target Ebay sellers and anyone attempting to make a profit from their intellectual property, as is their right. Unfortunately rather than do this actively, they have chosen the easy option of attacking a person whose only ‘crime’ is she has the imagination and flare to design knitted patterns and make them available not for profit, based on Dr Who characters...
Which was the last thing I read before reading this Boing-Boing article, this Beat coverage, and this follow-up blog posting from the person who was running the ebay auction: Warner Brothers lawyers closed down a children's cancer charity eBay auction because it was selling original Superman drawings...
And mostly, I'm just glad that I'm not a corporate trademark lawyer.
(Also, I think -- and have thought for about 17 years, ever since the Comic Relief Comic problems -- that Warner Corporate needs to change its policies with regards to DC Comics and charities and allow DC Comics as much latitude as, say, Marvel. But it hasn't happened yet.) |
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Read 6 - Post |
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| ! |
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| 01:41am 15/05/2008 |
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Today was filled with kiddy-larp.
Basically in break time one of the kids (aged about 5) came up to me and yelled
"Look Mr Burt! A dragon is attacking i'll go kill it"
Child ran off and appeared to make motions that suggested the killing of a dragon, there was a fair degree of posing so i approved. Child returned triumphant
"I killed it!" he chirped with glee.
Now, the over-arcing goal of break time is to make sure thing kids stay far away from you, so I was prepared.
"Excellent! But what about those pirates riding dinosaurs"
Child gave me the most amazing look, kind of a "Ho-ly fu-ck." and ran off.
I sat back on my bench and relaxed in the sun.
Sadly this didn't last long as the the child returned.
"I brought some friends, one has a hammer, ones a doctor and ones a girl, but shes okay. Do you think we can beat the dino-pirates or do we need bigger swords"
Great, I'm now a quest NPC. I'm so doomed. |
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Read 9 - Post |
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| Black and Gold |
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| 05:19pm 14/05/2008 |
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mood:  fascinated music: Sam Sparro - Black and Gold
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This is a Youtube music video for the Sam Sparro song "Black and Gold".
This is fairly popular at the moment - popular enough that it's getting the same airplay as Rhianna at 0400.
I find this song fascinating - play it and listen to it, or just Google the lyrics, and have a think. I'll Lj-cut my thoughts so as not to prejudice.
( Read more... ) |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| Snippets |
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| 03:34pm 14/05/2008 |
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Avis - that's Avis car rentals, specifically in Aztec West, Bristol - left me another hire car last night. This time, they left the sidelights on. Fortunately I checked up on it that evening, and whilst the battery warning light was already on, I could start the engine and let it charge a while. Thanks, Avis.
(On the plus side, the car - Citreon Xsara Picasso - is way nicer than I thought it would be. The delta in enjoyment of drive to Basingstoke was vast.)
--
I like our little office in Wells. Technically it's a converted attic, but that just gives it a certain bijou feel - plus awesome views. In addition - we have independent control of each air conditioner unit! If that doesn't sound very exciting, you've never roasted to death or achieved superconductivity because an office has centrally, remotely controlled air conditioning, set by some sadist jobsworth in HR or Facilities somewhere.
Basingstoke office seems to follow the above more traditional model. I'm more worried for my laptop than myself. To cope with the heat, it has dialled down processor power so much I'm getting answers from yesterday. In the last five minutes it went to its back-up abacus instead. We had a morning meeting in the executive's office, and that half of the floor has a very pleasant temperature. There are two theories. 1) They find it hilarious, or 2) The door they have open to the roof garden to let the fresh air in, is also letting the air conditioning out, overloading our half.
No-one has volunteered to go ask them which it is.
--
Today marks my first monthlyversary of being here! Am I still enjoying it, heat stroke aside? Well, I can still wake up to a 5:30am alarm without crying, and yesterday I ordered my corporate mobile phone: so far, I think I'm still having fun. ;-) |
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| Hobbits go postal |
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| 03:04pm 14/05/2008 |
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So the paranoia of Warhammer continues, and I continue to relish my ignorance of the gameworld. Last game I was introduced to the concept of the "Dwarven Runebearer" or "Postman"
Which leaves me in a state of cognative dissodence, because postmen are so the best class ever, in every system, but dwarfs (and dwarves) are universally vile.
Also, I was set to thinking about the Postal list again, and I suddenly realised that it lacked the skill "Parcel Force", which would allow you to use levels of strength to push large parcels through small letter boxes. |
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| 25! |
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| 10:21am 14/05/2008 |
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mood: happy
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So today I turn 25. This I believe leads to cheaper car insurance, and oddly enough something I've been looking forward to being the case. Anyway I still have 711 days before that fact makes me feel older (for it is my brothers ageing not mine that bothers me).
Today will be celebrated by taking the day off of work, spending time with the lovely ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) purplegirl23, making cake, going for a walk along the canal, and going out for a meal in the evening. Should be good.
I'm thinking a Saturday afternoon picnic in Victoria Park open to anyone who feels like wandering up would be a nice way to celebrate it with friends, so if you're interested and can make it, please say, so I can organise it a little. |
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Read 8 - Post |
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| Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars |
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| 10:06am 14/05/2008 |
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( memage this way )
And for those of you who were there on Monday, yes I did re-do this for posting purposes. |
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| what you can't help doing |
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| 11:59pm 13/05/2008 |
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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/what-you-cant-help-doing.html 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.)
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/tickets.html we learn that Tickets to the event are $8.00 and will be available at the door, pending availability. There won't be any available on the door, because they have almost all sold out. The website has a list of places selling the tickets -- yesterday there were about 60 tickets still out there. So this is a sort of a last call -- you can try phoning the places at the website to see if they still have tickets...
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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 start, 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 no-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 in 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, if 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.html. But the CBLDF Neil Gaiman store one has a pretty Mike Kaluta cover of me being dead on it. And it's cheap...) |
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Read 18 - Post |
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| Politics |
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| 10:25pm 13/05/2008 |
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mood:  bitchy
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Does this feel a bit like a scorched earth policy to anyone else? |
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Read 8 - Post |
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| If It Makes You Happy... |
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| 10:18pm 13/05/2008 |
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I was going to make a proper post, but it was bloody depressing and hopelessly wangsty. So instead, meme-sheepery.
( ... ) |
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Read 12 - Post |
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| Solutions |
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| 11:58am 13/05/2008 |
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I'm hoping for maybe a little perspective on a couple of incidents from yesterday. It's not urgent, just that I'd value my peer's input here, as I'm a little at sea.
Firstly, I cunningly upgraded my work wardrobe during my two weeks between jobs. First impressions, etc. This included getting two new pairs of trousers from M&S. Last night, I took both of them back. One pair were simply too big, never worn, simple refund. (I don't fail at clothes buying, I just trusted logical deduction too much. The size that should have fitted me only just constricted my breathing, so I bought the next size up, fit untried. Apparently, in that style, M&S think you're either thinner than I am, or a clown.) The other pair, however, had shriveled. Something about their third time being washed killed them. (I only noticed, of course, ironing them the night before needing them.) The lady in returns and I had a conversation about this.
"They died in the tumble dryer. I checked the label beforehand, by the way. They said they could be tumble-dried."
"Hmm. And what temperature did you wash them at?"
"Thirty."
"Oooh. Which programme?"
"My machine only has one thirty degrees program."
"It's just that the label says its a forty degrees wool wash. Was yours a wool wash?"
"I don't know. But it was only thirty degrees."
"Oooh, that's the thing you see, if it's not a wool wash, it might be too hot for it."
"...?"
"Well, I know it says forty, but the forty wool wash is a very cool wash, see? But the thirty wash is probably a very hot one."
My wit didn't desert me, it just didn't have a clue how to even start. My hand was nearly resting on a pile of their "Use 30 not 40" pro-environment leaflets, but I was scared to bring it up in case things got worse. Also, I try not to assume superiority. All I had was my maths background from which to assert "30 is less than 40". On the other hand, in the area of "disasters that befall new clothes", I'm ready to believe that the lady in M&S returns is an expert. And I got my refund anyway. So, can anyone help me out? Is there a murky area in which a thirty degrees wash is hotter than a forty? And if so, shouldn't someone tell the environment campaigners?
( Other thing. ) |
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Read 6 - Post |
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| Birthday (again...!) |
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| 09:03pm 13/05/2008 |
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mood:  melancholy
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What always goes up, but never comes down?
That's right, I'm one year older today, and one year close to the big three-oh. Not sure how I feel about that!
The interesting thing is, I figured that after my time in Japan is up, there's really not much point in keeping this journal - I mean, what can possibly come close to the weird and wonderful experiences I've had here? Then, as a birthday present, almosthonest goes and upgrades my account for me. I guess he thinks I've still got interesting stuff to write about...!
With that in mind, I should really tell my faithful readers what I've been up to for my birthday.
( Birthday bash(es) ) |
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Read 5 - Post |
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| House from the Woods |
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| 09:33pm 12/05/2008 |
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I got a new brush set and this is the result of about 5 minutes tinkering. Photoshop watercolor brushes are notoriously useless, but I think this actually turned out pretty okay.
I'm decompressing from the Seattle ComiCon. Next Hob should be out in a few days. |
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Read 9 - Post |
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| Beware the wrath of an Angry Penguin |
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| 10:54pm 12/05/2008 |
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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/beware-wrath-of-angry-penguin.html 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-was-this-face-that-launched-thousand.html). This just came in...
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/nf.shtml) to read about Gillian's involvement with the cause.
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/_W0QQsassZnfinccharity
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.cgi?entry=bk52
...
And finally, from the Sandman 20th anniversary poster, P. Craig Russell's Lucifer and Mazikeen...
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Read 17 - Post |
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| Warning; contains language |
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| 05:57pm 12/05/2008 |
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http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/warning-contains-language.html 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):
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Read 19 - Post |
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