the reader's firestarter

While poking around Neil Gaiman’s Tumblr, I stumbled on one question somebody asked him: Hello, I’m new here. I heard a lot about your tumblr from my friend. She told me about your books etc. but honestly I didn’t read any of it yet. I just want to ask you, which book I should read first? Maybe it’s a stupid question but well I’m just curious. :D

His answer started with “I have no idea.” It had me wondering, what books got me to maniacally seek out my favorite authors’ books? For Gaiman, it was Good Omens, the Gaiman/Terry Pratchett collaboration about the Antichrist, the Four Horsemen, and the Apocalypse in general. The next thing I picked up was Sandman (thanks Eya!).

Confession: Every time I read something written by Neil Gaiman I feel the need to write. Sometimes I do – one of which I recently submitted. That last story was actually written after reading a Sandman wiki-page.

I first picked up Sue Grafton’s detective series with Kinsey Millhone at G is for Gumshoe, which I find apt. Stephen King at Pet Sematary (or was it The Green Mile?), Diana Wynne Jones at Howl’s Moving Castle (which I read after watching Hayao Miyazaki’s film based on it), Libba Bray at The Sweet Far Thing (Rica recommended it, at the recommendation of another friend), and MaryJanice Davidson at Undead and Unwed (sorry, guilty pleasure, read it at Lei’s recommendation).

Next up, Stieg Larsson!

Neil Gaiman: The World Book Day App Announcement

Neil Gaiman: The World Book Day App Announcement

neil-gaiman:

The World Book Day App will be available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch coming soon to the iTunes store and for the low, low price of absolutely free!

This brand new App features exclusive new short stories from Malorie Blackman, Neil Gaiman, Charlie Higson, Anthony Horowitz, Sophie McKenzie…

This is a good time to be an Apple fan person. I hope they offer e-books or something for the non-Apple peeps though.

just shut up and write

I’m in my pajamas (the most comfortable pieces of clothing known to man) and sitting in front of my computer to write. I’ve decided to take care of a few things, to go back to square one and find something I’ve misplaced. I’m going back to the basics, to just writing for the sake of writing. Well, as it happens, I’ve come across a random link that took me to another and another (needless to say, I was caught up in another productivity-eating Internet vortex of doom) and ended up in Chuck Wendig’s website, TerribleMinds.

Chuck Wendig is the author of delightfully twisted books like Blackbirds, Double Dead, and Mockingbird. He also writes short stories which he gives away as Totally Free Shit.

In said website, Wendig dispenses writing advice that definitely perked me up on a particularly shitty night. Here are the parts that felt like somebody with cleats is repeatedly dropkicking me in the face while another douche is punching at the general area of my kidneys:

(If you want the complete version without any annoying side comments from me, check it out here: The 25 Things I Want to Say to So-Called “Aspiring” Writers.)

A Thousand Times Yes: The (Obligatory) Valentine’s Post

I have very few personal traditions, including staying up the entire day for my birthday (which I have decided last year that I am too old for that shit) and writing something for Valentine’s Day.  Today is February 14^th and for the first time in years, I have been caught unprepared. I figure though that it’s not too late to tap the inner bitch/cynic for the occasion.

First, I took a look back at the documentation. I’ve been posting yearly Valentine’s articles on my website, ranging from examinations of the suspension of disbelief and of how Disney screwed us up severe to stories of momentary lapses (or a total lack thereof) in judgment. Here are a few clips:

It’s that feeling of crawling under your skin, of inadequacy, of frustration, of crashing. It’s that need to smoke until you get a migraine, to smoke until the nerves settle which they never do, but still you continue to light up until you realize you’ve consumed a pack in a few hours. 

It’s that Hocrap! feeling you get when you wake up late for an appointment, or wake up from an unscheduled nap. There’s a moment of wondering where you are, then the realization hits - you are fucked up severe. Everything is sideways afterward and just wrong. You can’t put your finger on when the wrongness started, hence you don’t know what you need to fix. You decide, as you lie wide awake at 5 am, that maybe staying still is the solution. Nothing may fix your nothing problem, and maybe when you wake up, if you manage to go to sleep, the world will have righted itself.