Great Inspiration… or not – with Peter Watts
Since I wrote this post about a moment of great inspiration I wasn’t even aware of at the time (when I met Neil Gaiman in 1989), I’ve been hosting some guest posts from other writer friends where they share their moments of equally great inspiration. You can read all the posts so far under the Great Inspiration category here. It’s really cool to have these people share inspiring moments with us. Or not, in the case of Peter Watts. And Peter’s response made me realise that some readers might be a bit concerned if they couldn’t put their finger on a moment of equal importance in their own lives. As you can see from his comments below, you really needed worry about that. After Peter responded to my email, making me realise this potential angle, I asked if I could post his comments anyway, as an example to others that a moment of great clarity (even realised much later) is not actually necessary. I mean, this is Hugo Award-winning Peter Watts. Author of the Rifters and Blindsight (the seminal first contact novel.) So take heart:
Your email got me thinking– and oddly, I can’t think of anything in my life that proved especially pivotal or inspirational. I wanted to be a writer ever since I plagiarized 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at the age of seven; I wanted to be a marine biologist ever since I stumbled across a friend’s 10-gal aquarium the year before. Ever since then, y trajectory’s been relatively unwavering.
I discovered the three brands of author most relevant to my own development (1 – How can this bozo be selling so well when he can’t write his way out of a goddamn fortune cookie?; 2 – Oh, I see how you did that, that’s brilliant. Now I know how to do it too. Too bad I can’t because you already did it first; and 3 – You told me exactly what you were going to do before you did it, and I thought you were crazy, and then you went ahead and did it and I still have no idea how you pulled it off.)
I think I may have petted William Gibson’s cat once (at least, I’m pretty sure it was Gibson’s doorstep the cat was sitting on). But there was no one-on-one meeting, no life-changing experience that set my course. I’d like to say that some Monty Python cutout God appeared in the heavens and told me I’d have to get a day job as a marine biologist before I could break out and become a midlist SF writer, but really, it was just kinda steady-as-she-goes.
Sorry.
No apology needed, Peter. That’s actually quite inspiring in itself.
Peter Watts is an outstanding author and fascinating guy. I highly recommend you read his full bio here, on his site, rifters.com
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A potted history of my short fiction career to date
I posted this on my Facebook page, then thought maybe I should copy it here for posterity. After all, you just can’t trust that Zuckerberg bloke.
It wasn’t until 2012 that I sold my first story at pro rates, but lots of the previous years included several semi-pro sales and hardly any stories were given away after 2007 (although a few were token payments and one given to a charity anthology.) I’ve had a few pro sales since that first one, and I hope to continue to make more.
This list doesn’t include reprints in Year’s Best collections or podcasts or anything like that (of which there have been quite a few) – it’s purely the first publication of each story. And it doesn’t include novels, obviously. It is proof, though, that hard work and bloody minded determination, coupled with a solid effort to continue to learn and improve your craft, will pay dividends in the end. And given my love of short fiction, I don’t plan to give up any time soon. I have two Personal Bests now to try to beat – more than 11 stories published in one calendar year and more than 2 stories in the same publication. Neither of those things, of course, are more important than quality stories, in well-paying, quality publications. That will always be my primary goal: Writer better, sell better.
Midnight Echo 10, featuring me. Twice.
Well, this is a first for me and one that requires double Snoopy dancing. You all know by now how much a fan I am of Midnight Echo magazine. It’s the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writer’s Association and one of the classiest glossy mags on the market. And available in digital format too, of course. I was very proud to have a story in issue 6, the sci-fi/horror special, and in issue 9, the myths and legends special. Now, I couldn’t be happier to say that I’m going to be in issue 10 as well, with two stories. I’m calling that a personal best and giving myself a special Achievement badge.
It’s a funny old path to publication. I entered the AHWA Short Story competition way back when it was opened and thought nothing more of it. These things take ages to be judged usually. While the judging was going on, guest editor Craig Bezant opened for submissions for issue 10 of Midnight Echo, which has a ghost story theme. So I submitted a story for that.
A little while later, the results of the AHWA Short Story comp were announced and my story had won (in a tie with Zena Shapter). We learned that, as part of the prize, our winning stories would see paid publications in Midnight Echo 10. Then, a month or two later, I got word from Craig Bezant that he liked my story and was going to buy it for Midnight Echo 10. So all of a sudden, I have two stories due out in the same mag. And now the full Table of Contents for issue 10 has been announced and there’s my name, listed twice. Seriously, what a singular honour that is. Here, check out the full ToC – it’s pretty amazing:
Midnight Echo 10 Table of Contents:
Cover art by Vincent Chong
Interior art by Mel Gannon and Greg Chapman
Literature
Lunch by Joseph A. Pinto
Crybaby Bridge #25 by Gary A. Braunbeck
Stillegeist by Martin Livings
I Want to Go Home by A.J. Brown
Tourist Trap by Richard Farren Barber
Blood and Bone by Robert Mammone
Exposure Compensation by Alan Baxter
Stinson Way: A Southern Gothic by Jacob Lambert
A Little Peace by Rebecca Fung
Mother’s House by Greg Chapman
Comic
Allure of the Ancients; The Key to His Kingdom – story by Mark Farrugia, illustrations by Greg Chapman
Special Features
An interview with Victor Miller
AHWA Short Story and Flash Fiction Competition winners –
It’s Always the Children Who Suffer by Alan Baxter
Darker by Zena Shapter
Moonlight Sonata by Tim Hawken
Regular Features
A Word from the AHWA President – Geoff Brown
Tartarus – Danny Lovecraft (poetry column)
Pix and Panels – Mark Farrugia (comic column)
Black Roads, Dark Highways #5 – Andrew McKiernan (column)
Celluloid Nightmares – Mark Smith-Briggs
Sinister Reads (all the latest releases from AHWA members)
And on top of all that, the cover art will be done by Vincent Chong. That makes me very happy, as Vincent’s artwork is amazing. He did the cover of the anthology A Killer Among Demons, also edited by Craig Bezant, published by Craig’s outfit, Dark Prints Press. You’ll have heard me talk about that book, as it has my story, The Beat of a Pale Wing, in it. And I’ve mentioned before that I think that anthology is one of the best produced in recent years (even if it does feature me!)
So really, this is just tremendous news all around. You can pre-order the limited print edition of Midnight Echo 10 here now. The mag is due for release on November 30th and we’ll have a cover reveal before then.
*Snoopy dance*
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Great Inspiration – guest post from Jason Nahrung
Last week I posted about the time, back in 1989, when I met Neil Gaiman and got a signed copy of Sandman #1, with no idea at the time of the significance of the event. You can see that post here. At the end of the post I said I would put the call out to my writerly friends and see if any of them had similar inspirations in their lives they might like to share. The wonderful Thoraiya Dyer got back to me with this excellent post and Martin Livings wrote me this great post. Now I have a little something from Jason Nahrung:
When art and circumstance collide.
It was back in 2011 when I’d been to an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria about the Secessionist movement — Gustav Klimt is probably the most famous of them. But it was a painting by Oskar Kokoschka, of a Count Verona, and the enigmatic personality of seamstress and muse Emilie Floge that really got under my skin.
Lo, the very next day, an email arrived announcing a new anthology, Tales from the Bell Club (KnightWatch Press, 2012), looking for stories set in a time period that included the Secessionists. A little more research about Verona and the group, and ‘The Kiss’ was born, incorporating Emilie and Gustav and Oskar, a tuberculosis clinic and a cult led by another enigmatic figure, the Comte de St Germain (under one of his nom de plumes).
One of those wonderful moments when arts and circumstances collided, and I got to be an Austrian suffragette of the early 1900s.
Thanks to Amazon’s Look Inside feature, you can read (and buy) the end product here.
This is the Verona painting:
And here’s Emilie:
Jason Nahrung is a Ballarat-based writer and editor. His latest novel is Blood and Dust, an outback vampire adventure melding Mad Max and Anne Rice. www.jasonnahrung.com
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Great Inspiration – guest post from Martin Livings
Last week I posted about the time, back in 1989, when I met Neil Gaiman and got a signed copy of Sandman #1, with no idea at the time of the significance of the event. You can see that post here. At the end of the post I said I would put the call out to my writerly friends and see if any of them had similar inspirations in their lives they might like to share. The wonderful Thoraiya Dyer got back to me with this excellent post, and today I have a post from Martin Livings:
The Year 1990
1990 was the year that made me. Or ruined me, depending on your point of view. I’d already been writing and submitting stories to the only local SF magazine I knew of, a trashy little beast called “Far Out”. They were amazing tales I sent them, like the one about the advanced civilisation being wiped out by a natural disaster, only to be revealed that it was actually an ants’ nest being stepped on by a small child. Or the one about the two armies fighting to the death that turned out to be a game of chess. Wow, incredible stuff. I wonder why they never accepted them?
Then in 1990 I attended Curtin University for less than a semester, my second unsuccessful foray into academic life. But during that semester, I joined the Curtin Imagination Association (CIA), as a high school friend of mine was already a member, and through them found out about the existence of Swancon, the annual Perth science fiction convention. So I thought, what the hell, sounds like it could be fun, and went along.
And that, as they say, was that.
The guest of honour was the brilliant Terry Dowling. I’d never heard of Terry before that, but hearing him talk, hearing him read, I was gone. Here was an Australian spec fic writer, doing things I’d never seen done in spec fic before. Rynosseros blew my tiny mind; I still have the copy I bought at the con, signed by Terry. I also met Nick Stathopolous for the first time there, artist extraordinaire. And it wasn’t just meeting them, either, but all of the people there, people like me, yet all different too. I wasn’t alone any more. It was energising and liberating to discover this.
These were huge inspirations, but the biggest inspiration that came out of Swancon 1990 was meeting the incredible team that were putting together what was at the time (and in my humble opinion still is) the finest Australian spec fic journal ever, Eidolon. Meeting the editors, Jeremy G. Byrne, Richard Scriven and Jonathan Strahan, plus of course the others involved in getting the magazine up and running, Keira McKenzie, Robin Pen and Chris Stronach, was like a lightbulb going off in my brain. Or maybe a nuclear explosion. These guys were locals, they were here in Perth, and they were doing incredible things with the genre.
I wanted in. I wanted in bad.
(Martin in home-made Freddy Krueger makeup, Swancon 1990)
It took me two years to get a story accepted by them. That sounds like a long time, but considering the legendary slowness of the Eidolon reading process, it was actually pretty quick. At around the same time, I also had a story accepted by Aurealis, the other local powerhouse on the scene, which I’m so glad is still alive and well today. I ended up working for Eidolon in the end, first writing book reviews, then editing the book review column, and finally as an associate editor. I made so many great friends through this; Sean Williams and Kirstyn McDermott were two of my favourite go-to book reviewers, and of course the amazing (and Oscar-winning!) Shaun Tan was the art editor, to name only three of many. But more than that, I learned. I learned about the craft and the art. I learned what was good, what was bad, and, worse, what was ordinary and dull. I learned more than I ever could have in any university.
1990, Swancon and Eidolon teamed up and created the beginning of my writing career. And even though Eidolon may no longer be with us, it sits on my bookshelf and continues to inspire me, to make me want to do better, write better, be better. Hopefully it always will.
Perth-based writer Martin Livings has had nearly eighty short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His first novel, Carnies, was published by Hachette Livre in 2006, and his first short story collection, Living With the Dead, was published in 2012 by Dark Prints Press. http://www.martinlivings.com
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2012 storySouth Million Writers Award notable stories
Well, this was a very pleasant surprise today, and many thanks to Josh Melican who pointed it out to me on my Facebook page. The news came via the website of Jason Sanford, one of the judges of the storySouth Million Writers Award, and the news is that one of my stories made the cut to be shortlisted among the notable stories of 2012.
You can learn more about the award at storySouth.com
The judges are currently reading the shortlist to pick the top ten, released in October, which will be eligible for more than $1,000 in cash and prizes. I’m not too sure how it all works, but I’ll certainly be watching closely now.
My shortlisted story is Tiny Lives, originally published in Daily Science Fiction. It’s a story that’s working hard for me, as it’s already been picked to be included in the latest Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror, due out soon, which is very exciting. To be shortlisted here as well is great news.
There are quite a few notable stories on the list and it’s an honour to be among them. Full list below.
2012 storySouth Million Writers Award notable stories
(Stories listed in random order)
“Freezing Time” by Murli Melwani http://www.asiancha.com/content/view/1268/357/
“All the Things the Moon is Not” by Alexander Lumans http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/lumans_05_12/
“Dirwhals!” By Ethan Rutherford http://www.fivechapters.com/2013/dirwhals/
“For Old Times’ Sake” by Billy O’Callaghan http://www.mendacitypress.com/20OCallaghan.html
“Red Planet” By Jo Ann Heydron http://www.pacificareview.com/?p=372
“Polly” by Nik Korpon http://blackpetalsks.tripod.com/yellowmamaarchives/id434.html
“Invisible Men” by Christopher Barzak http://christopherbarzak.com/invisible-men/
“Shadows under Hexmouth Street” by Justin Howe http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/shadows-under-hexmouth-street-by-justin-howe/
“Secrets of the Sea” by Jennifer Marie Brissett http://futurefire.net/2012.24/fiction/secretsofthesea.html
“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” by Maria Dahvana Headley http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/give-her-honey-when-you-hear-her-scream/
“The Grinnell Method” by Molly Gloss http://www.strangehorizons.com/2012/20120903/grinnell-f.shtml
“Hands” by Lou Gaglia http://www.waccamawjournal.com/pages.php?x=423
“Tiny Lives” by by Alan Baxter http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/modern-fantasy/alan-baxter/tiny-lives
“After We Were Nothing” by Alan Stewart Carl http://www.dzancbooks.org/the-collagist/2012/6/11/after-we-were-nothing.html
“The Battle of Candle Arc” by Yoon Ha Lee http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/lee_10_12/
“Distance” by Susan Tepper http://www.thricefiction.com/pdf/ThriceFiction007X.pdf
“Sasha, That Night” by G. K. Wuori http://www.eclectica.org/v16n3/wuori.html
“Lightning My Pilot” by Samuel Snoek-Brown http://www.bartlebysnopes.com/lightningmypilot.htm
“The Three Feats of Agani” by Christie Yant http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-three-feats-of-agani/
“Lone Wolf” by Eric Freeze http://carvezine.com/2012-winter-freeze/
“An Occurrence at School” by Okechukwu Otukwu http://www.eclectica.org/v16n2/otukwu.html
“The Anastasia Caper” by Bruce Graham www.eclectica.org/v16n2/graham.html
“West” by Ryan W. Bradley http://www.pankmagazine.com/west/
“Woodrow Wilson” by Tim Horvath http://www.mhpbooks.com/woodrow-wilson/
“Birthday Americana” by Erika Swyler http://www.litro.co.uk/2012/07/erika-swyler-birthday-americana/
“Cousin Barnaby is Dead” by Clifford Garstang http://www.joylandmagazine.com/stories/midwest/cousin_barnaby_dead
“Reform, AL” by Christopher Lowe http://baltimorereview.org/index.php/winter_2012/contributor/christopher-lowe
“The Cathedral of Es” by Michael Stein http://www.pilvaxmag.com/the-cathedral-of-es-by-michael-stein/
“Mother Ship” by Caroline M. Yoachim http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/mother-ship/
“Who Cooks for You” By Holly Goddard Jones http://www.fivechapters.com/2012/who-cooks-for-you/
“Why I Hate the Holidays” by Andrea Broxton http://www.eclectica.org/v16n1/broxton.html
“Confidante” by Michael Barber http://www.eclectica.org/v16n1/barber.html
“And the Hollow Space Inside” by Mari Ness http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ness_02_12/
“Chlorine Mermaid” by Rachel Steiger-Meister http://carvezine.com/2012-spring-steiger-meister/
“Serkers and Sleep” by Kenneth Schneyer http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/serkers-and-sleep-by-kenneth-schneyer/
“Art Lessons” by Gleah Powers http://www.primenumbermagazine.com/Issue17_Fiction_GleahPowers.html
“Household Management” by Ellen Klages http://www.strangehorizons.com/fund_drives/2012/special-issue-household-f.shtml
“Everyday Murders” by Jasobn Ockert http://www.storysouth.com/2012/09/everyday-murders.html
“Watching Alice Watch” by Nan Cuba http://www.storysouth.com/2012/03/watching-alice-watch.html
“Literature Appreciation” by Man Martin http://carvezine.com/2012-winter-martin/
“The Raven” by Jacqueline Kolosov http://cimarronreview.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/kolosov4web.pdf
“The Ones” by Nicholas Rombes http://fiddleblack.org/journal/issue-6/the-ones
“Treasures Few Have Ever Seen” by Mary Akers http://www.primenumbermagazine.com/Issue29_Fiction_MaryAkers.html
“And the Ruin of That House Was Great” by Ric Hoeben http://tampareviewonline.org/fiction/and-the-ruin-of-that-house-was-great/
“The Eternal Youth of Everyone Else” by Adrienne Celt http://carvezine.com/2012-summer-celt/
“The King’s Huntsman” by Jennifer Mason-Black http://giganotosaurus.org/2012/09/01/the-kings-huntsman
“Melt With You” by Emily C. Skaftun http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/skaftun_04_13/
“The Tree Poachers” by James Zerndt http://www.spiltinfinitive.com/the-tree-poachers/#.UfBgNVOt7-c
“The Butterfly Effect” by Daniel Harris http://madhattersreview.com/issue13/cnf_harris.shtml
“Ocean of Ash” by Kirsten Perry http://www.wordriot.org/archives/4450
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Great Inspiration – guest post from Thoraiya Dyer
Last week I posted about the time, back in 1989, when I met Neil Gaiman and got a signed copy of Sandman #1, with no idea at the time of the significance of the event. You can see that post here. At the end of the post I said I would put the call out to my writerly friends and see if any of them had similar inspirations in their lives they might like to share. The wonderful Thoraiya Dyer got back to me with this excellent post:
Inspirational things – The Empire Trilogy by Feist and Wurts
Daughter of the Empire, by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, was published in 1987.
I didn’t read it until 1992. That year, the third book in the series came out; I saw my mother actually go without food so that she could buy the book and find out the fate of Mara, Lady of the Acoma.
Meanwhile, I was just starting high school. Daughter of the Empire had a turreted, cathedral-looking castle and a blonde with a broadsword on the cover. Yet the first line was: “The priest struck the gong.” I’d sure never seen a gong in a cathedral.
I hadn’t heard of whitewashing in 1992 but soon lost myself in a story devoid of blondes. There were no turrets. There weren’t even any broadswords. The fascinating tale of a teenage girl inheriting the leadership of a once-mighty feudal family and battling with her wits to keep from being crushed by her rivals kept me absolutely riveted to the very last page.
Along the way there were honour-bound Tsurani warriors that sounded suspiciously like samurai. Grey warriors that might have been ronin. There were wood-framed palaces with paper screens instead of solid walls. There were spies who did not brawl like James Bond but infiltrated like ninjas.
Later, I discovered that Feist and Wurts had used Korea and Ancient Rome as their inspiration, but by then, barking up the wrong tree, I’d already delved into all things Japanese.
I took Japanese for my language elective that year. When Mum asked if I wanted to do netball or soccer, I told her I wanted to do karate. I read Zen Flesh, Zen Bones and The Book of Five Rings. I set my alarm for 3am to get up and watch inappropriately classified and poorly dubbed anime while drinking green tea. Pre-internet, I sent physical letters to the Japanese pen pal I later met on my first amazing trip to Japan.
I learned enough about this other culture that when older Australians with hangovers from World War II told me that the Japanese were a cruel and inhuman race, I could set them straight in no uncertain terms.
The cultural diversity to be found in today’s SFF is an absolute joy to me but I’ll never forget where I found it first. The vivid fantasy world of the fictional Empire was not Japan, not Korea and not Ancient Rome. Some might argue, today, that the borrowed elements of it were not Feist’s or Wurts’ to borrow, but what they did, while they were borrowing it, was wave it in my young, impressionable face and say, “Look! How incredibly cool is this? People can live lives that are completely different to yours, so different that you’ll never be able to look at your own culture the same way again, and yet just as rich, just as dangerous, just as colourful, just as gut-wrenching, just as meaningful and just as true.”
I’ll owe them a debt forever, because of that.
I’ve borrowed many places and people in my short fiction that didn’t belong to me. I’ve set stories in Nepal, Scotland, the Caribbean and New South Wales pre-colonisation. I’ve written Spaniards and South Americans, Quakers and Christian Saints.
When I make mistakes, I’m very sorry for it, I feel inadequacy and terrible remorse, but I hope that for every person offended by my ignorance, five more will be inspired to go to the source, to museums or the internet, to film, art, fiction or non-fiction made or written by people who are of that culture or to meet and speak with those people, and become immersed, drinking up all the detail I could not give them, because all I was really doing, all I was trying to do, was shout out to my readers, “Look! How incredibly cool is this?”
Thoraiya Dyer is an Australian writer who lives online at http://www.thoraiyadyer.com . Her four-story collection, Asymmetry, is available at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Asymmetry-Twelve-Planets-ebook/dp/B00BWWK94W ), Wizard’s Tower (http://www.wizardstowerbooks.com/products/asymmetry-thoraiya-dyer ) or direct from Twelfth Planet Press (http://www.twelfthplanetpress.com/products/paperbacks/asymmetry ). The naginata, or Japanese halberd, a women’s weapon of feudal times, features in one of the stories.
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All Hallow’s Read
Talking of Neil Gaiman (see last post) there’s this. Watch, share, OBEY!
And if you need any ideas for scary books to give to people, might I suggest RealmShift, MageSign or Dark Rite.
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Precious things of great inspiration
It’s strange that we often have no idea we’re being inspired. Sure, sometimes a thing can hit us squarely between the eyes, maybe even literally, and we realise we’ve just been given an experience that will inform our mind and actions from that day forward. But often, inspiration is a slow creep. And often, the seed of that inspiration can become very special to us. I got waffling on Twitter last night about this one particular inspiring event in my life. I was drinking whisky, which is often when I gets to thinking, and said I’d blog about it today. So here I am.
It’s 1989. I’m an 18 year old nerd and martial artist, not long started at my first job after quitting school early because I hated book learning. All I wanted to do was train, play role-playing and video games with my mates and read, especially comic books at that time. I also knew I wanted to be a writer, but back then the urge hadn’t solidified into the powerful drive it later became. But it was there. I’d already tried and failed on several novels, written a bunch of hideously self-obsessed poems, all that stuff. But I was in a period of deep love for comic books that has never really abated. But it was never more exciting than it was then.
The mid- to late-80s were a fantastic time for comic books. It was when they evolved into something far greater than the superhero colours and penny dreadfuls they had been before. Partly in respose to things like Thatcher’s Britain and Wall Street greed and partly simply coming of age, comics writers began to develop more subversive stories and characters. The ideas became so much greater than before. Alan Moore wrote V For Vendetta, published between ’82 and ’85. Then he wrote Watchmen, released in ’86 and ’87, and that changed the face of comic books forever. In June ’85, Alan Moore, Steve Bissette and Jamie Delano created the character of John Constantine in The Saga of the Swamp Thing and Constantine went on to lead the Hellblazer comic book from ’93. All of these things and many more were a massive influence on me. I have original editions of all of the above. But perhaps the most influential of all was a new series I came across purely by chance.
I used to buy my comics most of the time from a shop in Aldershot. One weekend, we saw a notice up that there was going to be a signing with two young fellows by the names of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. I’d never heard of them. I guess, back then, not many people had. Not like now. They were promoting a new series called Sandman. I thought, Sounds interesting, might pop along. So I did. This Sandman #1 comic had a cover unlike anything I’d ever seen. Both Gaiman and McKean were incredibly nice guys, taking plenty of time to chat while signing the comics for us with fancy gold pens. I remember thinking to myself, This Gaiman’s a nice chap. I hope he does well.
He really did do well.
I also thought at the time that the comic might be pretty interesting. It really looked like my kind of thing. It turned out to be way more than interesting. It was outstanding. I was so impatient for every month when the new issue would come around. I devoured them, reread them and, when the run was finally finished, I read them all again and again. I’ve got the entire set in graphic novel now, and I’ve read that more than once. I’d love the huge folio editions, but I just can’t afford them right now. One day…
Here’s my signed copy from back in 1989:
Click on it for a better res image.
Check out the inside, that old rough paper, not today’s gloss. This is the look and feel of comic books I spent so much time with.
Again, click for better resolution.
And I write about this now because that event in an Aldershot comic book store was a turning point in my life, and at the time I had no idea. There is no question that Sandman is one of the stories which most influenced me as a writer. The style and voice as well as the subject matter and characters was instrumental in helping me find my own authorial voice. Of course, I’m still discovering that now as I go along, but reading Sandman was pivotal. And I remember how nice Gaiman was, and remember thinking, If I ever do get to be a successful writer, I want to be a nice guy like him. If I ever see a fraction of Gaiman’s success, or achieve a fraction of his niceness, I’ll be very happy indeed.
So that signed edition of Sandman #1, whatever it’s actually worth, is absolutely priceless to me. It’s one of my most prized possessions.
This is the power of storytelling. It changes lives. And not just the lives of writers, as I’m sure there are many thousands of people out there with no desire to be writers, who were equally affected by that comic book. Or one like it. Or a novel, film, play, short story, what have you.
So thank you , Neil Gaiman.
When I was blithering about this on Twitter, I mentioned that I couldn’t remember for certain if the shop was Aldershot or Guildford. I was fairly sure it was Aldershot, but quipped, “Maybe @neilhimself remembers”. This morning there was a reply from Neil Gaiman that said, “We definitely did Aldershot. Don’t think we did Guildford…”
So, while doing my best not to lose my mind because Neil Gaiman replied to me on Twitter, I’m now certain it was indeed Aldershot. I don’t even know if that store is still there. But these are the things that inform our lives and, at the time, we may not notice. It’s worth reflecting, tracing back those threads of inspiration and taking a moment to appreciate what happened.
I might ask some of my writerly friends what truly inspirational moments and/or possessions are most precious to them. Watch this space.
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Recognising burnout
It’s taken me a few days to realise, but I’m currently in a state of writing burnout. It won’t last, of course, but it is happening now. The last few weeks I’ve been working my arse off to get two novel manuscripts finished. One into a polished final draft and the other into a draft of sufficient quality to send out to beta readers for their comment and ridicule. I had a deadline for these tasks of “before the baby comes”. My kid is due at the end of October, so I hit well inside my deadline, which was expected, but still very gratifying. I also said to myself, knowing I was likely to meet that deadline with time to spare, that another couple of projects I’ve been holding off could get my attention once those novels were handed in. Turns out they can’t. At least, not right now.
I’ve been trying to find focus the last couple of days, stressing that writing time was slipping away with no writing being done. This morning I went for a long walk on the beach with Penry, my faithful hound. I have two kinds of quiet, personal bliss: walking Penry and riding my motorcycle. These are times when I’m alone with my own thoughts and I give myself space to think. It might be writing related thinking, working through life issues or just brain-percolation time with no fixed agenda. During today’s walk I realised that I need to take a break from writing for a week or two.
I absolutely do not believe that writers need to write every day. That kind of bullshit rule pisses me off, and I’ve talked about that before. But, while not actually writing, writers are being writers all the time. We watch, listen, turn over ideas, imagine all kinds of people and places. We constantly log that stuff. Even when we’re not writing on screen or paper, we’re writing in our heads. Usually I’ll have several days every week where I’m actually writing stuff down. My realisation today is that I need to allow myself a week or two where I don’t have to do that. I’ll still let my writerly brain churn over whatever it wants, but I won’t berate myself for not sitting at the keyboard and vomiting out words. Even though I’m technically doing that right now, but shut up, I’m talking about fiction and you know it.
It’s like physical training, the other professional focus of my life. Working hard, practicing every day is very important. But an integral part of training is rest. Sometimes the active rest of ongoing life, and sometimes a proper break of a week or more. You come back to your chosen field recovered, recuperated and reinvigorated. The same applies to the creative arts.
So I’m okay with having a week or two of not writing. It’s bad timing in some ways, because the due date for my son grows ever nearer and there’s going to be some enforced time off then. But I’m a fucking professional, so what has to be done will be done during that time. But for now, I’m putting my writerly feet up and letting my creative wells replenish.
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