I’m way late to the party on this one, and didn’t even know it existed until about fifteen seconds ago.
Listening to it gave me chills. I want to go re-read Watchmen right now so I can hear Rorschach’s real voice.
Category: Books
in which neil gaiman indirectly reassures me (again)
Since I declared that 2008 was the Year Wil Writes Lots of Fiction, I’ve been . . . well, I haven’t exactly been writing a lot of fiction. I’ve been trying to write a lot of fiction, but — okay, let’s just stop there and acknowledge what a lot of you are thinking right now: "Do or do not. There is no try."
Yeah. About that. The X-wing? Totally not coming up out of the swamp for me.
More often than not, when I’m just making stuff up and writing it, I get self conscious and feel like I’m trying too hard. I’ve had a lot of success coming up with ideas and characters, but when I try to combine them into a narrative form, I get massive performance anxiety. A big problem for me is working on a story for several days, and then realizing, "Oh shit. I’m writing Quantum Leap." or "Motherfucker! This sure was interesting when it was called Enemy Mine."
There has been much cursing, kicking of small objects, gnashing of teeth, and not nearly enough actual, you know, writing.
Getting past my paralyzing fear that "this has already been done by some master writer and you’re never going to be as good as him or her" will obviously have to happen sooner than later if I’m going to get any of these projects done, and I came across something on Neil Gaiman’s blog this morning that, while not a magic wand to cure the problem, was definitely part of the eventual solution:
Genre
fiction, as Terry Pratchett has pointed out, is a stew. You take stuff
out of the pot, you put stuff back. The stew bubbles on.
If Terry Pratchett can say it, and Neil Gaiman can endorse it, than I guess I can give myself a little bit of a break, and not throw something out entirely when I realize that a scene or a character or something has been unconsciously inspired by something I’ve read and enjoyed.
I can’t help but remember that Luke didn’t lift the X-wing out on his own; he had to see Yoda do it before he believed it was possible, and even after he did, he never lifted it out on his own . . . I need to go think about that for a little while, possibly in a hollowed-out tree.
See me at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
As I mentioned in the Great Geek Tour of 2008 post, I’ll be appearing at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, April 27. The festival is at UCLA (go Bruins!) and runs all weekend.
If you’d like to meet me, shower me with praise and tell me how charming and suave I am, here are some details I just got from Mysterious Galaxy, who are letting me ghetto up their booth:
Booth #614
Dickson Court North
2:00 PM Sunday April 27Authors: Charlie Huston, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta and Wil Wheaton
Signings will last approximately 50 – 55 minutes.
All three of my books will be available, and there will be punch and pie.
(There will actually be no punch or pie.)
Gorgeous Tiny Chickens, Batman, and the Happiest Media Kit
I guess it’s appropriate that I’m a computer geek, because I have a very binary lifestyle: my level of work is either 0 or 1, with nothing in between.
I’m currently set to 1, so my time to post is very limited (though I’ve been using Twitter like crazy, because it’s fast, immediate, and portable.)
However, I wanted to take a moment and share three things for your pleasurable enjoying.
1. I did an episode of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show last week. I don’t know when it will be released, but I saw an edit of it last night that is hilarious.
2. I got permission from James Tucker, producer of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, to tell the world that I worked on the show Monday. I can’t say anything about the content of the episode or the character I play — apparently, it’s a Darth Vader-is-his-father kind of secret — but it was massively fun, and since I’m one of the world’s biggest Batman Geeks, it was kind of a dream come true.
3. I can’t believe how many orders of Happiest Days were recently placed! I guess I should run out of printings more frequently. Many of you asked for a media kit, like the one I did for Dancing Barefoot. Well, here’s the Happiest Days of Our Lives media kit. Please download it and use it; it’s under a Creative Commons license, so I encourage you to get crazy go nuts with it.
Shit. The robots are crawling all over the lab again. I have to get back to work.
Happiest first printing is nearly sold out!
When I went to pack up a bunch of Happiest Days orders this morning, I realized that this totally awesome tower of books, representing much of the first printing, has been reduced to just three boxes, and one of those is only half full. I’m probably going to have to order a second printing for the great Geek Tour of 2008.
Thank you, so much, to everyone who has bought Happiest Days, talked about Happiest Days on your blogs or Live Journals or wherever you make your home online. Thank you to everyone who slipped it into conversation with friends, families and random hobos, and to everyone who has supported me and my work. Thank you for believing in me and supporting me. I don’t have a publicist or a big marketing budget or any traditional mainstream support in print or electronic media . . . but I’ve never felt like I’m doing this all by myself.