Which means I’ll just quote Neil Gaiman like crazy, because everything he says is golden, and much more intelligent than anything I could put together, especially as my brain is still in the jungle and there are accusations of witchcraft coming…
Gaiman insisted there’s no such thing as Writer’s Block, explaining, “What you do is, you get stuck on something. Especially if you’re writing stories – it’s easy to get stuck on a story; you don’t know what happens next, or the thing that you thought you knew what happens next, those characters aren’t quite how you thought they were when you began, and now you’re at this point in the plot, it doesn’t feel right. It feels tinny or shallow or just wrong…It’s amazing how often I’ll be convinced that I’ve got myself to a point in the plot where there is no way out and I am doomed, and I’ll put it aside for a day or so, and then I’ll pick it up and I’ll read everything I’ve done, and I’ll go ‘Oh, hang on! I’m not doomed, because I’ve got this guy that I didn’t know what he was for, standing here already!’”
“Another thing that’s really, really good, if you want to be a writer, is writing, and not doing something else. Writers, all human beings, but particularly writers, are really good at doing something else. You may never have thought that your herb cupboard needed to be sorted alphabetically, you may not be the kind of person who normally says ‘I think I’ll clean the bath,’ but then suddenly, you’re writing, and something else seems easier. Daniel Pinkwater, who is a marvelous writer, talks about how he goes off to his writing place, and he is allowed to either write or not do anything at all. He’s not allowed to do something else; not do a crossword, not read a book, not do a blog entry or e-mail or something, can’t doodle. You can do absolutely nothing, or you can write. And it’s amazing how quickly the joy of sitting in a chair not doing anything at all palls, and writing just gets much more fun, and all of a sudden you’re writing again.”
When asked what makes a great story and storyteller, Gaiman replied “The biggest problem I have is, I’m like a magician – not a proper magician, not the Alan Moore kind, who burns things and has giant snakes appear, but the sneaky Penn & Teller kind who has somebody behind the stage with a wire that they pull at the appropriate time; watching magicians now, when I read fiction, you’re sitting there, and you may admire the speed of the transformation, you may admire the skill with which something was done, but you almost never sit there going ‘he’s going to cut that woman in half’ because you’ve been backstage too long. For me, what I really, really admire and care about most, are those writers who can make me go ‘Oh my god, he’s going to cut that poor woman in half!’ The writers who make me forget that there’s anybody behind the curtain, who can make me just have to know what happens next. Beautiful writing is part of it, I love beautiful writing, but I really want to be able to wander into the story in such a way that I can’t find my way out unless I keep reading through to the end.”
And this, from the late Ingmar Bergman:
“I want to be one of the artists of the cathedral that rises on the plain,” he said. “I want to occupy myself by carving out of stone the head of a dragon, an angel or a demon, or perhaps a saint; it doesn�t matter; I will find the same joy in any case. Whether I am a believer or an unbeliever, Christian or pagan, I work with all the world to build a cathedral because I am artist and artisan, and because I have learned to draw faces, limbs, and bodies out of stone. I will never worry about the judgment of posterity or of my contemporaries; my name is carved nowhere and will disappear with me. But a little part of myself will survive in the anonymous and triumphant totality. A dragon or a demon, or perhaps a saint, it doesn�t matter!”
Rock on.