Showing posts with label Neil Gaiman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neil Gaiman. Show all posts

Monday, April 09, 2012

Do You Sing When You're Happy?

Anyone remember this song?

It might just be an idiosyncrasy of mine to say this, but sometimes objective clues tell me my mood better than my emotions. There are times when I feel neutral, but then I burst out singing. Usually I sing when I'm happy, although I sometimes sing when I'm sad, and sometimes when I'm vengeful. That I know more happy songs than sad ones prevents me from very often singing when I'm sad or otherwise unhappy. As a result, it's a good bet that a song from me is a happy one. Which has been good for me to know because at times I'll discover that I'm singing when I hadn't planned to and find that the mood-uncommitted-to-opinion of a moment earlier had a little bit more cheer in it than I thought.... Or I'm crazy.

Yegawds, I'm thinking in my public speaking teacher's voice, which is actually not good news. I shall go watch Neil Gaiman on Q TV. Sigh.

Okay, so yeah, am I alone in this weirdness? Or are there people out there who also use objective tells to judge their own emotions? It's weird.


Sunday, April 08, 2012

What Would You Write, with Opportunity to Do It?

What story would give you paroxysms of bliss to discover it coming from your imagination?

Yesterday I saw Christopher Moore give a talk to promote his new book, Sacre Bleu. He's a clever dude, and with Neil Gaiman I think one of the seventy people I aspire to be, or be very nearly similar to. Anyway, over the course of his talky talk, M. Moore had cause to explain some of his origin story, as it were. Most of M. Moore's origins--the explanations he gave for being how he was who he is--involved, essentially, dares. He wrote Practical Demon Keeping because Stephen King's literary agent said in the forward of some best-of-horror compilation that horror was great because it could be mixed with any theme...except whimsy. And M. Moore snickered at that and said "like hell!" and wrote Practical Demon Keeping, a whimsical horror novel. Since then he has written almost only whimsical horror, and been successful at it, if not successfully frightening all the time. But we take what is proffered. His air of accepting dares influenced all the stories of why he wrote, and I found that hilarious and I'm mulling it over. A different part of his attitude stuck with me, though; that being his joy in it.

M. Moore writes the stories he wants to read. That sounds reasonably intuitive. A writer is called to write that which he would be pleased reading. Many of my other influences share this sometimes childish glee in what they write. My buddy/mentore, Jenny, and our mutual demon-muse, Ali, take this sometimes creepy enjoyment in things like "jerkified corpses" and the general mayhem arising from unexpected monsters. The gore aside, they write stories that they want to read. They take pleasure in what they write. It's fun to see up close. And the pleasure they take in their stories is apparent in the reading of the stories themselves.

So my musing point: What do you like to read? As much as I do like stories and books, I'm having the devil's own time trying to figure out what I like reading. Like as not, I'm one of the few people like that. I'm trying to figure it out, however. I want to write what I like to read, but I'm not sure what I like to read. It's a peculiar predicament.

I'm going to stew on it, and no doubt produce some odd, ADD, obscure puzzle of a thing, pretty to its maker. In the meantime, just for discussing it, what story would you want to see produced? What weaving thing would you make with the time and energy, eh? Mine eyes are tearing with curiosity, dear heart.