Tag: graveyard book

Podcast notes – Neil Gaiman (Sandman, American Gods, Graveyard Book) and Tim Ferriss

Guest: Neil Gaiman
Wrote American Gods, Neverwhere, Sandman, Graveyard Book
Won Hugo and Nebula and many more
Narrates many of his own books
Currently showrunner for Good Omens, a BBC show
Professor @ Bard College

Tim’s chased this interview for a decade

Neil – at 15yo, started a magazine as a way to meet his favorite writers
Interviewed Roger Dean, designer and artist, famous for album covers – but the recorded audio messed up, so he’s always carried spares now

Ian Fleming didn’t enjoy process of writing James Bond books
So he would check into a strange hotel in a strange place for 2 weeks, nothing else to do except write
Ian also gave Roald Dahl some of his best story twists
Neil sometimes does this hotel thing – wrote in a Marriott in World Trade Center, just wanted to finish and get out

Biggest rule he tells himself – you can sit there and you’re allowed to do absolutely nothing, but if you do something, you must write

Has a 3yo son – more fun to play with him than write

Often does first draft in fountain pen – likes to fill the ink, likes the heft, can see progress more clearly
“Emphasizes that no one’s meant to read your first draft”
First draft is you telling story to yourself
Second draft is typing into a computer – making it look like he knew what he was doing all along

Computer expands a story like gas – the stories tend to get longer, but there isn’t a lot more story there (than writing by hand)
Doesn’t want his story to become gaseous and thin

Likes Leuchtturm1917 notebooks for writing

Has a house in Wisconsin

Anything you do can be fixed – but you can’t fix a blank page

What fountain pens he recs
-Go to NY fountain pen hospital – try them out
-Likes Lamy pens
-Signed ~1.5M signatures with a Pilot 823

Most of his early career, he wrote with an electric typewriter
After 10 years, he wanted antiquated rhythms while writing Stardust, so he decided to try hand writing / dip pens. You need to slow up, think ahead, write complete sentences

How to remove performance anxiety / pressure
Neil likes writing things no one’s waiting for
Wrote Coraline after American Gods – no one was expecting a children’s book – editors told him it was unpublishable
Wrote 5 or 6 lines a night, right before bed

Used to write multiple projects at once – if he got stuck on one, would rotate to another – but feels like he’s not as good at doing that anymore, takes too long to switch between projects

When he started (22-27ish), was a late night writer – nothing happened until kids in bed, 9pm until 2am, smoked, drank coffee
Later switched from coffee to tea, and began to fall asleep earlier
Writing novels works best when you can have the same day over and over again – like Groundhog Day
His example routine while staying at a friend’s lake house – wake up, go for a jog, go to a cafe, cup of green tea, sit in a corner and just start writing – and after a few months, had “Ocean at the end of the lane”

Tim’s favorite fiction audiobook is Graveyard Book
Where did that book come from?
25yo (1984 or so), living in Sussex, an old tall house his dad owned, had a 3yo son who loved his tricycle, they’d go across road to a churchyard
Saw how happy his son was riding his trike in that graveyard
Kinda like Jungle Book – kid in the graveyard being raised by dead people
It didn’t quite work – there was a demon, the character was very like his son – felt like the story was too good but his writing wasn’t there yet
He put it off for a decade, but knew it had legs
Over years, just let the story accumulate
After finishing Anansi Boys, decided to tackle it again
This time he didn’t start writing from beginning, but from the middle instead – Headstone (Ch4) – read it to his daughter Maddy, who wanted to know what happens next, so he kept writing, and eventually got it
“there was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife”

Friendship w/ Terry Pratchett
English writer who died in 2015, humorist and satirist, Discworld series, bestselling UK novelist
Met at an Italian restaurant, was a young journalist, Terry was a press officer at the time, “had same kind of mind”
Terry would send his drafts, get feedback on what’s funnier
Neil sent a draft to Terry of a project (Good Omens), Terry wanted to buy it or write it together, was wonderful apprenticeship for Neil
Finally turned into a TV show – Neil is showrunner, making the show was one of Terry’s last wishes
Cast Jon Hamm, David Tennant, Michael Sheen, etc
“giant interwoven panoply of mixed emotions”

What did he learn from Terry?
Willingness to go forward w/o knowing what happens next
George RR Martin divides writers into architects and gardeners – Neil would rather be a gardener, allow for accidents and surprises
Wanted to make Terry laugh
Terry had a form of Alzheimers, made documentaries about Alzheimers, supported assisted suicide / right to die

Notes from Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass on fiction writing: “The best short stories are the last chapter of a novel I didn’t write”

If you haven’t read @neilhimself, start with The Graveyard Book (Newbery, Carnegie winner). An incredible story and a singular storyteller.

Here are my edited notes from his Masterclass:

  • For story ideas, you can take fairy tales but flip the perspective: eg, from her Stepmother’s perspective, Snow White could be a villain, a vampire princess, with a necrophiliac prince, and the stepmother is a HEROINE for trying to save the world
  • He writes down random, everyday conversations – as fodder for the mental “compost heap”
  • Jerry Garcia: “Style is the stuff that you get wrong”
  • He wrote a children’s book at 22, never saw light of day – much later, he went back to read it, and he realized that a very small piece of it really sounded like him – but the rest didn’t
    • “The voice was there, I just had to do a whole lot more writing”
  • He wrote maybe 100-200 first pages, short stories, setups, characters
    • Eventually he realized he had to start finishing them – the improvement was QUANTUM
  • He thinks a lot about what kind of narrator will be telling the story, what kind of writing voice he’ll use
  • Whenever he’s stuck, he ask “what does my character want?” this is always your way through – you can put two of the strongest and most developed characters together, have them battle over what they want, discuss it, search for it, find it
    • Characters always get what they NEED, not what they WANT
    • Give them explicit and conflicting desires – each character wants something, and they should clash
  • “A good short story is a magic trick”
  • “The best short stories are the last chapter of a novel I didn’t write” – Roger Zelazny (sp?)
  • Give each character at least one distinguishing characteristic – sounds obvious, but most new writers don’t have the confidence to do it – you don’t want your characters to sound and act indistinguishable outside of their names!
    • Can be jewelry, hair, behavioral tics, tall vs short, fat vs skinny, accents, words or phrases they like to use (mono vs polysyllabic), what they eat
  • The Graveyard Book is “the Jungle Book but in a graveyard”, inspired by walking with his 2-yo son through a graveyard one day, and noticing how comfy his son was riding his little tricycle among the headstones
    • Had the idea at 25 yo, wrote the first chapter, realized his chops weren’t there yet, and came back to write it 20 years later (!)
  • “Once a thing is jotted down, it’s rotting away – usefully – on the compost heap of my imagination, and they’re there if I need them”
  • Don’t listen to people who tell you to avoid exposition and description – there are no rules other than to TELL A GREAT STORY
  • Humor
    • “Whenever you’re writing, you want some humor, because humor is recognition”
    • Humor is also surprise
    • Humor is funny words eg, the word “lard”
    • Where in the sentence a word lands can make the difference in whether it’s funny or not funny
  • What are your reader’s expectations? What are they there for?
  • Understanding genre is a HUGELY valuable tool
  • For writing graphic novels / comics, he starts with thumbnails – literally a book of blank paper, and begins sketching and writing
    • The key units of info are the PANEL and the PAGE – which is why he mocks out each page like a comic book
    • Writes a letter to the illustrator to inspire them, give context, describe characters, develop goals
  • E L Doctorow: Writing a novel is like driving through the fog with one headlight out
  • Neil recommends EXPLODE onto the page, all your thoughts, ideas, then you start shaping and structuring
  • He likes to take long breaks between phases, especially when he’s stuck – do other things – then come back to it, re-read it with fresh eyes, preferably printed out
  • For him, the most important step is between FIRST and SECOND DRAFT
    • Ask yourself: what’s it about? Then, do more of what it’s about, do less of what it’s not about
    • “The process of doing a second draft is process of making it look like you knew what you were doing all along”
  • When people tell you it doesn’t work for them, they’re right; and when people tell you how you should fix it, they’re almost always wrong – know the difference
    • Usually when something is wrong, the fix comes earlier
  • Rules to getting published (via Robert Heinlein)
    1. Write
    2. Finish
    3. Share it with someone who can publish it
    4. Listen to their feedback, make changes
    5. Continue writing
  • On bad days, you’ll feel like a very tired bricklayer
  • But the funny thing is, when something of yours gets published, and you read the work, you realize that there really isn’t any difference between the words you wrote on the good days, and those you wrote on the bad days…and that’s incredibly humbling
  • Get so good that nobody can reject you…but expect and be ok with rejection
  • What are a writer’s responsibilities? Or of anyone who creates art?
    • Neil shares incredibly sad anecdote about someone committed suicide, and left a note that said, “The Sandman did it” (the Sandman is one of Neil’s most famous works)
    • But it turns out, it wasn’t a suicide, his boyfriend had murdered him, and left a fake note…and then the boyfriend also killed himself