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Be proud of your mistakes. Well, proud may not be exactly the right word, but respect them, treasure them, be kind to them, learn from them. And, more than that, and more important than that, make them. Make mistakes. Make great mistakes, make wonderful mistakes, make glorious mistakes. Better to make a hundred mistakes than to stare at a blank piece of paper too scared to do anything wrong.
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Whatever happened to me in my life, happened to me as a writer of plays. I’d fall in love, or fall in lust. And at the height of my passion, I would think, “So this is how it feels,” and I would tie it up in pretty words. I watched my life as if it were happening to someone else. My son died. And I was hurt, but I watched my hurt, and even relished it, a little, for now I could write a real death, a true loss. My heart was broken by my dark lady, and I wept, in my room, alone; but while I wept, somewhere inside I smiled. For I knew I could take my broken heart and place it on the stage of The Globe, and make the pit cry tears of their own.
William Shakespeare, portrayed as looking back over his career as he finishes writing The Tempest as one of two plays commissioned by Morpheus (aka Dream, aka The Sandman). “The Tempest,” issue #75 of The Sandman (1996), collected in The Wake by Neil Gaiman.
Source: en.wikiquote.org
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Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it?
It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…
You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore.
Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like ‘maybe we should be just friends’ or ‘how very perceptive’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.
It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.
Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love.
I hate love.
—Rose Walker in Sandman #65, The Kindly Ones
Post reblogged from Neil Gaiman with 548 notes
utflykt asked: So, I’ve been hearing things about an American Gods TV series. Do you have anything to say about that? I speak for the internet when I say I’d love any scrap of info you felt inclined to throw to us.
I’m on page 9 of the pilot script.
Source: neil-gaiman
Quote reblogged from Neil Gaiman with 5,631 notes
Roses are red,
Violets are purple,
Which is a very hard word to rhyme
And makes me happy that on February the 14th we don’t traditionally have to give each other oranges.
Source: neil-gaiman
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Where do you get your ideas? (1997) by Neil Gaiman
The question authors fear most … Neil tackles it here.
Every profession has its pitfalls. Doctors, for example, are always being asked for free medical advice, lawyers are asked for legal information, morticians are told how interesting a profession that must be and then people change the subject fast. And writers are asked where we get our ideas from.
In the beginning, I used to tell people the not very funny answers, the flip ones: ‘From the Idea-of-the-Month Club,’ I’d say, or ‘From a little ideas shop in Bognor Regis,’ ‘From a dusty old book full of ideas in my basement,’ or even ‘From Pete Atkins.’ (The last is slightly esoteric, and may need a little explanation. Pete Atkins is a screenwriter and novelist friend of mine, and we decided a while ago that when asked, I would say that I got them from him, and he’d say he got them from me. It seemed to make sense at the time.)
Then I got tired of the not very funny answers, and these days I tell people the truth:
‘I make them up,’ I tell them. ‘Out of my head.’
Source: neilgaiman.com
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Fiiinally got around to buying a copy of Blankets. I’ve borrowed it numerous times from the library, and as odd as some bits of it may be, it’s still one of my favorites. Expect a few scans to pop up at some point or another. I’m also hoping to actually stick to reading more often.
I’m also trying to see if I can get into more of some of Gaiman’s stuff - all I’ve read from him so far was Good Omens with Terry Pratchett and a good chunks of things from the Sandman mythos. Watching the film adaptation of Coraline might count. Considering the diversity of what he’s written on in both genre and medium, along with what I’ve learned from him from his tumblr (also, if you go to his site, he’s got a few free stories on there), I think he’s a fantastic guy, and one of my goals is, aside from reading more from other writers, is to find more stuff by him and buy it if I like it. Particularly Sandman, but that might take a while.
One odd thing I noticed is that I’m more likely to appreciate an artist, be it musician, writer, filmmaker, magician, or anything else, if they choose not to limit themselves. This might very well be ironic, coming from a dilettante such as myself. I wouldn’t describe these people as polymaths or Renaissance Men/Women so readily - they are flexible within what they do, but the terms seem a bit…broad, I guess. Whichever the case, it’s not something everyone can do, which is why dilettantes exist, but I’m fascinated by those who do have that capability.
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I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
Source: neil-gaiman
Just bought this not too long ago. I’ve only just started, but so far as I’ve read, I love it. It gives a hilariously casual perspective on the end of the world, not to some point of bashing religion, but more often than not just subverting what we’d expect of angels, demons, history, psychics, sudden audits, Best of Queen cassette tapes, and so on. What I find oddly eerie is the summary on the back, particularly the first bit:
The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.
So, more or less, anyone who’s read this would know how tomorrow goes. But if you don’t feel like reading this book to find out how the world ends tomorrow night, just look to Australia. Already Armageddon over there, if there is any, lol.
