...but I'm stumbling across a lot of goodness on the web this morning.

20 (More) Strange and Exotic Endangered Species - these are not photoshopped at all. Yes, you'll freak out. Bugophobic people probably shouldn't look.

Alternate Currency - xkcd strikes again.

Two tee shirts, a party invitation and talking fish - Neil Gaiman shows off shirts for CBLDF. I want the first one badly, though the Hellboy one isn't bad. Also, they are reissuing the Vertigo Tarot deck for The Sandman anniversary. Yes, I want.

If you're not following Kawaii Not on LJ, you're missing out.

If Christmas Presents Were Honest by Holy Taco

Mercenaries, Sonic Blasters No Match for Pirates - if you build a better mousetrap, you only make a smarter mouse.

Psychopaths have an eye for the underdog - kind of a scary office environment experiment

How Comics Can Save Us From Scientific Ignorance

Here are some wonderful articles to read, via Neil Gaiman's journal.

The City Fantastic
Since ancient times, the supernatural has captivated storytellers and their audiences. Some of the earliest surviving literary forms—myths and folktales—feature such preternatural beings as gods, ghosts, fairies, witches, or vampires living among humans. Today, this fascination exists in the current boom in urban fantasy, a genre defined by John Clute and John Grant in their Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) as “texts where fantasy and the mundane world interact, intersect, and interweave throughout a tale which is significantly about a real city.”

Take A Break Somewhere Fantastic
As the final days of Hay fly by, and the first grey clouds of British high summer loom on the horizon, the mind turns to distant lands and far away places. But this holiday season forget the tawdry tourist traps and third world tours and take a trip instead into some of the fantasy worlds that lie within the common paperback book.

...but Neil Gaiman gave great writing advice lately in his journal.

You put your (right-hand rear) leg in...

The second draft is where the fun is. In a first draft, you get to explode. The objective (at least for me) is to get it down on paper, somehow. Battle through the laziness and the not-enough-time and the this-is-rubbish and everything else, and just get it written. Whatever it takes. The second draft is where you go and gather together the fragments of the explosion and figure out what it is you did, and make it look like that was what you always meant to do.

So you write it. Then you put it aside. Not for months, but perhaps for a week or so. Even a few days. Do other things. Then set aside some uninterrupted time to read, and pull it out, and pretend you have never read it before -- clear it out of your head, and sit and read it. (I'd suggest you do this on a print-out, so you can scribble on it as you go. )

When you get to the end you should have a much better idea of what it was about than you did when you started. (I knew The Graveyard Book would be about a boy who lived in a graveyard when I started it. I didn't know that it would be about how we make our families, though: that's a theme that made itself apparent while the book was being written.)

And then, on the second and subsequent drafts, you do four things. 1) You fix the things that didn't work as best you can (if you don't like the climactic Rock City scene in American Gods, trust me, the first draft was so much worse). 2) You reinforce the themes, whether they were there from the beginning or whether they grew like Topsy on the way. You take out the stuff that undercuts those themes. 3) You worry about the title. 4) At some point in the revision process you will probably need to remind yourself that you could keep polishing it infinitely, that perfection is not an attribute of humankind, and really, shouldn't you get on with the next thing now?

Does that help?

Beware the wrath of an Angry Penguin

The biggest problem I can see with the way you're doing it is that it doesn't seem to give you anything finished. (If it was working for you I'd have no suggestions. There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays and every single one of them is right, after all.) The second biggest problem is that if you're writing a novel scene by scene, trying to get each scene perfect, you don't get to see how anything works when you put it all together, and that's important. A novel is more than just a sequence of scenes put side by side. It has its own rhythms, and you have to bow to them; a novel, or any long story, is something that has to work when you put the whole thing together.

If you're being forced by the nature of what you're doing (episodic comics or serial television, or even writing a novel at 200 words a day online or in a newspaper) to just write and hope it all works out, that's one thing. But if you're writing a novel determined to make each scene perfect before you go on to the next, and you're writing the scenes out of order, then you're making something that's either going to work or not work when you put it all together. (That's still "write the first draft any which way".)

But it won't excuse you from doing a second draft, because you'll get to the end, and put all the scenes together, and then you'll still have to do a second draft, if only because when you read it you notice that you've got two Wednesdays coming together, and someone's name or eye-colour changes between scenes. Or your heroine seems like a bitch, although that wasn't your intention, because you don't have a scene there that shows her humanity. Or a great scene you wrote and rewrote and honed and rewrote and polished till it shone just doesn't fit anywhere because the thing that's happening at the same time loses all vitality if you cut away from it.

I guess that's one reason I like things like NaNoWriMo -- it makes people write and finish things, helter-skelter and however. And once something's finished, you can always fix it. (The first draft of Good Omens took about 9 weeks. The second draft took MONTHS. And it wasn't until we came to rework it a little after that for the US edition that we realised that we had indeed, without noticing, created a week with two Wednesdays in it.)

Incidentally, I'm in awe of anyone who would even attempt to try to write fiction in a language not her own.

As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But -- and I wish it were otherwise -- books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents.

So think all you like, but don't mistake the thinking for the writing.

Via the Engine, from richandmark.com "San Diego dreaming"
26/07/07 01:22 EMAIL: Gaiman fans self harm because of their inner turmoil. Ellis fans self harm cos it's bitchin

*DIES*

Best-selling author Neil Gaiman announced that DreamWorks Animation has optioned the film rights for his upcoming novel Interworld.

This might be a good idea of you're too rough on your cat OR if your cat's too rough on your mice. I so want the Samurat General one.

Your sugar fix for the day: let's be friends

Absolutely priceless. I wonder how many car crashes it caused. I would've crashed laughing too hard.

Seriously, what is wrong with people?

Neil and his Magnificent Oracular Journal

Q: Is Anna Nicole Smith really dead or is she faking?
A: You are quite right, of course.

Q: Will the Republicans hold the White House in the next election?
A: I'll try and cover at least the stuff about Harlequin Valentine later this evening.

Q: If I weren't such a weenie, do you think you'd still love me?
A: Gotta go.

Q: What's another word for thesaurus?
A: It's a good thing if you look like your author photo as that's how they recognise you.

Q: What advice do you have for me?
A: Tell your friends.

Just another reason to hate Smallville. Does this mean Warren can use Lex Luthor in Global Frequency should he write anymore?

Dear RIAA, please read this article about how Google Book Search helps sells books. Here's a hint: suing your fans isn't helping you. Sincerely, You Know Who

While there are a lot of interviews with Neil Gaiman because of his new book being out, this one from Bookslut happens to be my favorite.

Here's my second favorite at Cranky Geeks.

Speaking of new books and interviews, here's a very nice Salon article about Scott McCloud's new book, Making Comics.

Here's some pages from Making Comics by Scott McCloud.

Remember that woman who used her 4 week old baby as a weapon? She's been trumped.

I think everyone needs a handcarved pop culture totem.

In case you thought he was gone, Berkeley Breathed still works his magic. Oh, how I adore him.

Brevard a hot spot for dumping bodies - I'm so proud to live here.

Here's a great article from BBC News about Internet spammers and hackers. It's a first in a series that I highly recommend reading.

I always wanted to go to CBGB's just once. *sighs* This is so sad, but it's time has come.

I love people with screen capture capabilities, a wonderful working sense of World of Warcraft and too much time on their hands.

Bully for you - I can't wait to see this video game.

Visitors to the Vatican soon will be able to descend into an ancient world of the dead, a newly unveiled necropolis that was a burial place for the rich and not-so-affluent during Roman imperial rule.

FDR and Fearlessness: How the Personal Became the Political - oh, how I wish a modern FDR would show up.

This is one of the most beautiful things I've seen. I've never wanted a laptop so bad ever.

I couldn't watch all of it before blood started pouring out my eyes and ears. You've been warned. Though, I'm hoping that someone can explain to me why the Hulk's in Special Ed and why Captain America's in love with him.

And in closing, a little something to help with the Halloween spirit.

	Toga disproved the existence of god
	Toga was then promptly hit by a bolt of lighting
'What will your Headline be?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I'm afraid I'm going to have to upgrade my next husband from Seth Green to John Hodgman.

The CW released 17 images of the upcoming Green Arrow episode on Smallville. I have never seen Ollie look so gay in my life.

Just because that person isn't there doesn't mean we can't prove it.

Which new show do you think will be canceled first?

Neil Gaiman posted this on his journal about the death of John M. Ford. A fitting tribute.

And in closing, on a happier note: What if...Jack Reenacted Marvel of Superheroes Secret Wars. Put down your drinks. Go potty first. You've been warned.

I'm home. And my reward?

This was waiting for me.

*happy smile*

Here's a lovely object lesson on why you should never take on a seasoned writer: you'll get your ass kicked while your head's still jammed up it.

Why couldn't I have seen this job posting earlier?

File this under: what the fuck. I'm not sure I believe it, but I dig the guy smoking. Way to contaminate the site, dude!

Now, that's not right. I know we always joked about extra drumsticks, but this is wrong.

Amazing pictures of an abandon Russian city (apparently, it's Russia Day)

Crap, honey, we forgot about the Fantastic Four on Cartoon Network.

And I thought my son had video games on the brain. Damn. This is awesome.

Good news for all us Firefly fans.

And all you Battlestar Galatica fans, did you see this?

And in closing, one of the many reasons why I love Neil Gaiman.