2000-10-25 - 03:54:20
hanging out with the dream king

I saw Neil Gaiman give a reading tonight. He doesn't "read" a piece, though; he always refers to it as "performing" his writings, a word much more suited to the effect he has on his audience. He performed several short stories and a couple of poems, answered some questions, did a couple more pieces, then left the stage to a standing ovation. And we kept on applauding until by god he came back on to do the first encore he'd ever done.

I have been a fan of Gaiman's comic books and other writings for years, but had never seen him speak in public until tonight. In person, he's a cute, pale, rather unintimidating Englishman and an absolutely spellbinding storyteller. He seduces the listener completely into the story, painting vivid, emotionally charged pictures to take home and keep long after the performance is over. He also makes me feel really crappy about my writing ability, and is the reason I'm writing this instead of working on a piece of writing that I'm going to be graded on, which is what I should be doing right now.

Sigh. Among the things he read were some short stories he'd written for Christmas cards, and poems written for friends. That's the talent I'd really like to have -- to know how to write the way some people know how to cook, or play the guitar, or juggle. Some people are like that with writing. They know it so well, they can just do a little writing for whatever purpose and it'll be good. Write a short story as a favor for someone. Write a song as a birthday present. Like any other skill -- instead of baking someone cookies to cheer them up, write 'em a little poem. I know I can write okay, but not like that, and I really don't think I ever will.

On the other hand, I've been thinking about it as a talent that some people just have, when in all the examples I just gave of other talents, one needs a combination of some amount of natural aptitude and great amounts of practice. So I'm going to have to think about this some more.

By the way, go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund site (cbldf.org) and give them money and stuff. Yeah.

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