Today.

Today I touched an electric fence to see if it was hot. It was.

C'est la vie.

On Writer's Block

     It’s not so hard, you know, to put words on paper. Once you get started, the stories just flow. It’s not physically difficult  at all. It’s all mental. Pure mental. That searing pain that flashes through your head, the cold hand of panic that grips at your heart the second you think about doing something that might be important. Why is that? Is it the fear of not being well received? Of rejection? Part of it might be the dread of knowing that no matter how much work and dedication you put into your piece, no matter how much time you spend making it perfect, no matter how good it actually is, there is no promise that it will succeed. And failure, that’s the worst of it all, isn’t it? Some argue that it’s not. There are incredible quotes about failure being just as important as success. It's part of the learning process, of growing up, but we all know the truth: Failure sucks.

This post is not about Amanda Palmer.

I'm just using her as a tie-in.


For those of you who don't  know me, you need to know that I love Amanda Palmer. LOVE her. I discovered her when I was, oh, 17? A friend who had an "in" with our group showed us a selection of songs by The Dresden Dolls. They were vulgar, irreverent, and amazing. I was hooked. Not thinking to google it for myself, I asked him if they had any other tracks available. He told me that they did, but they were way too obscene to listen to. Being a good kid, I took his advice, did not search for anymore and contented myself with the 5-ish songs that I had.


Fast forward a year or so: I decided that 5 songs was NOT enough, discovered 20-odd tracks I had never heard and did the only thing a rational person would do, I bought them all. And listened to them. A lot.  I relished in the disturbing lyrics. I went to concerts. Then The Dresden Dolls broke up. Amanda kept making music as a solo act. I went to concerts. I hugged her at a concert. I think she's with another band now. I haven't been to one of those concerts, but that's irrelevant. The point of it is this: the woman is insane. Completely insane. I don't even know what to think of half the stuff she does. But I still have to admire her because she does one thing really, really well. She lives life the way she wants to. Her life is her own and she's going to do what she wants with it. She follows her heart (even if her heart leads her in very strange direction). She doesn't let anyone tell her what to do. Just ask her record label what happened when they suggested she lose some weight. *SPOILER* They aren't her record label anymore.


Now for the tie-in. Amanda Palmer married Neil Gaiman in early January 2011. Even though I think the lady is wonderfully talented, I don't follow her very closely so I didn't read about it until, like, May. For some reason, the Neil Gaiman felt pretty familiar. It only took a little bit of internetting to figure out why.
"Holy crap!" I exclaimed loudly, to no one in particular. "Neil Gaiman wrote Coraline!"
What a revelation! I read Coraline years ago. By years ago, I mean I was probably 15. It was an amazing book. I remember zipping through it like nothing else mattered. It was mesmerizing, dream-like. Even though I forgot the details of the book over time, the way it felt stuck with me. Case in point, my young niece showed me one of her dollies the other day. It had big, black button eyes. I felt a prickle run up my neck. It took me a few minutes to realize why the doll had that affect. Some things just stick with you. You may not remember the source but they stay right with you, following you around like a lagging shadow.


Side note: Neil Gaiman also wrote Stardust. I haven't read it yet, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie adaptation.


So I had this amazing revelation and then pretty much forgot about it.


Until recently!!


The details are a little fuzzy, but somehow I ended up on Neil Gaiman's Tumblr account. He was dropping some truth bombs on lazy writers who like to complain about being undervalued but never put the effort into actually, you know, writing. Truth. Bomb. He had lots of other solid advice for wanna be  writers and then I realized, oh yeah! That's the guy who wrote Coraline! (Real bright one, aren't I?)
Anyway, I saw he's written more books since I was 15 and I figured that if I liked Coraline so much, I should give The Graveyard Book a try. The Graveyard Book won both the Newbery and the Carnegie Medals for outstanding young adult literature. And people, this book deserved to win a whole lot more. It's that good.


I can't even remember where I was trying to go with this post. So I'll sum it up: read The Graveyard Book. Just do it. It's good. It's witty. It's smart. It's endearing. It's heartbreaking, but in a good way. It's fictional and fantastical and realistic. The main character may be an adolescent boy raised in a graveyard by a bunch of ghosts and an undead guardian, but dammit, I feel like I knew him.


Neil Gaiman has a true respect for literature and all that it means. A book doesn't have to a great piece of work that lasts over centuries to be important. Just as long as someone, somewhere, loves it.


Read the acceptance speech at the end of the book. You're stupid if you don't. It's moving.


Adios muchachos. I've got to find a copy of The Jungle Book.