Tag: Neil Gaiman

Favorites Friday: Author Blogs

On By cherylmahoneyIn Favorites Friday4 Comments

Somehow it never occurred to me to look for author blogs until I started writing a blog myself.  One of the best parts of all this has been reading other people’s blogs, and it’s been so fun to find that several of my favorite authors have blogs.  Today, here are some favorite ones from favorite authors, with links if you want to check them out.

Patricia C. Wrede has a very valuable writing-focused blog.  She posts Sundays and Wednesdays, and discusses both the craft of writing and the complexities of publishing.  Most often I feel like I see either the art OR the business, so this is a great place to get information on both.  She offers solid advice across a range of writing topics, gives funny examples at times, and makes references to her own books, which is always fun too.

Gail Carson Levine also writes about writing, mostly the craft.  I think her target age group is middle school, but her advice is good regardless of your age.  The middle school aspect mostly comes out in that her writing prompts revolve around school or parents or topics like that.  Levine posts every Wednesday, and while her topic is sometimes more basic than Wrede’s, she still drills into great areas and often gives me a new idea or a new angle on something (say, Point of View) that I felt like I already knew a lot about.  She also makes frequent references to her own books and writing process; I’m fascinated by how writers write, so I love knowing that background to her books.

Robin McKinley posts every day; her blog requires a certain amount of wading.  She tends to write stream-of-consciousness about whatever is going on in her life, and some of it seems like it would have, er, niche appeal.  I usually read her posts a week at a time, and I skim until I find a section that looks good.  On the so-so (for me, at least) days, she talks about her knitting, her singing lessons, and the intricacies of bell-ringing.  On better days, she talks about her garden, her hellhounds, and her fights with recalcitrant technology.  On the best days, she talks about her writing.  And then there was the Great Bat Catastrophe (my name for it) last spring, when she had bats nesting in her attic and finding ways through into her house…terrible for her, I’m sure, but so funny to read about.

The thing with McKinley’s blog is–when she’s dull, she’s very dull (unless you’re interested in bell-ringing, perhaps).  But when she’s good, she’s VERY good.  The thing about reading blogs by favorite authors is that they’re good writers.  McKinley can be very funny and very engaging, and once you’ve been reading for a while you get used to the groove of her life and it’s fun to stroll through.  Then when I read her book Sunshine, I felt like I could see her personality coming through in the book, which added a whole new layer to it.  And it’s great to be up on the key events in her writing–I knew about it when she switched the book she was working on, and I got to order a personally signed (and doodled) copy of Beauty when she had an auction!

Other favorite authors with blogs include Gordon Korman and Geraldine McCaughrean, but they post very rarely, and Tamora Pierce, who posts sporadically, usually about news items.  I also hear good things about Neil Gaiman’s blog, though I haven’t followed him regularly.

Who are your favorite authors who blog?  Or favorite blogs that are by authors?  Almost the same thing…but maybe not always.

Sympathy for the Devil

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews1 Comment

I found Troll’s Eye View in a very writerly fashion–I was doing research to see if anyone had come up with the same angle as I have for retelling “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”  Subtitled “A Book of Villainous Tales,” it’s a collection of short stories, retelling fairy tales from the villain’s point of view.  That includes “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” although calling the oldest princess the villain seems like a stretch (granted, she didn’t mind people being beheaded, in the original version).

The book is edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and has some impressive writers included, like Garth Nix, Jane Yolen and Neil Gaiman.

There were some excellent stories in here, although I was dissatisfied with a number of them too.  I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but it’s a slim book, and they fit fifteen stories into it.  I ended up feeling that several were nice ideas that didn’t get much development.  I think I’m the wrong age for those too.  I love children’s books, and very often find ones that are completely enjoyable to me as an adult.  Many of these stories, I think, really are better for just kids, who wouldn’t mind a simpler narrative.

And there were the excellent ones.  “Castle Othello” by Nancy Farmer is really clever meld of Bluebeard and Shakespeare, with a good twist to the ending.  Neil Gaiman contributed a dark poem based on “Sleeping Beauty.”  Nix and Yolen both had some good humor, although I think the shortness of the stories limited their scope.  Ellen Kushner’s “Twelve Dancing Princesses” retelling (actually, “The Shoes that Were Danced to Pieces” was how she titled it) was a clever idea, although another one with limited development–and not the same as my idea, fortunately.

My favorite, by far and away, was “A Delicate Architecture” by Catherynne M. Valente.  This would not have been the case when I was a kid, and in fact I think it probably would have given me nightmares!  But as an adult I can appreciate the creepiness of some of the images, and the beauty of the writing.  It starts out almost as a more poetic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a little girl describing the wonderful creations of her father the candy-maker.  There’s beautiful, vivid imagery…until the story takes a darker turn, and then the images are just as vivid, but turn into nightmares.  (Spoiler warning, because I can’t resist telling you about it!)  The little girl becomes a young woman, until finally she learns that her father’s fanciful tale of creating her from sugar is all too true.  After that she’s treated not as a person, but as a cooking implement, and hung up on the wall of the kitchen at the royal palace, to be used for the desserts…and that’s the image that would have given me nightmares as a child!  Finally she becomes a gnarled old woman, who escapes into the woods to build a house out of candy…  It’s an excellent story, and makes me want to read more by Valente!

The book on the whole was more mixed.  But it was also a quick read, and worth it for the good ones!

Quotable Neil Gaiman

On By cherylmahoneyIn Quotable6 Comments

“Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you.  You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called.  Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.”

–Neil Gaiman, in the introduction to M Is For Magic, which, contrary to its title and designation, is not really appropriate for children

Gaiman has written multiple novels for children and for adults, as well comic books.  Some of his best known books are Stardust, American Gods and Coraline.  I particularly recommend The Graveyard Book.