#inspired by Neil Gaiman's style

[roses-and-sundries]

on loving gods

picture this: you fall in love with a god.

(some level of hubris and/or insanity must be involved. for if you were a person who was perfectly humble, and perfectly sane, it simply wouldn't be done. gods are notoriously unreliable, unreasonable, and oftentimes, unworthy. it is just in their nature.)

picture this: the god loves you back.

(this is a very rare thing. they are busy, have different emotions than humans, and, worst of all, immortal. they often choose not to love, or to simply have fleeting affairs.)

picture this: there are circumstances that keep you apart.

(there is an endless list of said circumstances. be it other gods, duties, or, sometimes, if you're lucky - although you might say the opposite- the god wants to keep you safe.)

picture this: you are willing to wait for them.

(most humans who truly love a god will wait as long as it takes. this is foolish, as it often results in their demise.)

picture this: the god finally comes back.

(they are injured, or need help. this doesn't happen often, but is a death sentence for you. you love them, and want to help, but there is nothing you can do. either they will loose control and destroy you, or you will sacrifice yourself for them. sometimes, sometimes it is both.)

picture this: you wonder what the hell you were ever thinking, falling in love with a god.

(and the sad truth was, you were never thinking at all.)

[quibvsposts]

Be a Body

[captainfantasticalright]

In 1985, one of the only persons interested in an interview with a “new” writer called Terry Pratchett, after his publication of the Colour of Magic, was one Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman was writing for Space Voyager at the time. "The Colour of Pratchett" was the name given here:

It ran exactly one page inside the June/July issue of that year. The interview took place in a Chinese restaurant in London.

Here is Neil many years later holding that issue. You can see it here if you want. Warning: extremely emotional video.

Neil arrived wearing a grey homburg hat. “Sort of like the ones Humphrey Bogart wears in movies” he later wrote. (Before saying that in fact he did not look like him, but like someone wearing a grown-up’s hat). Terry Pratchett, photo courtesy of one @neil-gaiman, was in a Lenin-style leather cap and a harlequin-patterned pullover. At this point, Terry was already a hat person, although not that hat.

Terry offered Neil this : "An interview needn't last more than 15 minutes. A good quote for the beginning, a good quote for the end, and the rest you make up back at the office"*. (Terry Pratchett had worked many years in journalism by this point ).

But the meeting went terribly well. The two of them realized they had "the same sort of brains". So well indeed, that in 1985, Neil had shown Terry a file containing 5282 words, exploring a scenario in which Richmal Crompton's William Brown had somehow become the Antichrist. Was a collaboration in the cards as of that moment? Not really. But Terry found in Neil someone to whom he could send disks of work in progress and to whom he could pick up the phone sometimes when he hit a brick in the road of his writing.

Terry loved it and the concept stayed in his mind. A couple of years later, he rang Neil to ask him if he had done any more work on it. Neil had been busy with The Sandman, he had not really given it another thought. Terry said, "Well I know what happens next, so either you sell me the idea or we can write it together". **

And as you know, unless you’ve been living in Alpha Centauri, the rest is history. That was the beginning of what would become William the Antichrist and later would get the name Good Omens:The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. (Title provided by Neil Gaiman and subtitle by Terry Pratchett).

From the introduction to William the Antichrist: “In the summer of 1987 several odd ideas came together: (..)I found myself imagining a book called William the Antichrist, in which a hapless demon was going to be responsible for swapping the wrong baby over, and the son of the US Ambassador would be completely undemonic, while William Brown would grow up to be the Antichrist, and the demon would need to stop him ending the world. The unfortunate demon, whom I called Crawleigh, because Crawley was a nearby town with an unfortunate name, would have to sort it all out as best he could.

It felt like a story with legs.

Terry took the 5,000 words, and rewrote them, calling me to tell me what he was doing and what he was planning to do. The biggest thing he was going to do, he told me, was split the hapless demon into two characters – a would-be-cool demon in dark glasses (which was, I think, Terry’s way of making fun of me, a never-actually- cool journalist in dark glasses) who had renamed himself Crowley, and a rare-book dealer and angel called Aziraphale, who would embody all the English awkwardness that either of us could conceive.”

William the Antichrist being a direct inspiration of the 1976 film The Omen. If the baby swap had just been a little bit messier and the kid had gone off somewhere else he would have grown up as somebody else. “And then there was a beat and I thought, I should write it, it will be called William the Antichrist” says Neil. ***

“The first draft of Good Omens was a William-book. It was absolutely in every way it could be a William book. It had Violet Elizabeth Bott, it had William and the Outlaws, it had Mr. Brown”.

Over time they realized that they would have more creative freedom if they in their own words filed off the serial numbers. William and the Outlaws becoming Adam and the Them.

But the spirit of Just William was never far away.

The joy for Neil was to construct “perfectly William sentences”. The one when Anathema tells Adam that she has lost the Book, and he tells her that he has written a book about a pirate who became a famous detective and it is 8 pages long… that’s “a William sentence”.

Good Omens was also inspired by a particularly antisemitic moment in The Jew of Malta and John le Carre's spy novels. (Neil’s ask)

“When we finished the book we estimated that the words were 60% Terry’s and 40% mine, and the plot, such as it was, was entirely ours.”

(Here are some slides of mine where I go into some other details concerning the origins of Good Omens).

*Quote: from Terry Pratchett A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins, but said by Terry of course.

** All the quotes, facts listed here : see above.

***all other quotes by Neil Gaiman from various interviews and asks I’ll link.

[osiris-iii-bc]

Two Ghouls and what inspired me

Something a bit different today.

I couldn’t decide which kind of Ghoul to draw, so I chose both.

This style was inspired by the Daniel Egnéus fantastic illustrations for American Gods (Neil Gaiman); check the two reference illustrations I used for these under the cut👇🏻

The Ghouls are also both available to purchase here.

Meliora Ghoul: Poster | Artprint

Impera Ghoul: Poster | Artprint

[aziraphales-library]

Would you happen to know any fanfics where the two of them witness or take part in some kind of significant queer history / queer historic event?

We have the following tags which you'll want to check out: #queer history, #pride parade, and #queer guardian angel aziraphale. Here are some which explore some more general aspects of queer history...

Something New…A Rain Bow by Princip1914 (G)

Inspired by this Neil Gaiman twitter exchange: “So they’re gay, right?” Neil: “They’re an angel and a demon, not male humans.” “Ok, but they love eachother, right? :D” Neil: “Absolutely”

and at least in this lifetime (we're sticking together) by vivelegalite (T)

[GOD, NARRATING] People tend to be torn as to which side could be credited with legalisation of gay marriage across all of the United States of America. Most people consider it an act of Good, which it is of course, and attribute it to Heaven. Some, a much less pleasant lot, argue it to be the work of Hell. They tend to back their claims up with improperly translated lines from a book the Almighty had never actually written or even really bothered to read through — I tend to outsource that kind of work — and speak of God’s will and whatnot. Both groups are, however, mistaken. The legalisation of gay marriage across all of the United States of America was brought about not by Heaven, not by Hell, but by a tragically smitten demon with a rather high alcohol concentration and a plan.

And I mean to go on and on and on and on by yolkinthejump (T)

A wedding of old friends. Aziraphale gets drunk on Gay Love and Crowley absolutely adores him. Par for the course. Thoughts on the muddled history of marriage and the power of love, persevering.

The Questions We Don't Ask by EdnaV (M)

It’s 1989, and Aziraphale has been reprimanded for helping some people that Sandalphon doesn’t like. Crowley tries to take care of him. It’s 1941, it’s 1793, it’s 1020. Crowley and Aziraphale take care of each other throughout history.

The Stylings of Madam Glena by altsernative (T)

It's 1977, eight years after Aziraphale said "You got too fast for me," and Crowley hasn't seen him since. In Aziraphale's absence, Crowley helps set up the Sundown Club, a gay bar in Soho. He tells himself--and downstairs--that it's building a space for "workers of inequity," although he finds comfort in the community. He's settled into a quiet routine of drinking at the bar every week until a beautiful drag queen captures his attention. Crowley feels unexpected things. It's weird. And where is Aziraphale?

A Strong and Silent Pride by sleepyMoritz (M)

By the start of 1982, the disease - previously known as Gay Related Immune Deficiency, or GRID - had a new name. AIDS. This did not stop it from being called the gay plague in the media. This did not stop the rampant homophobia. This did not stop the fear.

- Mod D

[i-donthaveanygoodidea]

Hello hello,

this is less of an art request and more of an art suggestion (so feel free to simply Not Do It if the inspiration doesn't hit), but I was thinking, maybe in honour of Neil Banging Out The Tunes day we could get a sketch of Neil (rat) and Neil (Gaiman) (so also a rat) (affectionate) banging out the tunes together? The style is completely up to you of course, but in my head I'm imagining a kind of 80's disco vibe, sunglasses, head thrown back, colourful explosion / light show kinda thing. Feel free to do with this what you want (ignoring it is a valid option too). 🐢*

* that's my son, I'm just taking him on a walk in your asks, don't mind him

I was working on another ask I got before yours but today is neil banging out the tunes day and I couldn't wait for tomorrow, also the sun already started setting and all my other light sources are crap for pics so I kinda rushed

Also I gave Neil (Gaiman) (also rat) a tiny leather jacket

And say hello to your son for me, he seems very polite

[carebearloveshp]

Happy Birthday Terry Pratchett!

Every year for Terry Pratchett’s birthday, I like to celebrate by reading one of his books and talking about him.

Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite authors. I first found out about his books in 2012 right after reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I was looking for other books similar to it and Terry’s Discworld series was recommended along with Good Omens by both him and Neil Gaiman.

“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away"- Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

I read Good Omens in 2013 and fell in love with it instantly. At the time, I promised myself that I would read the Discworld series some day but put it off because of its size (it had 39 books at that point). I didn’t start the series until 2017 and finished the final novel, The Shepherd’s Crown in 2022. Over the years, it went from being one of my favorite series to my favorite series. I cannot recommend it enough. It's incredible.

Terry has been an inspiration of mine ever since I first picked up one of his Discworld books. I read the series mostly in publication order and I personally recommend doing so if you plan on reading the entire series. There are so many ways to get into it. The only book I read out of order was Hogfather because I wanted to read it at Christmastime that first year. It's one of my go-to rereads every year.

Even though I didn't find myself loving the first couple of books, they still had me wanting to read more from this brilliant man. Terry’s writing style is one of a kind and I will never be able to get enough of reading his work. I have read 60 of his books and I plan on reading every single piece of literature he has written. They are insightful, funny, and so damn clever.

Today, I am going to start The Science of the Discworld that Terry wrote with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. It is the first book in a four-part series that has Discworld stories mixed with science. I’m interested in seeing what happens and how the wizards accidentally create the Roundworld. The Unseen University books are a mixed bag for me. Sometimes, I really love them and then other times I don’t. Though, I am looking forward to seeing what trouble those old fools cause. I cannot wait to get to the second book because it deals with Shakespeare.

Some of my favorites of his books are: Hogfather, Witches Abroad, Night Watch, Thief of Time, The Wee Free Men, Going Postal, Wyrd Sisters, and Good Omens.

Thank you for the words, Terry. I wish I could have met you. Your ripples will continue on for a very long time. Happy Birthday.

“People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.” Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

@terrypratchettestate

[madwomansapologist]

Hi! Wanted to say that your writing style is so nice and it feels so mushy when I read them. I'm truly amazed, where do you gen an inspiration to write?

Can I please request Morpheus x reader, who picks on their skin? I've always had this stupid habit and in result fingers (and sometimes face) are always in pain or bleeding. And usually you're not notice it until someone points it out for you and things become awkward. 💀 (Also I'm so sorry to bother if your requests are closed, I checked but maybe accidentally skipped it)

It's okay if this may be weird or specific and you don't want to do it, I'm still grateful for your writings. Have a nice day!

morpheus noticing your skin-picking habit would include

Masterlist | Rules | Taglist | Library | More Morpheus | AO3

synopsis: Restoring the long-forgotten library of Morpheus's realm, your last concern was what your hands were doing. Concentrated on reorganizing and looking for signs of lost dreams and nightmares, it was Morpheus who noticed a old habit of yours.

warnings: none.

ps: omg. you're literally the best. thank you for that! well mostly of my inspiration comes from things that i personally believe. you know that "write about what you know" advice? i prefer it worded as a "write about what you feel." like the last thing i wrote for Morpheus. it was a request about pregnancy, and I could just write about it, but it didn't really talked to me. but perceiving death and deciding that fuck that, the memories of my family will keep me alive—that talk to me. so mostly i guess is just that Neil Gaiman writing advice: don't be afraid of telling the truth. he said that all books are lies told by people that can put truth in them. i guess i live by that. sorry for the rant, but i'm so passionate about it. either way, hope you like this! my requests weren't close by the time you ask for it (sorry for the long wait, i was working on the birthday event), there is no need to apologize! have a great day, dear! 💙🪩

• The library wasn't going to restore itself. At least, you don't think it can. Doing whatever Lucienne told you to, it was only natural for you to focus on trying to make this realm reach its glory again. You didn't have time for anything else.

• Cain and Able were surprisely helpful with your task. The brothers may not be exactly healthy with one another, but they know a lot about this place you know so little. With their knowledge and ease of sharing it, you were closer and closer to finally find Brute and Glob.

• By the time you were back with Lucienne, you both had so much to do. It was so easy to forget about anything else. To have a break, to eat something, to sleep for a few hours. So many things to do, so much to repair, that all you could was to focus on your work. Not even an old habit of yours could have won your attention.

• You were picking on your skin. It always surprises you when you noticed, simply because you don't do this on purpose. It is just a thing that happens. Most of the times, you don't noticed until it starts to hurt or bleed. And this time, none of that happened.

• Dive into work, and with Lucienne also worrying about the realm, no one was really paying attention to your skin. Your hands picked and pushed, but with no great amount of pain to warn you about it, you just didn't noticed.

• You both heard when Morpheus entered the library. After one of his many quests to find his tools, it was a surprise that he would come back so early. Or was it late? You can't really tell how time works here.

• When you welcomed him, it took mere seconds for Morpheus' expression to change from tiredness to concern. He walked straight towards you, his hands grabbed your face with care and affection, and asked you what hurted you.

• You undertood quickly what happened. You explained to him, the awkward situation making you more and more embarrassed with every couple of words, feeling suddenly so out of place. But when Morpheus was sure that nothing had inflicted pain on you, his softness made impossible for you to remain embarrassed.

• Morpheus silenced you with sweet kisses. His lips roamed through your face, his feelings penetreting your skin. He kissed you whole before looking at you again. And the way he looked at you, the way Morpheus always look at you, made you feel so... so...

• Wide.

• In front of Morpheus, in between his hands, you feel infinite. Morpheus always finds a way to make you feel like that.

• Morpheus may not be the best person to pick on social clues, but he can read you. When you care about someone in the way he cares about you, it's easy to learn about the person of interest. Morpheus was able to understand that this habit was just another facade of you, and he would never made you feel bad about it.

• Of course Morpheus would pretty much rather you not hurting yourself in anyway, but he would never made you feel bad about it. If he ever notice you doing it again, Morpheus would just grab you hand and kiss it. It's not like being gentle with you was difficult.

• And if you ever pick your skin until it bleed, Morpheus have no problem with helping you to clean it. Morpheus can take care of you, just like you took care of him so many times before. He's just being fair.

if you enjoyed, please reblog! i promise it makes a difference ♡

@ madwomansapologist.tumblr.

[kojtolina]

My piece for Mini Reverse Bang 2023 @do-it-with-style-events

My team mate @skylineangel wrote a breathtakingly sensual fic inspired by it!

[quindriepress]

This week's spotlight is on Beth Fuller and her comic Witching Hour. Beth is an illustrator and concept artist from Dublin, Ireland. She’s considering putting down the stylus pen and heading off into the wilderness to live as a hermit, but likes hot showers and horror films just enough to keep her in civilisation. For now, anyway. (@bethfuller | website | instagram | twitter)

"Witching Hour is about a young girl sent on a mysterious journey by her father. Two pale trees with intertwined branches form a strange gate at the edge of 12-year-old Esio’s town, and beyond it lies an old, ruined land. Over their pints, as dusk falls, the villagers say it’s where lost things - and people - eventually end up. She’s got sandwiches, an apple, plasters, a bottle of Tipperary Kidz water and a Horrible Histories book in her rucksack and she’s heading off into the unknown, with only a talisman to guide her. There’s no telling who she might meet along the way."

Read the spotlight below the cut!

"That’s the initial rundown, anyway. Speaking more subjectively, I wanted to create a setting where two totally different characters - as different from each other as you can get - are forced to work together and end up changing each other’s lives. I really do think you can get on and find common ground with almost anyone, in the right circumstances."

Witching Hour took several years to incubate. "I’d been working on a comic slowly and haltingly since I was 18. There are pages kept deep, deep in my computer with old, badly drawn versions of Esio in a radically different setting, but it never really made sense as a story. I don’t think I made it past page three! Still, the fantasy atmosphere and character of Esio stuck with me over the years. Plus I really like to mix the dull, routine and mundane aspects of everyday life with things that are otherworldly and strange."

"Eventually we had a visual narrative module as part of my degree, and while recalling my old comic pages (I was mulling over it in the shower, which is where I think many of us do our most important thinking) an idea came to me that would form the basis of Witching Hour. Adding this to the embers of my previous project gave me more than enough fuel to sit down and start drawing.

"I have plenty of ideas for what I want to get up to next. I’ll work on a tarot set, keep working on freelance concept art and illustrations, design some tattoos, maybe try my hand at another comic at some stage. As always, feel free to get in touch and let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see from me!"

Beth draws inspiration from many sources: "The landscapes of south-west Ireland. Horror films, foreign language films, fantasy films, anything animated. The writing of Michelle Paver, Neil Gaiman and Ursula LeGuin.

"For me, though, it’s primarily the work of other illustrators that has inspired me the most, and it’s often only through seeing and evaluating lots of different brilliant styles that you can start to discern your own tastes. As a child, the obligatory Ghibli film catalogue. Then the work of Chris Riddell, Max Prentis and Ian McQue were enough inspiration to foster an interest in art school. I went, studied Illustration at DJCAD, and discovered Jake Wyatt, Celia Lowenthal, Juliette Brocal, Linnea Sterte, Jack T. Cole, Evan Cagle, Alphonse Mucha and (of course) Moebius. Seeing their work is like taking the creative spark and making it into a deodorant flamethrower."

Beth's work often centres around fantastical worlds and sweeping landscapes. "I think somehow you always come back to what you know. Sometimes you don’t even notice you have a fascination with something until you start to create and it keeps returning.

"My family and I spent a lot of time around Irish coastlines growing up, especially during the warmer months. Kerry, in the south-west, has mountains that turn brown in winter, then when summer comes are carpeted with a haze of purple heather, not unlike the hills of Scotland. There are crumbling ringforts and monastic ruins on isolated hilltops. I could be in the most beautiful place in the world but still miss the coconut scent of Kerry gorse. The fantasy aspect is fun to play with, and it adds a nice sense of mystery, but fundamentally I think the landscapes I draw are an attempt to capture, and return to, the shores I kicked about on as a kid."

For aspiring comic creators, Beth has this advice: "This is a common one, but I think it’s still worth saying: if you have a story, get it down. You don’t need to consider yourself a comic artist to make a comic. You also don’t need to wait around for the right time, or enough expertise - nobody is going to give you a nametag with ‘comic artist’ on it. If you can draw, and you need to say something, just start drawing boxes and see where it goes. Also, ‘Necropolis’ by Jake Wyatt is really good."

You can pick up Witching Hour, alongside the other three comics in our 2023 collection, right here on Kickstarter! 

[petermorwood]

YA or not YA, that is the question...

This started out as a response to Diane’s post here about YA literature and its long history prior to what some people think inspired it, but got longer (Oh! What a surprise!) and wandered far enough from the initial subject that I decided to post separately.

So here it is.

*****

Many years ago my town library (in Northern Ireland, so following UK library practice, I suppose) had just two sections, Adult and Children. There was no YA section, and the Children’s section covered everything from large-format picture books through to hardback novels and the usual amount of non-fiction.

(Library books were almost always bought in hardback for better wear, and even the softback picture books were rebound with heavy card inserts.)

There were classics like “Treasure Island”,  “Kidnapped”, “King Solomon’s Mines” “Under the Red Robe” and “The Jungle Books”.

There were standalone titles like “The Otterbury Incident”, “The Silver Sword”, “The Sword in the Stone” and “The Stone Cage”.

There were series about characters like William, Biggles, Jennings and his counterpart Molesworth, the Moomins, Narnia and Uncle.

There were authors like Alan Garner, Nicholas Stuart Grey, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Henry Treece, Ronald Welch… And of course there was J.R.R. Tolkien.

The first time I got "The Hobbit", "Farmer Giles of Ham" and "Smith of Wootton Major" they were shelved in the Children's section. This was about 1968-69.

In the early 1970s the library moved to larger premises, which allowed room for Very Young Children (where the picture books now lived) and Children (everything else), still with no YA section, though with more advanced picture books like “Tintin” and “Asterix” * in a sort of no-man’s-land between them.

( * These included editions in the original French, which turned out very useful for making language lessons at school a bit more fun and gaining extra marks in exams through judiciously enhanced vocabulary.)

“The Hobbit” et cetera were still on the Children shelves, but now that the library was larger and more open-plan, volumes of "The Lord of The Rings", normally in the Adult section, occasionally got shelved there as well by well-meaning non-staff people.

I never saw “The Hobbit” mis-shelved alongside “Lord of the Rings” among the Adults, but Farmer Giles” and “Smith” sometimes turned up there, courtesy of those same well-meaning hands.

It’s probably because the first, with its sometimes complex wordplay and mock-heroic plot, reads like a humorous parody of more serious works, while the second, if read in the right frame of mind, can seem quite adult in the style of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s “Kingdoms of Elfin” - which is in fact a good deal more adult than “Smith of Wootton Major”, even if you squint.

*****

This “Hobbit” / “Rings” confusion is a lightweight version of assuming a particular author writes every book for the same age-group. This is very much not the case.

Sometimes the thickness of the book is a giveaway. Compare, for instance, @neil-gaiman’s “American Gods” with “Coraline” or indeed “Fortunately, The Milk”.

Sometimes the cover is a hint, for example the difference between “Live and Let Die” by Ian Fleming...

...and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, also by Ian Fleming...

...although the original James Bond novels are – apart from some extremely dated attitudes – a lot more weaksauce than many YA books nowadays.

(More weaksauce still now that Fleming, like Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie, has been censored to conceal the extent to which - let's call them Certain Attitudes - were a standard feature in British popular fiction. Apparently (I haven't read any Newspeak Bond so can't confirm) the redaction was done in a curiously slapdash way, removing some things while leaving others.

These novels have become, IMO anyway, period pieces as much as Kipling, Doyle, Dickens and Austen, and erasure probably has less to do with sensitivity - maybe with some "brush it under the rug and they'll forget about it" involved - than with keeping them marketable, so Fleming doesn't go the way of other once-bestselling writers like "Sapper" and Sydney Horler.)

It would also be a mistake, despite advisory wizards Tom and Carl, to think that @dduane’s “Young Wizards” books are meant for the same age-group as her “Middle Kingdoms” series – although, once again, the later YW books and all of the MK slot into what a modern YA audience expects from its fiction.

But sometimes there’s absolutely no doubt that This Book by This Author is not meant for the readership of That Book by The Same Author. I’m thinking of one example which caused a certain amount of amusement.

“Bee Hunter” by Robert Nye is a retelling of the Beowulf story for children, though IIRC occasional bloody episodes as Grendel takes Hrothgar’s housecarls apart make it more suited to older children. 

I’d brought home a copy from the library when much younger, and borrowed it again years later in company with another Nye novel, “Falstaff”...

...which was poetic, historic, melancholic, often bawdy, frequently funny and at all times most emphatically NOT for children, as indicated by some of these chapter headings - I draw your attention to XX, XXII, XXXII and especially XL... ;->

Yes. Quite... :->

*****

I was familiar with card index systems from quite early in my life, because my grandfather’s grocer’s shop had a fairly simple one for keeping track of customers, suppliers, stock and so forth, and since the library’s index card system cross-referenced in the same way, I was already home and dry.

If I could remember a title, I'd find the author, and once found I could track down other titles by that author (which, as shown above, can be educational...) Even if I could only remember the subject - historical, adventure, comedy - I'd still have narrowed my search window more than somewhat.

(This from-here-to-there mindset later became virtual train travel by way of the electronic timetables which SBB – Swiss Railways – used to issue on CD, and which let me “travel” anywhere in Europe, complete with a map. Those CDs are long discontinued, but I can still do virtual travel courtesy of the SBB website. Complete with a map…)

This is the last one we got, kept for sentimental reasons and occasional outdated train-travel on an equally outdated XP netbook.

As you do.

Or as I do, anyway. :->

*****

I also knew about title request cards and interlibrary loans, and was a frequent user - never more so than when I started reading “The Lord of the Rings” for the first time.

The town library didn’t have all three volumes, just “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Two Towers”, so I checked them out on a Friday to read over the weekend.

You can already see where this is going… :->

I finished “Fellowship” late on Saturday afternoon, went straight into “Towers” and by Sunday evening was all of a twitter (no, not that one) or as my mum would have said, up to high Doh, as I fretted about Not Knowing What Happened Next.

Fortunately school was no more than a brisk bike ride from the library, so I devoted my Monday morning break to zooming down and filling in one of the most urgent title requests I’ve ever made, then spent the rest of the week on tenterhooks, looking in every lunchtime and each afternoon on my way home.

Just In Case.

Some kindly librarian must have pulled strings or stamped the request "Expedite Soonest", because when I went back to school after Thursday lunch, I had “The Return of the King” burning a hole in my saddlebag.

I wanted to start reading it at once, but good sense prevailed; imagine getting caught between chapters at the back of a boring Geography lesson and Having The Book Confiscated…

I didn’t pay much attention in class on Friday, due to being half-asleep after starting “Return” in the evening after prep and finishing it in the wee hours of the morning.

But being tired didn’t prevent me from starting with “Fellowship” again on Friday night, and this time being able to read right through to the end without needing to stop.

It Was Great…

[solradguy]

Woke up this morning after having a dream about an absolutely gorgeous dragon anthology with an embroidered green and teal cover that featured a dragon and have been googling dragon stories since

I rubbed my mind's eye all over it in the dream. Further details:

In the dream, I went to a bookstore. The book was $40. I did not have $40 and it was extremely painful.

Cover: embroidered green and shades of blue/teal illustration of a western dragon hovering over a field of flowers and tall grass with a naturalistic border all done in an art nouveau style.

Hardback.

The book may have been handbound. It was the only copy at the store.

Inside: illustrations in a similar art style as the cover but just the inks, no colored interior illustrations.

The illustrations and cover may have been subconsciously inspired by the slipcase edition of Le Morte d'Arthur by Race Point Publishing (2017), which I own. I can't find pictures of the interior online, but it's got the original Aubrey Beardsley pieces. This dream book had as many illustrations as it, they were all over the place. Almost one per page.

It was quite similar to Andrew Lang's 7th edition (1906) print of The Green Fairy Book but I didn't know about it until after the dream when I started researching green dragon books lol

Pages: cream in color and cold press. I think my brain lifted this from the 2011 Barnes & Noble edition of Neil Gaiman's American Gods/Anansi Boys leather hardback (which I also own).

Kelly green silk bookmark

About 400 pages long

The table of contents fit on just one page, so there weren't that many stories despite it being around 400 total pages

They were all complete short stories, no excerpts

The stories were generally sympathetic towards the dragons. Edith Nesbit's The Last of the Dragons is a good example of the general vibe.

Some were from the perspective of the dragons

The stories were generally mature and not targeted towards younger audiences

They were all monstrous-type dragons, no anthros or furry adjacent ones. I don't think any of the dragons ever took on a temporary human form but they may have in parts of some stories.

I struggle reading text in dreams and don't know the names of any of the stories but the title of the book itself was no more than about 5 words

I have been furiously scribbling thumbnails in my sketchbook all morning and I have to go out for the day to get routine bloodwork done and I'm dying. I could make this book real

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

link, about how the Good Omens book was inspired by Richmal Crompton’s Just William books, the Good Omens part starts at 7:38 :)

I: William’s influence stretches across genres. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s apocalyptic novel Good Omens published in 1990 began life as an thought experiment - what if William wandered into 1976 horror film The Omen, in which an American diplomat finds his infant son swapped for the Antichrist.

Neil: If the baby swap had just been a little bit messier and the kid had gone off somewhere else, he would have grown up as somebody else. And then there was a beat and I thought: I should write it, it will be called William the Antichrist. And I loved the idea of William the Antichrist, I started writing it, sent it to a couple of friends, one of whom was Terry Pratchett, who called me up a year later and said, ‘Yeah, that William the Antichrist thing, you're doing anything with that?’ And I said, ‘No, I've written 5000 words of it and now I'm up to my eyes in Sandman.’ And he said, ‘Do you want to do it together?’ 

I: As Neil Gaiman explained to me, it turned out to be an inspired pairing. 

Neil: I think for me and for Terry, it was such a delight to just go, okay, here is this thing that formed us. Here is a thing that shaped us. Here is an author whose plotting and whose prose style actually built what we do, and now we're going to go back with love. So the first draft of Good Omens was a William book. It was absolutely in every way it could be a William book. It had Violet Elizabeth Bott, it had William and the Outlaws, it had Mr. Brown. 

I: Over time, the writers realized that they would have more creative freedom if they, in their own words, filed off the serial numbers. William and the Outlaws becoming Adam and the Them. And while the novel spins off in ineffable directions undreamt of by Richmond Crompton, the spirit of William is never far away.

Neil. The joy for me was occasionally just getting to construct perfectly William's sentences. I do remember the one of him when Anathema tells him that she has lost a book, he tells her that he's written a book. It was about a pirate who became a famous detective, and it was eight pages long,and particularly it would cheer her up. And then he says he'd he'd given it to one of the other kids, probably Brian. Brian said he'd never been so cheered up. And that's a William sentence. 

I: Good Omens would go on to huge success, not only as a novel, but also a blockbuster TV series, as well as an audiobook read, of course, by Martin Jarvis. Martin has been reading William on the radio since the 1970s.

[tetw]

10 Essential Essays about Writing

Why I Write by Joan Didion - Exploring the art of writing, and what it means to the author

Autobiographical Notes by James Baldwin - I was born in Harlem thirty-one years ago. I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read...

Write Till You Drop by Annie Dillard - "Do you think I could be a writer?" "I don't know. . . . Do you like sentences?"

The Nature of the Fun by David Foster Wallace - "A book-in-progress is a kind of hideously damaged infant that follows the writer around wanting love, wanting the very thing its hideousness guarantees it'll get: the writer's complete attention."

That Crafty Feeling by Zadie Smith - "What I have to say about craft extends no further than my own experience, which is what it is - 12 years and three novels."

How To Write With Style by Kurt Vonnegut - Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it?

Where Do You Get Your Ideas? by Neil Gaiman - A meditation on inspiration

Why They Aren’t Writing the Great American Novel Anymore by Tom Wolfe - A treatise on the Varieties of Realistic Experience

Everything you Need to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes by Stephen King - Short, sharp advice on everything from talent and self-criticism to having fun and entertaining your audience

Write Like a Motherfucker by Cheryl Strayed - Raw, emotional adivce on the role of humility and surrender in the often tortured world of the writer

[lynkhart]

‘Just like the old times’

Have one hopelessly optimistic angel right before things take a turn. 🥺

I don’t know what miracle season 2 of Good Omens has cast upon me, but I’m not complaining because it’s given me the ability to paint in a way I never thought I could manage. I’ve always really struggled with finding a style I liked that was realistic but stylised and somehow this just came together perfectly over the last two days. I remember my high school art teacher always telling me I needed to ‘loosen up’ with my art and until very recently I’ve never been able to do that so I hope she’s happy at last. 😂

Anyway, the Good Omens brainrot is very very real and I don’t think this will be the last such portrait! I took an inordinate amount of screenshots during my 3 (!) rewatches so I’ve got plenty of inspiration! (Big thanks to @neil-gaiman for gifting us such a fantastic series…but also how dare you. 😩)

I’ve got a timelapse on my Instagram showing the process from start to finish which can be found here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cv0-3-DoUNV/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[angelxd-3303]

Sorry if this is like a weird question and I'm not exactly sure how to word it so bear with me, but do you have any tips on how to write more beautifully? Like poetically because you do it so well and I like it.

Yeah, that's it I love your art and I hope you have a nice day!

Not weird at all! I honestly think that the things I used to read impacted the way I write. I was the kind of person who would read classical novels, so I've found that I have kind of an old-fashioned way of writing. My recommendation? Read classics. The way authors like L.M Montgomery and Jules Verne wrote is so fundamentally different from modern novels, and it really brings a poetic edge to my own writing.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne inspired me with it's unique characters.

White Fang by Jack London and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell helped me look at the world through a different perspective.

I cannot overstate the influence that J.R.R Tolkien had on my writing style. The way he describes places down to the trees and mountains, in a way that you can picture it in your mind, is so inspiring.

The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter is a wonderful story that celebrates the Cherokee culture, and the way nature and our place in it is described in such a beautiful way.

Another factor is the fact that I grew up studying the Bible. One could say that consistently reading a book over 6,000 years old and researching topics related to it tends to impact your writing, lol.

In short, my writing style has been built up for years. It was heavily influenced by the things I read, and I cannot recommend classic novels enough. Taking a page out of the books of the masters is a wonderful way to elevate both your personal vocabulary and your writing. Below is a list of my favorite no els, some of which I've mentioned:

1) Any Jules Verne novel. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth, ect.

2) The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter.

3) White Fang by Jack London.

4) Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell.

5) Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery.

6) The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien.

7) Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

8) Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.

9) The Woman in the Wall by Patrice Kindl

10) The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Hope this helps!