Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Erynn -- is that what it said on the AICN review? Now I wonder if
they'd actually even seen a real script... (Someone asked me why I'd
changed Madd Hettie from a 250 year old Bag lady to Sexton's
grandmother, which left me going "Why I did what...?")

Had a meeting with Warners execs yesterday. If there's no strike I go
to second draft of Death before the tour. If there is a strike I wait
until the strike is done before starting . Either way, we could be well
into pre-production before the end of the year. Unless it doesn't
happen.

Just had the weirdest storm I've ever seen. Once it was done Mike
walked around the house picking up golf-ball sized hailstones.
  

    
Martha -- congratulations!  (Now write more stories.)
  

    
        I used to always say that the weirdest weather I'd ever seen was on a
half-sunny, totally dry afternoon in Orkney, when for ten minutes hail
pounded down from the sky, and then just stopped.  Standing in dry
sunlight with ice falling out of the sky thwapping you on the head was
a strange enough experience that that became my benchmark for unusual
weather for years.  Then, of course, I got caught in a monsoon, or
something doing a good impression of one, in Hong Kong one day. 
Another story.
  

    
Neil--  Given all your reasons for _not_ looking at the AICN review, I
still don't know how you can resist looking, if only in a scab-picking
sort of way.  (that's not a "writing-during-strike" kind of scab, btw.
 Sensitivities can run high on May Day.)

DanGuy-- I agree that Pullman gets a little lost in the 3rd book--
still-- there's more ideas running around The Amber Spyglass than there
are in a dozen other average YA books.

Tomorrow is my wife and my 2nd year anniversary!
  

    
Write more stories?  Oh, I dunno....
  

    
Len -- it's not hard not to look at things. There are other things to
do. 

My scab-picking vice is, every now and again, looking at Amazon
reviews. My favorite recent one was the person who reviewed Stardust,
who pointed out proudly that by simply deploying a black Sharpie
Stardust can be made suitable for children.

Remember, even if there isn't an agreement, we still don't go on
strike until we've voted to strike...

Martha -- Go on. Write more stories. You know you want to.
  

    
Neil- the thing that disturbed me the most about the "reveiw" was: How
did they get the first draft of the script in the first place? and Is
it legal to be "giving away" everything that was suposedly changed,
added in, taken out from the origional story? It started out favorably
so I kept reading and then it quickly digressed into spoilers (or what
she thinks are spoilers) and by then it was too late. Ah well. No, it's
definatly not worth wasting valuable time reading.

Len- Happy anniversary!!!!!!

Martha- seconded. I will be very sad and depressed if you don't write
more stories. I'm sure there's something you want to write about....
  

    
Wanting to is a little different from having the stories worth telling part.
But you never know.
  

    
Erynn -- sure, it's legal. Anyone can post reviews or comments of
anything they get hold of. At the end of the day, it honestly doesn't
matter very much.
  

    
Talking about unreliable things from the Internet -- I see from
http://www.sfwa.org/awards/current.htm
that I was editor of SF AGE from 1992-2000. You would have thought I
would have noticed. Why was I fired? Or did I quit? 
  

    
Neil-- I just read the review you mentioned... yikes.  Imagine what
she'd have said if she wasn't otherwise captivated.

She reminds me of the guy who runs this movie review site:

www.capalert.com
  

    
Erynn-- thanks!
  

    
JaNell & Dan -- I love that movie.

Erynn -- And then there are some people who just make stuff up that
doesn't sounds <i>too</i> out there and some people buy it and then
start spreading it around.  Like the rumour about Neil writing a script
for HGttG (mentioned in Topic 73 #1026).
     As for Martha's book, I have every intention of ordering it in
the near future.

Neil -- I don't recall the AICN review saying anything about
"boom-boom-boom-flashy-bad", but it did say that Mad Hettie was
Sexton's grandmother (which I'm glad is news to you was well).
     That amazon review is priceless. My goodness. I wrote a review of
<font style="text-decoration:underline">Stardust</font> for my
university newspaper, but they cut my inches by half at the last minute
and gave my piece to a butcher of an editor, unable to find me.
     As for SF AGE, perhaps you simply took a sabbatical. You should
phone them and tell them you'll be picking back up the reins if the
strike goes through.

The weirdest bit of freak weather that I've ever witnessed occurred
when I was nine or ten and my grandmother was driving me home. We were
going down the highway and it began to rain, but only in our right
lane.  She changed lanes and the rain no longer struck the windshield.
Eventually the clouds shifted or the highway changed orientation or who
knows what, but it began to rain in the left lane, so she switched
lanes again and once again, no more rain. I loved it, as I'd always
been interested in the edges of rain storms.

Len -- I couldn't resist reading the review, if only to snort in
disbelief.
     The Pullman books are indeed rich, particularly the first one. 
As for the third, I had some issues with his use of theology and
religious institution.
     Congrats on the anniversary. ^^
  

    
Dan Guy - I love the edges of rainstorms too.  :-)  I haven't been
caught in one for years but I was walking along the sidewalk during the
last one and just spent a while jumping back and forth.  "rain... no
rain.  rain... no rain."

Jen, who should be doing homework.
  

    
Neil, you left SF AGE only because the magazine was terminated by the
publisher in favor of the wrestling magazines you were also editing.  You
see.
  

    
I stopped reading SF AGE when Neil stopped editing it.
  

    
I wish SOMEONE would edit it.  Did you SEE that misplaced semicolon
last issue?
  

    

do you still read the wrestling magazine?
  

    
AICN should be out of business simply for its bad layout alone.  My
eyes hurt whenever I go to that page.  
  

    
(Danguy - the HTML tags you're using in your posts look funny to those of us
reading this in picospan. You might want to consider not using them.)
  

    
e-mail from Tona:

Neil- You know, I noticed that about the SFWA.org website not to long ago 
and caught myself wondering "Does Neil know he had that job?" I meant to 
mention it, but forgot...

Tona
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
  

    
Perhaps Neil has a clone that he doesn't know about, who also wrote
Neil Gaiman's "Neil Gaiman"

Danguy- "boom-boom-boom-flashy-bad" was my paraphrase of what it
seemed like she was summing the script to be. And she did call her self
a fan. Scary. Apparently she's a fan who makes shit up.

Neil- It's legal to give things away before it's even released? She
may as well have put the damn script on site. But then, it seems that
she was reading a completely different script altogether, or just can't
read at all. Ah well. On to happier things.
  

    
Hey, after the 'Neil working with Britney Spears' thing that showed up
on afn-g a while ago, I decided the internet was capable of making any
rumour believable to *some*one.

Martha - Congrats. And I agree, write more stories. I'm sure you have
some in you that are interesting enough to share. 'sides, you've got a
title to live up to now.

Dan - Couldn't pull up the link (I suspect I'd have to be a member?),
but I recognize the name and her obsession with Sterling. Question is,
did I remember the right shade of green????

Erynn - Thank you, but I didn't leave *you* hanging like I did Mr.
Haskins. As for AICN, I usually only trust it as far as I can read it
without squinting from the weird colours. :)

Len - Happy Anniv!

weird weather - well, not so weird, but a couple of times now I've
driven much closer than I'd have liked to lightning crashing. The first
time was kind of cool as I drove past it and the dust from the impact
hit my helmet. The second one actually caused me to scream in the car
as the "boom" popped the car onto 2 wheels for the tiniest of split
seconds, which turned into an eternity in the rain. Then there was the
problem of the ringing in my ear for 2 days afterward. 

Neil - Good to see you're finally at home again. Rest up and relax
while you can!

squeaks, who is thinking of sampling the noise of the construction
work outside that's woken her up too early 5 days running.
  

    
gorey -- Thanks for the heads up.  I really should have realized that.

Erynn -- I wasn't meaning to imply that "Dorothy Parker" had actually
used that phrase, just that, in my opinion, she wasn't really saying
that. Of course, I wasn't reading it too carefully.

Michelle -- Strangest thing about that link... if you click on it, it
sends you somewhere else, but if you type it into the location field
directly you can go there. Very odd. As for the shade of green, it
varied slightly from shot to shot (as most colours in Robotech did) so
I'm sure you're in the ballpark somewhere.
  

    
Michelle -- someone broke the news on the Britney thing already?
Uh-uh.  That was meant to be under wraps until Hallowe'en.

...

Just got back from an evening in the studio, recording the next two
spoken word CDs -- did some short pieces and THE WEDDING PRESENT
tonight. Back into the studio tomorrow night for some middle-sized
stories. I'll do THE PRICE I think -- not sure what else... (all
suggestions welcome)