Notes on Neil Gaiman's appearance at the Sigma Tau Delta Convention, March 2009

So, I went to the Sigma Tau Delta Convention in Minneapolis. Primarily to see Mr. Gaiman speak, and to support my confederates presenting papers. Though I felt like an ass, I took notes while he was speaking and wish to reproduce some of them here for you lovely internet people to read.

Note, this is just a regurgitation of my notes from the notebook. I'll have something polished put together after I sleep some.

• He mentioned a new project, but was (obviously) unable to comment. Sounds like a long short story or novella, from some other comments he made.
• He also mentioned a collaboration with Stephen Merritt on a musical (being done in "an incredibly lazy way.") I know nothing about it beyond that.
  
• Quotes that felt long while writing, but are very short in typing:

"Good stories...aren't found."

"Things are imagined before they exist."

"In the Beginning was the dream."

"I learned [from working in Journalism] to never believe anything I read in newspapers."

• The only rules for writers are as follows:

1. There are none.
2. Write.
3. Finish things.
4. Start again.
5. Don't keep rewriting it. Send it out now.

There was a very Salman Rushdie moment, in which he stated that the job of the writer is to imagine and to write things down. This is a very interesting thing, for as Mr. Gaiman noted in his talk, everything that isn't grown or "a rock" had to have been imagined, at some point. Every human artifact is the product of imagination.

On the whole, Mr. Gaiman was one of the best speakers that I've ever heard--I hate the term "charming," but he managed. Every so often, he'd have to pause due to the crowd's laughter, and he was fascinating to listen to. I must also state that any man who will sign books for upwards of three hours is worthy of any praise that can be heaped upon him--I stood near the end of the line (with my dog-eared copy of American Gods), and he only stood once to take a five minute bathroom break. The man was a goddamned machine. A hillarious book-signing android of some sort.

On "Watchmen"

It's been a while, perhaps I should work up a schedule of sorts.

I recently saw Watchmen, and have been thinking a great deal about it. While it was somewhat disappointing, it is probably the best comic book adaptation yet put to screen.

There were several thematic elements that I thought about more than others, so bear with me for a moment:

• The studio cut Laurie's (Silk Spectre II's) smoking. This might not seem like a major feature, but it was a defining feature of her character in the graphic novel: she was always trying to quit cold turkey, and something would always happen to break her resolve. It made her more human. This was cut by the studios, who have essentially decided that only foreigners and villains smoke.
• The decision to remove functioning electric cars from the back story was a poor choice: it allowed them to talk about fossil fuels (and American dependence thereupon), but it also removed the primary display of Dr. Manhattan's god-like abilities: he can create lithium at will, thus making its availability a moot point, thus removing the problem with electric vehicles.

This isn't a fanboy ranting about how "they changed it, now it sucks" (you would've heard more about how the script was unfair to Rorschach and Jackie Earle Haley, who played him, and might be the best of the performers in the movie.) There are narrative elements that were misused in the execution of the film.

Anyway, it was a good adaptation, and most of the cuts made to the story were very utilitarian. Those two points above, however, seemed problematic to me and did not have a satisfactory explanation or placeholder. It seems that, in an effort to be "topical" (fossil fuels) and "correct" (smoking), they injured the story.