Roger Eschbacher's Blog, page 38

Neil Gaiman Profile

The New Yorker is running a fascinating profile of Neil Gaiman, easily one of my very favorite living authors. Here's an interesting pull quote that touches on an aspect of children's publishing that's been bugging me for some time:

"...when he showed an early draft to an editor in 1991, he was told it was unpublishable: far too frightening for kids. (Gaiman maintains that adults are more afraid of "Coraline" than children are.)"

Unpublishable. Yup. Here's hoping that Gaiman's popularity and...

A Shout Out to My Fans in Snezhinsk

I occasionally get requests from nice folks in faraway lands.

Hello! Happy New Year! My name is Aleksey. I live in Russia in city Snezhinsk. Our city very small and on it for me a great honor to write to you. I am very much very much the great admirer of your activity. In our city there is a fan club of your name. Very much I ask you to send me by mail your photo and your autograph. Very much it would be would be desirable that the autograph nominal on my name. This you will make me the...

"Eternals" by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by John Romita Jr. - Mini Review

Author Neil Gaiman and artist John Romita Jr. team up to resuscitate Jack Kirby's 1970's Marvel classic.

The Eternals are an offshoot of the human race, created and imbued with extraordinary powers by the god-like Celestials. Their job is to stand watch over humanity until the Celestials return. But something has gone wrong and the Eternals have somehow forgotten who they are.

We watch as they struggle with their new roles as ordinary human beings -- a doctor, a street bum, a party planner -- w...

My Writing Toolkit

"I was curious what software you use for writing your books."
-- Brian I., CA

For years I've been using plain old MS Word for my picture books, my spec chapter books, and even my spec novels. With very minor tweaks, you can set it up to produce a very respectable-looking manuscript. The generally accepted format for all of these is double-spaced and indented at each new block of dialogue or descriptive text. One inch margins all around seems pretty standard, too.

I use a dedicated script p...

"Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman - Mini Review

A fun story about two brothers who are the sons of the African trickster god, Anansi.

Spider knows who and what his dad is, Fat Charlie does not. He doesn't even know that he has a brother. When the old man kicks the bucket while performing on a Florida karaoke stage, events are set into motion that enlighten Fat Charlie about his heritage -- and fast. He quickly discovers that a dull life can get dangerously interesting when the gods are involved.

Set in the same literary universe as "American...

In Your Face, 50k!

Well, I did it! Checked the counter shortly after midnight and found that I was at a nicely balanced 52052 words -- a couple of days beyond my personal goal of 5ok by this past Wednesday, but I'm not complaining. All in all, I'd say this year's NaNo was the most fun to date -- a couple of slow days here and there but that happens. It was fun, challenging and, dare I say it, easy all at the same time. The "easy" part doesn't come from me thinking too highly of my rather workman-like abilities ...

The Big 40

Hit the 40k mark in my novel late last night. A day behind schedule but that's okay. I'll try to catch up and spread the "lost 2k" out over the next few days and still try to finish on Wednesday.

Here's where I stand as of last night:
Finished Chapter X (out of XXIII) for a total of one hundred and seventy-two pages so far.In the middle of an exciting escape sequence where the protagonist has been seriously injured by minions of the evil arch fiend. The cad!
Greatly enjoying myself. Ideas are...

Halfway Home

Passed the 25k mark on my NaNo novel yesterday and feel pretty darned good about it. Some of my "buddies" are cranking along too, with several of them already past the 50k mark! That's impressive as you know they had to throw in some 3, 4, and 5k days to get that far that fast. My "2k a Day" goal is plenty for me. I can get it done in a couple of hours and not burn myself out -- helps me approach each day's writing with enthusiasm as I know my brain won't pucker and I'll have plenty of time t...

On Writers and Money

Author John Scalzi has a very interesting post on why writers seem to have a hard time managing their money and aren't all crazy rich.

10k, Olay!

Hit my first NaNo '09 milestone last night. At ten thousand words, here's where I am:
Almost at the end of Chapter III (the novel template in Movie Magic Screenwriter 6 uses Roman numerals as the default).Almost at the end of an awesome space battle involving spacecraft, space weapons, and a black hole (in space).Pleasantly surprised that it's going as smoothly as it is (taps forehead with knuckle). Knock on wood.My next personal milestone will be 25k so I'll give you an update on all things N...