http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/what-i-plan-to-do-this-week.html

Write.

Walk the dog. (Seen here being walked by me half an hour ago. I was not wearing special protective warm clothing. It was remarkable.)

Not go onto the internet except occasionally to email people things they are waiting for.

Sleep.

Posted via email from Neil's posterous

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/in-which-i-test-posterous.html

I'm testing http://posterous.com out, as a way of posting to Blogger from my phone, using email. So this is a test posting...

I'm attaching the "mass market" paperback cover for Fragile Things, which will be released in the US in February. It shows someone who looks like me with jam, or dreams, or ideas, squidging out of a book and all over him.

I finished a short story - technically, I suppose, a novelette, as it's 10,000 words - that I've been working on for much of the year. For most of that time, even through to the end of the first draft, a couple of weeks ago, I was convinced it was never going to work, would be a stunted, crippled little thing that was doomed to disappoint me. I knew it was missing something. What that something was occurred to me last week, exhausted after a yoga session in Boston, as my mind blanked, and later I wrote two short paragraphs in my notebook. Those paragraphs percolated and began to breathe, and I put them in and the story shifted, subtly, around them. The second draft took wing, and I found I was clear enough in my mind about what the story was that taking out things that weren't part of the story and putting in things that were was now easy, and the more I did it the better the story got, and now I'm happier with it than I've been with anything I've written for well over a year. It's called "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains..." and it is not exactly a happy story.

Right...

Dear Neil,

Patrick Rothfuss is making the world a better place in a very tangible way with his charity run Worldbuilders 2009. (http://www.patrickrothfuss.com/blog/2009/12/worldbuilders-2009.html) My sphere of influence in this world is rather small, but you could, just by mentioning it in your blog, raise a lot of awareness and thus help a Very Good Cause. It would mean a lot to me, and no doubt a helluva lot more to Pat and the people that receive Heifer's help. Many thanks and much love,

a fan of Wonderful People,
Gaetan Verhegge

Consider it plugged enthusiastically. I sent Patrick a signed copy of the incredibly beautiful STARDUST Advanced Reader's Copy when he did this last year, and it got to him a little late, so he has that along with many other amazing and beautiful books to give to people who donate. Check it out.

Hi Neil,

Hmm. Okay. I'll email this in, now. Not sure how I can do the blogger labels, though. Let's see if it works.

Posted via email from Neil's posterous

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/12/chilly-and-statuesque.html