Reason #428 why I love Neil Gaiman.
Despite his self-doubt, he’s given me two of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever gotten:
- Finish what you start.
- You can only get up to make more tea.
After that, it’s just a bitter fight to turn your brain off so that you can not think well enough to write.
Like you, I have an appreciation for Neil Gaiman’s work. And, no doubt, he has lots of good advice about writing and the process of writing. One of these days (I promise!) I will read more of his work.
Because of my admiration for him, I was disappointed in his adapted screenplay for the recent blockbuster film “Beowulf.” I thought it was very sexist. It cast Grendel’s Mother (Angelina Jolie’s character) in the role as the feminine “seductress.” The film played that old theme that “women” (or in this case a female water “spirit”!) are the great downfall of heroic males. Frankly, I expected more from Gaiman. It’s not that I’m some “purist” who doesn’t want any changes to the original source text. It’s just that I didn’t like the divergences Gaiman and his cowriter came up with.
I actually enjoyed the smaller Beowulf adaptation that was released about a year earlier, “Beowulf and Grendel.” Even though it also diverge from the source text in significant ways, I thought the story was less “objectionable.”
Angela