The other day I was wondering aloud how people like Neil Gaiman, Dave Eggers, and other perpetually producing creative types do it.
Do they not sleep? Are they just so ridden with brilliant ideas that they are able to churn out material like machines? (Maybe they are machines themselves, and not actual humans.) Are they secretly enslaving legions of child prodigies who actually do the work that they then take credit for?
Then I found a possible answer on Neil Gaiman's blog (which, by the way, is a very cool one):
"Sunday, December 06, 2009
What I plan to do this week
Posted by Neil at 5:19 PM
Write.
Walk the dog.....
Not go onto the internet except occasionally to email people things they are waiting for.
Sleep."
Ah ha! He does sleep, but apparently must plan it ahead of time. He does appear to actually do the work. He avoids the internet. He exercises.
However, there is no mention of eating. Or bathing. Or cleaning the house. Or holding conversations with children or adults who are related to him. Hum.
Definitely a machine.
4 comments:
I don't know if anyone can compete with Issac Asimov.
inI recall reading a biography some years back, that talked about his intense work ethic (400+ books...), and how he would get up every morning at 6am, sit down in his office at 7:30am, write, break for lunch, and then work through into the late evening. It was his job, and he had the discipline to just put his head down and write all day long.
And the breadth of his writing is astonishing. Although most people think of his science fiction, he also wrote mystery and fantasy novels, and tons of non-fiction on astronomy, mathematics, the Bible, Shakespeare, chemistry and other subjects.
Pretty incredible.
Oh, yeah, Asimov. Totally true, Brian. Sadly, we have boxes of his books, M's collection, and I haven't read any of them!
Another author to put on the to-be-read list.
I wonder, based on that biography, how his relationships were with his family. Was he married, have a significant other, friends, kids, lots of servants?
And we didn't even mention Terry Pratchett yet. Or the word machines Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen King.
I really appreciate Gaiman and believe that I first found The Sandman back when I was in O.U. I've only run across his blog once or twice. This one in particular I really found fascinating.
To the first thing you noticed that isn't on his list, eating, I think of myself. There are days I cannot tear myself from writing to eat. I sit here and write about hunger while listening to my stomach growl. It's a really weird place to be in. I have a friend the same way. Eating is a necessary distraction from all the other tasks on our list.
Of course, when I actually take the time to sit down for a good meal I may have an even greater appreciation for it.
Oroboros, I think you'd be intrigued with the novel "Hunger" by Knut Hamsun, if you haven't already discovered it. It's a book that I would like to read again, having first discovered it at OU (of course). I wonder if it would have the same impact on me now that it did then. The plot involves a young writer taking the "starving artist" approach to life a bit too literally.
I tried to get into The Sandman recently, but couldn't stick with it. It was in a gigantic Sandman anthology, which may have been the problem. Too much all at once.
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