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RE: Notes From an Amateur Writer #13 - Learning to Fly
I was listening to a conversation that Neil Gaiman was having at a writers festival recently. In answer to a question, he started to talking about the creative process. He was really just thinking out loud, but a part that stuck with me was when he mentioned how "we all know that if a Werewolf bites you on the night of a full moon, well you turn into a Werewolf. But what would happen, if say, a Werewolf bites a ... goldfish? Or a chair you are sitting in, and that turns all hairy etc."
It just got me thinking about the imaginative process, and looking at the world with childlike wonder and curiosity. To look at the world anew, and ask of things in general, "What would happen if?"
Oh wow! You met Neil Gaiman? Or at least was in the same place as him? That's so cool! I was supposed to go to a book signing he did here a few years ago, but was unable to because of my corporate job.
Yeah, that's my approach for A Day in the Clouds as well. I tried to let go of science and logic, and try to think how someone who doesn't know something sees things. Knowing how something works really gets rid of that sense of wonderment, since it already lays out the explanation. It's like that definition of "magic is only science that has yet to be explained."
No, didn't meet the great man. Wasn't even in the same room as him, unfortunately. It was a YouTube video. Perhaps my penchant for name dropping misled you, sorry!
I liked that about your story - the sense of wonder and child-like bravado, set in the so-called real world. But as seen by someone who is also in their own world. The interaction of the two, from the protagonists perspective, jelled well.