.writer//quotes


Contributed by Sylaen:

Joan D Vinge wrote the following passage in the intro to her book Psion:

"I was lying in bed, putting my insomnia to good use by "making up stories" until I fell asleep, as I'd been doing since I was very young. On this particular night a new character appeared in my own private virtual reality and started telling me his story right from his own mouth as though I had no choice but to listen. I've heard writers say that all their characters come to them this way, but this is the first and only time that it ever happened to me. The next day I started writing his story down."

She concluded the introduction saying:

"Cat is to me, far more than the sum of his parts, and always will be. How long it will take me to finish telling the story of his life, I don't know. I only know that I wouldn't mind us growing old together."

And from Neil Gaiman (author of the Sandman graphic novels):

Interviewer: Now that Sandman is over, do you ever miss the characters?

Neil Gaiman: No, for the simple reason that they haven’t gone away. I’ve let go of the minutiae, but the characters continue to live inside my head. They’ll always be a part of me.

[later in the interview] ...She [Delirium] was someone who wrote herself on the page… I thought Delirium would be belligerent, and I wrote about a page of her that way. But it felt wrong, as if I was trying to push her off in some direction that she didn’t want to go. Then I tried again by just shutting up and listening to discover what sort of things she actually said. And that did it...

…With Delirium, I just took dictation. I could give her a straight line, and she’d come back with the perfect Gracie Allen/Zen response. And I’d just type it out and say “Wow, that’s lovely,” and start giggling.

Also from Neil Gaiman, from the Sandman GN A Game of You:

"Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world - no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. Isn't that a weird thought?"


Contributed by Silverwalk:

From the author's notes of Tanith Lee's book, Wolf Tower:

"When I write, I go to live inside the book. By which I mean, mentally I can experience everything I’m writing about. I can see it, hear its sounds, feel its heat or rain. The characters become better known to me than the closest family or friends. This makes the writing-down part very simple most of the time. I only need to describe what’s already there in front of me. That said, it won’t be a surprise if I add that the imagined worlds quickly become entangled with the so-called reality of this one.

Since I write almost every day, and I think (and dream) constantly about my work, it occurs to me I must spend more time in all those other places than here."


Contributed by Crow

From the introduction of the Serial Experiments Lain artbook, "an omnipresence in wired", written byYoshitoshi Abe:

I am omnipresent/here/there/somewhere

Introduction

I am writing this passage while picturing my latest cartoons, and with several pages of a series for AX magazine yet to be completed.

I still cannot look at the phenomenon of "lain" or the work called "serial experiments" with objective eyes. This, I suppose, is because I have been thinking about the existence of "lain" since the first time I encountered this plan two years ago, and this has become a habit for me.

However, I cannot seem to find the words to talk about her existence. Or rather, I should say that from the start there was nothing to say.

In regard to the design of this character, I must say that the term "recalling" is more appropriate than "creating". The action of drawing "things that recall the existence of lain" which was omnipresent in my own memories, made me dig, wipe the dirt, and reconstruct those things step by step to come closer to the existence of "lain". It was as if "lain" were always there, even before I started to think of her existence.

There are no right answers in creation. But every time I drew "lain" there always seemed to be a right answer somewhere, and I had this strange conviction that I could achieve it if I had the creative power. To put it simply, lain was such a phenomenon for me.

Once I have completed the work for the collection, I will not have an opportunity to draw "lain" again for some time. Although this was the first character I ever drew over a long period of time, once I have completed this work, rather than feel lonely, I will have a real sense of "lain"'s existence.

I hope this book helps you expand the world in which "lain" can be omnipresent...

There are also, Crow tells us, some references within the anime Serial Experiments Lain itself which suggest SoulBonding, but are spoilers for the series.


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