ok, so I'm a writer who adores great writers. and one such writer is still alive and even came to the Philippines for a few precious days-- Neil Gaiman.
i should have planned this much better. he had an all day event at rockwell last saturday and i totally slept through it. he went over the limit they set for the number of fans whose books and whatnots he'd sign from 500 to 700, not counting those who didn't have stubs but lined up anyway. they finished at 130 in the morning! I should have gone there!!!
he had another signing sunday at greenhills but sunday is family day and we (my little family) had a good time finishing a school project for my baby-- her first storybook. She wrote the story. I polished it. I drew the comic art. She and her Tatay colored the drawings and decorated the pages. Now that's an activity worth much more than any few seconds with a living legend!
through the kindness of mr. paolo jalbuena, I got listed in as a member of the press attending Neil's writers' forum monday afternoon. i got there a couple of minutes late and they started right on the dot. wow!
as luck would have it, i lined up to ask neil a question from a microphone and was blessed to be the last one to ask him a question. before i asked my well-crafted question, neil, in his animated and candid self, said, "well, since you're the last question, this must be a very good one. not that i am putting pressure on you or anything. just forget that i said anything."
be still my heart...
i said (after laughing), "well, thank you very much!"
i fumbled at an intro to my question and, get this, darn it, i forgot to identify myself !!!
I don't remember all he said to answer my question but he answered it looking straight at me from the stage. i was floating, i think. after about five minutes of his candid reply, he stopped and smiled at me.
my smile widened, then i said, "thank you very much!"
i know, i'm completely making a fool of myself in this journal. the last time this happened was when I had my picture taken with Michel Legrand a couple of years ago, and when I interviewed Ryan Cayabyab a few years before that.
I don't gush so much anymore, but if Piers Anthony came to town... *grin*
*sigh*
=)K
wahahahah! i didn't realize writers could benefit from the 'rock star' effect...
ReplyDeleteOh trust me, we can. He he.
ReplyDeleteI've always said Neil Gaiman was the "Sting" of contemporary literature. Intelligent yet with an appeal that straddles the literati and the mass market.
hehehe. and, at 45, the guy looks great. girls absolutely and positively swooned. during the writers forum, we all hung on to his every word, even when he said "stay where you are, you'll receive your orders soon" in that british accent i think is very sexy.
ReplyDelete=)K
And so ... what did you ask? In your gushing retelling of what happened you forgot to mention your question, hehehe.=o)
ReplyDeleteDid you remember to record his answer?
i asked him this:
ReplyDeleteyour characters are so whimsical, (unlike brits). do you base them on real people? if you do, has anyone come after you about this?
in a capsule, his answer was:
i get personalities from the people around me, even those i don't know. i make stories about them in my head. no one has come after me about my characters except that one time when i wrote about a man and his girlfriend. every single one of my exes called me and asked if it were she in that story. i said "yes" to all of them.
and he was staring at me the whole time... sigh!