So you filled your hands

Before I got distracted with last night's adventures in primal stories, I was going to remind myself of some advice that Neil Gaiman, patron saint of this and all my journals (despite the fact that neither he nor I are Christian), wrote in one of my extremely earnest blank notebooks once upon a time.

I think I saw him this time while he was reading from Anansi Boys -- or maybe it was Coraline? Whatever it was, it hadn't been published yet, and hearing him was marvelous. It's been years since I've seen him in person, which is a huge shame, because he is without a doubt a joy at every appearance. Digressions -- that seems to be the order of the evening. Anyway, one piece of advice he gave in his talk was to be a magpie: take every shiny piece of story you see lying around and steal it for your own. When I presented him with my extremely earnest blank notebook at the signing session, I told him I was writing a Big Geeky Fantasy Epic and that I really liked his magpie advice. It was only later that I realized I'd written and underlined Tori Amos on the opposing page -- I have to imagine he didn't mind. (Again: word of the day is earnest; I have Sandman comics signed by him to "Del," okay?)

Anyway. Here is what he wrote:
Keep writing — and finish it!
Should not be that hard, or that desperately simple. And yet here we always are.

(P.S., he also wrote, Be a magpie...)