halfarsedhermit
Halfarsed Hermit
This blog is neglected but still going. We got that in common. Welcome back twitter-exiles, I've put the kettle on
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In 1985, one of the only persons interested in an interview with a “new” writer called Terry Pratchett, after his publication of the Colour of Magic, was one Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman was writing for Space Voyager at the time. "The Colour of Pratchett" was the name given here:
It ran exactly one page inside the June/July issue of that year. The interview took place in a Chinese restaurant in London.
Here is Neil many years later holding that issue. You can see it here if you want. Warning: extremely emotional video.
Neil arrived wearing a grey homburg hat. “Sort of like the ones Humphrey Bogart wears in movies” he later wrote. (Before saying that in fact he did not look like him, but like someone wearing a grown-up’s hat). Terry Pratchett, photo courtesy of one @neil-gaiman, was in a Lenin-style leather cap and a harlequin-patterned pullover. At this point, Terry was already a hat person, although not that hat.
Terry offered Neil this : "An interview needn't last more than 15 minutes. A good quote for the beginning, a good quote for the end, and the rest you make up back at the office"*. (Terry Pratchett had worked many years in journalism by this point ).
But the meeting went terribly well. The two of them realized they had "the same sort of brains". So well indeed, that in 1985, Neil had shown Terry a file containing 5282 words, exploring a scenario in which Richmal Crompton's William Brown had somehow become the Antichrist. Was a collaboration in the cards as of that moment? Not really. But Terry found in Neil someone to whom he could send disks of work in progress and to whom he could pick up the phone sometimes when he hit a brick in the road of his writing.
Terry loved it and the concept stayed in his mind. A couple of years later, he rang Neil to ask him if he had done any more work on it. Neil had been busy with The Sandman, he had not really given it another thought. Terry said, "Well I know what happens next, so either you sell me the idea or we can write it together". **
And as you know, unless you’ve been living in Alpha Centauri, the rest is history. That was the beginning of what would become William the Antichrist and later would get the name Good Omens:The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. (Title provided by Neil Gaiman and subtitle by Terry Pratchett).
William the Antichrist being a direct inspiration of the 1976 film The Omen. If the baby swap had just been a little bit messier and the kid had gone off somewhere else he would have grown up as somebody else. “And then there was a beat and I thought, I should write it, it will be called William the Antichrist” says Neil. ***
“The first draft of Good Omens was a William-book. It was absolutely in every way it could be a William book. It had Violet Elizabeth Bott, it had William and the Outlaws, it had Mr. Brown”.
Over time they realized that they would have more creative freedom if they in their own words filed off the serial numbers. William and the Outlaws becoming Adam and the Them.
But the spirit of Just William was never far away.
The joy for Neil was to construct “perfectly William sentences”. The one when Anathema tells Adam that she has lost the Book, and he tells her that he has written a book about a pirate who became a famous detective and it is 8 pages long… that’s “a William sentence”.
Good Omens was also inspired by a particularly antisemitic moment in The Jew of Malta and John le Carre's spy novels. (Neil’s ask)
(Here are some slides of mine where I go into some other details concerning the origins of Good Omens).
*Quote: from Terry Pratchett A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins, but said by Terry of course.
** All the quotes, facts listed here : see above.
***all other quotes by Neil Gaiman from various interviews and asks I’ll link.
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Losing my mind about Red and the Big Bad Wolf still
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The magnitude with which LotR enveloped my teenage brain and has never truly let go is beautifully expressed and explained here.
I know that Peter’s Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy technically has flaws but also….it doesn’t. It’s perfect.
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The Negotiation by John “Jangus” Cambra
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The Lady and the Crow by Anato Finnstark
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Strange Places series by Artem Chebokha
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i think one of the most important things you learn about making connections with others is that a significant portion of the time people just do not know theyre doing what theyre doing
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Chapelle de l'Ange au Violon in Conques-sur-Orbiel, France
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Toxic Personality
Fighting the Red Court with the Fellowship of St. Giles and making plant puns. Another Dresden Files ttrpg character.
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IN A DISTANT and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part . . .
See . . .
"GNU Sir Terry Pratchett" - L-Space Wiki / Ursula K. LeGuin / "Terry Pratchett" - Wikipedia / "GNU" - Urban Dictionary / Going Postal by Terry Pratchett / Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett / Brandon Sanderson / Paul Kidby / The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
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