Everything that made me want to be a writer was in thanks to reading The Sandman. It changed the course of my life. This is my long overdue thank you to Neil Gaiman as well as a message of hope to fellow writers: on why your fiction matters.
Originally, I was going to write a post about the importance of rest. But while tweeting and following search trends, promoting some journalism colleagues, and friends; a very special person–arguably the biggest influence in my life without them knowing–reshared a comment I’d made regarding one of his works of fiction. It was thanks to this shoutout that I promised to write a featured piece. With ATB Writers being a likely better fit given that it’s a writing blog.
For context, I have listened to Neil Gaiman tell this story about Coraline’s origins in countless talks, workshops, and conventions. Every iteration is the same: in an early draft, Neil misspells the name Caroline (which, coincidentally, is also my sister’s name) as Coraline and then finds this mistaken idea of the ‘other’ as an interesting concept. Forming the basis of The Other World and the ‘Other Mother’, while sticking with his misspelled version of the character.
I tweeted about it. Then Neil surprisingly shared it. Which, I don't know if he realizes, was a very big deal to me, coming from the person whose works have inspired almost 1/3rd of my life. For the first time, I was in Neil’s ear reach. I wanted to do something special.
They say it’s disappointing to meet your heroes. Which is why, despite so many moments that I could’ve spoken to Neil this past decade, I actively choose to avoid the encounter. At least, until this moment. Why now? Because I’m considering quitting writing. But after everything that’s happened lately, with the pandemic, and all of these people that I’ve personally lost these past few years… I figured why not. Let me just reach out. Let me show folks how writers and powerful works of fiction can influence the paths taken in a lifetime. And maybe, I can remember why I'd wanted to be a writer. And maybe, I can convince someone else, as to why their writing matters. Whether the actual Neil Gaiman reads this or not.
Neil Gaiman Was My Distant, Obi-Wan Kenobi
In 2010 I wanted to be a psychotherapist. My major was psychology and sociology, partially because I was great at the human sciences, but mostly, because at the brilliant age of 19, I had come to the conclusion, “I think, therefore I must major in it!” Naturally, I knew that I was going to be the next René Descartes in a way that only ambitious youths that don’t know any better dare to dream before they’d actually accomplished anything.
My mentor, George Atwood, was a descendent of a field of psychological thought taught by Silvan Tompkins, who was a major figure who brought to society the facial affect theory of Paul Ekman (Lie To Me and the science of human lie-detecting). Tomkins, in turn, had studied under the humanist psychologist Henry Murray and Murray’s school of thought descended from Carl Gustav Jung–whose psychoanalysis popularized the use of archetypes and symbolism in dreams. Jung was also, of course, a descendent of Sigmund Freud, so if fields of psychoanalysis were a family tree, in a bastardized way, I was the great great great grandson of that entire school of thought.
This sort of background laid the groundwork for what became my sort of obsession with the works of Neil Gaiman. A writer, whose interpretations on religious deities and knowledge of their philosophies, was so naturally encoded into the fiber of dreams. What I loved about Neil was how natural this all was in his work. He wasn’t preaching or studying these concepts like my academic forebearers, he was, as an existentialist would call it: simply, being. Neil was a storyteller who wrote about things that interested him. Tolkien and Harlan Ellison, C.S. Lewis and Alan Moore. Coming from the background that I had at the time, I could see Neil’s narrative patterns and their traces back to the Campbellian monomyth. But Neil… he had mastered it without ever really giving it a name. That was the brilliance I saw in his writing as a 22-year-old. It completely redefined everything I thought I knew about living…
In my return home to the states before finishing my last year of college, Bruce bequeathed upon me, for my flight, what he considered to be: the greatest work of fiction of all time. What was strange, was that he was talking about several volumes of graphic novels. Even stranger was that this was not the first person to tell me that about this series…
I’d read Sandman for the first time on my trip back to America. I didn’t realize how reading those stories would forever change me. What started as a horror series became something much more, fragmenting my entire view of psychology. Sandman introduced to the dogmas of Daoism, in that, with destruction comes creation, and from death, life anew. Simple, yet powerfully meaningful, the Sandman taught me priceless lessons regarding the need to change. It was the sort of thought academia was never great at nurturing. That Truth could often only sprout from a kernel of verisimilitude, and though I became a master at academic writing… the seeds being planted in my head were meant for something entirely different.
I wanted to become a fiction writer. I wanted to share experiences that could only be expressed through stories.
After graduation, I attended my first Neil Gaiman speaking event in 2011. The 92Y where he’d done an interview with the brilliant journalist and novelist, Lev Grossman. Having just finished reading American Gods, I found everything about Neil’s talk captivatingly exhilarating, especially in regards to that revelation about Shadow Moon *spoilers, it has to do with his bloodline and his real identity*.
I didn’t realize it at the time but seeing Neil was the highlight of my summer. Because I’d spent the rest doing what most students would in their final Summer with college friends. I went to Disney world. Then later, flip-flopped and began studying for the GREs. Because honestly, who in their right mind abandons academia for writing full-time. So, I said goodbye to friends who were moving and prepared for the next step of the journey. Then in early September, like some sort of Greek tragedy, I completely tore in half my Achilles tendon in what was the greatest game of football played in my entire life.
That tear was a heartbreaking reminder of how time never lasts forever. Because I ended up completely bedridden for 7 months. Living on my parent's couch. Having to relearn how to walk. All while my friends and cohorts moved away. Life hit a standstill and I was arguably in my darkest place that academia, really did nothing to prepare for me in how to handle. As deadlines kept creeping and I, existentially anyway, was dead to the world. I had no idea what I was meant to do next and no one to guide me.
There was one salvation I had at this time. My issues of Sandman… which served as sort of my replacement graduate school. This time around, I was studying Neil’s voice and technique, in what soon became, the greatest outlet I had the pleasure of re-reading in a dark period of my life. I decided to actually try and be a writer while stuck on that couch. I decided to start with the form that I believed at the time was the easiest: writing a screenplay.
It was aptly titled: A Date With Death. I was trying to do something along the lines of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Instead of attempting to delay the reaper, this was the story about a young man who had fallen in love with her. A metaphor for how I was feeling at the time, questioning the meaning of life and death, and wanting, more than anything else, to get laid.
Like most writers’ first work at anything, it was an incredibly bad screenplay. The plot points were basically a fan fiction version of Sandman #4. The second act was a very bizarre sort of Rom-Com between love and death, in what could only be described as set in the backdrop to Death in Venice.
Looking back, I just wanted to do what Neil Gaiman did but I wasn’t good enough of a writer. I just took the things I liked from him and in fiction and threw them messily together expecting that people would like them too… even if it made no sense. Acknowledging this, once I had fully healed, I took screenwriting classes at my community college. Read all the beginning writers' books such as Bird-by-bird, Save The Cat, Aristotle’s Poetics, and Steven King’s: On Writing.
In 2012, I shot a web series that year aptly titled: ‘Generation Me’ which was a millennial's version of Friends, though it never finished production. When I realized I wasn’t as funny as I’d like to be as a writer, I took writing classes the next year in NYC both at the Upright Citizens Brigade with instructor Melinda Taub to try and be funnier (whom, by the way, is a very brilliant teacher and far funnier than I could ever be), and later, at Gotham Writer’s Workshop, where I learned about short story and novel writing with author Shari Goldhagen (whose book In Some Other World Maybe convinced me there was some merit to telling your story, as she had). I made my first writing friends here and learned my first lessons in networking. I’d even taken another screenwriting course later that year as a refresher: an online Skillshare class with James Franco and Vince Jolivette.
I was a few years into this journey at this point and knew that I was fully committed to being a writer. Strangely, despite ‘leaving psychology behind’, I ended up working as a caseworker for 7 years, with every bit of free time and money, dedicated to writing and consuming every single work created by Neil Gaiman at that time.
In 2015, I wanted to thank Neil for starting me on this journey. I had the opportunity to finally meet him in person, at of all things, inside of a temple for the release of Sandman: Overture. A live event where Junot Diaz, author of This is Where I leave you, was hosting. The event also had Marjorie Liu in attendance. So there were some big names here. If that weren’t intimidating enough… there was a surprise that evening: Amanda Palmer. She was there, along with Neil and her newborn baby, Ash.
Moments before this whole shindig started, Amanda secretly asked us while walking up and down the aisles, to sing Neil Happy Birthday, as apparently, it was the following day.
The event was even filmed for a DC audience. You can see the whole thing here.
But I didn’t.
I was scared and honestly, sort of felt like I wasn't enough yet. Because for some reason, in my head, I always thought that if I ever got the chance to speak to Neil, it would be because I’d written something of meaning. In this strange head narrative of mine, if Neil’s life was the story of Hamlet, I’d like to think that mine may be more akin to something like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Funny takes from the outside. Probably never taking part in the actual story, unless I was talented enough to consider becoming a major player.
After that experience, I had ended up taking classes with the woman who’d become my writing mentor for a time: Serena Valentino. The Disney YA author, who had once also shared with me, nothing but kind words about Neil Gaiman and how she’d once asked for a blurb for one of her novels. Something which Neil seems to have done for a lot for people out of kindness. Serena had taught me so much about character and even more about comic books. I grew a lot from her lessons, and was adamant, that the next time I’d see Neil, I would share something that I’d made. Something of worth.
In 2016, before the election that had changed everything, I traveled around the entire country for about a month and a half, wanting to gain experience about the world while going out on my own American Gods-styled road trip. About a year later, I officially quit my job finally where I’d accidentally had been a mental health specialist for almost 7 years. To finally shut up about it, pursue the dream, and finally, take that leap.
I wrote and wrote and wrote some more. I became a freelancing journalist, partially because of the opportunities it brought, but also, because one day I figured that maybe I’d be able to meet my own Alan Moore. Sort of like what Neil had in his early career.
Then, in 2018, Good Omens became one of the first events I’d covered at NYCC. I remember the surge of the crowd rocking out to Queen before the opening. Seeing David Tenant on stage (my favorite Doctor) and of course–seeing Neil speak yet again. Though this time, a little less magical, having weirdly been a fan and seeing him several times now throughout the years at conventions and events.
I knew then, that this was the sign that I’d grown. Because later that year, I’d written, what was going to be Warner Brother’s second-ever Korean Drama for a friend and a website called Dramafever. Which, unfortunately, never came to pass, having collapsed about a month before my series could officially really do anything. Despite all of this I kept trying to be a writer.
And then my father died…
He’d had a cardiac arrest in his bedroom. I’d found him, though not in any condition a child should ever find their parent. He was struggling to breathe. Pools of drool spilling out of his mouth. He wasn’t responsive, and I, exhausted as it was late in the evening, was trying to wake my father from what I’d thought was a sleepwalking nightmare. But he wouldn’t wake. I’d even slapped him a few times and nothing seemed to change.
It was then I felt the air escape the room in a cruel realization that every second mattered as time slowed to a halt thanks to the adrenaline. Watching someone you love take their last gasp before the final exhale… where he keeled over… and just ceased being. Will do that to a person.
Having seen the most horrible things imaginable working for seven years as a caseworker helping co-morbid individuals with a plethora of substance abuse problems: all diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and personality disorders... sort of prepared me for the worst in terms of on the spot critical thinking, life/death situations, and emergency training.
My father, the stubborn bastard he was (much like myself), wasn't going to go out like this. This is what I kept telling myself in my head. If it weren't for the fact that I'd been an EMT in my late teens and had worked in several health services positions that required CPR training, I'm not sure he'd be alive.
Having been dead for a couple of seconds and knowing every second now mattered, I sort of kicked into my training. Dad’s mouth tasted like sour bile. When it comes to the most disgusting and traumatizing moments of my life, that one probably rings truest. I remember making the 911 call, dropping him onto the floor with a THUNK, and starting exhaustive chest compression rhythms for what felt like the longest 12 minutes of my life.
It made me wonder about all of my life choices up to that day. If writing was really what I was supposed to do or if I had wasted my life away pursuing this dream… and if my father, if he made it out of this alive (he did)... would be proud of me (he was).
When the paramedics arrived and shocked him with the defibrillator, he had a faint pulse. It was enough of a win for me to celebrate and when recounting these events to him years later, made him realize as well, just how fragile life can be. These moments made the man who was easily my greatest guilt antagonist throughout most of my life, believe in me. With him finally seeing the world my way: that the pursuit of meaning is really all that matters in this world.
I am telling you all of this because, while yes, he did make it (miraculously, without any permanent damage) I, along with my family, spent the following month and a half living at the hospital. Living in waiting rooms and meeting doctors. Uncertain if this person, who was such an asshole, but also, such a big part of my life, was going to live or die.
And in those moments of escape, the distractions I got to take away between appointments and my duties as now, strangely, the alpha parent of my family despite being the baby of the family, I had found things to do in the breaks in-between. Little reminders that I wanted to live and pursue my dreams because time is short and we only have a limited window to pursue that which makes us happy.
My respites were in fact Master Classes on my phone while waiting in hospital lobbies. Coincidentally, I had just started taking them before this chaos began. And just who do you think I was listening to at the time? But none other than lessons, taught by, Neil… Fucking… Gaiman.
Maybe it was unhealthy to be this obsessed with a celebrity. It was never in a toxic stalkery way, but more of a, I really love the kind of things this person did on this planet while we were both here, and I would have loved, to actually tell him: that his work absolutely mattered in my life.
Of course, this was not my last Neil moment. No, that gem would be at Rutgers University, my alma mater, where I’d worked since I’d graduated in 2011. Neil was there in 2019, doing a speech for the Rutgers Writers Workshop; hilariously hungover though trying his best not to be. The date was poorly planned as Neil had, the night before, been celebrating the debut of Good Omens on Amazon Prime. Still, he kept it somehow professional and it was an informative event. There were lots of answers to a lot of questions, mostly randomly submitted in a hat. I wasn’t expecting to have mine called but yet again, fate happened and Neil actually picked my only question out of the hundreds.
I had written in the question of how do you balance between work and family responsibilities? His answer was… that, well, he didn’t really know. I would have left it at that as there was no real context as to why I’d asked. But then, moments later, oddly enough, a woman in front of me, yelled a comment aloud about ghosts in the audience.
Now, the acoustics in the auditorium were terrible, which, feeling bad as that this person was suddenly shy since Neil sincerely asked her about that question, I thought it my responsibility to tell Neil. Why? I don’t know. It’s just my nature to try and be fair for everyone, and so, I did it over Twitter.
And, in a moment of feeling strangely helpless, I also, elaborated on why I wanted to know about the work and family balance… If it’s not clear why? It’s because that year, I was helping take care of my very stubborn father. Cardiac arrests kind of take a long period of time to recover from and he was, very much still in recovery and just as stubborn as ever (he’s fully better now though if you’re concerned).
Embarrassingly, I’ll admit, I never really used Twitter until the past few years. Which is why I spelled this out rather horribly, not knowing, that I could’ve just added a comment to lengthen the character limit. Neil knew nothing about my story. Why I’d sought to ask him, or what was possibly his assistant, this question, is because I’d just assumed that he’d had all the answers to everything. This was my own fault of sorts, having modeled so much of my writing, and really just big parts of my life, in the pursuit of trying to be as good of a writer as Neil Gaiman.
But I think for the first time, after seeing him talk about Good Omens that day, I saw Neil as a person. Not as some God with words and all the right writing answers, but as someone whom I’d spent almost a decade of my life studying and trying to be; the answer being, oddly learned from his own masterclass lessons: that the best writer I could ever be was, in fact, just me.
Over the years, I’d retweet some more Neil Gaiman things though I didn’t really get nor expected any responses. I’d eventually given most of my books away to friends and even my mother, who really loved the graveyard book.
Honestly, I don’t know if I will ever truly make it as a writer. I just know that these stories and this bizarre journey with having Neil Gaiman be a large part of that tutelage, albeit from a distance, had an impact on where I am today.
I don’t know if Neil will read this. But if he does, I just wanted to say thank you. This was sort of my letter of love because your work did quite literally change the direction of my life, entirely.
Finally, I hope that whoever’s reading this sees just how much fiction matters. That a story and a lifetime of work can change the direction of somebody’s life along the way.
Thanks for reading.
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