I tried Neil Gaiman's writing routine 🖋️📖

Hello and welcome to another author routine attempt! We've previously tried the writing routines of Haruki Murakami, Virginia Woolf and Donna Tartt and today we are finally trying out Neil Gaiman's writing routine~

Neil Gaiman, as many of you know, is my favourite living writer. I can't believe I forgot to mention it in this video, but I actually met him a few years ago and he was LOVELY. Anyway, this is my trying to write like Neil Gaiman for a whole (work) week. I hope you enjoy it 💛

PREVIOUS AUTHOR ROUTINE ATTEMPTS:

My book 📖 A Year in Tōkyō: An Illustrated Guide and Memoir:
Or, if you can, order it from your local bookstore! The ISBN is: 978-0-646-86639-0

Find me elsewhere~

Equipment I use:

Lipstick I wear (lol I always get asked)

All of my music is from:

Links:

Links marked with * are affiliate links 🌼

[romykachel]

The whole "I give myself permission to do nothing" reminded me a lot of a person telling me that creativity is made from boredom. You can only come up with stories if you have the capacity in your mind to do it. I have recently had a lot of free time and for whatever reason I discovered so much of my creative capacities I never thought I had. Before that I always thought that doing nothing is a waste of time. "Do nothing or write" is probably on of the best advice I ever got for writing

[zhisu]

Neil Gaiman is one of those authors where you can never know what he's gonna do next, he has such a wide variety and I swear everytime I'm at a bookstore I manage to see more novels that I didn't see before.

[MazzyMadness]

I sang during Neil Gaiman’s honorary doctorate ceremony and he came up to me after, shook my hand, and told me I had the voice of an angel 🥹 I nearly passed out, especially as a BaHons Creative Writing student who was studying American Gods at the time 😂

[tamara]

I have discovered one great thing about journals: you don't need to fill with text every bit of space from top to bottom and left to right.
You can 1) write on one half or two thirds of a page and leave the rest for comments
2) dedicate one page to one paragraph.
3) write only on uneven pages, leaving even for comments. I love this way particularly.

Plus I use stickers of different colours :-)

[shaazde]

You are very lucky to live somewhere outside the Middle East. I am a girl from Iran and currently we girls are fighting with the government to get the right to wear optional clothing. Because they force us to wear headscarves and this revolution started last year when a girl was killed in the guidance patrol (by moral security police). Currently, as a girl who wants to have the right to dress herself without interference, I am not allowed to go to the library and many places like you. Of course, some cafes allow entry without hijab, but most of them are closed from the government for serve us. I traveled to Europe for a while and tasted freedom. Life is strangely calmer and less annoying when you do what you want and the road is smooth for you and no one constantly interferes in your life and work, does not humiliate you and does not deprive you of your most basic rights. Please become a good writer ❤

[LunteBooks]

"Writing is actually more interesting than doing nothing, after a while." Love this quote! Great video, thank you!

[Pinkpeonysss]

“And you guys seem to be enjoying this series.”

……..EXCUSE ME WHAT?!? Um no m’am, we LIVE for this series. LIVE FOR IT

[Musikchic]

I love writing by hand - your hand hurts by the end of the day, but it’s so much fun just to grab a pen and let loose. Also, now I feel like both Neil and Christy should be sponsored by Lamy for shouting them out so much 😂

[rmasb]

This was great, thank you... I'd love to see Ursula K Le Guin's writing routine, that would be fabulous.

[zhisu]

also I like that he's pretty active on tumblr so looking at his blog, a lot of questions are answered even though he has THOUSANDS lined up.

[YourTrueShelf]

Don't you think these days we've really lost the ability to "do nothing" as we just automatically just reach for our phones, it's sad!
I really enjoyed the part that you read out and would love to read the whole thing 😊📖
Ps - Hilary Mantel's writing routine

[kellimbt]

There's a story (non-fiction) I've been trying to get myself to write for a while. Recently I tried writing it by hand in a notebook. No computer, no notes, no worrying about editing as I go. It felt so freeing. It was the key that finally unlocked everything.

[ShenefeltsAudiobooks]

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”-Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

[jayallanbennett]

I see first drafts as just tossing sand into a sandbox and then second drafts as making the sand castle so working in a notebook is great for me. It's garbage but I love having the initial ideas of my stories in pen form. It's just fun and it is great for just getting those ideas out of my head. I don't use fountain pen though just a really nice jotter parker ball point pen is good for me.

[melissam.]

The edict to write or do nothing seems rather perfect: you can avoid distractions without putting too much pressure on yourself to produce words.

[darrenalmgren]

I do a similar routine to Gaiman and personally consider my handwritten draft my first draft. There’s still a lot of work that goes into it and the process of transposing it to the computer is the biggest editing process. He says in that podcast interview and his masterclass that he edits as he types to “make it look like he knew what he was doing all along”. It’s a line by line, even word by word, editing process and even though it’s not an exact copy, the point of it is to make the next draft better than the first. I’m a huge advocate to handwritten first drafts.

[ProgressingImperfectly]

I keep hearing about Neil Gaiman's Routine but I am also afraid to go off computer, since I write so much slower in my journals than on the computer. Thank you for trying it out and sharing your thoughts.

[wherethesunsets]

It is such a talent to be able to write in different formats, I really admire him. Not all writers can do a screenplay and viceversa.
PS. Love your series makes me wanna try the routines as well

[lizziayers]

I’m less than five minutes in but the “do nothing or write” thing is ABSOLUTELY going to help with my process. What an amazing guy

[MartaCanPixel]

My school made us write all of our notes in fountain pen back in the day and I can very much relate to the ink-stained hands 😅 A word of warning though, I found that after 5-10 years all of my school notes had started fading, some of them just completely disappearing, so make sure you do your research and and get some better-lasting ink or at least not use fountain pen for something you are going to be sad to lose in a decade! 😕