In Defense of Neil’s Journal

Posted on | August 31, 2010 | No Comments

So it’s no secret I’m a big fan of Neil Gaiman’s. I’m not his greatest fan (who’s quite possibly gibbering in a padded cell somewhere) – I don’t think I even rank among Neil’s top twenty thousand fans. I just love his work, and consequently I love following his online journal, which you can read here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/

Recently one of the other many readers of the journal asked Neil to stop blogging, saying:

"I think your journal, which has been  one of the more impressive online blogging documents in the
 internet's  relatively young history, deserves better than to stumble along like a ballplayer past his
 prime, occasionally swinging and hitting, mostly  missing (in this analogy, a 'miss' is a day or event
 unblogged, and  there's been a few of those recently)."

Now this isn’t the whole post as sent to Neil Gaiman’s journal, and the author is very polite, not in any way attacking Neil Gaiman.*

With that said, I think he’s totally wrong.

Part of reader’s ongoing love affair with author’s on the net is to feel like you’re connected to your favorite creators, offered a windown into their thoughts and lives that just isn’t possible on Twitter. I love Twitter, and I follow Neil Gaiman on there as well, but his journal posts, however intermittant at the moment are pieces of his world sent out to his readers as a piece of his life he wants to share. I’m obviously in no position to criticise anyone about their inconsitent blogging schedule, but even if I was I would still rather see some posts than none whatsoever. I don’t know Neil at all** but having his journal online let’s me feel up to date and involved with his creative life and I think that benefits everyone involved.

If Neil Gaiman ever wants to end the journal, then that’s his call, but as long as he feels like he has something to say, I’ll gladly come back and check the journal whether he posts twice a day or three times a year.

* Go read the whole suggestion on the journal.

** I did get to meet him once. He was super nice and very tolerant of me being a bit tongue tied.