Exactly

From Neil Gaiman’s blog (syndicated here at livejournal as ):

“The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it’s about and why you’re doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising (“but of course that’s why he was doing that, and that means that…”) and it’s magic and wonderful and strange.

You don’t live there always when you write. Mostly it’s a long hard walk. Sometimes it’s a trudge through fog and you’re scared you’ve lost your way and can’t remember why you set out in the first place.

But sometimes you fly, and that pays for everything.”

Blatant

I’ve talked a bunch of times about how I’m sick of the corporate media trying to cram their own election-related Narratives down our throats — they’ve decided, for example, that Hillary Clinton is the inevitable candidate, and ignore any news to the contrary. All of the stories they report are crafted with their decided narrative in mind (from what I can tell, it appears that the media has decided it will be Clinton vs. Giuliani).

On the Republican side, in particular, they’ve ignored the candidacy of Ron Paul. Paul is an anti-war Libertarian (leaning pretty heavily into the “no-Federal-ANYTHING” Libertarian nutjob school of things, so his anti-war stance isn’t enough to sway me, as it appears to be swaying some supporters on the left). He is a strict anti-interventionist and blasts the administration for corrupting conservatism. But he’s a dweeby, little-known Congressman. He doesn’t make for Sexy reporting. Plus, his massive upsurge in support is coming largely from Teh Intarwebs, so of course, when the media does report on it, it’s dismissive and condescending. He’s the Howard Dean of the 2008 elections.

For example, check out this blatant bit of BS: The Conservative Leadership Conference held a Republican Straw Poll this weekend in Nevada, and Paul blasted everyone else out of the water — 33% of the votes, with #2 coming in at 16%.

The headline on MSNBC?

ROMNEY LOSES NV STRAW POLL

Can you believe that shit?