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Everyone's talking about @neilhimself's Sandman. Long ago, the first WorldCon panel baby me ever attended had Neil and Sir Terry on it, ribbing back and forth, in Boston.

They were so real, and I thought, "I can do that."

And I couldn't do THAT, but I did put pen to paper.
It was just so NORMAL. Like, I think at that point I had no idea how this mystical author word thing was supposed to go. Stories go /into books and someone gives you money and people read them?/ was obvious but also some weird alchemy beyond my ken.
But there they were, teasing each other and bullshitting about GOOD OMENS and other things and I was like, "it's just people sharing stories and making friends, wait, I /already/ do that." Neil's star had risen by then, but it just got so much bigger after AMERICAN GODS.
I had less gray hair then, and so did he, but it's very cool to see the excitement and momentum right now and just how astronomically popular and powerful he's gotten. Cause my own path started when I realized "DEAR GOD AUTHORS ARE PEOPLE, TOO. WHO KNEW."
It was a very eye opening experience for me at barely-legally-drinking age. And without that experience, I probably would be 12 books lighter.
When I found out @falconesse had met him when she worked for Hachette, I asked her point blank how she didn't just burst into tears, cause I don't think she'd have her career without a similar experience, and her well-loved trade paperbacks of Sandman, in her repertoire.
And what she said was, when she told him she'd sold her first book, he was FUCKING RAD TO HER and that seems about on brand.
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