I found out about Blackberry's Keep Moving project because of Twitter. Specifically, it was because of Neil Gaiman, who I follow on the social networking site.
Neil Gaiman is part of the project, writing a short story collection for it. The intriguing part about the project is that it utilizes social media, with Neil asking questions for each month of the year. His followers submit an answer and Neil gets to write short stories based on the answers that inspired him. Thus, the "and you" part of the author credit.
While I missed the reply submission period to his twelve questions because of the time difference, I immensely enjoyed reading the different submissions by his followers to each one and I looked forward to finding out which ones he would choose to use as an inspiration for the individual stories.
A few days ago, we got to find out, as Blackberry released A Calendar of Tales to further inspire others for the next stage of the project. After reading the different short stories for each month, readers are encouraged to submit illustrations that could potentially be used in the limited printed edition of the short story collection. Anyone can submit their own version of the illustrations, which can come in the form of any type of media, whether it's a sketch, picture, painting, etc. I lack talent in that regard, so I will just wait for results on that front.
In the meantime, I will focus on the content of the short story collection, which I think I'll be re-reading many times in the future.
Since A Calendar of Tales is a series of short stories, it's hard to give you a summary. Especially since each one covers a different story, and giving you a summary for each one is essentially telling you everything you should be reading yourself. Over the past few days, I've noticed people tweeting about the months/short stories that they count as their favorites in the collection. I found that, after reading the entire collection earlier today, it was hard to actually choose one as a favorite, since I found something to be fascinated about in each month.
Neil Gaiman has always been a masterful storyteller. He is able to let you imagine the worlds that he creates or let you empathize with the different characters, even when the events that occur are a little disjointed from what we perceive to be the natural order of things.
Every short story features something different. There are mysteries in many of them, while there is action in January and wistfulness in March. Many pose questions that aren't always answered, but you don't feel as if you need one in the end. Heck, I thoroughly enjoyed the confusing series of events that the narrator of the May story experienced. I think somebody died in one particular month and that there's something magical that occurred in the world of another. June made me smile, while October was heart-melting. Every short story is a new adventure in reading and it was a joy to discover each new world or character.
A Calendar of Tales is proof of why readers anticipate Neil Gaiman's new writings all the time, with some individuals exhibiting a feral fervor for his new books, regardless of the age group that the books are targeted for (the tweets from adults who are begging to read Chu's Day even if they don't have children of their own are hilarious). Even when it seems that his stories take place in our world, there's always something magical, funny, scary or mysterious that will surely captivate the readers. There's always a sense of expanding your own imagination as you read/experience (depending on how emphatic a reader you are) the journey that his main characters embark on, regardless if that journey doesn't really take a character to another location.
I didn't think that it was possible, but A Calendar of Tales has helped my appreciation for the work of Neil Gaiman to grow exponentially. Reading the twelve tales in succession was a revelation. It served as a reminder that when you're a writer or want to be one, you are only as good as the limits of your imagination, but that you shouldn't set limits to the worlds or the characters that you can create. There's a part of me that aspires to tell my own stories, yet instead of feeling intimidated by the ease that Neil Gaiman has turned one or two lines of tweets into a unique story, there's a sense of possibility that it could be done. Though I don't think it could be accomplished quite as easily.. it can be done. And as cheesy as this is going to sound because of the title of the project... you do feel like the best course of action is to just keep moving.
Read A Calendar of Tales. You really should. There's bound to be at least one story that will resonate with you.
And if you have more artistic talent than I do when it comes to imagery, you might want to make a submission for one (or all) of the twelve wonderfully written tales in the collection.
Happy reading!!Labels: A Calendar of Tales, Anthology, Fantasy, Neil Gaiman, Reading List, Short Story
