Neil Gaiman's Journal

Fully Booked - Me In Manila - More Information - Free!

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:09:00 +0000

Just to remind everyone (because the Fully Booked website at http://www.fullybookedonline.com/revelations is a little unclear) tonight's Prize Giving event at the Rockwell Tent at 7 pm is Free. Fully Booked is also giving away tonight the 100 tickets for tonight's signing. They will be raffled off to everyone who turns up, using a computer randomizer to pick people.

Tomorrow's signing event is at 4 pm at North Court, Power Plant Mall. It's for about 500 people. That's the one that you had to buy 2K of books to get your books signed.

Tonight at Rockwell, Fully Booked will also be giving away 50 free signing passes for the signing tomorrow. These are again going to be drawn at random by the magic of computer.

As a last thing, I was handed late last night the two books of award winners in comics and in prose from the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards that Fully Booked and I have been sponsoring for the last 5 years. They are really solid, good-looking books I'm proud to have been a part of helping to bring into existence. They'll be on sale tonight -- but only after the award winners are announced (because the winners are in there and we don't want to give it away).

I'll pre-sign a bunch of them today that Fully Booked will have on sale tonight.

From the Eternal Transit Lounge Of My Soul etc

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:49:00 +0000

In Changi Airport, changing planes. Tomorrow and Wednesday are my events in Manila (hurrah!). Then Poland and seeing Amanda again (I miss her already).

Just nipping on to mention a little more information that came in on MOSCOW events.

Greetings from Russia, Neil,

You've asked in your post from 14/03 to tell you about the details of your Russian signings. Now that I've come across your post, I feel it my duty to inform you that at 6 p.m. on March, 24th you have a signing at Biblio-Globus Bookstore (http://www.biblio-globus.ru/history.aspx?controlId=5&recordNo=3919). And before that - yet another one at a literary Cafe (I suppose, it's going to be more of an informal interview) at the Pyatnitsa (Friday) Bar - 8 p.m., March, 23rd. (NOTE: According to the publisher's website, this event is on the 24th, not the 23rd. -- web goblin)

Excuse me my English - I could've written everything in Russian, and it would certainly sound better, but I fear, you would've not been able to understand a word of it.

Anyway, hope this info will come in handy.

And - your Russian readers will be waiting for you (it's in no way a threat, just expressing my joy)

Someone wrote to say

Dude... has no one ever handed you a list of exactly what's planned for your own tour dates and whatnot? Kind of wierd to go on your blog and ask people for information you of all people ought to have. Not being snarky, just very confused.

And the answer is, normally, yes, I get that information. I post it here when I do.

And the Russians have been amazingly helpful about getting me Visa information, hotel and travel details, all that, when we needed it. But they hadn't sent actual signing and event information, although we'd asked. I don't think asking the world was weird. It worked, after all - the information came in from the world before it came in from the publishers. (Who might not even know that there are Russian readers reading this blog.)

oops. I have a plane to catch. I land at 11:10 in Manila. Then, I sleep.

Not a proper blog

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:29:00 +0000

Not a proper blog -- just a wave. The NZ arts festival was great, everyone was so nice (I saw Guillermo Del Toro and I was shown around the amazingness of WETA and they gave me a Dalek! -- it's this one -- and I spent time with Audrey Niffenegger and with Margo Lanagan and Margo's partner Stephen and did a talk with Margo during a tornado and read a new poem at the Town Hall and signed and signed and signed and signed) and now I'm taking a day off now with Amanda: Hera is looking after us. Tomorrow I head off to Manila for two days, while she plays gigs in Christchurch and Auckland and flies to Melbourne to do a TV thing. Then we meet on Friday at midnight in Poland, spend a couple of days together there while she plays a festival in Wroclaw and I sign in Warsaw, and then she flies to the US to begin Evelyn Evelyn rehearsals and I fly to Moscow. (Still waiting on the details of the Moscow signings or events. If you know them, send them in to the FAQ line.)

(Edit to add: Aha! Moscow information creeping out. http://www.mdk-arbat.ru/anons/1209 says I'm doing an event at 5 pm on March 25th in the House of Books on Novy Arbat. Translation here.)

Right now getting together with Amanda feels less like spending time together and more like two planes matching speed for a little while. But today is a real day off. She's asleep and I'm meant to be typing introductions, and when she wakes up I'll make her some food and we'll walk on the beach.

(When she's finished with the European leg of the Evelyn Evelyn tour, in mid-May, she has about a week off. I'll be in the UK writing. If anyone has any suggestions for places we could go to take a week together, anywhere in Europe (or even North Africa I suppose) that would be quiet and warm, where she could do some yoga, I would love to hear them. Neither of us have ever really done holidays before, and we're very aware that we don't even know where to start looking.)

Right. Back to introductions.

Also, do not ever ask me to write introductions. This morning's email brought three You Said You Would Maybe Introduce This A Long Time Ago emails. The last four things I wrote were introductions. The next four things I will write will be introductions. Whatever happened to making things up?

Zoom. Mysteries solved.

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:17:00 +0000

In a hotel lobby waiting for a car to pick me up and take me to a brief meeting and then on to the airport to fly to New Zealand where I will see my fiancee whom I miss, and Margo Lanagan and Audrey Niffenegger both of whom I will be amazingly happy to see.

Saturday Morning Radio in New Zealand is me and the Archbishop of York and Amanda Palmer and Zandra Rhodes. Spot the odd one out.

The Hump Michael Sheen Dinner Raid Mystery solved: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/us/09sushi.html. No, we were not served or offered whale.

My red carpet official Oscar wearing Kambriel jacket and waistcoat shot: http://oscar.go.com/red-carpet/82nd-red-carpet/4294/4696

Anne Thompson waved a flip-camera at me on the Oscar red carpet: http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2010/03/08/oscar_red_carpet_video_weinstein_villaraigosa_gaiman_banderas/

The LA Times took a panoramic photo which includes me on the Red Carpet staring intently at Rachel McAdams' dress. Which my red-carpet handler had just trodden on, and which I had only just avoided treading on. Was I enraptured by the beauty or wondering if we had left footprints? http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-oscar-red-carpet-mcadams-theron-pano,0,7005862.htmlstory You be the judge....

Jesus has appeared in the Marmite. The End times are nigh. Although some people are seeing Alan Moore, Lemmy From Motorhead, Frank Zappa or Predator. In which case End Times Are Probably Not Nigh. You be the judge: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/8071865.stm

Okay. Car here. Zoom now. Maybe more from the airport...

From a very nice hotel room in Hollywood, with love and melancholy

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:27:00 +0000

A strange day. In 90 minutes the car will come to take me to the Oscars, in 30 minutes I'll get changed into Kambriel's lovely clothes. It'll be a long day. I don't think Coraline has a hope of getting an Oscar -- not in a year when UP is nominated for Best Picture. But it truly is an honour to be nominated. And it allows me to bask in Henry Selick's achievement.

I missed the CBS SUNDAY MORNING piece this morning, but got lots of emails from people who liked it (many of which said that they'd got more from it than they did from the much longer New Yorker article). Thank to to Serena and to all the CBS team.

I've had a wonderful time here in Hollywood. Last night was a marvellous Focus Films party for their Oscar nominees, A SERIOUS MAN and CORALINE, which meant that I got to make Maddy happy by sending her a photo of her father and Simon Helberg (Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory).

(The Maddy photo.)

Afterwards I got to introduce Henry Selick and Robin Williams (which made both of them happy). (Robin's daughter Zelda rescued me from feeling out of it at a party the other night, showed me her ankh tattoo and told me that when she signed up with CAA her first request was to read the DEATH The High Cost of Living film script, as a fan. She is a treasure.)

A few hours ago Amanda played a sold-out Sydney Opera House show (which included, she tells me, a cover of John Cage's 4′33″). Really proud of her.

So this ought to be a big, happy bouncy sort of day, and it's really not: in addition to being Oscar Day, March 7th is the first anniversary of my father's (unexpected, heart attack) death, and I'm feeling really melancholy. There are days that you just want to walk the dog in the woods, write a bit, and be with your loved ones, and this, it seems, is really one of those days, and I should have been smart enough to figure that out, and I wasn't.

I'm sure I'll cheer up when I put on the posh clobber and get out onto the red carpet. (No, you probably won't see any photos of me. Yes, if Amanda was standing next to me wearing a remarkable dress you probably would see pictures of me. Yes, I would probably be listed as Amanda Palmer and guest again. No, I wouldn't mind a bit.) I don't think I will go to any of the posh parties tonight after the Governor's Ball. I may go and hang with John Hodgman, who is a good person and makes me happy, or I may just go and have a relatively early night. Or I may surprise myself and bop till I drop somewhere. (Bet I don't.)

Right. Clothes on. Wish me luck.

Here's a link to Al Davidson's illustrated dream-journal: http://id-iomatics.blogspot.com. I would have posted it even without the picture he did of me. And Amanda. And cats.

Breaking news. Also, nobody move, this is a raid.

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:50:00 +0000

Breaking News: The CBS SUNDAY MORNING profile of me will definitely broadcast tomorrow, the 7th. The show with my segment in it starts at 9 eastern, 8 central, 7 mountain, 6 am Pacific.

Unless, of course, there is a natural disaster, a shooting, or something else of a news-altering nature.

...

I'm in Hollywood for the Oscars, to help Henry Selick celebrate Coraline, nominated for best animated picture. We will not win, which makes it somehow enormously less stressful. I'm not wondering if we'll win, or even hoping. I'm just here to enjoy the ride.

Last night I had the best dinner ever, with actor Michael Sheen. We ate at my favourite sushi restaurant in LA, The Hump at Santa Monica Airport, had an amazing meal, talked about life and art, and just as we were finishing up, the restaurant filled with uniformed officers. I assumed for a moment it was an immigration raid of some kind, but before they closed the restaurant, they identified themselves as US Fish and Wildlife officers who were going to close the restaurant to search it (for, I guess, illegal fish). It had already been a surreal evening, and that just sort of made it perfectly surreal, although it left me worried for the staff - I'll try to keep an eye on the news to see what it was about, and what happens next, and whether we were eating endangered sea-things.

...

On Monday, tickets for the Evening With Neil Gaiman I'm doing for the CBLDF in Chicago on April the 17th go on sale. (With, I hope, a special keyboard playing lady Musical Guest as an opening act. No, not Amanda Palmer, who will be touring with Jason Webley then, as themselves and as Evelyn Evelyn. No, not Tori. You'll see.)

The details are at http://www.mediumatlarge.net/2010/03/cbldf-saturday-night-at-c2e2-evening.html. This is the first of these I've done since The Last Angel Tour, ten years ago.

(If it works well and I enjoy it, I'll look at doing another actual tour in 2011.)

...

Okay. Out the door. More later.

The Goldberg Robinson Continuum

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 04:29:00 +0000

This makes me ridiculously happy. If you're on the internet, you've probably seen it already. If you haven't, take three minutes and 53 seconds out of your life and click on it.

...

PS: And this is what I'm going to be wearing to the Oscars. Well, not just this, obviously. http://kambriel.livejournal.com/258458.html

Strange Days

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:14:00 +0000

I was going to write a blog entry about Saints Oran and Columba. I've been reading lots of old, out-of-print books by Otta F. Swire about the legends of the Hebrides for no particular reason, other than I like her voice as an author and I like the stories she tells, and the tale of Oran and Columba got into my head. But then I was walking the dog last night and the rhythm of footsteps turned into

"When Saint Columba landed on the island of Iona..."

And I spent much of the rest of the night and this morning, when not proofreading STORIES (a collection of stories by the most amazing people, edited by me and by Al Sarrantonio, due out in June) writing a poem about Oran and Columba instead. Which nobody was waiting for. Instead of all the things they were and are waiting for.

But I felt as happy when I'd reached the end of the poem that nobody was waiting for as when I've finished something that everyone is checking their watches (or calendar) for. Small happy writer moments.

...

I don't have complete details yet on my travels in March. A lot of it's already up on Where's Neil

This one isn't, though:

http://www.nzfestival.nzpost.co.nz/writers-and-readers/once-upon-a-time
which is me and Margo Lanagan in conversation in Wellington on March 12th

I'll go from New Zealand to the Philippines:

Which reminds me.

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

I was most pleasantly surprised to find out that you're coming to the Philippines again.

As soon as I saw the poster announcing your visit, I immediately took the first opportunity to visit the nearest Fully Booked store. That 'visit' ended up just pissing me off, my apologies for the language.

See, I was informed by a salesman in Fully Booked that in order to get the opportunity to have my (a) book/s signed (I've collected your books over the years, but unfortunately, a number were destroyed by Ondoy, the storm that drowned Manila last year. Still, I consider us blessed that we're still alive.), I should purchase at least P2,000 worth of your books. I promptly retorted (poor guy, I didn't mean to be so blunt), "That sucks." To which he replied, "{gibberish, my mind was still reeling}... You can buy MORE thank P2,000, Ma'am." RIGHT. I'm a part-time instructor and a graduate student. That gives me a lot of leeway to spend for what I WANT.

This was last week, and honestly, I'm still pissed off by said requirement. However, I do understand it's a business. There are always expenses and what not such business/marketing considerations. I'm just about ready to resign myself to a 'next time.' The assumption is: I'd have a better-paying job next time, and I'm already done (or almost done) with graduate work. ;p

Still, I AM THANKFUL you come here. You're quite a popular author among Filipino readers (especially young Filipino readers {though I'm already 25, hehe}), and when you come here, inevitably, it promotes not only speculative fiction, or reading of such speculative fiction, but reading in general (which is a MIGHTY GOOD THING). I'm a big believer in reading, that's why I chose Reading Education as my major in graduate studies.

Last but not least, I AM VERY GRATEFUL that you come here because it makes us wee Filipino readers feel important. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that you'd actually come here. And yet you've already come here twice/thrice before! It's a wonderful feeling for us wee readers to be actively considered by an author of your calibre. So...long story short: For writing, for publishing your writing, for sharing your thoughts, and yourself...

THANK YOU.

Bem

I was a bit puzzled by this, as I'd heard originally that the signing spots were going to be raffled. (Last time we did an event in that tent I signed from 4 in the afternoon until past 1 in the morning, and that left about 2000 people with stuff still unsigned, so there was going to have to be a way of not signing for everyone and limiting the numbers.)

I checked with Jaime Diaz, from Fully Booked, who said,

I discussed the logistics behind the book signing with my management team and looked at all possible options, to see what was the best way to go about this. As you will only be signing for one session (in which we allocated 500 book signing passes as a limit), we felt that the best way to manage this is by giving a book signing pass for a minimum purchase worth of your books. At least this way, anyone who buys your books is guaranteed a book signing pass. Ideally, the best way to go about it would be to let anyone line up for free, but we all know that there would be literally thousands who'd get in line if we do it this way, and more people would be frustrated in the end if we go this route, as many would not get their books signed. On the awards night on March 17 in the Rockwell Tent, Fully Booked will be raffling off 100 signing passes among those who attend, and entrance to the event is free.

Which is his call. It's his event.

I'm going from the Philippines to Poland, where I will be doing a signing

On Monday March 22nd
17-17.40 Warsaw, Q&A sesion Empik Junior Marszalkowska Str.
18.00 Signing books, Empik Junior Marszalkowska Str

And I'll be going from there to Moscow. Assuming that I successfully get my Russian visa, anyway. It's my first ever trip to Russia, and I will be signing somewhere in Moscow on the 24th or 25th -- and as soon as I get details I will report them here.

And the details on this will be released as soon as we have them, but for now, if you are in the Chicago Area on April 17th, there will be an Evening With Neil Gaiman, the first since I did the Last Angel Tour a decade ago for the CBLDF.

Dear Mr. Gaiman.

Just wanted to write to say, I received my copy of the
Neverwhere Limited Edition today. Harper Collins did a beautiful job on the book. Wanted to thank you and
Harper Collins for finally making this edition a reality.
It will sit proudly with my other Gaiman penned limited editions.
Thanks again.
Sean

Hi, Neil. I just wanted to praise your editor. Jennifer Brehl went above and beyond the call of duty when I contacted her to make sure that I was getting my copy of the Neverwhere Limited Edition. My address had changed since I had initially ordered it through Hill House (I sent an email with the new address to Harper Collins a year ago, but my spider sense told me that it might not have made it into the proper database. Sure enough, it hadn't). Jennifer got in touch with me quickly after I called yesterday and is making sure that the book reaches me safe and sound. You surround yourself with absolutely terrific people, sir.

PS: I can't wait to read Neverwhere again!

I'm SO pleased. Jennifer Brehl, my editor at Harper Collins, did miracles to make the books happen and to make the people happy who had ordered the book over the years from the late Hill House Publishers. I don't know that she's managed to make everyone happy, but she did the impossible many times over.

Neil,
I don't know if you are aware of Wil Wheaton--although I highly suspect that you are--or the television program The Big Bang Theory. Either way, I ran across a post on Wil's blog (please find it below) that prominently features a paperback volume of The Sandman. It made me smile and I hope it brought you a smile as well.

Josh

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2010/02/the-cooperhofstadter-coffee-table-proof.html

I saw. Maddy and I love The Big Bang Theory, and I'd already spotted Sandman paperbacks (and copies of the Absolute Sandman in Leonard's bedroom, which means that Johnny Galecki has been playing Sandman-reading characters since, I think, 1992. Which, if I could think of any actors who have played Sandman readers, would be some kind of record).

I was looking at bakerella (another favorite website) and she made Coraline cookies! They are very cute. I don't have the patience to make them, but she does.

http://www.bakerella.com/coraline-cookies/

They look wonderful.

Hello.

As a follower of yours on twitter I got to wondering the other day if you find that Twitter and all the other pointless internet distractions make you less productive as a writer. Do you think that back in the 80's and early 90's before the internet was even heard of you were more productive? Or does having the internet make you more productive, with the ease of research and stuff like that?

Just curious,
Ryan Long

I'm not sure. It's harder to get the time to do anything, but that has less to do with things like Twitter (which tends mostly to occur in the interstices between things) and more to do with, for example, the amount of email I get. I used to be able to reply to a day's email in 45 minutes in the morning, then blog for 45 minutes, and then start my day. Now I can get up, start doing email, and look around and find half a day has been eaten and I'm still not at the end. I miss the days when friends would send me novels to read and I would settle down and read them. Now they arrive as email attachments and I get a hunted look and mean well, and fail.

I want to translate/adapt your Neverwhere into Russian, transplanting it to the world of Moscow metro. I tried to contact both your agent and your assistant, but had no answer yet. What are the rules for an adaptation in a foreign language? Can I go ahead?
Thank you in advance.
Cheers.

I'm afraid that Neverwhere is already published in Russia, and people have already bought the rights to translate it and to publish it. http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Neverwhere/ed/313/ is the latest Russian edition.

Seeing that it looks like you want to do something creative, perhaps you should write an original book, and set it in Moscow, instead. Yes?

Hi,

I kind of stumbled upon your blog the other day and notied the pictures of your dog.
I'm always kind of touched by seeing such pictures because he looks al ot like mine.
Although I was pretty much annoyed by the fact that you called him a white 'german' shepherd. Your dog is actually a swiss white shepherd.
besides the fact that they are white, they are also build differently (compare hind legs/stance).
Futhermore I have to admit that I'm not really a 'fan' but that's just because I haven't read a book for the sole purpose of entertainment for about 20 years.
Do respect your craftmanship though, the fact that a certain 'Kate' puts a special interest in you is meaningful to me, so eh keep up the good work!

Regards,

Ydo

Um, right. (Casual readers: Skip the following dog breed neepery if there is any possibility you won't be interested. Trust me.)

According to everything I've read (which was on-line, and thus needs to be taken with a pinch of salt) the Swiss White Shepherd/ Berger Blanc (a breed named in 1992) is fundamentally the same as the American White Shepherd, White Alsatian, the White German Shepherd, Weisse Schäferhund and any other variants on German Shepherd Dogs that carry the gene for white coats.

Originally, some German Shepherds were white. It's a gene. It's in the bloodline. And then, per the Wikipedia entry:

White coats were made a disqualification in the German Shepherd Dog Club of Germany breed standard in 1933 after the breed club came under the control of the German Nazi party that took over all aspects of German society in February 1933 when Hitler declared a state of emergency. The German breed standard remained unchanged as German breeders repopulated the breed in the years after the conclusion of WWII.

It's not exactly graceful prose, but the facts are right. (Another article here.) And the German rules the Nazis put in gradually spread around the world, disqualifying white German Shepherds as being proper German Shepherds, which meant that they had to be something, and in 1992, the Swiss declared them a breed. Here's the official Berger Blanc Suisse history and standards: http://www.berger-blanc-international.com/english/standard347.htm And as we learn from http://www.wgsdca.org/thebreed/wgsdvsws.asp, you can elect in some dog shows to show your dog as a white shepherd or a white german shepherd. (I think. I've never done dog shows.)

Given that all that I can find out about Cabal's ancestry (not a lot) has him being an American White German Shepherd Dog from a long line of white German Shepherd dogs, none of which were bought in from Switzerland or from Berger Blanc breeders after 1992, I can't see how he could make claims to be a "Swiss" White Shepherd.

Personally, I think it very odd, defining a breed by coat colour anyway. It's as if someone decided that brown poodles weren't the same kind of dog as black poodles, but were actually Brown Poodles.

And with that, a plug for http://www.echodogs.org/dogs.htm which helps find homes for White (Something) Shepherd Dogs and http://www.petfinder.com which finds homes for pets and lets you know what kind of pets need adopting near you. And a suggestion that if any of you reading this are in need of a pet, you check with your local animal shelter first. There might be something living very close to you that needs a home.

Mr Neil?

If you did find you had to stop writing your blog for some unknown and terrible reason, could you publish it from the beginning as a paperback, so I could use it for bedtime reading?

I know the links and stuff would be no good but I've been meaning to read it right from the beginning and just don't get time to read it on the computer.

Just a thought.

Lots of love
Maggie (MotleyHippie)
x

Of course. Although it's worth pointing out that the first 50,000 words of the blog -- the American Gods blog -- is available in paperback in Adventures in the Dream Trade, along with a clutch of introductions and such: http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Gaiman.html

...

And finally, the really rather beautiful mainland Chinese cover to their forthcoming edition of The Graveyard Book.

Still reeling, still smiling...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:47:00 +0000

I've spent the last three days in Naperville, Il. (and sometimes, I have been told, in Aurora Il.), near Chicago, where I was the guest author for NAPERVILLE READS. On the first night I arrived and signed 3,000 books for Anderson's Books, who are hosting this. (It took 3 hours and 10 minutes, with people helping stack up books and put them away). Then from school-starting time in the morning until late at night I got to talk to elementary schools, to middle schools, to high schools, to universities, to adults and to "families". Becky from Anderson's says I spoke in front of, and answered questions from, 8,000 people altogether (which is why we decided early on not to even think about signings). I did readings from (or of) Crazy Hair, The Wolves In the Walls, Instructions, The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, Coraline, Odd and the Frost Giants, The Graveyard Book, Good Omens, Stardust, Anansi Boys and American Gods.

And today it is all done and I am utterly and entirely pooped, trashed and tired on a cellular sort of level ("My me hurts" as I tweeted somewhere near the start of the process). I still have to fly home. I couldn't have done it or survived it without Elyse Marshall from Harper Collins, who flew in to make sure it worked. (And who was called late last night by the airline to let her know her plane back was already cancelled due to Weather in New York, so is not sure when, if ever, she will be getting home.) I want to thank all at Anderson's, the staff and principals of the various establishments of education I turned up at, and everybody who came to hear me read and talk, who braved wild microphones and asked questions anyway.

Now, I get lunch with Gene Wolfe, as my reward. I've known Gene and Rosemary Wolfe for 27 years. I dedicated Stardust to them.

"Of course, in Alabama the Tuscaloosa, but that is entirely irrelephant..."

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:06:00 +0000

I went to Alabama, to Tuscaloosa.

Before I left, I was interviewed by Tuscaloosa newspapers. "What do you expect of Alabama?" they asked "What do you know of Alabama?" I was a bit puzzled by that. It's the kind of question you usually get asked by small, nervous countries who don't get many visitors. ("Have you heard anything about Ruritania?" they ask, and you tell them that you've heard that the strudel in Strelsau is excellent and you're glad that Jews can now own land there again, and everyone's happy.) It's not something I'd expected to be asked coming to a state. But then, I'd visited (if not actually signed books in) 47 states and I'd not yet been to Alabama, so they sort of had a point. I told them no, I had no expectations.

The strange thing is that, as an author, there are places publishers never send you, and the American South (if you don't count Atlanta) is one of those places. When I'd ask, I'd be told it was because people didn't really buy books there, or there wasn't a demand, or something.

And all I know is, the first batch of tickets for my reading in Alabama were gone in 120 seconds. (Literally. We thought the website had crashed.) The few leftovers, released later in the week, went at the same speed. A 1078 seat theatre sold out in minutes, and they could have filled it twice or three times over. People had driven 4 hours to get there and more. Everybody there seemed hungry for words and stories and literature.

I had a wonderful time. As far as I could tell, everyone there also had a wonderful time. (See local paper reports: Writer’s quirky style wins over packed crowd and Author reads at Bama Theatre.) Lots of lovely messages from people who were there. I'll grab one, to give you the flavour:

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

I was at your reading last evening (in Alabama).

It was my first author reading... And it was also the first for my dad, my friend and her godmother (Yikes! We Alabamians really ARE deprived!).
So you were right: None of us have ever had a story read to us in twenty years (How about our whole LIVES?)

But your reading blew us away. I don't think we have NEVER laughed so much. And we teared up in all those sad, wistful places (or maybe that was just me). You were amazing. And keeping a theater of 1,000 Alabamians attentive for two hours with just a podium and words... That was another mind blowing thing. Oh, and should I mention that I'll never be able to read a novel and be satisfied now?!

I wish I could relive last evening again. So I just wanted to say (aside from "I love you!!") THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!! I wish there was a way to bold these words and make them bigger. It was an evening I shall never forget. Thank you!!

Sincerely,
Merry

They made a glorious limited tee-shirt, and a broadside illustration to celebrate. Hank Lazer and his team were wonderful.

This morning I talked to some grad students, was given a gift of some great-smelling locally made soap which later would really confuse the explosives-testing people at the airport, was taken to Dreamland Barbecue for lunch (as I had been instructed to do by dozens of people on Twitter and here) and flew home feeling really happy.

And I'm going on about this at greater length than I normally would because I don't get it. On the one hand you have a terrific university and a population that really seems to read and is hungry to interact with authors and to come to events like this. On the other hand, you have authors, who really like to go places where people like us. So why has it taken me 22 years of signing my way across America to get to Alabama? And why don't publishers send authors there?

It makes me suspect some kind of self-fulfilling deeply wrong idea here. Bookshops and such that wouldn't ask for signings because they know they'll be turned down? Publishers in New York who'd never send authors to places like that because they know nobody would go, and nobody asks?

...

This came in nine months ago:

Neil,
I just got home from the Coraline musical- it was delightful, enchanting, and fantastic! It was even better than what I'd imagined and I dream lots. My fiancee and I talked about the show all the way home from New York (we live in Philadelphia) and we both are wondering if there will be a CD made of the wonderful music? We loved the alternative instrumentation and all the singing was pure perfection tonight. I don't know if we'll be able to swing a second pair of tickets for the show, but we'd love to hear those songs again! Please use your powers for good once again and make this happen!

kerplink, kerplunk, kerploonk,
Elizabeth Hahn

I couldn't answer. I didn't know. Since then, people have written to me over and over asking, a bit wistfully, if there would ever be a Coraline Musical Original Cast Album.

Well, now there is. A limited edition CD with a 24 page booklet, all 27 song lyrics and so forth.

You can order it from: http://www.sh-k-boom.com/coraline.shtml

You can also go to iTunes (no idea whether the iTunes link is limited to the US version or if you can get it internationally). Also, if you get to see The Magnetic Fields on tour, with the new CD Realism, the merchandise table, in all probability manned by writer Emma Straub, will be selling the CD. Here's their tour schedule.

...

Dear Neil,

From following your blog over the years, I know that you have bees, fruit trees and a fairly extensive garden and seem to be evolving into something of a gentleman farmer. Was this a conscious decision? Also, where do you get most of your food and do you know how it was raised?

My wife has always been interested in the subject of where our food comes from and has gotten me into it (we live in a small town in Eastern Pennsylvania and, so far as I know, are the only family in town with a greenhouse and backyard poultry).

Thanks for your time.

Joseph Crockett

When I was a kid we moved into a house that had fruit trees, and an already existing vegetable garden (with an old man named Mr Weller, who had been the house's gardener in bygone years, came in and tended the garden every week), and there were gooseberry and currant bushes. I liked living in a world in which, in the summer and the autumn, I could graze. I still do.

And American Supermarket vegetables and fruit don't tend to taste like very much. They're grown for looks and for hardiness in transportation, I tend to think, not for taste.

So when we moved here I started planting fruit trees and bushes, and our garden, which started out about 17 years ago as a few herbs and too many zucchini/courgette/baby squash plants, has grown and grown. I had a period in the 90s where I grew exotic pumpkins a lot, but after a year marked by battles with a family of woodchucks who decided that their favourite food was exotic pumpkin sprouts, I retired, and we just grow a few now for Halloween and a few more for pies.

If I were home all the time I would happily get backyard chickens, but I feel like dreadful things would happen to them while I was on the road, so I don't.

Mostly, I try to buy from local farmers. (I was sad when our local organic farmer, near enough to walk to, went out of business: they sold milk from grass-fed Jersey cows that tasted like milk did when I was a boy.)

...

Now that practically all of the Sandman and Death stories have been collected in hardcover editions, as well as most of your other major works, is there any plan to collect Books of Magic in a deluxe hardcover edition? I still consider it to be one of your key books, including appearances by Dream and Death, and a particularly great appearance by John Constantine. If not, any particular reason why (original pages lost, etc)?

Last time I'll ask, promise!
Best Regards,
Michael K.

No-one at DC has ever mentioned it to me. I don't think they think there's a demand. There MIGHT be a demand for Books of Magic and Black Orchid and a few other uncollected things but the cost of doing the Absolute Editions is so high they have to be certain people would buy them, and I don't think they are.

Having said that, let me ask them. You never know.

...

Over at the Guardian, a bunch of writers (except for Phillip Pullman, who is wise) avoid actually working by giving advice to others. I stole a few from things I've said in this blog over the years for mine. But loved all of them, disagreed with a few, and wished someone had handed me something like this when I was seventeen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/10-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-two

...

And lastly, congratulations to DC Comics' new Co-Publishers, Jim Lee and Dan Didio and their team. As DC's President, Diane Nelson says, what I found most exciting about our dinner together a couple of weeks ago was her description of what she envisions for DC Comics: that they will take risks, and make mistakes and be brave. (I liked this interview with her at The Beat.)

And a welcome back to the writing fold to retiring DC Publisher, Paul Levitz. Paul and I have been friends for over two decades now. He cares deeply about comics, and if it weren't for him, and things he did in the 90s, I am not convinced that there would be a comics industry these days. That is not hyperbole. In 20 years we've agreed on things, disagreed on things, always respected each other's points of view. He's been talking to me wistfully about the day that he could stop being a corporate entity and get back to writing comics for, oh, about a decade now. I'm glad he's realising his dream.

I wish them all the very best of luck.

Small Bee Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:37:00 +0000

Today was warm -- warmer than it's been for weeks. I missed the hottest part of the day (I was taking my son Mike back to the airport) but got home while it was still daylight and slipped and slithered through the thick, half-melted snow, to inspect the hives. As I expected, there were lots of dead bees around, freshly dropped, and lots of small brown spots on the snow. The bees in the hive took advantage of the warm day to clean out the dead bees from the hive, and to, er, defecate.

The bees we can see here in the purple hive, in the square exit at the top of the hive are alive and wandering around. The bees hanging around further down are frozen and dead.

Three out of the four hives look healthy. The little red hive is, I suspect, dead. I won't check until it's warm enough that, if there is a cluster of bees hanging on inside there, I won't finish it off by opening the hive to inspect it.

Here's a slightly more close-up look at the green hive. Click on any of these for better, bigger photos. (All pictures taken on my Nexus 1. The one above, with the flash.)

Next May we hope to take shipment of three hives of Russian Bees, which are reputed to winter better than the Italian bees we already have (this is because they maintain lower populations into the winter months, so need less food, and keep Queens-in-Waiting ready to go at all times in case anything happens to their Queen. Not because they wear little fur hats and dance cossack dances to keep warm, as a number of people, many of whom were Russian, suggested last time I blogged about this).

Below is a photo of me, taken mostly because it's the first time in ages I've been outside while home and not wearing a hat and muffly face stuff, and I wanted to celebrate this.

Tomorrow, Alabama.

Then home.

Next week, Naperville, then to the UK for a couple of days, then off to LA for the Oscars, where I will be cheering on Henry Selick for Coraline.

(And in Manila, where I will be on the 17th and 18th of March, an art competition.)

Goofball

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:03:00 +0000

It's like owning two dogs. There's this one who poses nobly for photographs whenever he gets to the top of a hill or looks out over a river. And then there's this mad goofball. Normally the mad goofball doesn't show up in photographs.

We just went for a walk in the snow. I took my camera. And the goofball came out...

At the top you see his "Oh boy? We're really going for a walk? This isn't you just taking me out to pee? WOW!" face. At the bottom you get his "Hai! I can has BIG stick!" dance. (It was immediately followed by him dropping the big stick and pretending he meant to do that.)

But in the middle? Noble all the way...

What Today Is...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:43:00 +0000

Today is a very important day. Viz and to wit: Jack Benny's 116th Birthday. Which means that somewhere out there, he is still 39.

(A quick Google found 12 episodes of the Jack Benny Radio Show that you can download at http://www.oldtimeradiofans.com/template.php?show_name=Jack%20Benny. Very much worth a listen: the show's dated less than you'd expect, because the humour of the Benny show tended to be based on people, rather than topical gags, and I'd say that from around 1942 to around 1951 it's pretty consistently funny, with its best material between about 1946 and 1950. I'm not a fan of the 1930s Benny shows -- the writing was patchy, and there are occasional racist tropes and gags that lurch between unfortunate and just plain horrible, and as the 50s went on Jack's attention is on his television show, and there are weird moments in many of the radio shows where Mary Livingstone, Jack's wife, was recording her lines in the bathroom so she didn't have to stand in front of a studio audience, and the timing is off, which is a hard thing for a show that's all about timing, while Bing Crosby's brother Bob was no substitute for Phil Harris.... But when it was good, it was wonderful. And we'll not even go into the sexuality of the show at this point, other to say that it's consistently interesting).

...

Christopher Handley was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday. He pled guilty to owning obscene comics - seven comics, imported from Japan, out of a manga-anime collection of thousands. He's a computer programmer, who had moved back in with his mother when she had health issues, who had, as far as I know, no interests apart from obsessively collecting Manga and bible study.

I wish he'd fought the case. But I can also understand why his lawyer persuaded him to go the way he did: he was facing a $250,000 fine and a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

The CBLDF was brought in after the case was underway as consultants. (Read why we signed on here and the background here: http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000372.shtml .

Mr. Handley's case began in May 2006 when he received an express mail package from Japan that contained seven Japanese comic books. That package was intercepted by the Postal Inspector, who applied for a search warrant after determining that the package contained cartoon images of objectionable content. Unaware that his materials were searched, Handley drove away from the post office and was followed by various law enforcement officers, who pulled him over and followed him to his home. Once there, agents from the Postal Inspector's office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Special Agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and officers from the Glenwood Police Department seized Handley's collection of over 1,200 manga books or publications; and hundreds of DVDs, VHS tapes, laser disks; seven computers, and other documents. Though Handley's collection was comprised of hundreds of comics covering a wide spectrum of manga, the government is prosecuting images appearing in a small handful.

Hugely disappointed by the Boing Boing reporting, which links to an article on what happened and closes

On one hand, jail time for owning cartoon smut is a creepy example of victimless thoughtcrime. Then again, very little is as creepy as this guy's comic collection.

The last time I saw something like that, I wrote this:

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html

Which explains what I think about such matters at length.

This time I'll just say that I'm reminded of the Florida matron at a comics museum fundraiser who, when I talked to her about the CBLDF and the Mike Diana case, replied , "Well, I'm from Pensacola. And I read the local papers. And I can tell you, if there hadn't been something fishy going on with that boy, they would never have arrested him." And when I pointed out that if the local papers hadn't taken joy in implying that there was something fishy about that boy, he might have got a sane trial, and not wound up the first American artist to have the local police ordered to make 24 hour spot-checks on his place of abode to ensure that he wasn't drawing anything, she told me that I really didn't understand how these things worked, and that her sister knew someone in the police department and she was pretty sure that there was a whole load of stuff that they weren't saying and probably that boy got off easy....

Boing Boing person, you should be ashamed of yourself.

There's something really creepy about what happened here, but it's not anything Chris Handley did.

And I'll take this opportunity to point you to http://www.cbldf.com, where you can buy a CBLDF membership, along with tee shirts and merchandise and much good, rare, signed stuff...

Edit to Add: Rob Beschizza, who wrote the piece, states in the Boing Boing comments:

Gaiman misinterpreted that line to be an expression of my opinion. But it's there so you could see the animating idea behind this prosecutor's case. I can accept that sarcasm is hard to convey in print, especially when it's the implicit sort aimed at here, but most people here evidently understood how stupid I think it is.
On these short posts, readers often add context and build upon the OP in the comments. The 'dilemma' posed in the OP was intended to invite this, and it's depressing that Gaiman decided to attack me over it.

(Which still leaves me rather puzzled. If you are expressing something that reads like your opinion at the end of a news round up, but which is actually meant to be a sarcastic restatement of what you do not believe in, intended to provoke comment and context, then why be depressed by someone commenting, or giving context? I've spent nineteen years working for and with the CBLDF, raising money and awareness and working with the staff and lawyers to try and keep people like Mr Handley or Mike Diana or Gordon Lee out of prison for creating or owning or selling drawn comics. From my perspective it's like reporting a mugging, and concluding "It's creepy he was hurt and robbed but very little is as creepy as wearing an expensive watch and going into a rough neighbourhood". If you want to invite comment from people saying that it wasn't the victim's fault you shouldn't be depressed if you get it.

And the reason I complained, and am going on here at far too great a length, is because prosecutors in obscenity cases look at community standards, and look at community reactions, to the "obscene" material and their prosecution of it. They want to be re-elected, and not to be perceived as wasting money and time on something that - very literally - hurts no-one. If they think the reaction is "Wow, jailing him, that's creepy - but very little is as creepy as his comics collection" they are not going to stop.)

...

My daughters just bounced in, sang "Happy Valentine's Day to You!" to the tune of Happy Birthday, and presented me with a card. My fiancee may be in Australia (and I miss her, very much), but life is pretty good. I'm rich in daughters.

To celebrate Valentine's Day: Here's a Valentine's poem from this very journal.

(Poem rendered slightly moot because this Valentine's Day is also the first day of the Year of the Tiger, and in China, to celebrate the Lunar New Year, people DO give each other oranges...)

And I just put my reading of "Harlequin Valentine" up for you to listen to (and download if you want to) on Last FM at http://www.last.fm/music/Neil+Gaiman/_/Harlequin+Valentine. I'll keep it up there for a few weeks...

...

Finally, here's the info on my visit to the Philippines: March 17th 2010 I'll be in Manila, back in the Rockwell Tent, for the third Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards. When I started it, I put up the prize money for three rounds (I'd say 3 years, but each round of the awards took about 2 years). I'm really proud of what it's done so far. Looking forward to seeing the winners and runners up, reading the stories and comics and -- this year for the first time -- seeing the films.

I know there's going to be some book signing on the 17th and again on the 18th. http://www.fullybookedonline.com/ should have details...

Information on Warsaw and Moscow (I'll be in both places the week of March 22nd) still to come...

Right. It's really, horridly, unpleasantly cold outside. You know what that means?

Exactly. Off to walk the dog.

With Great Power comes, well, something...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:19:00 +0000

Last year I linked to R.A. Lafferty's short story "Slow Tuesday Night" (The new syfy channel that replaced the old Sci-Fi channel no longer have it up on their website, but you can find it in internet archives here.) It's a story about a world in which things happen fast. You should read it.

Sometimes I think it was written about Twitter.

For example, last night, before bed, I noticed this: http://hidenseek.typepad.com/come_out_come_out/2010/02/cannot-chase-paperchase.html It looked like a pretty clearcut case of plagiarism by a large company from a small crafter. I linked to it in Twitter, with a post saying

Fascinating Paperchase plagiarism over at http://bit.ly/cdrzKZ . Bad Paperchase.

I went to bed.

When I woke up, it was to articles like this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/paperchase-forced-to-deny-it-copied-artists-work-after-twitter-backlash-1896894.htm and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/7215124/Paperchase-forced-to-deny-it-plagiarised-British-artists-work-after-Twitter-campaign.html and (slightly more balanced) http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/feb/11/paperchase-design-hidden-eloise.

Now, the truth is, I didn't campaign, and I didn't mobilise 1.5 million people. I pointed a few to the link, they read the article, looked at the picture, went "No, you can't do that" and spread the word themselves. There's a community of crafters out there making small-run or handmade things who individually lack power, but together are a force to be reckoned with. And the mass of people are, on the whole, very good on the whole right and wrong thing...

But it's so strange. We're not quite in a world in which the established media have the power they used to, or at least, they are playing catch-up, and that's odd, and different, and sort of fun. And it's also a tremendous amount of responsibility. The first time this happened, about a year ago, I decided I had to use these Twitter powers only for good. And that's still the plan.

But you can't plan on it. And you can't second-guess what's going to happen. I suppose you try and do the right thing, and hope for the best.

Which applies as much to life as it does to Twitter.

...

Now, in case you weren't following, I won two SFX Readers Poll Awards, handed out at the SFX Weekender on Saturday. (The Full awards list is here.) These were my acceptance speeches (they'd told me which award would be handed out first, so I put the big news after the second award):

BEST NOVEL

Hullo.

I wish I could be with you, but I’m in LA, at the animation awards, waiting to see whether Coraline has won any Annies. I keep trying to master the whole bilocation thing but so far without any luck.

I came up with the idea for The Graveyard Book in 1985, sitting in a little English country graveyard, watching my son pedal his tricycle between the headstones. I put down the words from 2005 to 2008. Last night someone asked me how long the book took to write and I didn’t know if it was three years or 25 years. I’ve written a lot of books, but it’s one of my favourites, and it means a lot to me that it’s one of your favourites too. I want to thank Dave McKean and Chris Riddell, who illustrated it, and Sarah Odedina, my editor at Bloomsbury, because I don’t get to thank her enough. But mostly I want to thank you.

BEST COMIC

I love Batman. I’ve loved him for over 40 years now, and when I was offered the chance to write the “last” Batman comic, I jumped at it. Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader was really a kind of a love letter to everything I had loved about Batman, and at the same time it was fan letter to all the people who had, over the years, made the Batman I had loved – Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Dick Sprang and Neal Adams, Adam West and Frank Miller and the list goes on and on...
I was delighted that people enjoyed it. Nobody would have enjoyed it even a little bit if Andy Kubert was not an amazing genius of great brilliance, capable of drawing like Brian Bolland or Berni Wrightson whenever I’d ask him to, and equally as capable of drawing like himself. I was more than happy to have been asked to make it, I’m thrilled you liked it.

Oh, and there's something else.

Over the years SFX, and its readers and their votes in the polls, have always been very kind to me. I thought I’d return the favour with what used to be called, in journalistic circles when I was a boy, a scoop.

As anyone who’s read my blog knows, I’m a big fan of a certain long-running British SF TV series. One that started watching -- from behind the sofa -- when I was three. And while I know it’s cruel to make you wait for things, in about 14 months from now, which is to say, NOT in the upcoming season but early in the one after that, it’s quite possible that I might have written an episode. And if I had, it would originally have been called “The House of Nothing”. But it definitely isn’t called that any more.

Countdown. You’ve got about 14 months.

Which I decided to announce mostly because being coy was getting wearing after 18 months. (No, I've never lied about it, and the only things I've flat-out denied were made-up stories about Ice Warriors or episode placement.) I'd let Steven Moffat and co. know ahead of time. And it got fairly well reported -- accurately by SFX in http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=exclusive_neil_gaiman_confirms_doctor, picked up by papers like the Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/08/neil-gaiman-dr-who - and then much more cautiously by the BBC itself in http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8503737.stm with the headline Neil Gaiman 'has written Doctor Who episode' (as if it's a direct quote, which it isn't), with a line at the end saying A spokesman for Doctor Who would not confirm Gaiman's announcement. which left me scratching my head, wondering why I got the quotation marks and odd deniability, or the sense that they were poised to follow it up with Gaiman admits 'he made the whole Doctor Who thing up'. Oh, funny old BBC news website.

...

Dan Guy, webgoblin of this parish, and I, have put up a proper Facebook fan page to replace a couple of ones people had put up in the past that everyone seemed to think was actually me. Not a lot of content there, and there are no plans to put up anything you can't find here. It's at http://www.facebook.com/neilgaiman

(Thanks again to the magic of Twitter, where I complained that we couldn't figure out a way to make it happen, and were contacted by Facebook almost instantly.)

...

Hi, Neil - I am sure you will hear this many, many times... but I wanted to chime in and say that when I read "I don't really know how much longer this blog has to go," it was a bit of a shock. I know it's a little silly to have become attached to the blog of an author I've never met, but reading what you write here is a constant joy and entertainment, and I would be very sad to see it go. Please keep writing - here, and everywhere else.

Best,
-Megan

I think all good things end. When I started the blog, in February 2001, I planned to keep it going until September 2001. It's still going, and I'm certainly not planning to end it immediately. But it will end one day. Good things do.

Hi Neil. I don't know if you can answer this question. Since you're the best author who ever lived, you likely haven't encountered this problem. How do you deal with harsh criticism and bad reviews without wanting to slit your wrists? Some of us take our writing very seriously. Please tell me. I'd really like to know.
Thanks... and cheers, mate.

Well, for a start, never take seriously anyone telling you you're the best author who ever lived, because if you do you'd have to take seriously the person who announces that you're the worst author who ever lived.

If you make art, people will talk about it. Some of the things they say will be nice, some won't. You'll already have made that art, and when they're talking about the last thing you did, you should already be making the next thing.

If bad reviews (of whatever kind) upset you, just don't read them. It's not like you've signed an agreement with the person buying the book to exchange your book for their opinion.

Do whatever you have to do to keep making art. I know people who love bad reviews, because it means they've made something happen and made people talk; I know people who have never read any of their reviews. It's their call. You get on with making art.

Hey Neil,

Just wanted to say a big thank you!! I saw you at the Con in Montreal in August and you talking about Gene Wolfe inspired me to get some of his writing...and now I can't stop! I wish I had found him before. Just read Peace...and reread it! Amazing! And gulping down his short stories now. Lots of jewels in "The Best of Gene Wolfe". Anyway, thanks!!

What's your favourite Gene Wolfe work?

Pi

It depends. Sometimes Peace, sometimes the Book of the New Sun, sometimes it's the last thing of Gene's I read.

Dear Neil I am 8 years old and in LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOve with your books so are my two little sisters and my dad. Cant wait to see you at Naperville reads!

Why, thank you. (I actually put this up so that I could remind people in the Chicago area about http://napervillereads.org/events.html and the events on the evenings of the 23rd and 24th of February
The 23rd is 7:00 p.m. Reading / Q&A event for Adult Fans held at Waubonsie Valley High School. This will be a ticketed event, with tickets available at Anderson’s and all 3 Naperville Public Library locations, Nichols Library, Naper Boulevard Library and 95th Street Library.

The 24th is very similar, but it's for families (which just means I'm going to read all-ages appropriate stuff on the 24th, but not necessarily on the 23rd). They are ticketed event, although the tickets are Free.

The Naperville Reads events look crazy busy, but I'm hoping my granddaughter & nephew can meet you at the Family Night on Feb.24 - will there be a signing and/or meet & greet?
Thanks much!
~Chris

I'm going to pre-sign about 3000 books, but not try and do signings each night, because each day is already packed from early in the morning with talks to school classes and groups and a 5 hour signing at the end of each long day will finish me off.

In terms of meet and greet, we'll see. If I can, I will.

Dear Neil,

Two questions:

1) Is the notion presented in American Gods that roadside attractions in America are built on places of power an original one of yours, or can one read more about this idea somewhere?

2) Have you ever driven down the Great River Road on the Wisconsin side? There are a number of unusual (and I think resonant) places along that route, the best of which is the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine just south of La Crosse.

Love your work!

Regards,

Chris Ellison
The Netherlands (but originally from Cannon Falls)

1) It's mine, I'm afraid.

2) I did, the first time I drove to Florida, researching American Gods. It was so cold...

OK, OK, so I'm only 20-some years late in asking, but I just found my box of Sandman comics and my son and I have been re-reading them at night, and my son asked: In the first issue, when Morpheus is trapped and Burgess (his captor) dies right in front of him, how come Death doesn't see her brother when she comes for Burgess? I know, I know, it was the first issue and seeing more of the Endless at that point would have been problematic, but still, I promised I'd ask (and now I'm kind of curious to hear what I know will be a creative answer). On a side note, I love how well even the early issues still hold up. I wish I was as good a writer now as you were at 28 (and a half). --Steve and Thomas

Oh, she saw him. They all knew where he was and what had happened to him. But it's not exactly the kind of family who would do anything about it, if you see what I mean.

Hi,
I went to the Magnetic Fields show here in DC tonight. It was, as expected, amazing. Just wanted to pass along word that they don't have the Coraline musical soundtrack at the shows yet, but they will have it later on. I failed to retain the dates given to me by the merchandise salesperson, though. He did say that it will be out in digital form soon too.
While I have your attention...
I was wondering why you chose Scotties as the dogs in Coraline, or if their is any reason behind it. My family has had Scotties since before I was born and I loved the use of them in Coraline, both book and film. Henry Selick's team nailed the way they jump up on you when you come to the door.
My apologies if this has been answered elsewhere. I'm a recent convert to your awesomeness (thanks to BPAL) and the search function gave me pages about people named Scott.
Thank you,
Shannon

I'll ask them when it will be out. [Edit to add, they have it for sale now.] In the meantime, you can catch up with the Magnetic Fields on the road at http://houseoftomorrow.com/calendar.php

And you can watch me (and Sarah Silverman, and Peter Gabriel and Lemony Snickett...) talking about Stephin in a trailer for STRANGE POWERS, a soon to be released documentary, at
http://strangepowersfilm.com/, and also up on YouTube:

And the Scotties came from Miss Webster, my elocution teacher when I was a boy. (I talk about it in this CORALINE conversation at the Well.)

Now We Are Nine

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:27:00 +0000

Now we are nine.

I keep doing things I think are temporary and then most definitely aren't. I don't really know how much longer this blog has to go -- time enough to tend it and keep it growing and flourishing the way I know I should gets harder and harder to find -- but when I started I never expected it to last nine years.

To celebrate, http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/9th_Blogiversary is the page where you can post your own photo of you doing something with a nine in it.

The last time we did something like this, the day I had 666,666 followers on Twitter, it became http://www.neilgaiman.com/extras/6by6/mosaic01.jpg, and then it became this extraordinary The Garden of Earthly Delights at http://www.uslot.com/neilballoons/ (You will need Silverlight to view this last one properly. I mention this because, for reasons on which I have never been entirely clear, people who will happily download and install all manner of other software, apps and plug-ins will lurch into righteous 'But it needs Silverlight -- how can you DO this to me?,' mode without warning.)

Above is Maddy Gaiman, occasional contributor to this blog, wishing it a Happy Birthday.

And this is me, doing likewise, and a little bit more, in my first ever video journal entry.

(I was wondering about what to film these on, and wound up doing them on the Nexus 1. The sound quality outside in the snow is a bit dodgy, but it's not bad. Maddy filmed it. It is she you can hear going Yay at the end of mine.)

A few thank yous seem appropriate:

Dan Guy, the Web Goblin. Danger is not his middle name, but he's only two letters and a space off from having it be his first.

Former Web Elf Olga Nunes. Nobody else could have persuaded me to bounce on a trampoline and whisper in a library in praise of xkcd, as she did at http://www.olganunes.com/xkcd

(You've all seen

...haven't you?)

I want to thank Lisa Gallagher, my former publisher at William Morrow, and everyone at Harper Collins, for their support for this entire website (and for www.mousecircus.com, the junior version). I want to thank Authors on the Web, who started it off, nine years ago, with the now long-defunct Americangods.com.

And, as always, I want to thank my agent, the redoubtable Merrilee Heifetz, who phoned me about a decade ago and said "There's something called Blogger I just heard about that sounds like it would be right up your street..."

And it was.

(The picture of the cover of Instructions is at the top of this blog because it looked prettiest there. But really it should be down here, with me telling you it'll be released at the end of April. [Amazon link, given that they seem to have reinstated the ability to buy books from them by authors published by Macmillan.] You can see some sneak images at Irene Gallo's blog, here.)

A Quick One

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 08:32:00 +0000

I know. I'm really behind. Right now I ought to settle down and do a solid big blog entry.

Only it's a choice between that or sleep. And sleep is just about to win.

CORALINE got 5 ANNIE awards tonight -- more than anyone else. (Although we lost Best Picture and Best Director to UP.) I was ready to give Dawn French's speech if she'd won best voice, but she didn't.

(Her speech, had she won, was "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" I could have done that.)

And then there's this. Which deserves its own blog entry too.

UCSB was great. UCLA was harder, as I was reeling a little from lack of sleep from the signing the night before, but the people there enjoyed it.

(Also, the Nexus 1 phone is wonderful, especially with the lastest update, allowing us to make things bigger or small by pulling them apart or squeezing them, which was the one thing that iPhones did I envied.)

Also LOTS of questions to answer and comments to post.

But first, sleep.

Playing a small imaginary me

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:02:00 +0000

I'm so behind.

In LA. Working hard, meeting people, sorting things out, the usual. Woke up this morning to a phone call from my agent, letting me know that CORALINE had been nominated for an Oscar. It would be nice if UP won Best Picture and CORALINE took Best Animated Picture, but truthfully, I do not believe that will happen.

Then went to record my part in PBS's "ARTHUR". I play me. And I also play a tiny imaginary version of me. (This is me recording my part, above. I am just wearing a black tee shirt, but it looks like I am wearing something much more interesting.)

Today, more meetings, then being interviewed for a documentary on the history of DC Comics.

Special thing: the people at Fantagraphics have put up a secret web-page to give readers of this blog a discount ($100, reduced from $125) on the Huge, Wonderful Three Volume Complete Playboy Cartoons of Gahan Wilson book they are publishing, and in addition are offering the first hundred people who sign up from here, free, a signed three-colour Gahan Wilson print, into the bargain. I wrote the introduction to one of the books, and am getting nothing back from this (in case you were wondering) but the warm feeling of getting 50 years of glorious, scary, disturbing and wonderful Gahan Wilson cartoons into the hearts and minds of the world.

The link is at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3750&Itemid=190

Still Alive

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:22:00 +0000

Because people have started commiserating already (and prematurely), there's an article from the LA Times that's been widely syndicated that's pretty good:

http://www.latimes.com/lat-neil-gaiman-sl,0,1690916.storylink

But the headline that's showed up a few times (variants on Graveyard Book Movie Is Dead*) is not good or reliable or, well, true. Someone couldn't resist a pun. And now people are reading the headline not the article and reporting the headline as news. So...

What I say in the interview is: we were setting up the film of The Graveyard Book at Miramax, but then last autumn Disney closed down Miramax (and just put it to sleep forever), so The Graveyard Book film is now being set up elsewhere. In "putting a movie together" world that barely counts as a hiccup.

When the producers are ready to announce who's putting it out they will. In the meantime everything seems to be coming together just fine.

[Edit to add: a few people have mentioned I sound a bit glum in the interview. I'm sure I do. It was done when Zoe had just been put to sleep.]

PS. This is Bill Stiteler's favourite version of the headline.

*to be fair, in some places, and I even think in one version of the LA Times online, the interview has also gone up with the headline Graveyard Book Movie Still Alive Says Gaiman. But the Dead one seems to be gaining currency.

Phone card query...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:43:00 +0000

I noticed that Maddy managed, without trying, while she was in the UK, to run up a $600 phone bill, using data on her phone. Which mostly came from a day when she was stuck in an airport that was closed, and her cousin browsed the web for a bit on Maddy's phone to kill time. T-mobile now charges $16 a meg for data when you're out of the US. To put that in context, according to Vodaphone's site, "On Mobile Broadband 50MB is approximately 100 Emails & 4 Hours browsing", and on T-mobile's rates 100 emails and 4 hours of browsing (running google maps etc) is $800. I asked T-mobile if they didn't have any plans that would work better if you're going abroad and, no they don't.

Which just seems wrong. And, strangely, I was pleased to find this out, as I've got my Nexus 1 and was planning to use it when I travel abroad over the next couple of months, particularly during the middle of March, when I go from the US to New Zealand to the Philippines to Poland to Moscow to the UK... and had Maddy not set off alarm bells, I could, I have no doubt, have come home to a $5,000 phone bill without even trying.

What I'd like is an international SIM card with cheap international data rates: I don't really want to come back from that trip with another 4 SIM cards I'll never use, having lost a morning in each country trying to find a Phone company with a SIm that'll give me data. There has to be someone out there -- and I don't care where they are -- with a decent international data service that covers the world, or enough of it that I don't have to switch it out all the time, and for the kind of rates that don't cost an arm, a leg, a spleen, a different leg, a kidney and both lungs.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions? ("Buy a new Sim everywhere you go" does not count as a suggestion, although it was the most popular thing I heard on Twitter.) Let me know -- and if I find anything good, I'll report back.

Edit to add,"why don't you use wifi and hotspots?" while a bright idea,isn't really a useful suggestion either. Not if I want to use the nexus 1 for things like Google maps or Twitter as I travel. And I will use skype for my phone calls home, yes.

Time. It's waiting in the wings...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:31:00 +0000

I'm behind on blogging right now, as I try and get ahead (well, catch up) on work.

One hasty thing for you lot to ponder: in about ten days, on the 9th of February, this blog will be nine years old. (It started on the americangods.com website, and then, when we were given the neilgaiman.com domain, transmigrated. This was the first actual post.) The webgoblin pointed this out to me, and we think we should do something to celebrate the blog's 9th birthday. I have absolutely no idea what.

If you have any ideas for wonderful things that would make people happy, let me know. Or, better still, let the all-powerful webgoblin know, at http://www.neilgaiman.com/feedback/

Thank you all for your Zoe letters and notes and thoughts. Maddy sent this to me a couple of days ago. It's her as a toddler, playing with Zoe as a kitten:

...and because time always brings things even while it takes things away, this is Maddy as she is now, over Christmas in Scotland, taken by me on my Lomo:

...

Off to LA for a friend's Bat-mitzvah, then next week I'm talking at UCLA and UCSB. (Details and ticketing info at http://www.neilgaiman.com/where. In each case, the numbers of people involved mean it's very doubtful that I'll sign anything after, although I'll try and sign stuff before so they can have signed objects for sale.) (And a very early warning: I know where I will be on the Hallowe'en weekend 2011.)

Also, I think this is the first time I've won an award for a poem, so thank you to all at Starshipsofa, and the Mythic Delirium crew. (And, per that link, there are still a few copies of the Mythic Delirium Anniversary Issue with "Conjunctions" in it.)

From the Department of Only In Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 03:06:00 +0000

Strange moments of juxtaposition that make you feel like you're living in a novel:

It had been the kind of day that meant I never quite got to look at the post. After dinner I opened the various packages on the kitchen table.

The first thing I opened was a secondhand copy of "The Inner Hebrides and their Legends" by Otta F. Swire, and I opened it to a random page and read,"...the third of May, when the Devil and his angels were cast out of heaven (and therefore 3rd May is a day on which no important undertaking should be begun and on which it is unpardonable to commit a crime)..."

That's interesting, I thought. I could put that in a story, the next time I need a date of ill-omen. I put the book down.

I opened the next envelope. It was huge, and came from Bloomsbury books in the UK, and contained -- well, what it contained was on the note accompanying it, which said, in tidy handwriting,

Dear Neil
I'm delighted to enclose proofs of the Bloomsbury edition of "Instructions" (to be published on 3rd May).
With best wishes,
Madeleine

That's a bit heavy-handed, I thought. If I were writing this, I'd drop the 3rd May date in on something that happened tomorrow, to give everyone reading a chance to forget.

Real life is so strangely written, sometimes.

Right. Back to work. I think tomorrow I may do a "These books have arrived here and are currently sitting on my kitchen table and extremely interesting," post, complete with photos. You need to know about Charles Vess's Drawing Down the Moon, for a start.

...

Also, while I think of it -- the Bela Fleck Danse Macabre that I gave an iTunes link to last week, is also available on Amazon.com.

And I'm honoured to be nominated for the The ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation Award
The 2010 nominees for the ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation Award:
o Neil Gaiman
o Steve Geppi
o Paul Levitz
o Dave Sim
o Bob Wayne

The 2010 nominees in the posthumous category for the ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation Award:
o Will Eisner
o Carol Kalish
o Phil Seuling
o Julius Schwartz

If I had a vote (I don't, not being a comics retailer) I'd probably vote for Paul Levitz, by a hair, with me in last place, on the living-people list, and, um, choosing between those last four names..? Ow. Not easy. Four giants who made the world of comics what it is. I am glad I am not a voting comics retailer.

And in the End...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:26:00 +0000

I slept with Zoe last night, in the attic. She would get down to throw up, then come back up on the bed. When I woke up she was down in her cat-bed, though.

The vet came at midday. Lorraine, and I, and Mary (my ex-wife) went up to the attic with her. We said our respective goodbyes to Zoe, stroked her, petted her, talked to her. The vet warned us what would happen, injected Zoe with a sleeping drug (she yelped and tried to get away), then, after she had calmed down, after she had thrown up, when she slept, injected her with something to stop her heart. I stroked her head at the end.

(There was a strange moment of euphemistic double talk at one point, as I asked the vet, "So that was the drug that puts her to sleep?" and was told, "No, the next one puts her to sleep. This one just makes her unconscious." "That was what I meant. This one puts her to sleep. The next one 'puts her to sleep'." "Oh. Right.")

It was so hard. Harder than I imagined. I sent photos from my phone to Olga, when it was going on, because she was already back in San Francisco and wanted to know what was happening, but I'm not posting them here.

If it was not winter we would have buried Zoe out the back, in the makeshift cat graveyard near my gazebo, but the ground is frozen hard under the snow, and I am not prepared to spend the next few months with a small dead cat in the freezer, awaiting burial, so the vet took her away to be cremated.

I don't have anything more to say about it. I feel sort of empty and used-up right now. In a few minutes I'll go back downstairs, phone in some copy-edits on a short story and then go and write something.

Since my last post another 400 emails have come in, pretty much all of them from people saying, I'm sorry about Zoe, let me tell you about what happened to me and my cat. I keep reading them -- sometimes they depress me, mostly they just make me feel part of something bigger than me: a thousand people going "there was this one particular animal that touched my heart, and I can tell you about it and not seem weird because you're going through it too".

Lorraine blogged about Zoe last night. Olga blogged about her visit here too. Kyle Cassidy is auctioning a signed print of Zoe and me to raise money for City Kitties.

People have asked about where to donate money to, and we're pointing them to http://www.greatlakesbengalrescue.com, which is the cat charity that Lorraine supports and works with.

And that's about that.

Olga's arrival

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:14:00 +0000

Early this morning I picked up Olga, who had flown all night to get here, from the airport. A diversion due to a traffic accident routed us through St. Paul, which we took as an omen (as we drove up to it and realised that we were both starving) that we were meant to eat breakfast in Mickey's Diner. So we did. Olga spent a lot of the time playing with the Nexus 1.

We drove home through fog and something that would have been an ice-storm if it had been two degrees colder, but was just drizzle. Eventually, we got here, and headed up to the attic. I was worried that Zoe would have died while we were away, or not really be there any longer, but no, she was awake and there. Still Zoe's weaker each day. She responds less, and while she's happy to be petted, tends, mid-pet, to get down from the bed, walk away until she's somewhere away from where she sleeps, then make a sort of yelping barking screechy noise like a small eagle in distress, and throw up a foamy liquid.

Eventually, Zoe stopped throwing up and relaxed.

At the point where they both seemed comfortable, I went off to take the Dog (who is unimpressed by the lack of attention he's been getting) for a walk in the sleety rain. Or the rainy sleet. It's harder to keep warm AND dry than it is to keep warm. This is me deciding that it may be a mistake trying to take a photograph on a nice new phone-camera in the freezing rain with rapidly numbing fingers.

Not that the dog minded. He was just happy not to be bored and left on his own in the kitchen.

...

You know, the FAQ mailbox has filled with messages from people, from many, many hundreds of you, almost all of you telling a heartbreaking or heartwarming (or, very often, both at the same time) story of how a beloved cat died. I'm reading all of them. Sometimes it's uplifting, and sometimes it feels like I'm marching through The Valley of the Shadow of Death of Cats. But I am reading all of them, and I appreciate them so much.

Zoe update

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:22:00 +0000

I slept in the attic bedroom again last night. Zoe seemed weak and listless when I went in, and was huddling on the floor by the heater. She smelled weird, like bile. She got out of bed a couple of times in the night, to throw up a couple of teaspoons of foam. Then I'd clean her up and bring her back to the bed, and she'd snuggle and purr.

When I woke up this morning, she was in her cat bed on the floor. I cleaned up the vomit-foam that had happened while I'd slept. Now I'm off to drive through something that appears from wunderground.com to be a full-on ice-storm to go and get Olga from the airport and bring her back to spend a last day with her cat.

And I'm wondering what it is about this small blind cat that inspires such behaviour -- mine, Olga's, Lorraine's.... I've had cats in this house for 18 years, and there are cat-graves down by gazebo. Two cats died of old age last year. It wasn't like this.

I think it may be the love. Hers, once given, was yours, unconditionally and utterly.

Right. Off into the ice-storm. (Yes, I am taking a big four-wheel-drive thing, not the Mini. Yes, I will drive very carefully.)

Where Are They Now?

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:34:00 +0000

Because I don't think I can do another Zoe post today, here's one that might make you smile.

From Dec 1977. A punk band, sort of. We grew up to be, left to right, an eminent artist, me, one of the secret masters of British Comedy, (standing) a Meteorite Man, and, (bottom right) um, I have no idea, and not just because he left the band or vice versa shortly after. (His name is, or was, Simon Wilson, the last time I saw him it was 25 years ago and he had just stopped working in the securities division of a bank. A few years ago, after a signing in Texas, an old schoolfriend told me that he had heard that Simon was dead, although that might have been someone else. I hope he's not dead.)

So far I've been extremely disappointed by Meteorite Men: I keep waiting for them to find a Peculiar Glowing Meteorite that will turn Geoffrey into an enormous lumpy Kirbyish monster and then the other Meteorite Man will have to battle him until the effects wear off. It still hasn't happened. On the other hand, it's got lots of cool meteorite hunting in it, and it's really fun TV.

Also, there's still most of the season to go for them to find a proper glowing meteorite that will transform Geoffrey into Nott-Kin: The Thing That Shambles like a Man. So I will keep watching.

As a tiny side-note from the past: Geoff and I went to the Adverts gig advertised at the bottom of the poster, and I've been a fan of T.V. Smith's ever since (and am currently reading his travel diaries, How To Feel Human).