Alas, no -- it doesn't look like there will be tickets available at the door after all, due to their selling like hotcakes at the local shops like Million Year Picnic. ...I'm afraid when the tickets are gone, they're gone, and many of the local shops are already sold out.
I've asked Geoffrey to let me know where any tickets may still be found for any of you, at MIT or in the Boston area, who want to come, and if there are any out there he'll let me know.
The Birdchick and her team won the Birding World Series, which is good news, and "Platypus" Bill Stiteler blogs yesterday's bee stuff along with what he did today (while I slept like a large, moss-covered, jet-lagged log) over at http://www.birdchick.com/2008/05/simple-plan.html -- and because I'm rather proud of it, I'm putting up a dancing bee photo I took yesterday. (Bill put it up as well, but it's much bigger here, or it will be if you click on it, and I pushed the brightness up so you could see the expression on her little bee face as she waves her leg around. What good are bee photos if you can't see their expressions?)
Neil,
Thank you for signing my books after the literary dinner in Melbourne, I get a sense that you were tired, but I appreciate how generous you were with your time. It is always a treat to meet you (that was the second time I have met you the first was a few years ago at comics r us in Melbourne) though I get a bit nervous, don't know why but I do.
The episode of "I should be writing" where they list one of the three pieces of advice is to find Neil Gaiman and he will look into your soul and tell you what you need to hear is Episode dated 9/04/08 the third piece of advice.
Your advice was "keep doing what you are doing" and that was exactly what I needed cos I had not been writing very much up until a couple of weeks ago so that helped me keep faith.
I really wish that I could find more advice on second drafts I mean I got a lot information on how to complete a first draft and now I have to get a second draft finished.
What is the best advice can you give a writer about the second draft of a novel. I mean you spend months on the first draft and you finish it and let it lie for a while, and now you have to work with this thing that is a rough lump of clay, how do you form the book out of this mass of intention and thought.
Thank you for your time.
Karl
The second draft is where the fun is. In a first draft, you get to explode. The objective (at least for me) is to get it down on paper, somehow. Battle through the laziness and the not-enough-time and the this-is-rubbish and everything else, and just get it written. Whatever it takes. The second draft is where you go and gather together the fragments of the explosion and figure out what it is you did, and make it look like that was what you always meant to do.
So you write it. Then you put it aside. Not for months, but perhaps for a week or so. Even a few days. Do other things. Then set aside some uninterrupted time to read, and pull it out, and pretend you have never read it before -- clear it out of your head, and sit and read it. (I'd suggest you do this on a print-out, so you can scribble on it as you go. )
When you get to the end you should have a much better idea of what it was about than you did when you started. (I knew The Graveyard Book would be about a boy who lived in a graveyard when I started it. I didn't know that it would be about how we make our families, though: that's a theme that made itself apparent while the book was being written.)
And then, on the second and subsequent drafts, you do four things. 1) You fix the things that didn't work as best you can (if you don't like the climactic Rock City scene in American Gods, trust me, the first draft was so much worse). 2) You reinforce the themes, whether they were there from the beginning or whether they grew like Topsy on the way. You take out the stuff that undercuts those themes. 3) You worry about the title. 4) At some point in the revision process you will probably need to remind yourself that you could keep polishing it infinitely, that perfection is not an attribute of humankind, and really, shouldn't you get on with the next thing now?
So. Home. Fell asleep at about 5.00 am, woke up about 11:30 am, so not back on US time yet.
Today I did some bee-things with Bill Stiteler (we put in a queen excluder today prior to splitting the Olga hive next week) then we planted a bag of overlooked hyacinths we found in the garage, and watched some Dr Who with Maddy (we're now up to Planet of the OOD). Also I walked the dog.
I've just been informed that due to a transfer credit-hour technicality I can't graduate with my college class & must get ONE CREDIT in summer school and walk next year if at all.
Neil, could you tell me anything to cheer me up? An anecdote, a song excerpt, news ("Jill Thompson and I are going to do that Delirium Miniseries we've been talking about for a while!"), anything?
Songs? Let's see -- I wrote a song for Peri Lyons' one woman show that you can hear a demo of at her myspace page. It's a 3.00am-in-a-bar song for a generation that's much more likely to be found in front of computer screens than in bars at 3.00 am.
It looks like tickets for the MIT talk on the 23rd are going fast -- http://community.livejournal.com/millionyear/34688.html -- although I believe that MIT are keeping tickets back to sell on the day. (Nope. See next post.)
Over at Lurid.com, Craig Russell talks more about the adaptation he's doing of Sandman: The Dream Hunters, and you can see more of the art, along with the adaptation he's been working on for the last couple of years of Coraline. (You may or may not be able to see the embedded footage -- although it's now better than it was.)
I was asleep by ten and now wide awake at one thirty, and listening to a Radio 4 documentary on John Cooper Clarke. My plans for the future involve trying to persuade myself to go back to sleep. Expect a sensible post tomorrow.
Dinner last night with Margo Lanagan arranged by Allen and Unwin, where she reassured me about Clarion and told me about her new novel (I am excited) and we talked about words and about Australia and about a story I mean to write this year. Then back to the hotel and had a three hour phone call to Bloomsbury in London, calling in the copy-edits on The Graveyard Book. My copy editor was very patient with me, despite the oddness of The Graveyard Book meaning that sometimes things would be a bit counter-intuitive: I had to explain to her how a ten year old (dead) boy could have a twenty year old (dead) grandmother. But most of her queries were wise and smart and (this is important) will make me look good.
A flood of letters from Australians who inform me that I was having my leg pulled over the hamburger thing -- and if you read what I posted and imagine the chef as a dry-humoured assie bloke, that's just how it reads. For example:
> (Unconvinced Five Star Hotel Night Chef.) "If you say so, sir. It's just people here complain if their hamburgers aren't made of ham.
Major possibilities:
a) chef was sadistic or insane
b) chef had quirky sense of humour
c) balance of your mind disturbed by excessive book signing
d) you were unwitting participant in 'candid camera' equivalent
e) you had accidentally wandered into a neighbouring universe
f) other In Australia, hamburger means ground up cow. Always.
Saw your talk at the State Library in Melbourne btw - very enjoyable, and The Graveyard Book sounds like it's going to be a good one.
cheers,
Steve
I'd go for f). Honestly, she sounded very young, very defensive and, I'm afraid, a bit upset, like someone who had actually been told off a few weeks ago by a hotel guest for the lack of ham in his hamburger and had been determined not to make that mistake again, and now here was a smartarse pom late at night telling her she'd been right all along. And I felt a bit sorry for her.
(This was at the Four Seasons Sydney in George Street -- a nice enough hotel, although the rooms are tiny, but also the first Four Seasons I've stayed in that felt more or less like a Mariott - as if they'd bought someone else's hotel and put a Four Seasons logo on, but not really changed anything else.)
I'm off to the US today, via Narita airport. A few people kindly wrote and offered to show me around during my 9 hour layover, and I was going to take at least one person up on it, but I now strongly suspect that instead of doing anything at all I'll get a local hotel room and try and sleep -- horizontally, rather than sitting down -- between two ten hour flights.
Let me point you at this Boing Boing Entry and this Locus Article, in which Cory Doctorow talks about dandelion and mammalian reproductive strategies and how these things relate to selling things or giving them away on the web -- some of this came out of a wonderful conversation last Christmas between Cory and Rob Brydon and me, which Cory and I carried on the next time we saw each other, at Eastercon. (The ideas are all Cory's. All I did was say, "What exactly do you mean by that?" and "But for Heaven's sake, Cory, what about...?" a lot.)
... Hi Neil,
Quick question about The Graveyard Book - do you have plans to release signed copies in cardboard dumps as you did with American Gods and Anansi Boys?
I offered, but that's no longer possible for some logistical reason I never quite understood.
Neil,
I'd just like to thank you for your appearance at Books Kinokuniya in Sydney on the 6th. It was a great night, and truly inspiring to see that despite the 500-odd people eagerly queued, you still had time for each one of us.
Now that's all taken care of I'd like to ask if your short story 'Orange' is in print anywhere, as I've only seen it as a video of a live reading (or memorably first hand, when you were in Sydney in 2006). Kind Regards,
Luke
Why thank you. "Orange" is in The Starry Rift. You can learn more about it at http://thestarryrift.com/
Despite following instructions on stripping this computer with Windows Vista down to its work and memory undies, it's still like working with a computer in 1986, in terms of slowness and pauses and delay. Dynamism.com helpfully sent me Windows XP to do a downgrade on it, which I'll do when I get home... I still love the computer, though: it weighs about half of a Mac airbook, and has a DVD drive to boot. But I can't simply type and keep typing - it suddenly stops to inspect itself for fleas or something and loses anything I typed while it was thinking, or squashes words together, or I find myself randomly typing somewhere else in the paragraph... argh.
...
And before I forget, a big, big thank you to everyone at Allen and Unwin, especially Sarah Tran, to all the booksellers (Ellison Hawker, Dymocks in Melbourne and Sydney, and Kinokuniya (who gave me the new edition of A Humument as a thank you for signing there, which made me unspeakably happy), and to the staff and organisers of the CBCA, the Melbourne State Library folk, to various old friends who waved or helped (you know who you are) and all the people who showed up at the signings and made it so pleasant...
You can now read it at http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ where it's available for download under Creative Commons. And you'll probably like it. If you do, buy hard copies for friends. Or if you happen to be a foreign publisher, buy the rights to it in your language, and publish it there.
In US bookshops, you'll probably find it shelved in YA -- Young Adult -- unless you are dealing with a smart store that has it on display up the front and has also put it in SF and Fantasy. (Lots of debate on Boing Boing and at Mr Scalzi's excellent blog about this. Not a lot I can add to the debate, other than that I sometimes really wish that all fiction books of all genres for any people over the age of about 12 were simply filed alphabetically by author, because as Patrick Nielsen Hayden once pointed out to me, shelving by genre simply tells people the places in a bookshop that they don't have to go. And Sturgeon's Law suggests that they'll be missing out on some good stuff that's shelved in those places.)
... This was written last night after the signing, and then not posted because I wasn't sure if it was funny or just me being grumpy late at night after signing for many hours.
I get strangely punchy after a long signing. And it was a long signing, for about 500 people.
Back in my hotel room at midnight, wanting something to eat, I phone room service, after looking at the 24 hour menu, which has the same limited selection as any 24 hour menu...
"Room service?"
"Yes. Could I have a hamburger, please?"
"Ah. We've only got beefburgers here. But I could make you one from scratch."
"Make me one what?"
"Hamburger."
"Which is different from a beefburger in what way?"
"Well, we make them of ground-up ham."
"But a hamburger is a beefburger. It takes its name from the town of Hamburg in Germany. It isn't made of ham. It shouldn't be made of ham. It never has been made of ham."
(Unconvinced Five Star Hotel Night Chef.) "If you say so, sir. It's just people here complain if their hamburgers aren't made of ham. Do you want a slice of beetroot on that*?"
"Not really."
And now I wait in my room, looking at all the bags I've managed to strew all over the bed, and wondering whether, if I glare at them hard enough, they will climb off the bed themselves and arrange themselves tidily on the floor, or if I'm going to have to do it for them.
"The Only Photographic Record I have of the evening." (See below.)
Let's see.... on Saturday I did an enjoyable panel on graphic novels with Nicki Greenberg and Queenie Chan (run by Zoe), which ended too soon, and attended a banquet in a museum, sitting between Nicki G and Elizabeth Honey, during the course of which I bought a Shaun Tan painting in a silent auction for a good cause (it's on this page and is called The Sweet Hereafter).
Sunday morning was the Keynote Speech for the CBCA conference, a mixture of thoughts on children's literature and poems about children's literature. Then I signed books, with a slightly desperate edge because I only had about a hundred minutes before I was due on the next panel -- a fun one about influences, with Garth Nix and Isobelle Carmody. Finished the line with about three minutes to spare. Did the panel. Then signed more books.
Walked back to hotel. Walked past a Lush, thought hah! and nipped in and bought one of the blackberry comforter bars. Got back to hotel. Had bubble bath (with normal sized, non-lovecraftian bubbles). Rejoiced as I stretched out in the bath in how there was lots and lots of time before I had to get back on the road...
The bathroom phone rang. Anne and Eddie were in the lobby. I had somehow zoned and lost half an hour. Hasty shower-off and threw on clothes and ran downstairs...
Dinner with my old friends Peter Nicholls and Clare Coney and their son Jack, along with Anne and Eddie, which meant I got to introduce the Campbells to the Nichollses (and their marvellous, book-lined home). Not to mention their dogs, who took a shine to Eddie. For some reason, the only photographic record I have of the evening is of Eddie Campbell and two dogs.
This morning was interviews, then a reading and Q&A at the Melbourne library, then a signing which went on for a while... soon I will leave in a taxi for a literary dinner and signing. Tomorrow I fly to Sidney and read and Q&A and sign some more. And now I'm going to hit post then do absolutely nothing for twelve minutes.
These are the remaining Melbourne and Sydney events, as rounded up for me by Sarah Tran, ace publicist...
Mon 5th May 1.00pm Author Talk & Signing - FREE EVENT Location: Centre for Youth Literature State Library of Victoria - Village Roadshow Theatrette 325 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC
Contact: (CYL) 03 8664 7014
Mon 5th May 7.45pm Dymocks Camberwell Literary Dinner - TICKETED EVENT Location: Georges Restaurant 819 Burke Road, Camberwell VIC
Contact: (Dymocks Camberwell) 03 9882 0032
Tues 6th May 6.00pm Author Talk & Signing - FREE EVENT Location: Books Kinokuniya Level 2, Galeries Victoria, Sydney NSW
Contact: 02 9262 7996
Wed 7th May 1.00pm Author Signing - FREE EVENT Location: Dymocks George St 424 George St, Sydney NSW
In the wild I can tell people who read this blog regularly from common or garden human beings because the blog-reading people tend, on meeting me for the first time to say things like, "How are the bees?" which the common or garden human beings do not, unless they are mad in an interesting way, in which case the bees are all in their head.
And all across Australia when asked what was happening at home in bee-world I have been saying, "Er. I do not know."
Meanwhile back at home exciting bee things have been going on without me. Luckily Sharon the birdchick feels guilty about doing terrific bee things in my absence and has recorded the experience of putting in a new hive so that even in Australia I can see what's going on.
Her write-up about what's happening is at http://www.birdchick.com/2008/05/hiving-new-packages.html. Sharon's husband, the inestimable "Ivory" Bill Stiteler made a couple of youtube films about the hive installation that are in her next post, http://www.birdchick.com/2008/05/bee-movies.html (Meanwhile, the view from the trenches as my assistant Lorraine goes and gets the bees from the post office here, and ponders missing the terror and the chaos of last year's first bee-installation here.)
Interviewed yesterday by local paper The Age, for the first time in nearly three years.Had photo taken after interview, and suddenly remembered how astonishingly bad the last photo of me in The Age was. The new photo isn't bad, but I was outside the hotel, the wind was whipping down the street, blowing my hair to one side, and my hair looks odd. Even odder than usual. ("No longer on the fringe," is the caption, which is, I think, probably about the hair and not the meainstreaming of comics.)
Gris Grimly, my collaborator on The Dangerous Alphabet, has his own website at http://www.madcreator.com/.
Hello Neil!!
I just thought you should know that Amazon just sent out an email saying you wrote "75 Simple Ways to Keep Me Happy for Life"
I looks like a lovely dog book but I think you just wrote the foreword.
While I am sure your readership is interested in learning about dogs being happy, perhaps Amazon might want to put the correct author on the webpage and email. :)
Always,
Monica
Consider it posted. And no, I didn't write it, only the foreword, which talks about Anne Bobby and how very qualified she is, despite being a famed actress of stage and screen and audio, to write a book on dogs.
World Premiere May 6-June 20, 2009 Coraline Music and Lyrics by Book by Stephin Merritt David Greenspan Based on the Novel by Neil Gaiman Directed by Leigh Silverman
Poor bored Coraline. She’s left to rattle round her perpetually distracted parents’ house all by her lonesome. Then one day, her dreams of a better reality are answered as she steps through an old oak doorway and passes into a perfected replica of her own world. Greeted there by a vastly loving Other Mother and kindly Other Father, she’s thrilled! But, as the saying goes: Be careful what you wish for…
A musical like no other, Coraline sprang from the minds of three of the most wildly popular cult heroes of our time. Adapted from the truly terrifying children’s book by Neil Gaiman (author of the international sensation Sandman), this tale of menace and mayhem is set to music and lyrics by smart-rock iconoclast Stephin Merritt (of The Magnetic Fields), and boasts a book by celebrated downtown actor-cum-auteur, David Greenspan, who serves double-duty as the villain, Coraline’s suspiciously nurturing Other Mother.
“Critics sometimes compare Stephin Merritt with Cole Porter because Porter is shorthand for the kind of smart, urbane lyrics Merritt writes.” –NY Times “David Greenspan is probably all-round the most talented theater artist of my generation.” –Tony Kushner
I've heard about 3/4 of the songs, sung by Stephin himself, and they're wonderful, although that's all I know about it at this stage. If you're interested, the season is very short, and the theatre seats just fewer than 300 people, so it might be a good idea to get tickets as soon as you can -- right now you can subscribe to the season of three plays: Save up to 40% off the regular ticket price and choose your seats before they go on sale to the general public. Details at http://www.mcctheater.com/subscribe.html
And changing the subject a bit, more pictures of people in tee shirts at Kitty's Neverwear Blog -- http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/ -- and if you have a good photo of you in one of her tee shirts, you should send it to her and it will make her happy. She's on tour with Duran Duran right now... and her website is http://neverwear.net
which I mention because there isn't a link to it from the blog. I also gave Kitty the Cassette editions of CORALINE and TWO PLAYS FOR VOICES and some ANANSI BOYS MP3s, so if you are looking for them, she has them there.
My friend Larry Marder is bringing back Beanworld, and blogging it -- http://larrymarder.blogspot.com/. Thrilled to see that Dark Horse will be republishing Beanworld and bringing the new ones out. It's been too long.
The terrifyingly talented former Web Elf has her own web site up at www.olganunes.com, while Thea Gilmore has a new CD coming out, a UK tour, and widget. Of these, I am putting up the widget.
Chris Riddell's illustrations for the Bloomsbury edition of The Graveyard Book just came in. Here are three of my favourites. One from Chapter Three ("The Hounds of God"), one from Chapter Four ("The Witch's Headstone") and one from Chapter Seven ("Every Man Jack").
...
Also a few people wrote in to ask how I feel about having three books in the LibraryThing Top 106 Unread Books Meme.... and I went and checked and was a bit disappointed to find that I'm no longer in there -- according to http://www.librarything.com/tag/unread I no longer have any books in the top 106. Bugger. Given that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the most unread Library Thing book I assumed it was a list of books people planned to read one day, not books they didn't plan to pick up....
Sarah Tran, Allen and Unwin publicity goddess, and I got to Hobart yesterday morning and were picked up at the airport by friends Dianna and Mark and their friend Wayne, who was driving something a bit like the original batmobile. This was a car called Darlene. I didn't ask why she was called Darlene.
(L to R, Mark, Dianna, Wayne, Me, Darlene. Publicist Sarah Tran is not in the photo as she is taking it.)
Here's Mark standing outside Ellison Hawker. After the ABC radio interview I went inside and signed lots of stock for them.
From there we went to eat, racing to be done in time for the event. We'd just finished eating when we got a call saying, "Everything's running late. Many people. Tickets. Argh. Don't come down yet." So we had dessert. Then I was introduced by Professor Jonathan Dawson (who I really wanted to chat to, but it was not to be) and I read a couple of new poems and a chapter from The Graveyard Book, one I'd never read aloud before, amswered some questions. It was fun. And then I signed. Lots of amazingly nice people, and at the end the people from Ellison Hawker presented me with a bottle of Tasmanian Single Malt as a thank you.
Then up betimes, and off to the airport, to Melbourne. Where it is raining and I have spent the day being interviewed.
Also, Michael Moorcock, visionary, worldmaker, author, and editor, quite possibly also the man who inspired Alan Moore to grow a beard, was made Grand Master at the Nebulas. Here's John Picacio's speech -- containing interpolations by China Mieville, Jeff Vandermeer, Alan Moore and me myself, among others.
And from Eddie Campbell (who has posted a page of pencils), I learn that about half of the Campbell-Gaiman Spirit story is up online at Scans Daily. Honestly, I wish they'd post the whole thing.If anyone's going to cry foul for a copyright violation, they'll cry foul for six and a half pages as easily as they will all ten, and all the good jokes in the Tarantino parody have been left out...
