Doctor Doctor

I did two things yesterday I've never done before: wear a white bowtie, and be awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from The University of St Andrews. Really nice people, a wonderful time and if I didn't have Amanda and Ash with me, I had our friend Chris Cunningham, and, more or less by coincidence, my cousins Abigail and Kezia. So many excellent conversations, too.

This was Chris Jones's speech (although you cannot hear him Do The Voices on the Good Omens bit): http://linkis.com/www.st-andrews.ac.uk/SQ7bu

I'm typing this from Edinburgh Airport -- I'm heading to NYC, where I will be appearing on the Seth Meyers show on Thursday night.

(I've been out of the UK for 15 years, which is when they take your vote away from you, so I cannot vote. If I could, I would vote Remain.)

A thousand congratulations to Chris Riddell, who won the Kate Greenaway Medal for our book The Sleeper and the Spindle. Is that not wonderful?

And a Q and A from Tumblr that may be useful for everyone:

neil-gaiman

secretfiri asked:

So, I've been having troubles writing for the past 5 years and I really want to get back into it. Do you have any kind of suggestion or advice?

Set aside time to write that’s only writing time. Put away your phone. Turn off or disable your wifi. Write in longhand if you wish. Put up a do not disturb sign. And make your writing time sacred and inviolable. 

And in that time, this is the deal. You can write, or you can not do anything. Not doing anything is allowed. (What not doing anything includes: staring at walls, staring out of windows, thinking broodily, staring at your hands. What not doing anything does not include: alphabetising the spice rack, checking Tumblr, taking your pen apart, playing solitaire or running a clean up program on your computer.)

You get to pick how long a day your writing time is. An hour? Two? Three? Your call.

Doing nothing gets pretty dull. So you might as well write. (And if you write 300 words, one page, every day, you’ll have a 90,000 word novel in a year.)

Labels: bow ties, Greenaway Medal

Prelude to Softly and Silently Vanishing Away

My plans for the rest of the year are basically, finish the last Good Omens TV script, and then to write a novel.

I'm doing one TV interview for THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS.

I'm making a couple of mysterious appearances for the American Gods tv series.

I'm not going to entirely vanish from social media, but probably, pretty much, I'll be gone, and living in a book which currently doesn't exist except in weird notes and ideas and things in my head.

As a general rule, when I leave social media, I blog a bit more. So keep half an eye on this blog. There are some amazing things coming out this year, and I would be an idiot if I didn't let you all know about them, so you will...

For example, what on earth is this photo about?

Who are these people? And what does it have to do with Neverwhere?

All the BBC website tells us is 

...we’re thrilled that, later this year, led by the ever-dangerous Marquis de Carabas, we’ll be taking a short trip back to the land of London Below.

We're expecting high adventure and a spine-tingling ride, with a mix of brand new characters and old favourites.

...which is definitely interesting. And will need to be announced. And so will the amazing new Chris Riddell illustrated edition of Neverwhere from the UK: I've never seen anything like it before.

This is a photograph of Chris and the cover of the book, wrapped around a completely different book, to make it look like the actual book.

And then there's the wonderful secret thing we are doing with the US paperback covers, which is making me very happy indeed. And you'll learn about them here, and I'm sure I'll put that up on Facebook and Twitter too.

And then there's the announcement of the book I finished last month... That's happening soon. It's exciting. I'll announce that.

So I'm basically around for another week. 

Expect a vague vanishing. And an eventual return. And interruptions for information.

But mostly I'm planning to be low profile online and living in my head in order to report back, from dark strange places, the remarkable doings of some most peculiar people.

Labels: chris Riddell, how the marquis got his coat back, The Seven Sisters, Vanishing authors