Some animal thoughts...

Fred the cat tends to get into scrapes while I'm away, and I arrived home yesterday to find him with half of his face shaved and on antibiotics, having tangled with something. Whenever he gets into fights he gets infected. Tonight he's staying with the vet as the infection got worse.

I ought to be very worried, but I'm not. I suppose by now I think he'll pull through because he always pulls through. He must be on life 15 or 16 by now: last year when I was on tour with Fragile Things, I was called about a minute before the Google Author Talk and informed that Fred had to be put down (which left me pretty shaken), but it didn't happen. He got through that, just as he gets through everything else.

Some animals are survivors.

Maddy's largest goldfish is called Moonbeam, and he's about nine years old, and has outlived every other goldfish we've ever had, and even survived an accidental case of poisoning about five years ago that killed off everyone else. He's now about a foot long. And there were five fish in that tank two weeks ago. The two smaller ones have now mysteriously gone, and Moonbeam looks astonishingly well-fed and happy, and I suspect that I need to rethink the whole Where The Goldfish Are situation.

I recorded the previously unrecorded tracks from M Is For Magic today in Minneapolis. Very different stories -- it was fun recording them though. Two from when I was very young ("How to Sell the Ponti Bridge" and "The Case of the Four And Twenty Blackbirds"), one from about Ten Years Ago ("Don't Ask Jack", which I couldn't believe I hadn't already recorded. You can see Jack here) and one story from when I was older ("The Witch's Headstone" now just out in WIZARDS:Magical Tales From the Masters of Modern Fantasy).

Like all audio recording it was fun, and then it got harder, and then I walked away quite braindead. I don't know anything else that's quite so exhausting in the same way. Still, I love doing the audiobooks. (And I just realised we need to update the information at http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/audio/)

(Teddy Kristiansen just sent me a link to his blog, where you can see the M Is For Magic cover, from roughs to finished painting: http://teddykristiansenblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/work-process.html)

On the way home from the recording, driving through the rain, just as I pulled off the freeway to head home, I saw a large, pale dog on the side of the sliproad. I went in a couple of seconds from a first glance thought of "Oh, he's just wandering around and knows exactly what he's doing," to, on a second glance, "He's absolutely terrified and if he isn't actually lost he's really scared of all the cars and in danger of bolting onto the freeway," .

I pulled over, crossed the road and hurried across to where he was. He backed away, skittish and nervous, then came over to me, shaking. No collar or information, just a choke chain. And big. And very wet and very muddy. With cars going past, I decided the wisest thing to do was to put him into my car while I figured out what to do. The car was the Mini. I opened the door and he clambered in. The dog took up most of the Mini that I wasn't in and a fair amount of the Mini that I was in. Big dog, small car.

I phoned my assistant Lorraine, and asked her to let the local Humane Society (really nice people with a no kill policy) know we'd be coming in soon with a dog, then I drove home, narrowly avoiding death on the way (it's amazing how much you can't see when a huge dog fills the car and your field of vision). I ran around the garden with Dog until he'd tired me out. (I really hope he'd just got lost, and his family are looking for him; it would be hard to imagine someone abandoning a dog that cool.) Then I put him into the back of a car much bigger than the Mini and took him to the Humane Society, where they fawned all over him. ("I think he's a husky-wolf cross," said the Humane lady who took him, and she could be right.)

I think he's probably a survivor too.

National Characteristics

It was one of those moments when you know you're in another country. Specifically Germany.

10:53 am – I'm in my hotel room answering a written interview questions when the phone rings. A woman's voice says,

"Hello. Mister Gaiman. This is reception. You must come down right now. There is someone here to interview you."

I say, "Er. He's actually a bit early, and I'm doing something..."

"Very good," she interrupts, firmly. "Then you will be down here in exactly seven minutes."

And she puts down the phone, leaving me bemused and leaving the interviewer, standing in front of her downstairs, fairly mortified.

I took nine minutes to get downstairs, thinking "Hah. That'll show her," as I did so, which really wasn't very fair on the interviewer.

The day's interviews were fun, the reading (in a Toyota Showroom, of all places) was very enjoyable, and I got to see the outrageously talented Dagmara Matuszak briefly and to learn what's going on with the Hill House Anansi Boys she's designed.

(While I can't tell you when Hill House will actually publish it, I'm happy to be able to say that I just learned from Peter Schneider at Hill House that he's set up a gmail account, with a person who will reply to all emails checking it, at hillhousepub@gmail.com. If you've had problems getting hold of him or anyone at Hill House, send an email there. If there's still problems, feel free to drop me a line.)


Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I had been thinking about the Subterranean(sp?) Press version of "M is for Magic" and it got me wondering. Does it ever bother you that sometimes these beautiful editions of your work are released and a great deal of your number one fans will never get to hold them, let alone own them because of the price tag? I am in no way saying these editions aren't worth the asking price, just wondering if you ever
wished they were more accessible. Hope your trip, family, and cats(especially Fred) are all well.
Thanks,
Troy

Not really. It would bother me if the expensive edition was the only edition of something that there was, that I wanted lots of people to read, but normally the expensive edition is expensive because it's a smaller print run, of a much higher quality, with special illustrations or similar, and they cost money. The Harper Childrens edition of M Is For Magic will be in a loverly affordable hardcover edition, priced for school libraries, and the first printing will be somewhere between 70,000 and 150,000 copies. The Subterranean edition will be in a comparatively tiny edition, and made for people who love books. I quite like the limited editions of things, mostly because I like beautiful books.

In your recent post you mentioned wanting a catapult as a child. In jest I am sure, but it reminded me of a time I was traveling through Europe and happened to be stranded at Heathrow for quite some time. In my boredom I happened upon a funny sign that listed among the things you most certianly could not bring on a plane, a hand catapult. I am not British, and was curious if that is what us Yanks refer to as a slingshot, or if it is something entirely different and much more destructive. =)
-Sean

An English catapult (or hand catapult) is an American slingshot, yes.


Dear Mr. Gaiman,There is a description for this contraption which says that it was made by an eccentric millionaire living in Utah. Seeing as you are eccentric, and at least assumably well-to-do, and living in my state, I was wondering if you could make one? And if you do, could you invite me over? I would bring deviled eggs, and curried chicken salad. http://geekologie.com/2007/01/girl_in_human_sling_shot.php
Much love,Rain

I don't have anywhere to set it up that wouldn't send her crashing into a tree, though...

Beware the March of Ideas

I'm in Cologne, in Germany, in a hotel that seems to have been built
inside a giant water tower, and am paying an astonishing amount for
internet access. I don't have flu so far, and have had no travel
disasters.

There's a reading and a signing tomorrow -- details at:

http://www.litcologne.de/va/160307/gaimankoester.php

Dear Neil,Today I wandered into an EMPiK bookstore and picked
up a paper informing about you booksigning in Kraków and Warsaw. (for
wchich I can't wait, by the way.)There was an article about you, and
it said that you're "linked to Poland" because your grandparents came
from Lodz. It that true, or did they completely make it up?I live in
Lodz, so you can pretty much imagine my amazement.Love from,Sylwia
G

My paternal great-grandfather was thrown out of Lodz, where the family
owned a department store, for being the black sheep of the family. I'm
not certain whether my grandfather was born there or born in Belgium
on the way to England. (I do know my grandfather never had a passport,
and was, until he died, considered a "stateless person", which is the
kind of thing I would have put into Mr Punch if I'd known it
then.)

Hey Neil:After some investigative work, I determined that (1) a while
ago, you said that the reason you don't have a LibraryThing account is
that you don't have the time and (2) recently, you have been blogging
about how you are entering your book collection into a database. So I
said to myself, wouldn't it be sweet if Neil were to put his library
on LibraryThing? Because even if he doesn't have time to tag most of
those books, we could still see what he owns. Which would be beyond
sweetness.

That's definitely the plan. Tim offered me a LibraryThing account or two
ages ago, and when everything's on a database I'm looking forward to
importing it to LibraryThing and getting it up there.

This isn't a question, I just thought I'd let you know that on
one of [adult swim]'s commercials last night, in which they bemoaned
the death of Captain America and exclaimed how Stan Lee would never do
something so stupid an attempt to be "deep and meaningful", they
attached a "P.S. Neil Gaiman already has deep and meaningful covered".
Or it said something like that. All right, hope you have a lovely
day!

And they show Futurama. (People have asked if I'm jealous of
Alan Moore for being on The Simpsons, and I'm not. If he were
a head in a jar in Futurama, on the other hand...)


Hi Neil,I read this blog nearly daily and have no idea how I
missed info on "M is for Magic" and "Interworld." What are these
books? Are the stories in "...Magic" found in your other collections
or are they new?And have no clue about "Interworld." Please help out a
longtime fan. Cheers,Greg Trax

Interworld is a novel I wrote with Michael Reaves in about
1998. We wrote it because we had an idea for an animated series, and
we kept explaining it to TV people who got confused, so we wrote a
treatment, which seemed to confuse them even more, so we wrote a novel
-- a sort of transdimensional romp. (First mentioned on this blog at
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2002/01/handed-in-narrative-draft-of-ramayana.asp.)

You can see the cover up at http://www.jamesjean.com/illustrations/interworld.html

M is for Magic is for school libraries and such. Most of the
stories in it have been collected, although some of them aren't easy
to find (like http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/shortstories/blackbirdstory)
and there's one story that's never been collected ("How to Sell the
Ponti Bridge" from 1984) and a new one, "The Witch's Headstone" that
will appear first in the Dann/ Dozois WIZARDS collection.

...


I now have a corporate website! I've always wanted a corporate
website. When I was a small boy and adults would ask what I'd like for
my birthday I would sigh and say "Can I have a corporate website?" and
they would explain, in that irritating way that adults had, that I
wasn't a corporation and the interwebs had not yet been invented and
frankly they were still reeling from culture shock from the arrival of
transistor radios and what the hell was wrong with a tub of silly
putty and a Whizzer and Chips Annual anyway, and no, I couldn't have a
catapult either, you can put someone's eye out with one of those.

Most of the content isn't there yet, but it's evolving http://www.blankcorporation.com/
for the curious. And it wasn't written by me either, but is just the
sort of thing I wanted it to be.


...

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Bees-How-Keep-Them/dp/0395883245

Hello-- Sue Hubbell's book is a wonderful first book for new
beekeepers -- or for people who think they might want to keep bees.
Sue has a deep empathy for bees and approaches relating to them with
such grace, She therefore often does things differently from the bee
textbooks or procedures of the commercial bee keepers. She
demonstrates a humane and bee-centric approach to beekeeping.

As new beekeepers, Sue's perspective was the most valuable thing we
gleaned from all the books we read on keeping bees. Her love and deep
appreciation for bees left a lasting impression on us and in how we
relate to our bees. And it is a fun read for "arm chair" beekeepers as
well.

Our local bee club (www.pugetsoundbees.org) has
"beginner" bee keeping classes before each meeting. The instructor
looks out at the room with a few beginners amid scores of veteran
beekeepers and dutifully asks "Are there any beginners here tonight?"
and invariably the entire assembly raises their hands.
Good luck -- it is so much fun!

I read the Hubbell book on the plane, and loved it.

Absolute Mondays

Today was spent doing Absolute stuff. For the Absolute Stardust (which is technically not an Absolute Stardust but an oversized hardback Stardust with stuff in) I proofread all the extra material, added a postscript to the reprinting of the original "pitch document" to publishers from 1993 (did I really think that Croup and Vandemar belonged in Stardust?), and for the next volume of Absolute Sandman we dug out dozens of little thumbnail comics I'd drawn for Sandman over the years, found the still-unopened First Sandman Statue (#1 of 1800) in order to photograph the box for the book (which will also have the short story on the back of the box in it) and even found photocopies of the pencils of the first 8 pages of Sandman 23, which will probably be the script that gets published in the book.


Also mysterious boxes of stuff to do with beekeeping have arrived. I've always wanted bees in the garden, and it turned out that the birdchick has always wanted to be a beekeeper but didn't think that it would work, keeping bees in an apartment in Minneapolis, and anyway her rabbit would object, so we've agreed to join forces: she gets to keep bees in my garden, I get to help, and all our friends and loved ones get to keep their distance nervously and eat honey. What could possibly go wrong? In this way we shall make up for the vanishing of bees across America.



I've just heard that there will be a limited edition of M is for Magic, the story collection for young readers, from Subterranean Press. The copies in the bookshops will be illustrated by Teddy Kristiansen. The Subterranean edition will have illustrations by Gahan Wilson: one thousand numbered copies and 26 lettered copies -- details up at http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/2007/03/05/announcing-m-is-for-magic-by-neil-gaiman/

...


Hi Neil, random question. So does Lorraine live there? Because she seems to be around all the time.


No, she has her own house, and she's goes there in the afternoon when she finishes work, and at weekends. It's a very nice house, filled with paintings, dead things and even a small Hallowe'en village. (As Lorraine was off in LA Hallowe'en week last year I got to go to her house to feed the trick-or-treaters -- because nobody ever comes to my house on Hallowe'en, possibly because it's too far from everything or too spooky or something -- and the kids all looked around when they came to the door and were impressed that someone had made that much effort for Hallowe'en, and I didn't have the heart to tell them that Lorraine's house was like that the rest of the year as well.)

Lorraine will not, however, be there next Sunday night, March the 11th. This is because Hera is going to be coming in from New Zealand and the two of them will be playing together in Stillwater, MN. (Details at http://lorraineamalena.blogspot.com/2007/03/hera-and-fabulous-lorraine.html) Lorraine has been learning lots of Hera songs in preparation. Lorraine says that I should make a point of plugging the gig on this blog because that way the whole of Minneapolis will turn out to see them.

This is a photograph of Hera. Lorraine is certain that if I post it, the gig will be completely full. If you're in this part of the world, you should go. After all, it's Sunday Night in Winter in Minnesota; you have perhaps something else are you going to be doing?

I recall that a while ago you mentioned your daughters' fascination with a web site where photos of models and celebrities were retouched, often substantially. Here's a consumer software package that offers to do the same. It's been on Boing Boing so a hundred other fans have probably also sent you this link, but here it is in the unlikely event you haven't seen it yet. http://www.portraitprofessional.com/

But, but that's horrible. I mean, I looked at their gallery, and it seems to be software that turns photos of human beings into photos of soulless androids, and they are proud of it. All of their befores have interesting human faces. Their afters just look wrong...

...

Lots and lots of emails coming in each day from people with lists of questions for me to answer for their papers or magazines or websites -- normally five questions, for some reason. I explain why I don't do them here http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2003/08/fair-and-balanced-well-fair-anyway.asp and here http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2006/06/hmg.html, and it's still true. I suppose it's probably time to amend the FAQ line thing to explain that not only do I not do homework for people, but alas, I don't answer lists of interview questions either. I might do if people would send in the time to answer them with the questions, mind you.

Were your high school english classes helpful to you as a writer, or were they a waste of time?Thanks, Amy

Probably more much helpful than a waste of time. I remember enjoying them, for the most part, although I sometimes suspect that if I'd come to Thomas Hardy on my own, when I was ready, I would have really enjoyed him, and instead I found English to be a sort of Thomas Hardy aversion therapy.

Truth to tell, when I became a writer I realised that a lot of stuff I had thought pointless at school was now desperately important, and I had to teach myself piles of history and geography and science that I hadn't bothered with, and which were now really interesting subjects because I had a use for them. Writing and English I always had a use for, and some fairly decent teachers so they were never boring.