It's Ash's first birthday, a bare chin is revealed... (and so are the next three Robert McGinnis covers)

It was Ash's birthday on the 16th of September, and his mother and I went back to the place he was born to celebrate and to get away from cellphones and the world.

He's a delight and I've never loved him more. His favourite books are Goodnight Moon and a book called Chu's Day (I've never been prouder). His eyes really are that blue.

I'm now off writing, and I won't see them for another ten days. I'm loving the writing, loving the exercising and the quiet and the words, and missing them both, especially Ash, I miss singing to him, miss waking up early and going off and reading with him or walking with him (he can nearly walk). Miss feeding him.

Today I shaved off my beard. I also got a FedEx package containing a proof "Advance Reading Copy" of NORSE MYTHOLOGY (it'll be published on the 7th of February) and an early reading copy of Colleen Doran's beautiful graphic novel adaptation of TROLL BRIDGE (out on October 18th).

Here is a photograph of all these things at once. (Well, not the act of shaving.)

...

So, this is a very book-covery day,  because I'm going to do something fun.

For the last few months, I've been showing people I've been talking to or talking about books with or just wind up sitting next to on a plane the Robert E. McGinnis covers for Stardust, Neverwhere and Anansi Boys.

This is because I am so proud of them, and the work Todd Klein did with the lettering and the design for the books.

The American Gods cover (it already came out) is, in my head, a 1968 SF cover. (I wrote about it here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2016/07/robert-e-mcginnis-and-secret-of-new.html. Todd Klein shows all the design work that led to it on his blog http://kleinletters.com/Blog/title-and-cover-design-for-neil-gaimans-american-gods/.)

Would you like to see the next three?

Really?

You don't have to see them. You can wait until you are in some little Indie Bookshop over the next few months, and be surprised...

I love them. The Stardust cover is an early 70s book, and is funny, like the covers I delighted in for books like William Goldman's The Princess Bride -- the lettering style was inspired by the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Line, and  the whole is intended to be sort of heartwarming.

Anansi Boys is done as a late 50s or early 60s paperback – one of those goofy comedies, with an illustration of a scene from the first chapter. (Also glad to finally get Mr Nancy on the cover of his book.) I think this one is Robert E McGinnis's masterpiece, and Todd's as well. 

 Neverwhere – when Robert McGinnis sent over this haunting cover I sent it over to Todd Klein and told him that I thought it was a 1970s gothic romance cover. He looked at the kind of covers I'd suggested, told me that they often have elegant and swirly titles and heavily serifed type, and he produced something as beautiful and haunting as the cover had been.

Ready...?

Oh, hell. Here you go. And I've just gone to Amazon to find out the publication dates so will put the links in...

(And I checked Indiebound and the books are now up there too, so Indiebound links as well.)

Anansi Boys (http://bit.ly/AnansiPulp) comes out on October 25th...  (I loved this one so much I bought the painting from Mr McGinnis.)

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062564337

Neverwhere (http://bit.ly/NeverwherePulp) is published on November 29th. I love the rats in the shadows...

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062476371

Stardust (http://bit.ly/StardustPulp) is the next one to come out -- it will be out in just six days from now on September 27th...

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062564344

Labels: anansi boys, Ash, beards, birthdays, colleen doran, Neverwhere, Norse Mythology, Robert E McGinnis, Stardust, Todd Klein, Troll Bridge

American Gods TV series News -- and more...

That was interesting. On Friday I recorded and put up  Green Eggs and Ham. I'd actually already recorded a reading at the beginning of January: it was nice and elegant, filmed in an oak-panelled library in Cambridge, with a blazing fire behind me. I was relatively nattily dressed and as coiffed as I get. The only problem with that video was, as we discovered on Friday, the audio track was completely inaudible, and watching someone read something that might possibly be Green Eggs and Ham but might equally be the telephone directory or just me doing whale noises did not seem like a good idea. So, when I heard that Worldbuilders had hit the $500,000 stretch goal, I went for my jog, showered, and recorded myself reading Green Eggs and Ham again, and uploaded it and forgot about it.

It's now had over 315,000 views, it's been written up all over the place, and, having looked at a few of the comments, I suspect that I would have received fewer comments about how I look like a homeless person if we'd used the original inaudible one, but ah, the whole point of hiding out and writing (at least for me) is that I get to grow a lazy tangle of beard and have no idea where in this house a hairbrush might be, I'm not even sure when I last listened to the news, and that as long as I get the words written all is well.

So far my favourite comment is from Entertainment Weekly, which says:

Don’t you wish that Neil Gaiman was your kooky uncle? He would sneak you into the circus and you’d get to hold the Biggest Amazonian Python That Ever Lived (whose name was Lucille). He’d help you put frogs in your sister’s bathtub. He’d keep secrets for you, like that time that you accidentally buried your dad’s favorite watch in the park. He would agree that pirate treasure is only good if it’s buried. To help you cement the fantasy that Gaiman is your favorite uncle, here he is reading Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham.

Let's see: there's news, as I said in the header. AMERICAN GODS is now being developed for TV by Freemantle Media. As to where you will be able to see it, who is going to be in it, who will be writing or show-running, none of these things have yet been settled. But it already looks like it's going to be a smoother run developing it than it had at HBO, so I am very pleased.

(A few people have asked for more background on this: HBO had an option on American Gods for several years. It went through three different pilot scripts. HBO has a limited number of slots and, after a while, passed it to Cinemax, who are in the HBO family, who decided eventually they didn't want to do it, and the option expired, which unfortunately meant we couldn't work with Tom Hanks' production company Playtone any longer, as they are exclusive to HBO. However, Stefanie Berk, who had been one of the brightest stars at Playtone, had recently moved to Freemantle, and was as determined as she had been when she was at Playtone to bring American Gods to the screen. And I was impressed by her determination.)

Other TV news also came to fruition today, although I do not have anywhere to link you to, so you will have to take my word for it: Anansi Boys is going to be made into a TV miniseries in the UK, by RED, for the BBC.

Yes, I'm really thrilled about both of these things. Freemantle has the harder task, as they are going to have to open up American Gods into something bigger than the book.

Red are just going to have to make an absolutely brilliant faithful version of Anansi Boys.

...

I've been meaning to plug the The Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers (ages 14 – 19). It will be held at the University of Pittsburgh’s Greensburg Campus July 25 – August 3, 2014, and this is their fundraising week, raising scholarships for kids who otherwise couldn't afford to go. If you donate, you get a free PDF of flash fiction by Alpha Alumni. It's a great cause...  You can investigate further at http://alpha.spellcaster.org/.

Also, Len Peralta is in the last few days of a Kickstarter to raise money for the second series of his Geek A Week cards.  Obviously, you want a set. Just as obviously, you hope he gets to his $60,000 stretch goal, because then he'll reprint the first season, which has a me card in it, and you can play his Geek a Week card game with it.

And on the subject of Kickstarters, I met Kat Robichaud at the first of the New York Town Hall  EVENING WITH NEIL AND AMANDAs, and thought she was wonderful. Really funny and grounded and nice, with an amazing voice. Also, mega Doctor Who fan. (Here's Kat and Amanda singing Delilah.)

Kat's got a Kickstarter up for her debut album: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/katrobichaud/kat-robichauds-debut-album

...

Dave McKean's illustrated edition of SMOKE AND MIRRORS went to the printer today. All the illustrations are in black and red -- here's the drawing he did for "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar".

and the one for "The Price".

According to Subterranean Press, it's long since sold out BUT they think that when all is said and done there may be an extra 20 copies for sale... http://subterraneanpress.com/news/neil_gaimans_smoke_and_mirrors_at_the_printer
As they explain, "No need to start checking now, but you might want to keep an eye out once we announce the book is shipping."

A book that there are a lot more than 20 copies of is the new hardback edition of Dave and my first book, Violent Cases. He's done an amazing job of, as an adult and experienced artist, essentially remastering the art, to get it to look, for the first time, like the original art he did, 28 years ago.

There is new material too -- here are portraits of us Dave did for the programme of the theatrical adaptation:

(I should probably apologise for the haircut.)

Violent Cases was our first graphic novel. It's, in some ways, a lot like The Ocean at the End of the Lane -- it's an adult story with a child protagonist, that's about memory and powerlessness and identity: it has Al Capone's osteopath in it, and prohibition Chicago, and parties. And like The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the most unlikely bits are all true (and Neil deGrasse Tyson explained the science behind  one of the unlikely things to me last year, during the intermission at the Connecticut Forum).

It's available here - http://bit.ly/ViolentCases -- or at indiebound or at your local comic shop.
...

I love this video.  It's a visual interpretation of some interview extracts done to establish what Americans in different parts of America actually say. I remember the first time I heard someone tell me, casually, on seeing rain falling on a sunny day, that the Devil was beating his wife...



SODA / POP / COKE from The Atlantic on Vimeo.

...

In re: your reading of Green Eggs and Ham. I have very conflicted feelings about this book (and not only because I am named Sam and this book came out when I was three and I have had to cope with this all my life). The thing about it I have the most trouble with is that along with the intended message of "don't be closed-minded", it teaches a second and much more disturbing lesson:  "no" doesn't mean "no". It teaches that "no" means "ignore, and pester and wart and nag until you get your way".  And that is a pernicious thing to teach to small children. It teaches them to nag and whine to get toys or candy or whatever the desire-of-the-moment is; when they are older, and in the worst cases, it buys into attitudes and world views that enable rape culture.  As the father of daughters, who will now and forever be put at risk by such a culture, I cannot but worry at such a book teaching such a lesson.

I  agree completely that as a father, you should absolutely definitely teach your daughters (and, if you have them, sons) that No definitely means No, that they are the final arbiters of what happens to their bodies, and that they should be able to make decisions about such things and hold to their decisions in the face of nagging, wheedling, cajoling and even threats.

I also think that, as a father, you owe it to your children, particularly small children of the reading/listening age that Green Eggs and Ham is aimed at, to encourage them to vary their diet and at least taste things they think they might not like: kids are mostly inherently conservative about what they will and won't eat (and not just kids) and encouraging them to try new and different foods and not just eat peanut butter sandwiches for six years is part of your job as a parent. The message I've always taken from Green Eggs and Ham is that, all cajoling and nonsense aside, it's worth seeing if you don't like something before deciding that you don't. Particularly in the matter of food. Because you might like something that looks unpleasant. (Also that if you are going to pester someone, you should do it in rhyme, inventively, using small words that would delight a child, and with interestingly drawn animals and modes of transportation.)

Of course, that was what I thought before I read this comic, which changes everything.

Labels: American Gods, anansi boys, beards, Dave McKean, Green Eggs and Ham, smoke and mirrors, Violent Cases

Happy Solstice. And Publication Day.

Today is the publication day of AMERICAN GODS - the Tenth Anniversary Edition and the Full-Cast Audio of American Gods. It's ten years and two days since American Gods was published (two days, because publication days are Tuesday. They just are. It is mysterious and inexplicable). Here's the journal from June 2001...

This afternoon - 4 pm Eastern Time -- is a live Webchat. I'm interviewed by Kurt Andersen, and answering some of your questions as well. (Damn. Was off being interviewed and missed the chance to post this. You can watch it again, though, at http://bit.ly/neilandkurt.)

In two hours it's the 92nd St Y talk, where I'm interviewed by Lev Grossman.

Right this minute I have a beard. I do not think there is going to be time to shave it off today. We will see how long into the tour it lasts.

The TOUR details are over at Where's Neil.

I think everything's sold out right now except the Saban Theatre LA event with Patton Oswalt interviewing me. The LA stop will be the last one of the tour and possibly the strangest, in ways I have not even warned Patton about yet. (The Late Late Craig Ferguson Show tickets in LA are also now all gone.) They are also down to the last dozen or so WITS tickets in St Paul. (Me! Josh Ritter! Songs! Heckles by Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett!)

Right. I am off to the 92nd St Y. There will be a Big Gay Ice Cream Van there -- the official Ice Cream of the American Gods Book Tour (no, I do not know what this will mean either). (except that there will be ice cream.) This is Molly Crabapple's American Gods-Big Gay Ice Cream Poster


Right. Off to the 92nd St Y. Oh, I just noticed a Tweet from @Biggayicecream saying they will be serving American Globs and Loki Lime Pie tonight...

Click post on this and zoom.

Labels: American Gods, American Gods Full Cast Audio Competition Thingummy, beards

What I did in Tasmania, with photos

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.)

Beside the hotel, we saw this -- an icebreaker known as the Orange Roughy.

This was the view from my hotel window.

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.

I want to close some tabs -- so here are some depressing playgrounds, here's me being given my Weird Tales 85 Storytellers Certificate, a YouTube Arkham Asylum fanfilm, and a terrific interview with Charles Brownstein of the CBLDF about the Gordon Lee case, which will, I think, answer a lot of questions for people.

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...

Labels: beards, Eddie Campbell, melbourne, Moorcock, Tasmania

American Gods Blog, Post 47

So next week I get my photograph taken for Entertainment Weekly. It looks a lot like it will happen at the House on the Rock, after hours, so I may, like my characters, get to ride The World’s Largest Carousel.

Which, whatever happens or doesn’t happen will probably be more fun, or at least, significantly less smoky, than the author photograph session for American Gods, last December.

Now, every now and again I do something really stupid.

For example, when I started writing American Gods, I swore a mighty oath that I’d not cut my hair or shave my beard until I finished it. By March 2000 I was starting to look like a hassidic terrorist, and somewhere in there I said “Sod it,” and shaved off the beard.

But the hair kept growing. I wasn’t going to get a haircut until I’d finished writing American Gods.

When I tell people about this, they look at me as if I’m really weird, except for the Norwegians who tell me about one of their early kings who didn’t shave or cut his hair until he’d united Norway.( And he didn’t wash either. At least I still bathed.) So the Norwegians don’t think I’m weird.

Anyway, my hair grew and grew (it does that, and whenever I’m tempted to grumble I remember all the people of my generation who would be only too pleased to have hair that grows too fast, or any kind of hair really), and finally it was last October and people who didn’t know me were making Howard Stern jokes when they passed me in the street. And I was going to go on a Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Reading Tour...

So I finished the book. In first draft, anyway. And I went and visited Wendy at Hair Police in Minneapolis, and got my first haircut in 18 months; and then I went off on the CBLDF reading tour and raised many tens of thousands for freedom of speech, and this was a good thing. (Somewhere in there I talked Chris Oarr from the defense fund out of auctioning off my cut-off hair for charity.)

(You know, this would be much more fun if I could illustrate it with photos. Maybe when we put up the neilgaiman.com site I will.)

So I had short hair and nobody made Howard Stern jokes any more.

Now, author photos are weird things. For example, take the Good Omens photo session, in 1989, where Terry Pratchett and I were taken to a graveyard on the coldest day of the year. The expressions on our faces – variously described as brooding, intelligent, and mysterious, and by the Times of London no less, as sinister – are simply cold. (I was relatively okay. I had a leather jacket on. Terry wore an extremely lightweight jacket he’d borrowed from Malcolm Edwards, because the notion of the authors dressed respectively in black and in white. I was black.)

The easiest author photos have been the various Kelli Bickman photos taken over the years, including my favourite, the Smoke and Mirrors back cover photo, with its infinite regression of authors on a TV screen. But Kelli’s taking fewer photos these days, and is concentrating more on her artwork. (She’s MTV Featured Artist currently... you can see some of her artwork at www.kellibickman.net)

The hardest was the one in the UK in 1996 for Wired Magazine. The photo you may have seen from that session is the one of me holding a glowing book. The one you’ve not seen was the one of me, naked and wearing angel wings surrounded by candles. The one that I still remember with loathing was the one that wound up on the cover of Wired: it was me covered in sand. (A visual pun: Sandman. Yes?) And I would like to give a tip for young photographers who may want to attempt this shot.

Do not use builder’s sand. It may be cheap, but it burns the skin.

Trust me on this. I’ve been there. I know.

The American Gods photo session was nowhere near that painful.

I still think I may have messed everything up by having a haircut.

The photographer was a very nice lady named Sigrid Estrada.

(Kelly Notaras, my editor Jennifer Hershey’s right-hand woman took me down there. Jennifer herself, and my literary agent Merrilee Heifetz wandered along during the course of the afternoon.)

Sigrid took one look at me and said “I thought you were going to have longer hair.”

She looked very disappointed.

“No,” I said, apologetically. “I don’t.”

She sighed. She shook her head. I never quite found out why this messed things up as much as it obviously had.

Sigrid had a plan for a photo. The plan involved a lot of smoke. Her assistant held the smoke machine. Kelly Notaras was drafted in to hold a piece of cardboard to waft the smoke. And I stood there while Sigrid shouted “Smoke!” at the assistant holding the smoke machine, and the machine would belch huge gusts of white fog at me, and then she’d call “Waft!” at Kelly and Kelly would wave the paper and try to get the smoke off my face.

And that’s what we did for the next four or five hours. We did it with my leather jacket on. We did it with my leather jacket off. We did it with me standing up. We did it with me sitting down. We did it with me peering coyly from around the side of a huge sheet of paper. And all through this, the smoke was belched, and then the smoke was wafted. (Jennifer did some fine smoke wafting, too.)

Merrilee exerted an agent’s traditional prerogative and ran up between smoke belches and tried to tame the hair on my forehead. It didn’t tame, but she did her best.

And I began to understand what a kipper must feel like, at the precise moment it stops just being a herring, and realises that it has been smoked. For me that moment occurred at the point where Sigrid decided that it might be more... more whatever she was going for... if the smoke was splurted directly at my head, rather than just generally belched out around waist level.

I’d hold my breath and smile and be told that I shouldn’t smile, not for the kind of photo that Sigrid had in mind. So I’d stop smiling, and the smoke would splurt and Kelly or Jennifer would waft it and Sigrid would click away.

Days would pass before the taste of the smoke machine finally left the back of my throat. Still, it could have been much worse. There was no builder’s sand involved, nor was I being warned not to get too close to the candles or my wings would go up like tinder and burn my bare skin.

So a few weeks passed, and one day the contact sheets arrived. Lots and lots of photos of me. And smoke.

My son took one look at the contact sheet and said “Was your head on fire?”

“No,” I said.

“It just looked like it was, that was all.”

And he was right. All the smoke being let off at head level had managed to create a set of photos in which it was perfectly obvious that my head was indeed on fire.

Claudia Gonson (of the Magnetic Fields) was staying with us over Christmas. I showed her the contact sheet.

“They make you look like your head’s on fire,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “It’s a special effect.”

“And all the ones of you not wearing the leather jacket make you look like David Copperfield.”

“Yes. That’s a special effect too.”

“You don’t want to look like David Copperfield, do you?”

“No, thank you. Let’s stick with the ones with me with a jacket on.”

We picked one black and white photo, and one colour picture. The best thing about the black and white photo was the smoke in the background, which, far from looking like my head (or indeed any part of me) was on fire, looked instead like a mysterious sort of background, which might be clouds or mountains or, well, anything really.

(You can see one at http://www.codysbooks.com/index.jsp, while the figure of me from that picture, much photoshopped, is up on the front page of this website.)

I think they’re pretty good photos. I still feel vaguely guilty about getting the haircut, though. I just wonder what Ingrid could have done, if my hair had been longer. And whether whatever it was would have required quite so much smoke.

............................

And I promised I'd post the info on the Neil Gaiman/ Magnetic Fields gig: it's all here -- http://www.bottomlinecabaret.com/ -- although I'll be reading from a lot more than American Gods.

Labels: American Gods, American Gods Blog, author photos, beards, Best Of, CBLDF, Hair, Kelli Bickman photographs, Magnetic Fields, Wired

American Gods Blog, Post 46

And here are the three Canadian Dates, with information from Harper Collins Canada publicist Felicia Quon (isn't that a great name?):

Toronto, ON
Monday, July 23
The Merrill Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy
Toronto Public Library
239 College Street
'7:00 pm
For tickets contact: Merrill Collection 416.393.7748

Vancouver, BC
Tuesday, July 24
Virgin Record Megastore
788 Burrard Street
7:00 pm
For tickets contact Virgin Records 604.669.2289

Victoria, BC
Wednesday July 25
7:30 pm.
Bolens Books Event
held at Open Space Gallery, 510 Fort Street
For tickets contact: Bolen Books at 250.595.4232

I'm not quite certain what the 'for tickets' means in the case of a Virgin Megastore. My guess is that I'll be doing readings and Q&As in each place, as well as signing, but I may be wrong.

I don't quite know what'll be happening in Toronto, but for now I'd strongly suggest anyone who wants to come calls the Merrill collection people and gets a ticket ASAP: I've spoken at the Merrill Collection before, and I remember it as not seating more than about 400 people, and the inhabitants of Toronto tend to be among the most enthusiastic on the face of the planet (or at least, they turn up in astonishing numbers).

Picked up the latest LOCUS (April, I think -- good interview with John Crowley and he's on the cover) and was amused to discover several photos of me with (and without) the Florida Beard alluded to in earlier posts in it.

Next one of these will be about tour planning I think.

Next week I'm getting my photo taken by Entertainment Weekly, so I promise I'll write my photo stuff before then. Honest.

Labels: American Gods Blog, beards, tour

American Gods Blog, Post 26

I wrote an incredibly tired post last night, told it to publish, it zapped off temperamentally into the ether, and I went to bed.

At IAFA currently. Thrilled that so many people -- critics, authors and a couple of academics -- have already read American Gods. More thrilled that the ones who have start by telling me that, yes, they liked my other books, but this is really good. No, really good. Had several conversations about the dedication (it's dedicated to Roger Zelazny and Kathy Acker) which was odd and sad.

Favorite comment on the beard, an astonished "You look like a grown up!" from an old friend. Hah! It still dies tonight.

Meanwhile, Joe Fulgham, over at the Dreaming has done a lovely banner ad for American Gods. It has lightning on it and everything. (Go and take a look.) Please feel free to steal it and use it and link it to here, or to the countdown front page (www.americangods.com -- probably best as we will be putting more stuff up here soon than just the journal), or to Amazon.com or your favorite local or online bookseller or whoever.

Or to create your own.

Labels: American Gods Blog, beards, IAFA, the Dreaming

American Gods Blog, Post 25

Nothing exciting to report on American Gods today. I’m back writing the Death: The High Cost of Living movie, which is a) incredibly late – this is my fault, and the fault of American Gods being at least twice as long as I’d originally planned – and b) hard writing. In some ways the hardest thing I’ve had to write in an age.

The biggest problem I’m having with it is, I already wrote it once, as a comic. That was in the summer of 1992. One thing I knew that I’d do this time, was give the characters new dialogue – words you write to be read are not words you write to be spoken aloud. They do different things.

But the dialogue is really hard to write: I’ll squint, and I’ll squirm and I’ll rack my brains, and I’ll imagine, and then I’ll carefully type a line. And then, later, I’ll check, and find all too often I’ve just written the same line, often word for word, that I gave those characters in 1992.

So I’m worrying less about that, now, and more about just getting it onto the desks of the people who want to read it by the first of April.

Tonight, and until Sunday, I’ll be attending the international conference for the fantastic in the arts Wearing the kind of beard that caused friction between Bertie and Jeeves in the beginning of a Wodehouse novel ("But Jeeves, dash it, it makes me look distinguished!" "So you say, sir," etc), and was always shaved off following the return of the prize pig or the marriage of Bingo Little at the end of the last chapter, to everyone's relief.

Labels: American Gods, American Gods Blog, beards, Death, IA