Probably the last Dog Photos of the Year

It's been a strange year. On the 30th of April I found a dog by the side of the road. This is what he looked like then...

He was wet, a sort of off-brown colour, smelled dreadful and while he didn't seem very bright, he was extremely goodhearted.

It turned out he was very bright, he'd just spent his three years of life on a short chain in a farmer's yard, and no-one had talked to him, or expected anything more of him than barking at visitors as a sort of canine doorbell.

And this is what he looks like now... (with a very scruffy author this morning). (Photos by Holly.)

Cabal is one of the most beautiful dogs I've ever seen. What breed is he?

He is, as the farmer who gave him to me said at the time (and I doubted at the time, because I didn't know that he was white under all that) a White German Shepherd Dog (what we called an Alsatian when I was growing up in England -- the German Shepherd became known as an Alsatian in the UK during World War I in much the same way that French Fries became Freedom Fries in the US a few years back). There would be a lot more White German Shepherds around if the Nazis hadn't decided they were racially inferior and needed to be cleansed from the gene pool. Of course, the same could be said of my family.

Hi Neil,

Santa was good to me this year and gave me the latest Steven Erikson novella from PS Publishing - http://store.pspublishing.co.uk/ I just went tonight to have a look at the site and ended up with five books since they have a sale on. Any pre 2007 books in their catalogue are half price. I thought of you since you did the introduction for the Mark Chadbourn book I just got from them!

P.S. I got a t shirt from my brother I thought you would like. The logo is 'I'm only wearing black until they invent a darker colour'.

They are a wonderful publishing house, and with only a few days left I would be remiss not to point to their sale. (Here's their current catalogue.) I should dig up the thing I wrote about Pete Crowther for the World Horror Con programme book, while I'm at it...

Neil,
I've got a story you might be interested in. A while back, a bar called Gandalf's in Frostburg, Maryland burned down (no one was hurt). Up the street was a local independent bookstore called Main Street Books. During the fire, one of the employees was watching, when a sheet of paper fluttered out and was found by the employee. What was it? A charred page from Good Omens. It's currently hanging up being displayed in the bookstore.

That's delightful. And, of course, appropriate.

Hey Neil

So what is up with Hill House? Back in October they posted an update PDF on the Anansi Boys but nothing on Neverwhere. Neverwhere was ordered in 2003 and suppose to come out in 2005 and we are still waiting.

Is this something that I should start to worry about or are they just too overwhelmed and not given to responding to inquires any more? I love their work and everything I have gotten is amazing, I just want the books that I order all those years ago or at least to know they care.

Also Cat was trying to help me get an answer on the MELINDA Triptych but got the same response I did. Zip.

Anyway sorry to ramble and thanks in advance,

John Mooney

To be honest, I'm really hoping that the bringing out of Anansi Boys means that things are turning around for Hill House. They've had a rough year or two, including some illness, and I really wasn't sure what was going to be happening. But the first copies of Anansi Boys are in and look like a triumph of the bookmaker's art, and should now be going out to people. I'm not sure what's happening next.

Pete Atkins at Hill House did the work on helping create the Neverwhere Author's Preferred Text some years back, and then he and Pete Schneider assembled every Neverwhere memo, outline and BBC script draft for their Neverwhere Supplementary Volume (not that it'll contain every draft of everything, for it would be very dull if it did). Like you, I'm hoping that Hill House is back in the game.

They've now got the correct phone number up on their website.

...

A few people wrote to say that it was unusual, European Butterflies in the American Midwest. And it would have been if that was where I was, but the butterflies were in Europe, as was I.

And now a word for those we sponsor....

Last night I wrote a thirty second scary story. Actually I wrote a 90 second REALLY scary story, then chipped at it, hacked and deleted and rephrased until it was thirty seconds long. Afterwards I wished I'd saved the 200 word version.

This morning I went to the local NPR radio station and recorded it -- we cut out another sentence, and I slowed down a hair -- for an NPR Hallowe'en special...

....


I believe that the curious can see the whole, uncut, me getting an award at Scream 2007 thing at

Neil Gaiman Receives Hell's Dildo - Scream 2007

Posted Today

Neil Gaiman accepts "Hell's Dildo" at the 2007 Scream Awards.

It cuts off before I welcome Roger Avary and Ray Winstone to the podium to introduce Beowulf, but if it hadn't you would have seen Roger wearing his "Scary Trousers" tee shirt in front of a billion people.

(Cat Mihos blogs about the awards at http://furrytiger.blogspot.com/2007/10/birthday-girl-scream-awards-dream-life.html. Lovely photos, but my Big Pupil Thing means redeye all the way...)

I should mention that the amazing Cat's Neverwear site is over at http://www.neverwear.net/ and you can get your Kendra Stout "Scary Trousers" or your Dagmara Matuszak "Anansi Boys" tee shirts there. (I suggested that Cat should do a tee shirt with the full "I believe" speech from American Gods on it next...)

Which reminds me -- I've now finally seen the bound insides of the Hill House ANANSI BOYS (you can see pictures at http://hillhousepublishers.com/hh-update-22oct07-01.htm) and they are astonishingly beautiful. Hill House are still trying to get straight answers out of the Polish printer about when he's actually going to have the books bound and delivered to the US -- he's made too many promises to them that haven't come through -- but it looks like it's getting closer and closer to being a reality.

...

Ross Douthat replies to my post of the other day at http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/10/dumbledore_is_gay_ii_1.php

...

This is more of a marmite locating datalet then a question.

There is a large and rather unusual store near Cincinnati, OH called Jungle Jims.

Along with Jim's collection of large animatronic singing creatures, there is a decently size section of foods from England in the international part of the store.

They have a website at junglejims.com at which you can view some off the strangeness under the attractions section.

Marmite, of course, is there and also Hobnobs and various and sundry other foods of interest.

I feel like I'm writing a pamphlet for a tourist attraction now, so I'll stop.

Whenever I drive across America -- which isn't often -- I try and stop in at Jungle Jim's on the way back. And not just for the UK food, but for the amazing variety of world food. It's an amazing place. Would that all supermarkets could have that magic.

...

I just heard about the event chronicled in http://117hudson.blogspot.com/2007/10/show-must-go-on.html
We were lucky in that the actor who was hurt was the only one who was sort of understudied (as one of the wolves had also played Lucy's brother in an earlier production) so they reconfigured the second half for seven people instead of eight to do the wolf party...


...
Mr. Gaiman,

I checked to see if you've mentioned it yet this year, and saw that you hadn't-- would you mind taking a second to remind your fans who haven't already signed up that National Novel Writing Month begins in a week?

I'm a first-timer, but a lot of your journal entries recently have really inspired me to sit down and write, and NaNoWriMo is a great way to combine your advice and a great community. Figured I'd send in reminder in case there are others who feel the same way I do. Thanks!


-Laurie

I can do even better than that. I can point people to http://www.nanowrimo.org/
And I can finish my Letter Of Encouragement to the troops...

be it never so humble...

I am home.

Which, after six weeks and over half a dozen countries, is a very nice thing to type.

I think I did the last ten days running on empty, and the last two days (Press Junket, Premiere, Press Junket, fly straight to New York, Wolves in the Walls opening night, fly home) by doing that thing they used to do in westerns where they start breaking up the train they're escaping in and throw it into the train's furnace to keep going.

My dog is here, and was a bit puzzled at first, but having dragged me off through the woods a couple of times has now decided that I am definitely me and this is a good thing.

My entire family is in the UK right now (well, all the female members of it, Mike is off in the west being a Google), but Bill and Sharon Stiteler were out here, planting trees and flowers and feeding the bees, so I made the three of us Maitake Mushroom omelettes this morning and realised it was the first time I'd cooked anything in six weeks.

Lots and lots of cool stuff waiting for me -- some of it I sent back, some of it is stuff that arrived while I was waiting -- foreign editions of books and suchlike. I'll try and take photos. I think my favourite was the Korean edition of Stardust...

The most beautiful thing was an advanced copy of the Hill House Anansi Boys notebook, beautifully designed by Dagmara Matuszak, containing all sorts of strange stuff, including my initial outline from around 1998 and the first 15 pages of an attempt at an Anansi Boys film script from around the same time (it has a Jerry Springer Show joke in it that feels extremely 1998). Seeing that many people, including me, had started to despair of ever seeing the finished books, I think this is a hopeful sign.

(Incidentally, Thea Gilmore has a new website at http://www.theagilmore.net/ from which I learned that the Cowboy Junkies are playing The Trinity Session in London at the Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday.)

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...