fog warning

I just got an email from Teller pointing me to http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/tellersmacbethindex.html
which is the part of the website which is just Macbeth. It also includes NPR interviews and details on the whens and wheres (Red Bank NJ and then Washington DC).

I'm more or less happily writing Chapter Six of The Graveyard Book. I say more or less as I'm at that place where I hope that the book knows what it's doing because right now I don't have a clue -- I'm writing one scene after another like a man walking through a valley in thick fog, just able to see the path a little way ahead, but with no idea where it's actually going to lead him.

Teller and the Scottish Play

Want to read something really cool? Something beautifully written that's all about art and blood and magic and horror? And Shakespeare? And the theatre? Something that's about the enthusiasm of art? The joy of putting talented people together and building something that hasn't been done before? About making people see things that aren't there? About lying in the service of art?

Honestly, you do, even if you think you don't.

Trust me.

Go to http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/tellerspeaks/telleressaymacbeth.html

Read it.

Then click on Back at the bottom , which takes you to http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/tellersessays.html
and read forward, an entry at a time, as Teller blogs the year of creation of a magical, bloody production of Macbeth. Take your time. It's like reading a good book.

(Teller, who is an astonishing magician, and a remarkable magical thinker, is also one of my favourite writers, and he is chronicling what he describes as, "one of the most joyful times of my life." I really want to see the production.)