Journal

Saturday, October 04, 2003

Putting off packing for another ten minutes...

Well, Sweden was fun. Lots of nice people, and an enjoyable (but long) signing -- and reading and answering questions -- to finish it off with.

Now back at the hotel and ready to sleep for a few hours, then off to the airport and Croatia. Although I have to pack first, of course.

You know, if I were more awake I could probably make the above sound much more interesting, and I'd answer questions, and propose my idea for remixing The Rocky Horror Picture Show with two japanese tourists with cameras wandering through every scene, and I'd talk about watching the rough-cut edit-without-special-effects DVD of MirrorMask last night, and what I thought worked and what I thought didn't, and all that sort of stuff, but I'm still a little punchy so I won't.

Oh all right. I'll do a couple of questions. And I'll wish Anneli good luck in her quest to save the world a bit at a time. And yay! for Nalo Hopkinson!

Neil...
DUDE, you should put a web-shop in your site. some (most) of your fans live far away and some of your works may never reach them. for example, i'm a brazilian guy, and i have confirmed info that neither Endless Nights or 1602 will get here. plus, i'd like to have Neverwhere and lots of other stuff.
think about it. what's to lose?
rafael


I dunno. I suppose I quite like this site being a shopping-free zone. I figure you lot are smart enough to find online retailers by yourselves, and I try to remember to stick in links to DreamHaven's neilgaiman.net shopping place fairly often, because DreamHaven tend to order enough stuff when it's published or made, and they're all really helpful and funny, and so forth.

Neil,
When you started selling your writing, I'll bet you never thought you'd be touring all over the world, performing and doing so much signing. In what ways is being Neil Gaiman like being (fer instance) David Byrne or Lou Reed, and in what ways is it not?
Mike


Well, when they tour they go from place to place doing the thing they do, which is making music. I don't. I get out and do interviews, and I sign stuff and meet people. Then I go home and do the thing I do, which is write.

Also, people don't shout "play Sweet Jane!" or "Road to Nowhere!" at me, when I stop to fill my pen during a signing. And I don't need to do encores, cos when I'm finished, everyone's gone home...

But the people do come out in crowds, sometimes. And every now and again (like the day before yesterday in the Kulturhuset) I find myself being led around a vast building, with crowds on the other sides of the walls, hoping eventually to wind up wherever I'm meant to be talking, and thinking that it's a lot like the trying to find the stage bit in the Spinal Tap movie...

Hi Neil. I was poking around on barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com and noticed that Sandman: King of Dreams was listed as "not available" and that it's being released in November. This evening, I was perusing my local Borders and there were lots of copies of King of Dreams lying about. If it were mid-to-late October, that would be understandable. But since it's only October 3rd, I have to wonder: is this a mistake that my Borders made or is it a mistake on the websites? Thanks.

All my best,
Dani (One of the crazies from Florida.)


According to the Chronicle website it came out in September and isn't available, so your guess is as good as mine...

Several LiveJournal people have asked how to sign up for the LiveJournal feed from this blog. There are several feeds, but http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=officialgaiman is the one with the titles of each journal entry in (and yes, I really do need to find how to get themn to show up in the regular blog).

Okay. That put off packing as much as I could. Time to pack and sleep now. Goodnight.