Writing a book; also what do you do with a signed tee shirt?

The most exciting bit of yesterday was when the plane landed, and as soon as it stopped moving they turned the plane's electrics off. It was dark outside, and raining, and the passengers moved through the plane by the light of their mobile phones (not sure who had the idea first, but in a pitch-dark plane the phones gave enough light to see by). Climbing down, by the tail, I could smell burning and there were a number of airport firefighters pulling up, so I suspect the landing was much more exciting for the crew than for the passengers.

Anyway...

It's good to be settled down again. I loved doing the documentary consultancy thing, though; it was the kind of project that was utterly made for me, and it was only by strength of will, and having an idea of how many hours there are in the day that I didn't simply say "Oh, just give me the project and I'll write the script," several times. But I managed not to.

I liked the director and the company, too. And it's a really fun thing to be involved with. More details as I'm allowed to reveal them.

So now I'm back, and the novel, which seemed to have finally found itself as I left, seems to still be itself, and I've already written several thousand words today, and it was fun and easy and pleasant writing with some good jokes in it, and the characters are acting like themselves. It's nothing like I thought it would be, mind, but that's not a bad thing. There will be bad days ahead, of course, but I think I'm now writing my book.

...

Hey Neil,

"Henry Selick is also developing a stop-motion feature adaptation of Neil Gaiman's scary children's book Coraline."

This must be a year or two away as Selick is currently working on the latest Wes Anderson movie 'til mid 2004. True?

Cheers,
Steve

Not sure where the quote's from, as Henry's Coraline is meant to be mostly live action. And he's definitely working on the new Wes Anderson film, while we wait to see if Bill Mechanic will get pandemonium Pictures (who Henry wrote the script for CORALINE for) off the ground.


hi,
i was just wondering, what font type did you use for the sandman story in endless nights?
love your books, and stories, and all thank you
and my name is tyas, from indonesia by the way...

The font in the Sandman story in Endless Nights, like the fonts for everything except the Despair story, were created by Todd Klein. I'm not sure if it has a name.

Mr. Gaiman, i read that you had Stephin Merritt make some music for you or that you collaborated on something. Did you, and if so what was the project?
thanks

We did. It's the CORALINE audio -- it contains the Gothic Archies song "You are Not My Mother and I Want to Go Home", background music by Stephin, and Stephin's own recording of the Coraline Rat Song.

You can hear a lot of it if you poke around over in the Coraline area of mousecircus.com.

We're talking about doing a stage adaptation of Coraline, for which Stephen would make songs and music and so on...

Quiestor Mage
Ravenskoll Estate
Hackney. E9, 6SN.
London.
England.

Dear Niel Gaiman 27th Novemeber 2003

"It only takes a few good men to remain silent, for Evil to prevail."
Well Mr Niel Gaiman. I liked your, Im not saying anything reply about the fact that you plaguerised the life of a REAL White Magi, and decided to call it The Books Of Magic. very magical.
Of course there is no similarity between myself and Tim Hunter, Tim Hunter and Harry Potter. Of course not no similarity at all. If any one knew Gaiman they would have you in stocks.
And What about the leader of The Columbia Ivestigation Board??? Hal Gehman. I didnt write 2001 honestly. 7 Deaths.
Fuck you Gaiman Amen!

Yours faithfully,
Quiestor The White Magi.


You know, the word you're hunting for is "magus". "Magi" means more than one of them. If you want to make anybody take you seriously, you'll have to pay attention to details like that.

Here's an old news story I was wondering about, and was glad to see it was sorted out...

i am loathe to send you anything, because i know 500 other fans will do
the same, but i was interested in this story a while back.

Not a question, but the update on the Library Hotel has come in- a
settlement where the OCLC gets referenced in the hotel literature, and
some money goes to "Reading is Fundamental" to combat illiteracy. So some
good came of it all in the end.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/140227p-124446c.html


And this one made me smile ruefully,

do you have any books that have won awards or at least have been nominated for awards?
(i have to read a book by an author that has won awards or was nominated)

as it does sound a dreadful imposition. (luckily, lots of books win awards because they're pretty good.)

So, yes. I think all of my books except Neverwhere have either been nominated for, or won, awards. http://www.neilgaiman.com/about/awards.asp hasn't been updated for a few years, and is missing a few from the years that it's up for, so it's not amazingly helpful. (Edit, a bit later: Neverwhere actually won the Prix Julia Verlanger, which is one of the top French SF awards. I don't think that The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish was nominated for or won anything, though, so avoid that one.)

Hiya Neil,

I 'won' the Armani T-Shirt you signed for the Ruminator Auction on Ebay. GMZoe got the Night Flight one. GMZ asked me what I was going to do with mine. I said I might frame it. (By the by, it sounded like just a great cause, me family lives about 40 mins. outside of the Twin Cities and I've never heard of this joint. I'm heading up next month and it's now part of my schedule.) What would you do with a signed shirt? And I know...wear it. But it's not goin' back to freakin' Ebay and well...I don't know; what do you do with a neat shirt? Cough up an answear mister!

timmy

Well, wearing it is certainly the easiest option. Beyond that, I'm a bit out of ideas. On the other hand, if anyone has any brilliant ideas, feel free to send them in through the FAQ line, and I'll post some of the most helpful.

...

Am getting fonder and fonder of the Adverts CD "Cast of Thousands". When it came out, I remember thinking it a feeble followup to their debut album, "Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts", and I thought the Adverts were a sort of second rate punk band (I saw them play Crawley Leisure Centre when I was 16, and loved the gig, and wished they were the Clash or the Pistols). They've aged better then almost all of their contemporaries, though. These days I find myself looking at "Cast of Thousands" as the place that TV Smith's blend of heartfelt-outrage-and-dreams-and-content songwriting really started to come together. Which I mention because I notice that TV Smith has released his first new CD in a few years, the first since "Generation Y" (if you don't count "USELESS" which was a sort of greatest hits CD, with all the songs rerecorded with a German punk band). The new album is called "Not A Bad Day" -- details at http://www.tvsmith.com/