Yesterday I reached the moment I'd been dreading for years, where you learn why the things that happened in the first chapter happened (which I hadn't known when I wrote them. I knew that they had happened, but not why) and as I started to write it, I realised that it was pretty obvious, so I wrote it, and learned a lot. This was an enormous relief. It does not always work out this way.
Chapter 6 is all typed and tidied and there's no evidence from what you'd read that it was a nightmare to write and that I had no idea what was happening paragraph to paragraph, or felt like I was making it up as I went along (a terrible thing for an author to feel).
Right. Here are three blogs you could be reading while I'm being mostly absent:
Hi Neil,
Someone has had the brilliant idea of setting up a blog to help reunite people with their lost cameras/memory cards/films by posting a couple of photos from said lost items. The blog is here: http://ifoundyourcamera.blogspot.com/
I think this is a great idea deserving of wide circulation (I know I'd be very upset if I lost my camera and delighted if it were returned, more for the photos than the camera itself). If you also like it, would you mind passing it on to your readership please?
Thanks! Regards, Camilla Brokking
and this one broke my heart...
Dear Neil,
I found a blog that was strange and sad and beautiful. A vegan veterinary technician records all the animals that she euthanizes.
http://whatikilledtoday.blogspot.com/
I think you should read it.
-Alex
and I found this a few months ago and meant to post it, and lost it again, and now Mistress Mousey says...
Kurt found this website. I've been shaking my head in shame while laughing
for pretty much the last 15 minutes straight.
http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/
Enjoy!
Hope you're well. Can't wait to see how the Graveyard Book turns out. :D
Hugs,
michelle
...
Hi, Neil--
I've seen on your blog that you're a big fan of Joe Hill, too. We sent an advance copy of his new comic, LOCKE & KEY, to your attention. Hope you like it--the artist is Gabriel Rodriguez, the BEOWULF artist, too, and its just an amazing read.
We also put together a trailer for the comic that we're going to send around soon:
http://charliefoxtrotfilms.com/tom/
We're trying to push this book in a big way. Joe deserves it. It's such an assured and enthralling first issue.
Chris
I really enjoyed it, although I wished it had been double the length, or had come with a black and white preview of the next issue or something. I fear that I'm losing the periodical comics buzz, and have been conditioned to want graphic novel sized chunks of story. I no longer go "I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL NEXT ISSUE!". Now I go, "And then what?" But it was a great start...
I just finished Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel and Working Days, which were amazing texts on the art of writing and a writers' struggles. In reading your journal it occurred to me that the updates on your progress through the Graveyard book and similar past entries could make for an interesting compilation reminiscent of these two books. Is this something you'd ever consider?
Oddly enough, I got an email a few weeks ago from a publisher wanting to know if they could make a book up from this blog. I imagine that it would be possible to go excavating the million and sixty-eight thousand words (according to the always fascinating http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/clouds/words/) and dig out enough stuff for a book or two, perhaps much in the way that the old http://quotableneil.blogspot.com/ did. But it'll have to wait until I have a bit more time to even think about it.
Meanwhile...
I understand that Hill House are sending out all the copies of the limited edition of ANANSI BOYS, and have a dedicated email address to confirm people's postal addresses -- details at http://hillhousepublishers.com/hh-update-28dec07-01.htm
and Lisa Snellings wants me to tell the world she has a sale on at http://stores.ebay.com/Poppet-Art-by-Lisa-Snellings-Clark
Next post: is Dr Who actually a Fennec Fox? You be the judge...
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