Nights here are filled with fireflies. Steve Brust came over for dinner tonight and brought his puppy, and we talked about stories and writing until late. It's a good world.
That's about it for excitement at this end. Lots of people have written in asking stuff about me and Amanda, and I don't really know how to answer them. Either they're really nice and pleased for us and encouraging and don't need answering, or they're the kind of things that leave me deeply puzzled, and to which the only responses are "Isn't that a bit personal?" or "Probably none of your business I'm afraid," or even "Why would you write things like that?"
Hello Neil,
Why don't you blog more often?
Just a death wish I guess. Your blog is a wonderful thing to read.
I have a rare case of skin cancer and your blog cheer me up!
Mostly because I have less to say right now, I think. Or at least, I hate repeating myself. The blog's eight years old, and over one million three hundred thousand words long. That's a lot of blogging: a lot of ideas, a lot of words, a lot of answers. People write to me with questions still, but much of the time they're questions that have already been answered on the blog, usually at some length -- the kind of things that make me think that I should spend the time I could spend writing again (say) how you get an agent into, instead, organising things and getting a really useful FAQ up and running, or just a way of finding things, particularly advice on writing.
Obviously, I'm sorry you have a rare case of skin cancer, and I would be just as sorry if it was a common sort of skin cancer. So here, to cheer you up and fulfill your dying wish: a blog, and a link to an interview http://www.wmagazine.com/w/blogs/editorsblog/2009/06/29/neil-gaiman-on.htm and also to an amazing Daily Telegraph piece in which a bunch of writers and artists suggest books for younger readers http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/5720639/Summer-Reading-for-Children-Adventures-to-enchanting-worlds.html.
Todd Klein, letterer extraordinaire has the fourth in his series of prints out. The art is by J. H. Williams III, and you can see it here.
Back in November I was interviewed by Chip Kidd at the 92nd St Y. (I talked about it on the blog at the time.) The whole talk, with Karen Berger's introduction and all, is up now on YouTube, and is embedded here for your pleasure. It's an hour and a half.
And finally, there are now more than 666,666 people following me on Twitter. So we had a party. It's still ongoing, the party, over at http://bit.ly/666party and to join in all you have to do is upload a photgraph of you and a Balloon. And once 600 people showed up at the party, the webgoblin made this: a mosaic. Edit to add, and here's a wonderful click to zoom in, shift-click to zoom out version at http://www.uslot.com/neilballoons/
Labels: balloons, blogging about the blog in a strange mirror-like pattern that leads into infinity, Todd Klein, why Chip Kidd ought to have his own chat show