I wish she'd come and guest-blog some more, but she says she's self-conscious, as she meets strangers who tell her how much they like it when she blogs, and she would hate to disappoint them. She's the funniest person I know, has the sweetest disposition and the sunniest smile, and I love being with her, whether we're going around the world together having adventures or just watching The Big Bang Theory.
HAPPY SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY, MADDY GAIMAN
I'm flying to the UK on Sunday for the Doctor Who table read on Tuesday. This morning I was sent the producers' "this is what we can afford" edited draft of my Doctor Who script. I'll do a polish on that. And then we're pretty much done. I think. I hope. I pray.
(Seeing a few people have asked, writing a Babylon 5 episode was much simpler: I think it was two drafts. But it was all existing sets and basically no special effects. My Doctor Who episode is Bigger in every way, inside and outside: I've asked them for the impossible, and they've knocked themselves out to give it to me, and when they can't they've managed to somehow give me the very improbable.)
...
Neil,
I am preparing to have about 12 super reluctant Jr High boys listen to a CD of the Graveyard Book, as they follow along in their books. I haven't been able to find any lesson plans on this book. Will you please take a minute to tell us a little about the background of this book, and maybe some additional graveyard ideas you left out. We are pretty excited to get started.
Thanks, Dianne the Librarian
I asked Elyse Marshall from Harper Childrens, and she said:
Here is a link to our reading guide: http://files.harpercollins.com/PDF/ReadingGuides/0060530928.pdf It has excellent discussion questions and extension activities – perfectly suitable for teachers. The guide was written by a middle school teacher with this audience in mind, actually.
Also look at the videos on Mousecircus.com, at http://mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx. In addition to the videos of me reading chapters, there are also edited highlights of the Q&As from the tour, in which many questions are answered.
...I wrote a piano suite based on various tales from Fragile Things. You can hear it here:
http://www.tide-pool.ca/fractal/compositions/Thor_Kell_-_Fragile_Things.mp3.
It was played by my friend Jillian Hanks, who is fantastic. There fifteen (very) short movements:
I: These People Ought To Know Who We Are, And Tell That We Were Here
II: Mapmaker
III: Inventing Aladin
IV: A Study In Emerald
V: Closing Time
VI: Locks
VII: Instructions
VIII: Harlequin Valentine
IX: The Problem Of Susan
X: The Day The Saucers Came
XI: Pages From A Journal
XII: October In The Chair
XIII: Other People
XIV: How To Talk To Girls At Parties
XV: Sunbird
I hope you like it, and thank you for all the stories.
Best,
Thor
That was beautiful! Thank you.
Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I'm sure this email is, by now, a common refrain from your many journal readers, so I apologise in advance.
That said; please end your journal.
I understand, because of your recent grand successes (congratulations, by the way), that regular blogging might be either difficult to find time for or has been supplanted by the appealing immediacy of Twitter, so I think it is time for the journal to come to a natural end.
Look at Mr. Campbell's blog - 'frozen in time', your very own words. I think your journal, which has been one of the more impressive online blogging documents in the internet's relatively young history, deserves better than to stumble along like a ballplayer past his prime, occasionally swinging and hitting, mostly missing (in this analogy, a 'miss' is a day or event unblogged, and there's been a few of those recently).
Perhaps you can archive as a document of a time period for all to read and enjoy. Or perhaps that long hinted-at publication of sections of it might eventuate. Either way, the journal as it is has had its day. It's done its job. Its time is past.
(Gosh, how many more its / it's can I use?)
Please don't see this as an attack. I am, and always will be a fan, but I've loved coming to this journal over the years and to see it in its current state is a shame.
(Time was I checked it once, twice a day. Now it's once a week, at best. I've even removed it from my Mac Top Sites. Gasp!)
Evolve your website. Make Twitter the key element, and have the journal, along with stories, upcoming events, etc. a reading experience. A document of a part of your life and career, frozen in time, unchanging, perfect for its moments, for all to enjoy.
My best wishes and hopes for continued success,
Scott Dixon
I don't think anyone else has asked for me to stop it. But no, no plans to end it at this point.
The blog's on a sort of limping Hiatus until my work on Dr Who is actually done done. (As explained in http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/07/normal-service-will-be-resumed-as-soon.html) and then it'll come back in some form or other. Not sure what. But I'll be working flat out on the next book, and blogging's fun when you're booking. It's a nice warm up exercise for the mind and the fingers.
Labels: bigger on the inside, blogging about the blog in a strange mirror-like pattern that leads into infinity, Doctor Who, Maddy, piano music based on short story collections, teaching the graveyard book