It took a lot of work, but I'm happy to say that, after 9 months of missing each other, Ash and I are reunited. Lots of happy tears. I'm humbled and grateful to be here. Photo by Amanda Palmer
Labels: amanda palmer, Aotearoa, Ash
Showing posts with label Ash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ash. Show all posts
Where I am, what I'm doing, how I'm doing and how I got here
Hullo from Scotland, where I am in rural lockdown on my own. I'm half a world away from Amanda and Ash, and missing both of them a lot. We check in on screens and phones twice a day, when I get up and before I sleep (which is when they go to sleep and when they get up) but it's not the same.
I was in New Zealand with them until two weeks ago, when New Zealand went from the Level 4 lockdown it had been on for the previous 5 weeks down to Level 3. I flew, masked and gloved, from empty Auckland airport to LAX, an empty international terminal with only one check in counter open -- the one for the BA flight from LAX to London. Both flights were surreal, especially the flight to London. Empty airports, mostly empty planes. It reminded me of flying a week after 9/11: everything's changed.
I landed in London about ten in the morning, got a masked car service to a friend's house. He had a spare car (bought many years ago as a birthday present for his daughter, but she had never learned to drive), with some groceries for me in a box in the back, waiting in the drive, with the key in the lock. I drove north, on empty motorways and then on empty roads, and got in about midnight, and I've been here ever since.
The journey was, as I said, surreal. It was also emotionally hard. Amanda and I had found ourselves in a rough place immediately before I left (my fault, I'm afraid, I'd hurt her feelings very badly, and... actually beyond that it's none of anyone else's business). We agreed that we needed to give each other some space, which had been in very short supply in lockdown in New Zealand. So it was a sad sort of flight, even without the world in lockdown, and a sad sort of drive.
(You can read all about how we got to New Zealand and why we were there at all at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2020/03/on-beach.html. And, for the curious, the song that's currently stuck in my head is mostly Al Stewart's “Warren Gamaliel Harding”.)
I needed to be somewhere I could talk to people in the UK while they and I were awake, not just before breakfast and after dinner. And I needed to be somewhere I could continue to isolate easily, which definitely isn't our house in Woodstock, currently at capacity with five families who have fled Manhattan and Brooklyn and Boston.
Once the world opens up and travel gets easier Amanda and Ash and I are looking forward to being together again in Woodstock. (Yes, I've seen the newsfeed headlines saying I've moved to the UK, and even that we're divorcing. No, I haven't moved the UK, and yes, Amanda and I are still very much together, even with half a world between us.)
Thank you to everyone who's been kind and nice and helpful, while Amanda and my problems got rather more public than either of us is comfortable with. We love each other, and we love Ash, and we will sort ourselves out, in private, which is much the best place for things like this.
It's rough for almost everyone right now – some people are crammed together and wish they weren't, some are alone and crave companionship, pretty much all of us are hurting in one way or another. So be kind. Be kind to each other, be kind to Amanda (who is getting a huge amount of undeserved internet flack for this, some of it really cruel), and if you ever meet him (he will tell you very seriously everything he thinks about zombies, or his latest zombie-supplanting discovery, Richard Scarry's detectives), be kind to Ash.
Neil
PS: Amanda and I wrote a letter together, for the curious and for the bits of the world that is wondering what's going on, and whether they should worry about it. Feel free to send anyone who wants to know how we are and what's happening to read it.
Dear Everybody.
This has been a hard few weeks for us. We are not getting divorced. It’s not that exciting.
We love each other very deeply. As sometimes happens during the course of a long marriage, we have hurt each other. We have lived our lives individually, and then as a couple, very publicly (and right now, too publicly).
This has been a hard few weeks for us. We are not getting divorced. It’s not that exciting.
We love each other very deeply. As sometimes happens during the course of a long marriage, we have hurt each other. We have lived our lives individually, and then as a couple, very publicly (and right now, too publicly).
We have been trying to figure out how best to love each other for twelve years. It is fair to say that this relationship has been the hardest, but also the most rewarding, collaboration of our lives.
Living in lockdown is hard. Working on a marriage, as everyone married knows, is also hard. And we are very aware there are thousands, probably millions of people who have been dealing with their own versions of problems like ours over the last few months – and many face situations that are far worse.
We will sort out our marriage in private, which is where things like this are best sorted. We're working together to try and do this better. We care about each other so much, and we have a small boy we love and delight in, and those are reasons enough to work together to fix things.
So that's what's going on. It's not as much fun or as interesting as the newsfeed headlines made it seem.
For anyone who felt the urge to choose sides on this, trust us, there really aren't any sides to be taken: we are on our side, and we're on Ash's side, and we hope you are too.
None of us know what the future is going to look and feel like, right now, and that's scary. We need to be able to have each other’s backs. So please, if you can, have our backs, and we will do our best to have yours.
None of us know what the future is going to look and feel like, right now, and that's scary. We need to be able to have each other’s backs. So please, if you can, have our backs, and we will do our best to have yours.
And to the vast majority of people out there who have been kind and sane and supportive to both of us, and to each other, thank you, we love you and appreciate it, and you, so very much.
Peace, and definitely love,
Peace, and definitely love,
Neil and Amanda
Labels: amanda palmer, Ash, Life in lockdown, married life
A long catch up (and go and see Amanda Palmer's show)
I stopped blogging in April when my friend Gene Wolfe died. I wanted to write a blog about Gene, who he was, how we were friends, and it just made me too sad.
So I stopped writing that blog, and then felt bad writing about the other things that have happened, like Good Omens coming out as a TV series when I hadn't yet written about Gene.
I miss him still, and kept wanting to send him postcards over the last few months, just as I usually did when I travelled. And then I remember I can't send Gene things any longer.
So Gene went, before I could show him the TV adaptation we made of Good Omens, which had been a book he loved.
It came out on Prime Video May 31st, and people loved it. It broke several records for Amazon, in the US and the UK and around the world, which made me happy. We got three Emmy Nominations, and already started being nominated for and winning awards. Everyone wants us to make some more, and while Terry Pratchett and I had long ago plotted out a whole novel's worth of More, I'm still figuring out whether or not and if so how it could happen.
Then it was announced that Netflix had won the bidding war to be the company that brought Sandman to television. I'm Very Involved in making it -- I'll be cowriting the pilot episode, and working closely with Exec Producer David Goyer and Showrunner Allan Heinberg to make sure it's always Sandman, the one that people who read and loved the comics will recognise and love.
Meanwhile, I had stopped being a Good Omens showrunner, and started becoming a writer who stayed at home and looked after a small boy and also wrote, while his wife went off on tour.
And then we crossed the ocean, and are now based in the UK until the end of the year and are doing the same thing again.
I'm at home, Amanda is (mostly) on tour.
I get Ash dressed in the correct school uniform (PE or Formal) and onto the bus (we always go straight up to the top floor of the bus and he always tells me the rules of traffic lights), and I take him to school.
Occasionally I'll be doing things in public this year, and I'll try and announce them here:
The National Theatre's adaptation of The Ocean at the End of the Lane begins on Dec 3rd and runs until the 25th of January:
It's recommended for people aged 12 and over. Tickets are available here: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane
And in one of those nice coincidences that make it look like I actually know what I'm doing, this year also brings the illustrated edition of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Elise Hurst is an Australian illustrator who passed me some of her work to look at after an event, and I was immediately impressed. Her work looks (or can look) like mid-20th century children's book illustration, but with a strange edge to it that seemed perfect for Ocean.
She and I will be in conversation on the 14th of November: here's the details, and how to get tickets -- https://membership.theguardian.com/event/an-evening-with-neil-gaiman-and-elise-hurst-69018926467
Here's a photo Amanda took of me telling a children's story that won't be published for about a year, at an event in Camden for her Patrons (from Patreon). Douglas Mackinnon, director of Good Omens, made it black and white and haunting. Ash is the one looking up at me at the front...
....
If you are in the UK, or Germany or Austria (Graz!), Paris or Prague, Luxembourg, Ireland or Denmark, I wanted to urge you to go and see Amanda in concert on this tour. (https://nointermission.amandapalmer.net/) The show list: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/
This is a very special show. It's about life and otherwise. It contains a friend's illness and death. It contains three abortions (one on health grounds) and a Christmas Day miscarriage. It contains the arrival of Ash.
It's called There Will Be No Intermission. And normally, there's an intermission, because it's a long night.
It's important, it's beautiful, it's powerful, and it's even funny.
So I stopped writing that blog, and then felt bad writing about the other things that have happened, like Good Omens coming out as a TV series when I hadn't yet written about Gene.
I miss him still, and kept wanting to send him postcards over the last few months, just as I usually did when I travelled. And then I remember I can't send Gene things any longer.
So Gene went, before I could show him the TV adaptation we made of Good Omens, which had been a book he loved.
It came out on Prime Video May 31st, and people loved it. It broke several records for Amazon, in the US and the UK and around the world, which made me happy. We got three Emmy Nominations, and already started being nominated for and winning awards. Everyone wants us to make some more, and while Terry Pratchett and I had long ago plotted out a whole novel's worth of More, I'm still figuring out whether or not and if so how it could happen.
Then it was announced that Netflix had won the bidding war to be the company that brought Sandman to television. I'm Very Involved in making it -- I'll be cowriting the pilot episode, and working closely with Exec Producer David Goyer and Showrunner Allan Heinberg to make sure it's always Sandman, the one that people who read and loved the comics will recognise and love.
Meanwhile, I had stopped being a Good Omens showrunner, and started becoming a writer who stayed at home and looked after a small boy and also wrote, while his wife went off on tour.
And then we crossed the ocean, and are now based in the UK until the end of the year and are doing the same thing again.
I'm at home, Amanda is (mostly) on tour.
I get Ash dressed in the correct school uniform (PE or Formal) and onto the bus (we always go straight up to the top floor of the bus and he always tells me the rules of traffic lights), and I take him to school.
Occasionally I'll be doing things in public this year, and I'll try and announce them here:
The National Theatre's adaptation of The Ocean at the End of the Lane begins on Dec 3rd and runs until the 25th of January:
It's recommended for people aged 12 and over. Tickets are available here: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane
And in one of those nice coincidences that make it look like I actually know what I'm doing, this year also brings the illustrated edition of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Elise Hurst is an Australian illustrator who passed me some of her work to look at after an event, and I was immediately impressed. Her work looks (or can look) like mid-20th century children's book illustration, but with a strange edge to it that seemed perfect for Ocean.
She and I will be in conversation on the 14th of November: here's the details, and how to get tickets -- https://membership.theguardian.com/event/an-evening-with-neil-gaiman-and-elise-hurst-69018926467
Here's a photo Amanda took of me telling a children's story that won't be published for about a year, at an event in Camden for her Patrons (from Patreon). Douglas Mackinnon, director of Good Omens, made it black and white and haunting. Ash is the one looking up at me at the front...
....
If you are in the UK, or Germany or Austria (Graz!), Paris or Prague, Luxembourg, Ireland or Denmark, I wanted to urge you to go and see Amanda in concert on this tour. (https://nointermission.amandapalmer.net/) The show list: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/
This is a very special show. It's about life and otherwise. It contains a friend's illness and death. It contains three abortions (one on health grounds) and a Christmas Day miscarriage. It contains the arrival of Ash.
It's called There Will Be No Intermission. And normally, there's an intermission, because it's a long night.
It's important, it's beautiful, it's powerful, and it's even funny.
Labels: amanda palmer, Ash, Gene Wolfe, Good Omens, sandman tv, The Ocean At The End of the Lane, There WIll be No Intermission
It's been a while...
I finished the process of making Good Omens into television at the end of January 2019. It's been ten weeks since then and I'm only just just starting to feel human again. And not yet a laughing running tapdancing human, more a sort of baffled, awkward vague human who only remembers the word he was searching for about five minutes after he no longer needs it. Like Charlie on the last page of "Flowers For Algernon". I'll probably arrive back at normal humanity-with-a-brain somewhere in June.
Amanda is on tour 3 or 4 days a week, and home the other 3 or 4 days. (Here's her tour schedule: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/) I'm a home-husband, trying to remember how that writing thing I used to do went, and getting the Ash time I missed in December and January as I finished Good Omens.
Ash is keeping me amused and delighted. Mostly by talking, sometimes by singing. He fell in love with christmas songs at Christmas, and they are only just now starting to be supplanted. Which is good for those of us who feared that the reign of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer would never end. Currently his favourite songs are Harry Nilsson's "Coconut" and Harry Belafonte's 'Banana Boat Song', which quite often means an unusually large voice coming out of a small boy at unexpected moments, belting out "Day-o! DAAAAAY-O! Daylight Come an' mi Want To Go Hooome!"
Me: Perhaps you could use your quiet inside voice for that, Ash?
Ash (very politely, as if explaining something to someone a bit slow): No, Dadda. I need to be very loud. Do you understand? DAAAAAAAY-O!
This is Ash today, singing (quietly) this morning:
The squawking noise in the background is guinea fowl...
This is because we have a very small flock of guinea fowl here. And they squawk.
They also remind me a little of a flock of small dinosaurs, and they make me smile. We had twelve last summer, and then one day we had eight, and we had eight all through the autumn and the winter.
Amanda is on tour 3 or 4 days a week, and home the other 3 or 4 days. (Here's her tour schedule: http://amandapalmer.net/shows/) I'm a home-husband, trying to remember how that writing thing I used to do went, and getting the Ash time I missed in December and January as I finished Good Omens.
Ash is keeping me amused and delighted. Mostly by talking, sometimes by singing. He fell in love with christmas songs at Christmas, and they are only just now starting to be supplanted. Which is good for those of us who feared that the reign of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer would never end. Currently his favourite songs are Harry Nilsson's "Coconut" and Harry Belafonte's 'Banana Boat Song', which quite often means an unusually large voice coming out of a small boy at unexpected moments, belting out "Day-o! DAAAAAY-O! Daylight Come an' mi Want To Go Hooome!"
Me: Perhaps you could use your quiet inside voice for that, Ash?
Ash (very politely, as if explaining something to someone a bit slow): No, Dadda. I need to be very loud. Do you understand? DAAAAAAAY-O!
This is Ash today, singing (quietly) this morning:
The squawking noise in the background is guinea fowl...
This is because we have a very small flock of guinea fowl here. And they squawk.
They also remind me a little of a flock of small dinosaurs, and they make me smile. We had twelve last summer, and then one day we had eight, and we had eight all through the autumn and the winter.
The collective noun for guinea fowl is a confusion, and this is both apt and accurate.
Our neighbour Caroline (she's a potter, and she recently made me a Perfect TeaCupMug -- it's enormous!) does all of the looking after the guinea fowl, and I look proudly and fondly on because they spend their days wandering around eating ticks and thus, I hope, decreasing everyone's chances of getting Lyme disease here in prime Lyme disease country.
I worry about mysterious predators, so I automatically count the guinea fowl when I see them.
A couple of weeks ago the number dropped to seven. I was sad, assuming that the fowl in question had been eaten by something local with teeth or talons.
I mentioned this to Caroline. She took me a little way into the woods and she pointed out the missing guinea fowl, who believed herself to be perfectly camouflaged, sitting quietly on an awful lot of eggs.
We pretended we hadn't seen her and walked away, then immediately googled how long it takes guinea fowl eggs to hatch (about 28 days). Fingers crossed that in another two weeks we will have keets (which is what you call baby guinea fowl).
It's been years since I've blogged regularly. Let's see if I start again now. (I might. It's a good warm-up for writing and I'm looking forward to being a writer again.)
Our neighbour Caroline (she's a potter, and she recently made me a Perfect TeaCupMug -- it's enormous!) does all of the looking after the guinea fowl, and I look proudly and fondly on because they spend their days wandering around eating ticks and thus, I hope, decreasing everyone's chances of getting Lyme disease here in prime Lyme disease country.
I worry about mysterious predators, so I automatically count the guinea fowl when I see them.
A couple of weeks ago the number dropped to seven. I was sad, assuming that the fowl in question had been eaten by something local with teeth or talons.
I mentioned this to Caroline. She took me a little way into the woods and she pointed out the missing guinea fowl, who believed herself to be perfectly camouflaged, sitting quietly on an awful lot of eggs.
We pretended we hadn't seen her and walked away, then immediately googled how long it takes guinea fowl eggs to hatch (about 28 days). Fingers crossed that in another two weeks we will have keets (which is what you call baby guinea fowl).
It's been years since I've blogged regularly. Let's see if I start again now. (I might. It's a good warm-up for writing and I'm looking forward to being a writer again.)
Labels: Ash, Flowers for Algernon, Guinea Fowl
Where do you run?
I just woke from a dream in which my film agent (the redoubtable Jon Levin) was upset because a movie company had bought the rights to the 1972 Steptoe and Son movie and were convinced that by redubbing it to change the plot and adding special effects, they would have a science fiction blockbuster on their hands, and he was calling me in the hopes that I could persuade them that it was a bad idea. I'm not quite sure what I am trying to tell myself about Hollywood here.
I'm on my own for a few days to write, while Amanda and Ash are in Havana. Amanda will be doing a gig there, and Ash will be squeezing people's noses and continuing to learn how to walk. His hair is getting darker as my hair gets greyer.
Reading about what's happening in Aleppo is soul-numbing. I look at Ash and wonder what I'd do if the normal world I lived in became a war zone, how I'd cope, and the only thing I'm certain of is that I'd want to get him somewhere safe.
I supported refugees before Ash came along, but having him here makes it feel so real and immediate: I remember the people I saw entering the camps in Jordan who had carried their own babies and small children for hundreds of miles to get them to safety.
The Humble Bundle has four days left to go. You get over a thousand pages of ridiculously rare stuff by me, comics and books and more. There's new audio and video material, even posters for those who got it before (and you can gift a bundle to a friend or enemy for the holidays). The money goes to two charities -- to the CBLDF, and to refugees, and you can adjust the slider however you wish on who gets what. Please support it, and spread the word on social media.
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/neil-gaiman-book-bundle is the link.
And https://donate.unhcr.org/int-en/neil-gaiman/ is a direct page with a video from me in the camps, and ways to donate. Also, especially in these dark times, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/.
...
I drove up the coast yesterday and listened to the BBC production of STARDUST. I think it's my favourite adaptation of any of my books or stories. It's broadcast in two parts, tomorrow and Sunday, and you can hear it over the internet anywhere in the world for a month after broadcast free, because the BBC is still a wonderful thing. There's a page of Stardust clips, art and other goodies for you here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07xs1fd
And one more Ash photo, taken by Amanda on a chilly beach a few days ago, because I miss him.
I'm on my own for a few days to write, while Amanda and Ash are in Havana. Amanda will be doing a gig there, and Ash will be squeezing people's noses and continuing to learn how to walk. His hair is getting darker as my hair gets greyer.
Reading about what's happening in Aleppo is soul-numbing. I look at Ash and wonder what I'd do if the normal world I lived in became a war zone, how I'd cope, and the only thing I'm certain of is that I'd want to get him somewhere safe.
I supported refugees before Ash came along, but having him here makes it feel so real and immediate: I remember the people I saw entering the camps in Jordan who had carried their own babies and small children for hundreds of miles to get them to safety.
The Humble Bundle has four days left to go. You get over a thousand pages of ridiculously rare stuff by me, comics and books and more. There's new audio and video material, even posters for those who got it before (and you can gift a bundle to a friend or enemy for the holidays). The money goes to two charities -- to the CBLDF, and to refugees, and you can adjust the slider however you wish on who gets what. Please support it, and spread the word on social media.
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/neil-gaiman-book-bundle is the link.
And https://donate.unhcr.org/int-en/neil-gaiman/ is a direct page with a video from me in the camps, and ways to donate. Also, especially in these dark times, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/.
...
I drove up the coast yesterday and listened to the BBC production of STARDUST. I think it's my favourite adaptation of any of my books or stories. It's broadcast in two parts, tomorrow and Sunday, and you can hear it over the internet anywhere in the world for a month after broadcast free, because the BBC is still a wonderful thing. There's a page of Stardust clips, art and other goodies for you here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07xs1fd
And one more Ash photo, taken by Amanda on a chilly beach a few days ago, because I miss him.
Labels: Ash, baby photo, Dreams, Hollywood, Humble Bundle, jon levin, UNHCR
It's Ash's first birthday, a bare chin is revealed... (and so are the next three Robert McGinnis covers)
It was Ash's birthday on the 16th of September, and his mother and I went back to the place he was born to celebrate and to get away from cellphones and the world.
He's a delight and I've never loved him more. His favourite books are Goodnight Moon and a book called Chu's Day (I've never been prouder). His eyes really are that blue.
He's a delight and I've never loved him more. His favourite books are Goodnight Moon and a book called Chu's Day (I've never been prouder). His eyes really are that blue.
I'm now off writing, and I won't see them for another ten days. I'm loving the writing, loving the exercising and the quiet and the words, and missing them both, especially Ash, I miss singing to him, miss waking up early and going off and reading with him or walking with him (he can nearly walk). Miss feeding him.
Today I shaved off my beard. I also got a FedEx package containing a proof "Advance Reading Copy" of NORSE MYTHOLOGY (it'll be published on the 7th of February) and an early reading copy of Colleen Doran's beautiful graphic novel adaptation of TROLL BRIDGE (out on October 18th).
Here is a photograph of all these things at once. (Well, not the act of shaving.)
...
So, this is a very book-covery day, because I'm going to do something fun.
For the last few months, I've been showing people I've been talking to or talking about books with or just wind up sitting next to on a plane the Robert E. McGinnis covers for Stardust, Neverwhere and Anansi Boys.
This is because I am so proud of them, and the work Todd Klein did with the lettering and the design for the books.
The American Gods cover (it already came out) is, in my head, a 1968 SF cover. (I wrote about it here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2016/07/robert-e-mcginnis-and-secret-of-new.html. Todd Klein shows all the design work that led to it on his blog http://kleinletters.com/Blog/title-and-cover-design-for-neil-gaimans-american-gods/.)
Would you like to see the next three?
Really?
You don't have to see them. You can wait until you are in some little Indie Bookshop over the next few months, and be surprised...
I love them. The Stardust cover is an early 70s book, and is funny, like the covers I delighted in for books like William Goldman's The Princess Bride -- the lettering style was inspired by the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Line, and the whole is intended to be sort of heartwarming.
Anansi Boys is done as a late 50s or early 60s paperback – one of those goofy comedies, with an illustration of a scene from the first chapter. (Also glad to finally get Mr Nancy on the cover of his book.) I think this one is Robert E McGinnis's masterpiece, and Todd's as well.
Neverwhere – when Robert McGinnis sent over this haunting cover I sent it over to Todd Klein and told him that I thought it was a 1970s gothic romance cover. He looked at the kind of covers I'd suggested, told me that they often have elegant and swirly titles and heavily serifed type, and he produced something as beautiful and haunting as the cover had been.
Ready...?
Oh, hell. Here you go. And I've just gone to Amazon to find out the publication dates so will put the links in...
(And I checked Indiebound and the books are now up there too, so Indiebound links as well.)
Anansi Boys (http://bit.ly/AnansiPulp) comes out on October 25th... (I loved this one so much I bought the painting from Mr McGinnis.)
Neverwhere (http://bit.ly/NeverwherePulp) is published on November 29th. I love the rats in the shadows...
Stardust (http://bit.ly/StardustPulp) is the next one to come out -- it will be out in just six days from now on September 27th...
Labels: anansi boys, Ash, beards, birthdays, colleen doran, Neverwhere, Norse Mythology, Robert E McGinnis, Stardust, Todd Klein, Troll Bridge
A cover revealed! A book exposed! A year mislaid!
I've been writing a book of retellings of Norse Mythology since about 2012. Writing it slowly, between other things. Reading and reading my prose Eddas and my poetic Eddas, in any editions I could find, thumbing through my Simek's Dictionary of Northern Mythology whenever I was unclear on something, and keeping it a secret, mostly.
I actually did a reading of one of the first stories I completed at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts three years ago, and people liked it. (Here's a write-up.) I kept writing.
I even wrote a glossary.
And now the book is done, and will be coming out in February. All the stories I loved, all the myth, many of the contradictions. Loki and Thor and Odin and Freyr and Sif and the rest, from the beginning of things through to Ragnarok and after.
Look! Here is the cover.
It is coming.
Are you ready?
I actually did a reading of one of the first stories I completed at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts three years ago, and people liked it. (Here's a write-up.) I kept writing.
I even wrote a glossary.
And now the book is done, and will be coming out in February. All the stories I loved, all the myth, many of the contradictions. Loki and Thor and Odin and Freyr and Sif and the rest, from the beginning of things through to Ragnarok and after.
Look! Here is the cover.
It is coming.
Are you ready?
It spins!
We are still working on the technology to get the hammer to spin like that on the actual cover.
It will be coming out in the US from WW Norton (http://bit.ly/NorseMythology) and in the UK from Bloomsbury in February.
Norton has a website -- http://www.neilgaimannorsemythology.com/ -- and if you go to it you will see big, not spinning version of the cover, and a photo of me being menaced by a tree.
...
That's almost that. Ash is one year old in two days. A year ago Amanda looked like this:
and now Ash is almost walking and he looks like this:
And I am not sure where the year went....
Labels: Ash, Mjollnir, Norse Mythology
The View, and the Plan
In a friend's old old house today, as Amanda records in the basement studio and I write in a corner, while Ash sleeps in his seat beside me. Rain lashes the windows and the wind shakes the shutters, and it seems like a proper English Summer as far as I'm concerned.
Today is the publication date for THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS, my collection of non-fiction, of essays and speeches and introductions. It's out. it looks like this:
Or it looks like this:
(Photo of Ash NOT smiling as a bonus, because people keep asking if he ever stops being happy. He's happy pretty much all of the time, but here's one of him looking pensive.)
Today is the publication date for THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS, my collection of non-fiction, of essays and speeches and introductions. It's out. it looks like this:
Or it looks like this:
Depending on whether you are in the UK or the US. There are independent bookshops in the US with signed-and-embossed copies. (Here's a link to all the shops which have ordered them: https://www.facebook.com/WmMorrowbks/posts/1017987604950366) There are bookshops in the UK that have signed copies (I don't have a list. Lots of Blackwells and Waterstones shops for a start.)
Tonight UK time -- in a few hours -- I'll be talking to Audrey Niffenegger about the book at Union Chapel. It's very sold out, but you can watch it online via this. Click and it should take you to the livestream.
And you can get it online at places like Amazon (http://bit.ly/VfCheapSeats) and Indiebound.
Maria Popova at Brainpickings wrote a beautiful piece on one of the essays in the book, the introduction to the 60th anniversary edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
It's been reviewed elsewhere, as well. Here's a bit of the NPR review:
What View accomplishes, though, is considerable. Broken up into sections — "What I Believe," "Music and the People Who Make It," "Some People I Have Known," "Make Good Art," and so on — his musings shine with wit, understatement, and a warm lack of pretention. He speaks of "backing awkwardly away from journalism" in his youth, the first step of his eventual metamorphosis into an award-winning fantasy author with a fanatical following, and reflects on the patterns that arise in our lives: "Events rhyme."
Accordingly, View draws order out of the seeming chaos of Gaiman's scattershot career, from journalism to comics to novels to children's books to screen adaptations. He talks about his life, but always through the lens of an external subject, usually on object of passion: the superhero comics of the legendary Jack Kirby, the transgressive songs of Lou Reed, the way "the shape of reality — the way I perceive the world — exists only because of Doctor Who." That was written in 2003, before Gaiman actually wrote for Doctor Who; similarly, his many ruminations onAmerican Gods, his greatest work of prose, take on a deeper resonance now that the book is well on its way to becoming a cable TV series.
Gaiman is a writer above all, though, and his entries about writing and reading make up the meat of View. They range from the deeply personal, eerily poignant "Ghosts in the Machines: Some Hallowe'en Thoughts," first published in the New York Times, to an appreciation of the element of dreams in H. P. Lovecraft's work — a particularly illuminating topic, as one of Gaiman's most beloved characters, Morpheus of The Sandman, is the deity of dreams himself. Even more intriguing is "All Books Have Genders," a meditation on the making of American Gods — as well as a humble assessment of his authorial flaws — in which he offers the succinct slogan "Novels accrete," an entire master class on the creative process summed up gracefully in two words.
It's a relief that it's published: I don't think I've ever been as nervous about a book coming out as I have been about this one. You can hide behind fiction. You can't hide behind things that are about what you think and believe.
Over at Powells, I wrote a playlist for the book: http://www.powells.com/post/playlist/wheres-neil-when-you-need-him-neil-gaimans-playlist-for-the-view-from-the-cheap-seats- which I'm currently listening to on Spotify, with a lot of pleasure.
Over on Sky Arts, the first two of the four episodes of Neil Gaiman's Likely Stories have aired. (Here's a review of them.) If you have a Sky subscription, you can watch them online or download https://www.sky.com/watch/channel/sky-arts/neil-gaimans-likely-stories. No, I don't know how you can watch them legally elsewhere in the world, yet. I will tell you when I find out.
And it's halfway through the year. I'm about to dial down my online presence a lot, which normally means I blog more and tweet/facebook/tumblr etc much less. One by one the things I had to do are getting done, and I'm getting ready to write a novel. It's there in my head, a huge thing...
And if I'm not writing a novel, I'll probably be playing with him:
(Photo of Ash NOT smiling as a bonus, because people keep asking if he ever stops being happy. He's happy pretty much all of the time, but here's one of him looking pensive.)
Labels: Ash, Likely Stories, The View From the Cheap Seats
Good Omens, Cheap Seats, and the Memorial
I haven't blogged for a long time, but right now I'm on a train, and it
feels like a good time to catch up.
Thismorning I was interviewed by Charlie Russell for his documentary on
Terry Pratchett. (Charlie made the previous BBC Terry Pratchett
documentaries, Living With Alzheimer's, Choosing to Die, and
Facing Extinction.)
We did it in a Chinese restaurant in Gerrard Street, because Terry and I had first met in a Chinese restaurant, in February 1985. It was easy and pleasant, and then suddenly it wasn't. I was talking about the last time I'd seen Terry, and what we said, and I found myself crying uncontrollably, unable to talk. And then I pulled it together, and we carried on.
"Look,this is really unprofessional,” said Charlie, when the interview was all over, “and I haven't said it before to anyone I've interviewed, but would you like a hug?” And I said that, yes, I would.
I'm still a bit shaken. It's as if all the emotion that I'd kept under control for the public Terry memorial, for the public Terry, the other night, erupted when I talked about the private people that were us.
The memorial the other night was beautiful. I wore my mourning frock coat that Kambriel made for me, and I went out that afternoon and bought a white shirt and a black tie. (Actually, I bought four shirts, which, given how often I wear white shirts, should take me easily to the end of my lifetime.)
I read the introduction to A Slip of the Keyboard, which I'd
written for Terry while he was alive. I got sad at the end but that
was fine. And I held it together just fine when Rob, Terry's amazing
right-hand man, presented me with a big black author's hat Terry had
left me. I couldn't put it on, though. I wasn't ready for that.
(I tried it on later, in the dressing room. I looked, to my mind, like a rabbinical
cowboy assassin. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
At the end of the evening, Rob announced upcoming things, and one of the
things he announced was GOOD OMENS on the screen, written by
me. (There was a little confusion in the way that it was reported, by
the way: because Rob had been talking earlier about the letters found
in the safe that Terry had left us, people assumed that me writing
was something Terry asked me to do from beyond the
grave. Actually, it was more of a last request while he was still
alive. (“I would very
much like this to happen, and I know, Neil, that you're very very
busy, but no one else could ever do it with the passion that we share
for the old girl. I wish I could be more involved and I will help in
any way I can,” he wrote, once I said yes.)
I've been working on the Good Omens scripts for much of the last year, wishing that he was still here and could help, even if it was just to take a phone call. It's hard when I get stuck, and want to ask his advice. It's harder when I come up with something clever or funny that's new and I want to call him up and read it to him, and make him laugh or hear him point out something I'd missed. We were always each other's first audiences for Good Omens. That was the point. Neither of us had any idea whether or not we'd be able to sell this odd book or not, when we were writing it, but we knew that we could make the other one laugh. Anyway. I'm now 72% of the way through the Good Omens scripts, and the end is in sight.
My goal is to finish it before the publication day of THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS, my book of selected non-fiction, which comes out in the US and the UK on May 31st. There are two different covers. The US one shows me sitting looking thoughtful in a crumbling theatre, the UK shows me with my hair all blowing in the wind and gears exploding from the back of my head. Both of these seem pretty accurate, especially the exploding gears.
(US Amazon link: http://bit.ly/VfCheapSeats, B&N link and review: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/the-view-from-the-cheap-seats-offers-a-revealing-look-into-the-corners-of-neil-gaimans-mind/ and IndieBound independent bookshop link: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062262264)
I was, and still am, nervous about putting a book of non-fiction out into the world. I'm not scared of putting out fiction, but there's part of me that wonders if I have any right to burble in public about what I believe and hope and care about, that wonders if anyone is going to be interested in essays on books that (in a few cases) it seems like nobody cares about but me, or on the state of comics in 1993, or on how to write a review a book you find, when the deadline comes, you've mislaid. But the few early reviews seem really kind, and the handful of people I sent it to said lovely things about it (and all of them wrote to me to assure me that they had actually read it as well, and liked it as much as they said they did). There will be one event for the book launch, in the UK, which we will stream, so it will be an afternoon or later morning web-event in the US.
I recorded the audio book while we were staying in Santa Fe. I'd never recorded a non-fiction audio book before, and wasn't sure what to do when I hit the interviews I did with Stephen King and Lou Reed, so I did my best.
We spent the end of the winter in Santa Fe. It is a beautiful little city, and Amanda has family there, which was why we were there and not somewhere else, and I have friends. (I'd have lunch with George R R Martin. “It says on line that I'm in town to write your book for you,” I'd tell him, sighing. He thought it was much funnier than I did.)
We went to Meow Wolf, which is a former bowling alley in Santa Fe, which contains a house in California in which an event has caused ructions in space and time that lead into other dimensions. It's a mad and glorious mashup of art, story, and Disneyland, and if you are in the SouthWest of America, you should go.
Ash has grown. He's seven months old today. He's the sweetest, nicest baby. He smiles and is funny. I'm in London this week, and I miss him.
Our friend Prune, who is French, said that he was like “the baby they would show you in a shop, if you wanted to buy a baby.”
"You mean, the display model?"
"Exactly. The Display model baby."
I love him so much. He likes music, and stories, and he likes books too.
Here is a photo of him liking a book. (The Chu's Day board book was a gift from my agent, who was amused that I had not thought to give him any of my own books. So she did.)
He likes it when I pretend to sneeze.
And here's a video of him a couple of weeks ago, wearing his cardigan that Delia Sherman knitted him.
We did it in a Chinese restaurant in Gerrard Street, because Terry and I had first met in a Chinese restaurant, in February 1985. It was easy and pleasant, and then suddenly it wasn't. I was talking about the last time I'd seen Terry, and what we said, and I found myself crying uncontrollably, unable to talk. And then I pulled it together, and we carried on.
"Look,this is really unprofessional,” said Charlie, when the interview was all over, “and I haven't said it before to anyone I've interviewed, but would you like a hug?” And I said that, yes, I would.
I'm still a bit shaken. It's as if all the emotion that I'd kept under control for the public Terry memorial, for the public Terry, the other night, erupted when I talked about the private people that were us.
The memorial the other night was beautiful. I wore my mourning frock coat that Kambriel made for me, and I went out that afternoon and bought a white shirt and a black tie. (Actually, I bought four shirts, which, given how often I wear white shirts, should take me easily to the end of my lifetime.)
I've been working on the Good Omens scripts for much of the last year, wishing that he was still here and could help, even if it was just to take a phone call. It's hard when I get stuck, and want to ask his advice. It's harder when I come up with something clever or funny that's new and I want to call him up and read it to him, and make him laugh or hear him point out something I'd missed. We were always each other's first audiences for Good Omens. That was the point. Neither of us had any idea whether or not we'd be able to sell this odd book or not, when we were writing it, but we knew that we could make the other one laugh. Anyway. I'm now 72% of the way through the Good Omens scripts, and the end is in sight.
My goal is to finish it before the publication day of THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS, my book of selected non-fiction, which comes out in the US and the UK on May 31st. There are two different covers. The US one shows me sitting looking thoughtful in a crumbling theatre, the UK shows me with my hair all blowing in the wind and gears exploding from the back of my head. Both of these seem pretty accurate, especially the exploding gears.
(US Amazon link: http://bit.ly/VfCheapSeats, B&N link and review: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/the-view-from-the-cheap-seats-offers-a-revealing-look-into-the-corners-of-neil-gaimans-mind/ and IndieBound independent bookshop link: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062262264)
I was, and still am, nervous about putting a book of non-fiction out into the world. I'm not scared of putting out fiction, but there's part of me that wonders if I have any right to burble in public about what I believe and hope and care about, that wonders if anyone is going to be interested in essays on books that (in a few cases) it seems like nobody cares about but me, or on the state of comics in 1993, or on how to write a review a book you find, when the deadline comes, you've mislaid. But the few early reviews seem really kind, and the handful of people I sent it to said lovely things about it (and all of them wrote to me to assure me that they had actually read it as well, and liked it as much as they said they did). There will be one event for the book launch, in the UK, which we will stream, so it will be an afternoon or later morning web-event in the US.
I recorded the audio book while we were staying in Santa Fe. I'd never recorded a non-fiction audio book before, and wasn't sure what to do when I hit the interviews I did with Stephen King and Lou Reed, so I did my best.
We spent the end of the winter in Santa Fe. It is a beautiful little city, and Amanda has family there, which was why we were there and not somewhere else, and I have friends. (I'd have lunch with George R R Martin. “It says on line that I'm in town to write your book for you,” I'd tell him, sighing. He thought it was much funnier than I did.)
We went to Meow Wolf, which is a former bowling alley in Santa Fe, which contains a house in California in which an event has caused ructions in space and time that lead into other dimensions. It's a mad and glorious mashup of art, story, and Disneyland, and if you are in the SouthWest of America, you should go.
Ash has grown. He's seven months old today. He's the sweetest, nicest baby. He smiles and is funny. I'm in London this week, and I miss him.
Our friend Prune, who is French, said that he was like “the baby they would show you in a shop, if you wanted to buy a baby.”
"You mean, the display model?"
"Exactly. The Display model baby."
I love him so much. He likes music, and stories, and he likes books too.
Here is a photo of him liking a book. (The Chu's Day board book was a gift from my agent, who was amused that I had not thought to give him any of my own books. So she did.)
He likes it when I pretend to sneeze.
And here's a video of him a couple of weeks ago, wearing his cardigan that Delia Sherman knitted him.
Labels: Ash, Chu's Day Board Book, Memorial, Terry Pratchett, The View From the Cheap Seats
We Thought You Were Dead, with baby photos
I've been very bad at blogging for the last three months. I've actually been pretty bad at everything for the last three months, except for changing a baby, bathing a baby, remembering the words to old nursery rhymes, and helping Amanda to get enough sleep.
People ask me what cool new music I've been listening to, and all I can think of is Wally Whyton's 50 More All-Time Children's Favourites (which I had on LP when I was tiny and recently downloaded on MP3) and the Ellis/Laycock/Broadside Band's Old English Nursery Rhymes (which I'm only allowed to play when Amanda is not in earshot, even though it calms the baby like magic). Nobody seems very interested in my opinions about nappies aka diapers (when we use disposables, we use the Andy Pandy bamboo ones, no! come back! I used to be interesting...) or baby clothes (huge fan of the Magnificent Clothes magnetic clothes line, which allow you to get up in the night and change the baby without ever waking up enough to figure out complicated things like snaps or buttons or velcro) or...
There. No brain. I sound like a walking advert for baby things. If I get email done, or something read, I'm proud of myself. The rest of the time, it's changing the baby. Who mostly seems amused by the whole thing...
I've finished the giant proofread for a book coming out in May, called THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS. It's a collection of my nonfiction. It's not every speech, introduction or article I've written, but it's all the speeches that seemed important, all the articles I was still proud of, all the introductions that seemed to be about something bigger than just telling people about the book or author they were going to read. (Kat Howard helped such a lot: she went through the archives, read everything, and made an initial call about what should go in or go out. Then she sighed whenever I changed my mind or remembered a forgotten piece I'd written about something).
I'm about three months behind right now, on everything. And I'm cooking a new novel in the back of my head, which I was meant to start next week, but may be as far as three months away while I finish things that people are waiting for.
I'm thrilled that people have been buying and saying nice things about Sandman: Overture (bit.ly/OvertureDeluxe). It's been eight weeks at the top of the NYT Graphic Novel bestseller list, and it's made it onto lots of End of the Year Best Of lists, The consensus seems to be that it added something real to the Sandman story, and I'm not sure I wanted anything more than that, apart from the joy of working with J. H. Williams III.
Yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary. It was a quiet day, with a lot of love in it. We did not need to sacrifice the baby to the Fish Gods, or send him into space in an attempt to save him from this doomed planet before it explodes. I'm profoundly grateful to his gorgeous, brilliant and kind mother, my wife and friend and partner and love. I wouldn't change a thing.
It's worth all the sleep I've lost.
And I'll try and be a better Blogger, in the months to come, and a worse Tweeter and Facebooker and Tumblrer.
Thank you for sticking around.
People ask me what cool new music I've been listening to, and all I can think of is Wally Whyton's 50 More All-Time Children's Favourites (which I had on LP when I was tiny and recently downloaded on MP3) and the Ellis/Laycock/Broadside Band's Old English Nursery Rhymes (which I'm only allowed to play when Amanda is not in earshot, even though it calms the baby like magic). Nobody seems very interested in my opinions about nappies aka diapers (when we use disposables, we use the Andy Pandy bamboo ones, no! come back! I used to be interesting...) or baby clothes (huge fan of the Magnificent Clothes magnetic clothes line, which allow you to get up in the night and change the baby without ever waking up enough to figure out complicated things like snaps or buttons or velcro) or...
There. No brain. I sound like a walking advert for baby things. If I get email done, or something read, I'm proud of myself. The rest of the time, it's changing the baby. Who mostly seems amused by the whole thing...
I've finished the giant proofread for a book coming out in May, called THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS. It's a collection of my nonfiction. It's not every speech, introduction or article I've written, but it's all the speeches that seemed important, all the articles I was still proud of, all the introductions that seemed to be about something bigger than just telling people about the book or author they were going to read. (Kat Howard helped such a lot: she went through the archives, read everything, and made an initial call about what should go in or go out. Then she sighed whenever I changed my mind or remembered a forgotten piece I'd written about something).
I'm about three months behind right now, on everything. And I'm cooking a new novel in the back of my head, which I was meant to start next week, but may be as far as three months away while I finish things that people are waiting for.
I'm thrilled that people have been buying and saying nice things about Sandman: Overture (bit.ly/OvertureDeluxe). It's been eight weeks at the top of the NYT Graphic Novel bestseller list, and it's made it onto lots of End of the Year Best Of lists, The consensus seems to be that it added something real to the Sandman story, and I'm not sure I wanted anything more than that, apart from the joy of working with J. H. Williams III.
Yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary. It was a quiet day, with a lot of love in it. We did not need to sacrifice the baby to the Fish Gods, or send him into space in an attempt to save him from this doomed planet before it explodes. I'm profoundly grateful to his gorgeous, brilliant and kind mother, my wife and friend and partner and love. I wouldn't change a thing.
It's worth all the sleep I've lost.
And I'll try and be a better Blogger, in the months to come, and a worse Tweeter and Facebooker and Tumblrer.
Thank you for sticking around.
Labels: Amanda, Anniversary thoughts, Ash, Baby brain, Five Years, nappies