Being Alive. Mostly about Diana.

I'm in the UK right now, in the middle of nowhere, working on Monkey, about to go offline for a few days.

I came over to do three things: to give the BBC a day to promote Episode Four of the next season of Doctor Who, which I have written; to see Hilary Bevan Jones, a wonderful producer with whom I've been working for years, about a couple of things; and to see Diana Wynne Jones.

Thursday I was interviewed about Doctor Who all day. Mostly the interviews would go like this:

Them: "So, can you tell us the title of the episode?"

Me: "No."

It was a fun but sometimes frustrating day.

(This is a photo of Diana Wynne Jones around the time I first got to know her.)

Diana's been my friend since about 1985, but I was a fan of hers since I read Charmed Life in about 1978, aged 17. I've loved being her friend, and I'm pretty sure she loved being my friend. She was the funniest, wisest, fiercest, sharpest person I've known, a witchy and wonderful woman, intensely practical, filled with opinions, who wrote the best books about magic, who wrote the finest and most perceptive letters, who hated the telephone but would still talk to me on it if I called, albeit, always, nervously, as if she expected the phone she was holding to explode.

She adopted me when I was a 24 year old writer for magazines of dubious respectability, and spent the next 25 years being proud of me as I made art that she liked (and, sometimes, I didn't. She'd tell me what she thought, and her opinions and criticism were brilliant and precise and honest, and if she said "Yee-ees. I thought you made a bit of a mess of that one," then I probably had, so when she really liked something it meant the world to me).

As an author she was astonishing. The most astonishing thing was the ease with which she'd do things (which may be the kind of thing that impresses other writers more than it does the public, who take it for granted that all writer are magicians.But those of us who write for a living know how hard it is to do what she did). The honest, often prickly characters, the inspired, often unlikely plots, the jaw-dropping resolutions.

(She's a wonderful author to read aloud, by the way, as I discovered when reading her books to my kids. Not only does she read aloud beautifully, but denouments which seemed baffling read alone are obvious and elegantly set up and constructed when read aloud. "Children are much more careful readers than adults," she'd say. "You don't have to repeat everything for children. You do with adults, because they aren't paying full attention.")

She dedicated her book Hexwood to me, telling me that it was inspired by something that I'd once said about the interior size of British Woods, and I wrote a doggerel poem to thank her.

(Hang on. I bet I can find it. There.)

There's a kitten curled up in Kilkenny was given a perfect pot of cream
And a princess asleep in a thornwrapped castle who's dreaming a perfect dream
There's a dog in Alaska who'll dance with delight on a pile of mastodon bones
But I've got a copy of Hexwood (dedicated to me) by Diana Wynne Jones

There's an actress who clutches her oscar (and sobs, with proper impromptu joy),
There's a machievellian villain who's hit on a wonderf'lly evil ploy,
There's wizards in crystal castles and kings on their golden thrones
But I've got a copy of Hexwood -- dedicated -- to me! -- by Diana Wynne Jones

There's a fisherman out on the sea today who just caught the perfect fish,
There's a child in Luton who opened a genie-filled bottle, and got a wish,
There are people who live in glass houses have managed to outlaw stones,
But I've got a copy of Hexwood, dedicated to me, by Diana Wynne Jones

I crop up, in semi-fictionalised form, in a book by Diana -- Deep Secret -- and she told me once that the young Chrestomanci in The Lives of Christopher Chant was sort of based on me too. I'm proud of both of those things, even if it does mean that people who have read Deep Secret sometimes ask whether I really ate two breakfasts while mostly asleep, and I tell them that yes, I did.

So. Diana, who smoked (with joy and delight and enthusiasm) got lung cancer. And so each time I would come to the UK, I'd go and have dinner with her and her husband John, and the dinner would be cooked and accompanied by Dave Devereux, who has been helping them, and somewhere in there I would see our mutual friend Tom Abba, as well. Each time, I'd take a few minutes at the end and I'd make sure that I'd said to Diana anything I wanted to be sure that I'd said, because I knew I might not see her again, and unsaid things are the hardest.

(Two photos of Diana from last September. She'd just stopped all chemotherapy, on the advice of her doctors, who said it wasn't doing any good. When I originally posted the second of them, it was with the caption Here is Diana Wynne Jones looking beatific in her kitchen today. The inexplicable notice is from about 1987.)

(Here's a photo of the two of us together from that September 2010 trip. I think the photo was actually taken by Robin McKinley)

I'd planned to see her yesterday, Saturday, to go down to Bristol with my daughter Holly. But on Friday morning I got a call from Dave Devereux telling me that it was time and I should come now. I called Hilary Bevan Jones, apologised (she was very understanding, as were the other people I was meant to see), and I went to Bristol.

I wrote a letter that night to a friend. I'll quote it here, if you don't mind.

She's at a hospice. It's beautiful there, and the staff were wonderful - helpful and nice and you never felt like you were bothering them, as one does at so many institutions.

I saw the family outside. They warned me that Diana was very frail and changed.

She was on morphine, breathing heavy and hard, as if she was fighting for every breath, and I sat by her bedside. I thought about the phrase "your last breath..." as every breath felt like it could be final. But she kept breathing. I told her you said goodbye. Her hair was whiter and she seemed thinner, but not really changed. but it seemed less like someone was actually there -- as if there was a distance between the person I'd known and the body breathing in the bed. Less of a distance than with a body -- but there was a sense that felt like a certainty that she wasn't going to open her eyes and talk again. This sleep was final, and soon the breathing would stop.

I went out and sat in the waiting room with Tom Abba, and we talked about Diana, and we both cried a bit.

Then I went back in with Tom and we sat some more.

I thought about Dogsbody, which I have to write an introduction to, and wondered what star Diana would be, if she was a star.

I said goodbye again.

Then I went out, and Mickey, her son, went in and sat with her, and I talked to the family. I met Diana's sisters for the first time, although I had heard much about them.

I spent the rest of the day with the family, with John and Diana's sister Isobel and Mickey (with whom I'd shared a room at World Fantasy Con in 1988), and we had a Bristolian Chinese meal, and talked about lots of things.

And I told John I'd come and see him whenever I come to Bristol, and I shall.

It's hard. But I am glad I did it, and they said that Diana was pleased that I was coming, and perhaps somehow she heard me and knew I was there.

I stayed up late that night until I could talk to Amanda back in Boston about what had happened that day, and once I had talked to her I felt better.

In the morning I was woken by a phone call from Dave, telling me that Diana had passed away in the night.

The news was out -- someone had already changed her Wikipedia page to give it a date of death.

I posted this on Twitter:

Rest in Peace, Diana Wynne Jones. You shone like a star. The funniest, wisest writer & the finest friend. I miss you.

There are some wonderful reminiscences coming in -- I loved this one by Emma Bull. (My family travelled to Minneapolis on the same plane as Diana the time Emma is talking about. Diana used to tell me she had a travel jinx, something I only really started to believe when the plane door fell off.)

I felt sad, but also felt lucky. Lucky that I'd known her, lucky that I'd gone and said goodbye on the Friday and not tried to wait until the Saturday. Lucky to have had a friend like that.

I do miss her, very much. I have some wonderful friends. I have people in my life who are brilliant, and people who are colourful, and people who are absolutely wonderful, and who make the world better for their being in it. But there was only one Diana Wynne Jones, and the world was a finer one for having her in it.

Labels: bigger on the inside, Diana Wynne Jones

My Week In Pictures

I got up particularly early this morning in order to blog, and the first piece of email was a request from Steven Moffat for me to write Production Notes for Doctor Who Monthly about my episode, so I wrote that and there was my blogging time gone.

So instead of a well-considered discussion of my last ten days, I'm going to carry on from where I left off, in pictures.

This is Liam McKean, son of Dave and Clare McKean. He is standing beside the Garden Thing, which is something strange and artistic and faintly haunting that his sister Yolanda made.

I had a wonderful day at the McKeans. We picked blackberries and apples from their orchard.

This is Clare, above, picking blackberries. It's scary and thrilling to think I've known them for quarter of a century.

Dave, below, has just finished lunch in the George in Rye. I agreed, as I left, to write a children's book called FORTUNATELY, THE MILK for him.

I accidentally left lots of things to charge telephones with in their house, so they would not forget me.

I stayed overnight with my daughter Holly (in photo with her eyes tactically closed) and her flatmate, my scary god-daughter Hayley Campbell, offspring of Eddie and Anne Campbell of Brisbane.

This is an accidentally moody black and white shot of Thea Gilmore and Nigel Stonier, at the Radio 2 studio in Manchester the next night. Thea has a really great new album out called Murphy's Heart, and you can get a taster of it over at http://www.theagilmore.net/welcome.cfm.

From there to Bristol, where I saw Diana Wynne Jones, with special surprise she-was-just-leaving-as-I-was-arriving guest Robin McKinley. (You can read Robin's account of the visit at her blog, which is http://robinmckinleysblog.com/2010/09/23/fame-sort-of/)

The last time I was there, in April, Diana was not in good shape. This time she was much more chipper and happy. She's writing another book, and has a book after that she wants to write, and she remains one of my favourite people in the world.

From one old friend to another: Terry Pratchett and I met for Sushi in Cardiff the following evening, for Mysterious Reasons That We Are Not Announcing Yet. This is a photograph of us toasting Something Unexplained with champagne.

The next day was Doctor Who. Normally writers do not have much to do on set except step on things and get in the way, but I had agreed to be interviewed by Doctor Who Confidential, so I was indulged as I did the sort of things writers love to do which are normally frowned upon.

Like sneak into the prop stores, looking for Daleks to hug. (Fortunately, I did not see any weeping angels.)

Like being interviewed by Charlie McDonnell on the TARDIS steps (http://charliemcdonnell.com/an-explanation/)

Like stealing a TARDIS and head off across the infinite vastness of Time and Space battling evil wherever it occurs...

Sorry. Did I say that out loud? I meant, take a picture of myself on the TARDIS set.

I said goodbye to Director Richard Clark and the amazing Matt Smith (who makes even my duff lines sound good) and left Cardiff on the last train, missed the last train to Heathrow so shared a cab with a Greek Doctor who had come up from Swansea and missed the last train too. A couple of hours sleep, and then I flew to Boston...

Where, on Sunday morning, I found myself working as a roadie for Evelyn Evelyn, as they performed a Super Music Friends at the Yo Gabba Gabba! concerts for an audience of mostly three year olds and their parents.

They performed "Elephant Elephant", which you can see enacted by puppets here.

I liked this photo of them in the Wang Theatre dressing room...

Then I walked over to Boston Public Library, where Karen Hesse, Jerry Spinelli, Grace Lin and I were being honoured as Literary Lights for Children. http://www.bpl.org/general/associates/literarylightschildren.htm

It was a wonderful event, filled with enthusiastic schoolkids, and followed by a signing. I spoke last, and by the time it got to me, Jerry and Karen and Grace had already said everything there was to say, so I talked about the importance of daydreaming and why you should stare out of the window sometimes or actually a lot.

My future mother-in-law, Kathy, threw an engagement party for Amanda and me on Monday evening, which was really kind of her, and fun, and I got to meet lots of Amanda's neighbours and friends and relations, and some of my cousins came in too, to even out the numbers. (Here's the last few days from Amanda's point of view at her blog.)

Yesterday I finally got to see Amanda in Steven Bogart's production of Cabaret at the ART Theatre. I'm not going to enthuse about it here, mostly because the last of the tickets sold out when the first rave reviews appeared. But it was masterful. The things I'd had a problem with during the run-through I saw a month ago had all gone away.

Cabaret was followed by Amanda's Late Night Cabaret, a free-floating event starring an astonishing performer called Meow Meow, and, after that, Amanda herself. I do not have any photos of Meow Meow crowd surfing, alas.

Here are the press comments from her webpage: if anything they're understated.

Meow Meow, accompanied by Lance Horne.

Amanda and Meow Meow duet on "Fake Plastic Trees".

They are doing the Late Night Cabaret again tonight, only more so -- tickets are cheap and available at https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/8419705 until 8:30 tonight, or at the door, and you might want to bring some flowers to fling Meow Meow's magnificent entrance. If you're in the Boston area, come on out. You will, as the Cheshire Cat said, see me there.

Labels: blackberrying, cabaret, Dave McKean, Diana Wynne Jones, Doctor Who, Evelyn Evelyn, Holly, liam mckean, meow meow, photo of me with talented and nice people, Robin McKinley, TARDIS theft, Thea Gilmore

Eleven Days or Thereabouts

Dear Diary

right. When last heard of I was putting on fancy clothes to go to the Newbery Caldecott Wilder Awards Dinner, and receive the Newbery Medal.

I wrote the speech back in April, and recorded it then, so that it could be given out to people at ALA as a CD and printed in The Hornbook. Then I didn't look at it again, figuring that way it would be new and interesting to me when I got to it at ALA.

This did nothing to decrease my nervousness; neither did wearing a suit.

Beth Krommes gave her acceptance speech for the Caldecott Medal for her book The House in the Night, written by Susan Marie Swanson. I gave my speech and somehow wasn't nervous any more when I gave it. Then Ashley Bryan was given the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and had a thousand librarians singing and reciting poetry together. It was pretty wonderful.

Here's a Scripps report on the evening, my editor Elise Howard writing about the experience of getting The Graveyard Book a chapter at a time over three years; and at http://wowlit.web.arizona.edu/blog there is a multi-part interview with Nick Glass, who was on the Newbery Medal Committee.

So I won the Newbery Medal (or did I? At http://jameskennedy.com/2009/07/13/i-win-the-newbery/ James Kennedy tells a very different story.)

The following morning was a signing that went on for a very long time. As I walked away from it I got two phone calls: the first to tell me that a dear friend, Diana Wynne Jones would be going in for an operation. I called Diana, and I'm not sure whether we reassured each other (although the operation was a success, and by the time you read this she should be back at home). As I put down the phone on her the phone rang again, and I learned that my old friend Charles Brown of LOCUS Magazine had died, peacefully, asleep on the plane on his way back from Readercon, one of his favourite SF conventions.

Charles was irreverent, astonishingly well-read, opinionated, funny, and he knew where pretty much all the bodies were buried in the world of science fiction and fantasy, or fancied he did. I enjoyed his company from the first time I met him, in the UK, in around 1987, enjoyed and was frustrated in equal measure by his interviewing technique from about 1989 on (he would ask opinionated questions and make statements and really have a terrific conversation with you - then, when he wrote up the interview he would leave himself and everything he had said out, as if it was a long monologue). (Here's an extract from one of those with me in 2005.)

He had been expecting to die for a long time - his health was not great - and had put various mechanisms in place to make sure that Locus Magazine continued after his death. Having been dragooned into being part of one of these mechanisms, I wound up seeing Charles every few years at meetings which existed, as far as I could tell, solely so that he could see a bunch of his friends once a year and point out to them, with a delighted chortle, that he was not dead yet and had no need of their help: have a bagel.

(I suspect, by the way, that the Locus Special Offer for readers of this blog still applies, seeing the webpage is still up.)

This is his placeholder Obituary in Locus.

The last time I saw him we had brunch in the Hotel Claremont in Berkeley. He told me delighted stories about the 1968 Worldcon there, of the intersection at that con of the SF old guard and the (then) young hippies, told scandalous stories and named names. I have forgotten all the stories and all the names, except for the information that convention attendees used the laundry chutes as a quick way to get downstairs, which was the least scandalous thing I learned.

Then I did a CBLDF panel, during which I took pleasure in pointing out that the same Nick Bertozzi comic, The Salon that had almost got Gordon Lee imprisoned in Rome, Georgia, last year, was in this year's Lynda Barry edited Best American Comics 2008.

Home from Chicago. Signed hundreds of book jackets with Miss Amanda Palmer for her Who Killed Amanda Palmer book. Then, in company with Miss Maddy and Maddy's friend Claire, we set out on a mad adventure (which we are still on).

In San Francisco we stayed at the Hotel Union Square, which was amazingly convenient and nice. Visited Google, got to be backstage at the Fire Festival, dined with Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman and their marvellous family (I suspect Michael and Ayelet of having acquired their children from some amazing Madeleine L'Engle-like Wrinkle in Time kit)(also they have a drumkit for their kids in the lounge), saw Wicked because the girls wanted to se it, and they loved it utterly (my mini-review? love Gregory Maguire's book, liked the book of the show, was sort of unmoved by the songs which seemed no better than they had to be), lunched with Daniel Handler and Lisa Brown, and generally tried to be on holiday, except for Sunday Morning.

Sunday Morning I did a reading and a signing for Brian Hibbs (and a hundred people) at Comix Experience. It celebrated Brian's Twentieth Comix Experience Year. Brian describes the signing here. (He also describes the problem with Twitter and signings and suchlike in a fascinating essay here.)

On Tuesday evening, as I blogged at the time, we found ourselves in Las Vegas, where an improvisational Tarot comedy troupe had much fun interviewing me and then making comedic theatre, and a great time was had by all... ( my card was the three of cups)

Picture by Tarot show producer Emily Jillette.

And now I am in San Diego, where tomorrow, Friday, I will be doing a Coraline panel (room 6A at 10:30) and an autographing (turn up in the autographing area at 9.00am and pull tickets from a hat. 100 of you will get in).

Tonight I had dinner with Henry Selick and friends, and bumped into Mr Miyazaki and the Studio Ghibli crew outside the restaurant, so got to introduce Henry Selick to Mr Miyazaki, which made Henry happy. A wonderful San Diego moment.

and that's all

Neil

...

PS:

This brought me joy: The Independent newpaper in the UK put the Graveyard Book audiobook second on their list of Year's Best audiobooks (and the first was a Doctor Who audiobook).

This made me smile too, Wired's list of unfilmable comics and books: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/07/after-watchmen-whats-unfilmable-these-legendary-texts/

On the other hand, my appearance on Kevin Smith's list of the five coolest people I've met at the San Diego Comic-Con http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/07/kevin-smith-comic-con.html put me in mind of the time I encountered Kevin Smith. It was round the back of the San Diego Convention Centre, near the loading bay. I was on my way to a panel when a gentleman with a kerchief-mask covering his lower face, holding a brace of pistols and wearing a rakish tricorn hat leapt out and demanded my wallet, and to dance a measure with my female companions. Obviously, I was having none of it, and with a cry of "Never, miscreant!" I stumbled into the fray. During our struggle the kerchief-mask slipped and I was shocked to see that our attacker was in fact director, writer and raconteur Kevin Smith himself. He fled, dropping my wallet and also several of the original Graphitti Buddy Christ and Jay & Silent Bob toys.

I can only presume that Mr Smith's description of me in EW as "a sweetheart" was due to the fact that I did not turn him in that day to the San Diego magistrates that day to be hanged and gibbeted as a common highwayman or footpad.

Labels: Charles Brown, comix ecsperience, Diana Wynne Jones, God I love librarians, Henry Selick, kevin smith, Locus, Newbery Medal, Tarot

American Gods Blog, Post 125

More from the Strange STuff People E-Mail Me Department: http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-gaiman-neil.asp is an interview with me (you have to page down past the biography stuff). http://www.kiplinger.com/spending/ is -- right now anyway -- something that lists the best prices of "this week's bestselling book, CD, DVD and software." American Gods is the book (and Fatbrain is currently the best price, it says).

Did a signing in Bristol at lunchtime which was lovely. It should have been an evening signing with a reading and stuff, really. Saw Diana Wynne Jones and several other friends, albeit too briefly in every case. Biut I got to tell Diana of Maddy's addiction to WARLOCK AT THE WHEEL, finally... Then got the train back and did an AOL chat, then London Live radio, now back in the hotel.

Up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go to Norwich for a lunchtime signing, then on to Canterbury where I shall see Dave McKean and his family, which I am looking forward to.

Sunday is the Giles Brandreth radio show on LBC, and a desperate attempt to see as many people as possible. Monday is editorial meetings, sign 300+ books in the Headline offices, and, in the evening, do some filming and reading and such with Tori for some album stuff. Tuesday morning I fly home.

Wish I had some trenchant and brilliant comments to make on the media or something, but mostly I'm just pooped. People have stopped assuming I'm American though, and my daughter Holly, when I phoned home last night, said "Dad! You sound so English!" which I shall take as a compliment, although I'm not entirely sure that was how she meant it. Really, my accent is just a universal sort of case of "you aren't from round here, are you?"

Labels: American Gods Blog, aol, Bristol, Dave McKean, Diana Wynne Jones, Holly, interviews, Maddy, radio, tour