Urgent Letter From A Man Now Off Twitter, Tumblr & Tea

This leg - the UK leg, and the last - of the mammoth signing tour that started on June 13th, has just finished. About 50,000 people, probably about 150,000 things signed. (Said things including body parts, dolls, and a hairbrush. But mostly books and books and more books.)

It had many remarkable bits, of great joy. For example, they named a lane in Portsmouth THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. And not just any lane: it's beside the Canoe Lake, where I was walked in my pram, where I went with my grandparents (it was round the corner from their house at 36, Parkstone Avenue). There were a few hundred people assembled in the sun: the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth made a speech in which she put me on the list of Portsmouth Writers (Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Kipling were the other people on the list), the poet laureate of Portsmouth read two lovely poems, and then I pulled the cloth off the road sign and hugged lots of members of my family, and talked to people, and even met a 90 year old gentleman who told me how, when he was sleeping rough after  being demobbed from the army in World War 2, my grandmother took him in for Friday Night dinner and my Uncle Ronnie gave him his spare suit...

It made me smile. Then again, everything that day made me smile.

(These photos are from Elliott Franks's website at http://elliottfranks.photoshelter.com/gallery/Neil-Gaiman-event-18th-August-2013/G0000BGlc8FWrkSA/. Elliott was there as a photographer -- and also as my cousin.)

That night there was a really fun event at the Portsmouth Guildhall (preceded by tea for my family, who were all a bit baffled and delighted by this. Best bit was hearing several elderly aunts explain to another why she should watch Amanda's Dear Daily Mail video.) There was also a Dalek.

 

The next event of magic was held in Ely Cathedral.

The queue looked like this:

...only there were over a thousand people in it, and it wound up going all the way through the town. (photo from here.) The place was magical, and I signed for people until the small hours of the morning, while, as the perfect summer evening became twilight and then night, the cathedral bats flittered overhead.

(Photo, along with some of the best  signing photos I've seen is from http://narshada.co.uk/neil-gaiman-book-signing-ely-cathedral).

From there, to Oxford, and the Oxford Playhouse, and my favourite ever conversation-on-a-stage. Possible one of my favourite ever conversations. It was with Philip Pullman, who is smart and honest and has everything that you'd every want in a favourite English teacher...

Fortunately a lot of it was recorded and put up on the web. (Not, alas, the audience questions...) You can hear it here. It's Philip Pullman and me talking about books and authors we love, children's fiction, and whether we ever get to bring back stories from dreams.



And from there to the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

I talked about Memory and The Ocean at the End of the Lane with Charles Fernyhough, talked about my children's fiction with Vicky Featherstone (who brought along a surprise wolf head and the pig puppet from the National Theatre of Scotland's The Wolves in the Walls), talked comics and Sandman in particular with Hannah Berry, and talked to Margaret Atwood about, well, everything really. (Did you know she does an astoundingly scary impression of the Wicked Witch of the West? Oh, she does...)




Also, I CO-JUDGED A LITERARY DEATH MATCH. Amy Mason won. I'm reading her book, and I'm reading Briony Hatch by the Skinner sistren, and Craig Silvey's book, and Craig Collins's comics... frankly, I made out like a bandit.

And I was interviewed (and semi-heckled hilariously by Phill Jupitus and Mitch Benn) as part of the Ad Lib Comedy thingummy at the Fringe, and it was marvellous.

Here's a great audio interview by the Scottish Book Trust towards the latter, even more brain dead, part of the festival:
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/blog/reading/2013/08/neil-gaiman-interview-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane

From Edinburgh to Dundee, for a lunchtime signing and on to Inverness for the end of it all.  A wonderful conversation with my new friend Stuart Kelly, one last last last signing (event photos here) and I was done.

This is a photo of me being done.

(Photo from here.)

There's now a video up of the US leg of the tour... it gives you an idea of what it was like -- 20 cities in 80 seconds...




I'm now recovering and going back to being a writer again. It's a bit odd. Currently I have the kind of headache you get from from caffeine withdrawal, having survived the tour on massive amounts of tea. I'm going for walks and just getting everything back together. I look a bit less battered, which is good.

So, I have gone cold turkey from things like Tea, Twitter, Tumblr and, er,  probably other things too.

I'll put up the occasional photograph of a hill here, I expect.

....

This interview with Amanda makes me happy. It's the only interview I can remember that was about the two of us: http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2013/08/amanda_palmer_on_neil_gaiman_he_desperately_loves_to_be_surprised.php

...

Right. Nearly done. Some housekeeping before I vanish: First things first. PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO. Then spread it around. Share it. It will make you smile, and you get a great sense of Skottie Young's wonderful artwork...

That's the US trailer.

The UK trailer... well, that doesn't exist yet. They want YOU (yes, you) to help, by recording part of the trailer:

http://www.gaimanbooks.com/ftmtrailer is the link that explains all the voiceover competition...

and they've put an extract up at http://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/fortunately_the_milk_extract.

While, not to be outdone, Harper Collins are themselves giving away copies of Fortunately The Milk at  at http://harpercollinschildrens.tumblr.com/post/59489655003/giveaway-fortunately-the-milk-by-neil-gaiman

I'm afraid the UK Fortunately The Milk event (the one Bloomsbury are doing in association with Time Out and Foyles) is now sold out.

...

I'm off to be a writer for a bit, as I said. I'll blog if there's anything important: unplugging from the twin delights of Twitter & Tumblr.

I will next surface on the 14th of September at the Hackney Empire, where I will be the Voice of the Book on the opening night of the stage version of the radio version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (Tickets at http://www.hackneyempire.co.uk/hitchhikers)

In New York, the tickets for the Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer we are doing at the Town Hall to celebrate the release of the CD of the original tour is ALMOST SOLD OUT. There are still tickets, though, at the back of the balcony.  http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/03004B0CE260F20A

And finally, BlackBerry have made a very limited, not for sale, number of books of A Calendar of Tales, which are going out as gifts to the contributors and to those who helped make it all happen behind the scenes. You can see what the book looks like at http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/august/neil-gaiman-book (and read the tales and look at the pictures at http://acalendaroftales.com/)

...

And now I am going to sleep. Last night, my dreams were of signing books for people.  Everybody I had ever known was in the signing line, and I signed, and I signed, and I signed...

Labels: Bats, caffeine, Edinburgh Book Festival, Fortunately the Milk, Inverness, Margaret Atwood, philip pullman, Portsmouth, signing as much as I can, Southsea, tea, The Last Signing Tour

All my yesterday. Also a mouse.

Almost 25 years ago, researching the Sandman story that would become A Game Of You, I read up on New York and Hurricanes, and how very ill-prepared Manhattan is, and how vulnerable.

I worry about my East Coast friends, and I'm glad that Sandy isn't a full hurricane. Stay safe.

Yesterday morning started early with the Today Show on BBC Radio 4.  You can read about it and hear about it at http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9764000/9764349.stm. Philip Pullman and I talked about fairy tales, as a warm up to talking about them onstage at the Cambridge Theatre last night.

I went out to lunch with my editor and publisher at Bloomsbury books, talking about next year's FORTUNATELY, THE MILK (the silliest book I've ever written. Also the timey-wimiest. Also it has a bit with dinosaurs on a space ship, although was written long long before Doctor Who put dinosaurs on a space ship, and was actually vaguely inspired by a line about dinosaurs in a space ship I put in Good Omens, long long long ago). The English edition will be illustrated by an English illustrator, the American by an American. I vaguely hope this will continue to hold true all around the world....

After lunch I looked at my phone, and learned that Philip Pullman had gone to hospital, and that the Cambridge Theatre would now be me and someone else.

In the end the part of Philip Pullman was played by three other people: author Meg Rosoff, interviewer and moderator Rosie Boycott, and (special guest Philip Pullman) Audrey Niffenegger, who read The Three Snake Leaves from Philip's Grimm Tales.

I finished the evening by reading "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" to everyone, and telling them they could get it free from Audible. Then I did a signing, which was one of the mad kind, because there were many hundreds of people to sign for before the theatre closed. Did it all, stumbled away, hugged friends, ate dinner, bumped into more friends (including special surprise what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here friends Margaret Cho and Andrew O'Neill), and got home knackered but happy, throat sore from talking too much.

The housemouse that's living in the place I'm staying has ignored all the humane traps I put down and instead ate most of a probar and an entire packet of airplane peanuts from inside my jacket pockets. It is wiser than I am, at least in the ways of mice and men.

I went to see Arthur Darvill and a wonderful cast in Our Boys at the Duchess Theatre. Funny, sad, moving, relevant -- and playing to a house that seemed about half full, which seemed wrong. (Arthur has promised me music.) If you're in London, go and see it.

Public Radio's Selected Shorts has done a Poe Special, and they interviewed me about Poe when I was in Charlotte N.C. last month on the Unchained Tour. You can read about it at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/shorts/2012/oct/28/

(I wonder why I can't easily embed audio into Blogger any longer. I spend too much time on Tumblr, and then I come back to Blogger, and miss the simple easy Tumblr functionality.)

SO FAR "Click-Clack The Rattlebag", the free audible download, has raised about $31,000 via the US website for Donor's Choose, and about £5,700 via the UK website for Booktrust.

There's been a fair amount of confusion and problems with people signing into or signing up for Audible or getting it to play, for which apologies: I think the biggest problem with something like this is the speed with which it was put together, and I appreciate those of you who have made it work.

The story is up and free for another 36 hours. If you are in the UK it's http://www.audible.co.uk/scareus, for most of the rest of the world it's http://www.audible.com/scareus. (Germany is http://www.audible.de/pd/B009VHP3TG).

Labels: Mouse, philip pullman, Sandy, ScareUs

A quick one, while the wife is away

Small and helpful blogpost that still isn't the one I mean to write.

I'll be in Conversation with Philip Pullman, talking about fairy tales and writing, on October the 29th at London's Cambridge Theatre. Details are at http://www.seetickets.com/Event/PHILIP-PULLMAN-IN-CONVERSATION-WITH-NEIL-GAIMAN/Cambridge-Theatre/667581

and tickets are going ridiculously fast, which is why I thought I'd better nip on and mention it now.

I told one of my Unchained Tour stories  at Amanda Palmer's gig in San Diego. 

On Wednesday night, Amanda and her band will be in Minneapolis, at First Avenue,  and I'm going to tell a story there with her, and probably sign afterwards. This is the link to get tickets.

Over 20 years ago I saw and surprised Tori at First Avenue (and of course, The Flash Girls used to play there from time to time). It will be nice to go back...

(If you want to hear the new album, it's on her website on a Pay What You Want model at http://www.amandapalmer.net/shop/).

Last night I read a chapter of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE to the audience at George Mason's Fall For the Book festival. 15 hours before that I'd emailed the final draft of the book off to my publishers. It's now a real thing. 

And I better press Publish before this plane gets below 10,000 feet...

Labels: First Avenue, in conversation, philip pullman

Soon enough a cat post, I promise...

I'm proofreading the galleys of the UK edition of The Graveyard Book right now. Last night, at the exact moment I started to become convinced that these were amazingly clean galleys, there were no typos after the number of times we'd all been through the manuscript, and I should simply sign off on them and get on with my life, one character turns to another and says "Neil, I've broken the next para into five paras for clarity but if you want we can turn it back." Which was a comment from the copyeditor to me that had been written on the previous draft. After that I started squinting at the text and reading verrry slowly....

Philip Pullman in the Guardian, talking about why age banding books is such a magnificently wrongheaded idea, but also talking about what he knows when he starts a book:

When I sit down to write a book, I know several things about it: I know
roughly how long it will be, I know some of the events in the story, I know a
little about some of the characters, I know - without knowing quite how I'll get
to it - what tone of voice I want the narrative to be cast in.

But there are several things I don't know, and one of those is who will read it. You simply can't decide who your readership will be. Nor do I want to, because declaring that it's for any group in particular means excluding every other group, and I don't want to exclude anybody. Every reader is welcome, and I want my books to say so.

Which is pretty much true for me too, and sometimes all you need to know that it'll work is the tone of voice. When that works, everything works, and when you don't have it it's the intangible that stops the thing from being magic.

(On the age banding, from what I can figure out, the subtext of all this seems to be, in the UK more and more books are being sold through supermarkets. People in supermarkets don't have to know anything about what they're selling. They just need to know where to put it on the shelves. If publishers put colour-coded age bands on the books, indicating which books are for 7+ and which for 9+ and which for 11+, then supermarkets will order more books because they won't have to think about putting them out. And after all, the shelf-stackers don't need to know anything about dish-soap to sell that, so what makes books special?)

And now some good news:

Hi Neil,
I think you're already aware of this, but I wondered if you'd mind posting a follow-up to the story of Emru Townsend. I wrote to you back in April about Emru's search for a bone marrow donor and the desperate need for more people (especially non-caucasians) to get on their country's bone marrow registry. Here's the link to your original post for those who missed it:

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/04/my-life-in-green-and-purple.html

Emru and his sister Tamu have been campaigning like crazy to raise awareness for the bone marrow registry. Last week, we got some excellent news:

A donor match has finally been found for Emru! Here's a CBC News article on the story:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2008/06/05/qc-bonemarrowdonor0605.html

I should remind you that there was no match in the registry for Emru when he was originally diagnosed with leukemia. I believe that this match is a direct result of Emru and Tamu's tireless awareness campaign, and of people like you helping to get the word out to as many people as possible. Thank you. And thank you to your readers, many of whom passed on the word and got themselves registered.

Emru is still a long way from being healed. He must get into remission, stay in remission, be prepared for surgery, have the surgery, resist or fight off infection, risk the donation attacking his body or his body attacking the donation, and get through the first 100 days. Plus, his anonymous donor has the option of backing out at any point and there is currently no backup.

Still, this is a crucial first step. Our friend now has a good, fighting chance.

To your readers: Don't see this as the end of the story. There are still massive shortages in the registry and many, many people are still waiting to find matching donors. Emru and Tamu have already committed themselves to continuing their awareness campaign.

Emru's story shows that this isn't a lost cause; it's a solvable problem. You can save lives just by registering and getting others to do the same.

For more information, visit

http://www.healemru.com

Thank you so much!
--Jeff LeBlanc
and several other well-wishers...
Pasley Preston
Beverly Preston
Driss Zouak
Ceri Young
Arin Murphy Hiscock


I talked about the NPR interview I did during the Graveyard Book Audio recording a few days ago; http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91303720 is the Anansi Boys Bryant Park Book Club radio interview.

(I have to go back into the studio on Thursday -- we only realised this morning that there were no alternate takes for the UK of sentences with words like crib, diaper and flashlight in them, so I will go and replace them with sentences containing cots and nappies and torches.)

Just got an email to tell me that a pre-eminent banjo player would really like to play the Danse Macabre, which left my jaw on the floor with delight.

And here, for the people who asked, is a photo of a dog in the woods, yesterday. He's come a long way in a little over a year. I suppose I have as well...

Labels: age-banding, audio books, bone marrow, Dog, philip pullman