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

I bet you thought I was dead...

I'm not really sure what it says about the last month and a half that the last actual blog post was the day before THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE was published, June the 17th.  Mostly it probably says that when I had any down time I was too tired to blog.

So I will do a brief recap of what happened.

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE was published. It went to #2 in the UK (beaten by Dan Brown) and to #1 in the US. It's still on both bestseller lists, six weeks later. (I think it's now at #7 in the US.)

The reviews have been fantastic. Ones that made me particularly happy would include the New York Times review

“Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet,” Neil Gaiman writes in his slim, dark dream of a new novel, “The Ocean at the End of the Lane.” “But they are never lost for good.” Who we used to be sometimes seems like a faint shadow of who we are now, but Gaiman helps us remember the wonder and terror and powerlessness that owned us as children.(...)Gaiman is especially accomplished in navigating the cruel, uncertain dreamscape of childhood.
There is a moment, toward the end of this novel, when the narrator drops into the duck pond (or ocean, as the Hempstocks call it), and his mind melts and achieves a kind of transcendent understanding: “I saw the world I had walked since my birth and I understood how fragile it was, that the reality I knew was a thin layer of icing on a great dark birthday cake writhing with grubs and nightmares and hunger.”
Which replicates the experience I have whenever reading one of Gaiman’s books. His mind is a dark fathomless ocean, and every time I sink into it, this world fades, replaced by one far more terrible and beautiful in which I will happily drown.

And A.S. Byatt reviewing it in the Guardian (!), and, well, hundreds of reviews, actually, and I've lost all the links now. But people, on the whole, have liked it.

There have been lots of interviews with me. In some of them I say the same things, and in some I say different things. For example, here's the Financial Times asking rapid-fire questions.

I went on a tour. Sometimes I was on a bus, and sometimes I wasn't. I didn't get a lot of sleep, and I signed many many thousands of books for many thousands of really astonishingly nice and patient people.

(Photo by the invaluable Cat Mihos.)

I'll grab some accounts from people's blogs (thank you, denizens of Twitter for pointing me at some good ones): Here's an account of the Symphony Space evening, when I was interviewed by Erin Morgenstern.  Here's a beautiful account of the Chicago signing, from someone standing next to me making it all work. And here's another, with photo of lovely people who ran the event too.

After Portland, I went ot Seattle and had a magical break in order to teach 18 of the smartest writers I've ever encountered how to... well, I'm not sure what I taught them how to, actually. Mostly I learned from them. But they were students at Clarion West: I inherited them from Elizabeth Hand, and I passed them on to Joe Hill, and I think they all have a great future ahead of them. (Over 700 writers applied for the 18 places.)

You can see some of them (and me) if you click on this link, then go to extreme right of the third row: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/interactive/2013/aug/03/selfies-celebrity-instagram-twitter-photography

Then I went back on the road. It turns into a bit of blur again immediately, because a plane tragically crashed in San Francisco on landing, which threw all plans into disarray closed off a runway and meant that the following day I didn't get to Ann Arbor until two hours after the signing was meant to have started, and everyone was really nice...

My bag was lost and spent 4 days following me around the country.

The tour finished in Lexington, when John Scalzi introduced me and interrogated me while a rock band played loudly next door: Look, here is me in a Cyberman head backstage with Scalzi. And then it finished properly in Cambridge two days after that. And then it finished later that week at Comic-Con in San Diego.

By the time of Comic-Con I was VERY tired indeed.

Entertainment Weekly took a photo of me there. I looked like this:

I presented Eisners, avoided being snogged by my co-presenter Jonathan Ross (as a follow up to this 2007 moment)(Mr Ross kissed John Barrowman instead), although I made up for it by kissing Chip Kidd instead when he came up to collect Chris Ware's final Eisner Award. I was on a great Sandman panel with Sam Kieth, J. H, Williams III, Dave McKean, Todd Klein and Shelly Bond. I was on  panels about Jack Kirby and Will Eisner, and there was a Spotlight panel, where I was interviewed (and, unsurprisingly, embarrassed) by Jonathan Ross:

I went home. My wife came off tour. I picked her up at the airport with a handmade sign.

We went to the Newport Folk Festival. We painted a mural on an unborn baby's wall.




 We both recovered a bit more.

Yesterday, I started writing again.

Today I flew to Canada for the start of the next leg of the tour. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. All sold out, I'm afraid.

Next week I go to the Netherlands and sign in Rotterdam and Utrecht (Details on WHERE'S NEIL), and will be at the Lowlands Festival at 17:30 on Saturday afternoon. Then round two of the UK, and on to the Edinburgh Book Festival. The Edinburgh Book Festival events are sold out...

If you are in the South of England, and free on the evening of the 18th of August, come to Portsmouth and watch me do an EVENING WITH NEIL GAIMAN and a book signing in the Guildhall. That afternoon, there will be a naming ceremony as a small road by the Canoe Lake becomes "The Ocean at the End of the" Lane. It points at the Atlantic Ocean -- or at least at the English Channel...  (Details here.) If you think I'm delighted by this, you'd be right, but a lot of the delight has to do with all of my Portsmouth Relatives Who Have All Moved To Exotic Places Like Harrow coming back for the day to watch me beam delightedly at the lane-naming, and to tell me that my grandparents would have been proud.

Baffled, undoubtedly, but proud nonetheless.

Labels: San Diego Comic Con, signing as much as I can, The naming of lanes, The Ocean At The End of the Lane, Touring

Fully Booked - Me In Manila - More Information - Free!

Just to remind everyone (because the Fully Booked website at http://www.fullybookedonline.com/revelations is a little unclear) tonight's Prize Giving event at the Rockwell Tent at 7 pm is Free. Fully Booked is also giving away tonight the 100 tickets for tonight's signing. They will be raffled off to everyone who turns up, using a computer randomizer to pick people.

Tomorrow's signing event is at 4 pm at North Court, Power Plant Mall. It's for about 500 people. That's the one that you had to buy 2K of books to get your books signed.

Tonight at Rockwell, Fully Booked will also be giving away 50 free signing passes for the signing tomorrow. These are again going to be drawn at random by the magic of computer.

As a last thing, I was handed late last night the two books of award winners in comics and in prose from the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards that Fully Booked and I have been sponsoring for the last 5 years. They are really solid, good-looking books I'm proud to have been a part of helping to bring into existence. They'll be on sale tonight -- but only after the award winners are announced (because the winners are in there and we don't want to give it away).

I'll pre-sign a bunch of them today that Fully Booked will have on sale tonight.

Labels: Fully Booked, Philippines, signing as much as I can

All Questions, All the Time

The excitement at this end, if that's the right word for it, is all about my son Mike, who was on his bike when a car decided to occupy the same space he was in, and who now has a cleanly broken leg and a destroyed bike (and semi-destroyed bike helmet, and glad I am it was his helmet and not his head). His mum has gone to San Francisco to help him and bring him back. Seeing that he's going to have to work from home, we figured it would be easier for that home to be here, rather than an apartment up many stairs. He'll arrive on Monday, and I've made up a bed for him on the ground floor.

(Wear your bike helmet, he said to the world, making a mental note to buy himself a bike helmet.)

...

Loved this Wired review of Blueberry Girl, mostly for the opening:

The only weird thing about Blueberry Girl is that it's really not weird.

...

One of the best things about supporting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and having this blog and the Twitter account is that occasionally things spontaneously pop into existence. (The connection with Black Phoenix Alchemy is one of them.) Back in January a blog entry someone sent me about a coffee shop in Indonesia selling Author Coffee suddenly turned into several different versions of Neil Gaiman novelty coffee.

Joan of Dark from Strange Brew Coffee in Indiana did one (details, and recipe and pictures at http://joanofdarkknits.blogspot.com/2009/01/neil-gaiman-needs-coffee.html), the Man They Call Widgett came up with another, and Erica from ZubZubicecream came up with a third. Which she has kept on the menu and had pledged to donate the revenue from it to the CBLDF. So I was thrilled when this came in...

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

Sent off a donation to the CBLDF today! I think the best part of hosting your coffee drink is the conversations it sparks, you have some very interesting, intelligent, and well read fans. Honestly though, watching people's eyes light up and hearing them squeal "Omigod, you have a NEIL GAIMAN COFFEE?" is pretty rewarding too! One of the best reactions was having someone order one, drive away, and minutes later pull back in to tell me with slightly glazed eyes that it was the most incredible thing ever. *grin*

Thanks again, and best wishes,
Erica

ZubZub!

Which reminded me that I had never posted the recipe for Erica's Neil Gaiman coffee (with all profits to the CBLDF hurrah) here. It is:

Recipe for one Neil Gaiman Coffee

1 scoop Ghirardelli dark ground chocolate
1/2 shot bitter almond syrup such as Orgeat
2-3 shots of rich espresso
steamed milk
black cherry Italian syrup (I used Torrani)

Put the dark chocolate in the bottom of a glass, add the almond syrup and coffee, then stir.
Cover with steamed milk and foam, then drizzle with dark cherry syrup.

And it looks like this. You can buy it at ZubZub, in Boonville, California.

I was wondering if I might get a book signed by you. Yes, I am aware that I should send it to you with all postage paid, but I have a problem - I don't actually have the book yet. I am looking into buying it off the site and wondering if it might not be too much trouble to pay the extra, or however it might work out, and get it a little sooner than it would take to get it and send it there and back. I was hoping to get it back in time for a present to someone.
-Tanya

You know, I need to update the FAQs on getting stuff signed. The best shot at buying something signed by me is still going to Greg Ketter at Dreamhaven Books. Greg owns and runs the neilgaiman.net website.

Do not send him books in the hopes he will get them signed and returned. The volume of books coming in was such that he had to stop doing that, especially since he downsized DreamHaven to a one-man operation. The books you send just get returned. If you buy a book from Greg, he can get it signed for you, as long as you understand that he has no control over when I will stop by to sign, and as each time I go there to sign it takes longer and there are more books, and because I am on the road a lot, it can often take several months for me to find an afternoon to get back to DreamHaven and just sign books for an afternoon.

Greg cannot guarantee that I will get books signed and personalised in time for birthdays and suchlike. He just can't. I do not live in the DreamHaven basement, and time is always at a premium.

So DreamHaven is always your best bet for getting anything signed, but please, read http://neilgaiman.net/ship-sign.php first. That's Greg telling you what he can and cannot manage:

If you want to have an item signed or personalized, be sure to say so in the 'Signing Information' section of the checkout form. For personalized books, please doublecheck to make sure that all names are correctly spelled before you send the order. If there is a special occasion involved - birthday, wedding, holiday, etc. - you can mention that too. (Please do not request elaborate messages or quotes - they won't happen. Also, Neil is not going to write that you are his best friend, or his biggest fan, or the love of his life.)

Sorry, but we don't take requests for doodles or drawings. They either happen or they don't, depending Neil's schedule and whim.

If you don't need personalizations, and all the items you are ordering say 'Signed Copies in Stock' or 'Signed Edition', they will ship right away just like unsigned items.

For items that need to be signed or personalized, expect a delay of 2-3 months, depending on Neil's schedule. We don't know when Neil will be stopping by. Really. We usually find out less than 24 hours before it actually happens. So please be patient. You can check the news page to see when Neil last stopped by, and approximately when your order was shipped.

Dear Neil,

I have just got my first book published but I do not have an agent and I want to do a book tour. Do you have any idea how I could go about this? Do I need an agent to do a book tour?

George

You don't need an agent for a book tour, but you do need a real sense that there are people who would like to see you and listen to you read from your book and have you sign books for them. Otherwise you're wasting everyone's time, especially your own. (You could be writing another book, for a start.) Spend the money you would have spent on fuel and hotel rooms sending copies of your book with a press release to local newspapers, or drumming up interest on the web, or doing anything that isn't:

1) somehow convince a store that doesn't know who you are or want you that you need to sign there and
2) then try to get people to show up.

Which is no fun. Almost as little fun as staring out at an empty space for an hour, occasionally telling people that you do not work there and you cannot direct them to the toilets.

I'm not saying don't do a tour. I am saying that you had better know why you're doing it, and have people who would very much like you to come and make an appearance in their shops, or who would like a signed copy of your book, before you go.

(I was going to point you at an essay I did on signings and what they are for and how to do them, in a collection of speeches called Gods and Tulips, but I just checked the CBLDF website at http://www.cbldf.com/Neil_Gaiman_s/30.htm and couldn't find it, so it may be out of print.)


Hey Mr. Gaiman,
Do you ever think you'll try writing a comic series again? Rather then just writing the occasional issue of something here or there. Just wondering because I really loved Sandman and would like to see what you could do with another series, given the time.

I very much doubt it. Writing the 75 issues of Sandman (and the follow-ups) took the better part of a decade, and I'd rather take a decade to do something I own and control and that feels like it's mine. 

And that's so much easier to do with prose than it is with comics.

Neil,

how consciously do you think Thief of Always influenced you in writing Coraline? (I know how much of the creative process is a subconscious whirlwind that takes in everything you experience and then surfaces whatever amalgamation of them it decides to at the unsuspecting conscious self from time to time, so the question is impossible to answer precisely, but still, I'd be delighted to hear your own opinion, subjective as it can be.

Yours truly (who made sure to read Coraline to his kids a week earlier than letting them see it in the movie theatre in order for them to first see it in their own imagination).

Well, I was halfway through writing Coraline when Clive Barker's book The Thief of Always came out. I looked at the back cover, thought "Mm. Could be a little Coraline-y" and so didn't buy it. That was how much it influenced me during the writing process. (It also made me sigh, and regretfully let go of an adult book title I'd been treasuring, The Thief of Night.)

About a decade later, some years after Coraline had been published, I was sent a copy of The Thief of Always and a Bernard Rose film script of the book, and asked if I wanted to work on a film adaptation, and I read and enjoyed them both, and thought that really, the book wasn't anywhere near as Coraline-y as I had feared, but thought the Bernard Rose script was really good and there wasn't anything I could add to it, so I passed.

Hey hello Neil
howyou go?
Hey that I spend with the page of coraline
Good of it I do not believe that it is a problem
but what to it my me worries it is that due to the fact that there were no many Mexican they have not liked your movie not many saw her
well alone those of the urban castes your you know: Gothic, darks, gloomers, emos, blablablablba.

But I on the other hand of not being for my sister had not known anything of Coraline and about it I am glad pense that the dirigio such a tim Burton

And it that did not know nothing of you talvez could read your book of coraline
If I could go exposicionde coraline, but not, esat of another side ....... jejejeje is funny of another side as Coraline but I do not have the key to enter

So I have to go
but and of knowing you get my commentary
If itis like that
It will tell you the dream that I had it brings over of the world of coraline
.....
...
..
I ..... I could be in the world of coraline with everything and the village in which she was

There really is a magic that translation websites add to our lives, isn't there? I don't really know what you wanted, but if I had I doubt I would have enjoyed it anywhere near as much.

Hear they're doing Addams Family on Broadway. Based more on Chuck's stuff than tv/movies. Do you opine?

My friend Julian Crouch, who designed and co-directed the Improbable/National Theatre of Scotland The Wolves In The Walls, is working on it. Honestly, anything that casts Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia is all right in my book. I hope it's good, and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

(And, um, "Chuck" Addams. Really? Are you sure Charles Addams was crying out for a posthumous nickname? I mean, really sure?)

Dear Neil,

I'm Seventeen and would like to start writing. I was just wondering if you had any advice on structuring a plot for a story. What should I consider before I begin writing

I can't think of anything that doesn't sound facetious or silly. Mostly you should consider whether you've actually got a story to tell, I suspect. Beyond that, just write the stories. You're seventeen. Write some stories. Start them somewhere, finish them somewhere. Give them to friends to read over. Write some more. Structuring a plot is something to worry about once you feel comfortable writing and finishing things and getting to the end; and it's often something that you do in the second draft anyway, or the fifth, where you reread what you've written and realise that perhaps it will be more effective if you start it at the end or in the middle, or from the point of view of the invisible cow. Just write your stories, as best you can.

Neil, I just wanted to let you know that not only does my 4-year-old love "Blueberry Girl," but all on her own she decided that she wanted me to read it aloud to her -- while she danced. The cadences and beautiful illustrations have inspired her that much.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

Best letter of the day. Thank you back.

i need to learn more about you pleas I need this for a reading report BTW I LOVE GRAVE YARD BOOK

I suspect that you aren't reading the blog, and are waiting for me to reply. But just in case you are reading this, and while I won't do your homework, you should find most of what you need in http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/About_Neil or http://www.mousecircus.com/MeetNeilGaiman.aspx.

What will limit be on the number of items that can be signed at Luminato in Toronto and WorldCon in Montreal? Also I love all of your work, you are awesome.

I don't know. It'll depend on the number of people who need things signed, and how much time there is to sign them. I can hazard now that it won't be more than three.

Hi Neil,
Hope I win the randomly answered questions contest...
My wife just bought tickets for the Coraline musical as well as a trip to NYC for my birthday (June 11) and I am thrilled. Two questions.. 1. as you are a Sushi connoisseur, any tips for great but affordable (in other words, not NOBU) NYC sushi? 2. OK if I send my Playbill to Dreamhaven to be autographed? Thanks.

I love the various Nobu restaurants I've been to, but am never mad keen on their sushi. (The miso cod, on the other hand...) My favourite place to eat Sushi at in NY is still Sushi Sasabune. (Here's info on it.) Not cheap, but not crazy expensive, and memorable.

And no, I'm afraid not. Best bet is to find me at a signing of some kind.

Is the information on this link (about you) true?

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Neil_Gaiman_divorced

Or is the internet spreading rumors? Apologies for the nosiness - it just seems silly for people to spread rumors like this.

Oh, there are creepier people spreading worse rumours. And at least this one is true (and you'll find Mary described as my ex-wife in most of the recent interviews).

It's very odd being the subject of Internet Gossip. I mean, it's not what I thought I was signing up for when I started writing stories (and definitely not what Mary thought she was signing up for). Mostly I try and keep this stuff way off the blog, partly because I figure that the moment you do start talking about it, you lose any right to try and say "No, that's actually part of my private life, and is honestly none of your business," about anything, and partly because Mary is much more private than I am about all of this, and opted out of the blog many years ago, of her own volition, like the single Osborne sibling who elected not to be in the show. And besides, anyone whose business it is to know, knows.

But at the point where it's turning up on Wiki-Answers... (shakes head).

So let's see: for the record, we separated well over five years ago, did the paperwork on the divorce over a year ago, remain close and supportive, love being parents together and enjoy being friends (and, like in some early seventies sit-com, next door neighbours) more than we did being a married couple. She's terrific -- and is, as I said at the top of this, currently off looking after and bringing home a broken-legged son.

There.  

Hiya,

So, you clearly have novels in you. But do you have something longer in you?

I've recently become a fan of sorts of heptalogies (seven book works). Harry Potter is the most obvious example but the two I've recently read that struck me as pure masterpieces are King's Dark Tower series and Weiss and Hickman's Death Gate Cycle.

I have a sinking suspicion that the best work from you will come after wrestling with stories and themes that might only fit in a longer work.

Something like the ten volume (or twelve, or fifteen volume, depending on which spin-off books you count), 2,500-plus-page-vastness of Sandman, you mean?

Yep, I can do that.

No,  no real plans ever to do it again. But you never know: if I wind up starting a story that I realise demands that kind of length, I'll write it at that length.  Certainly, in the decade since I finished Sandman I've really enjoyed not writing multi-volume epics.

Labels: divorce, DreamHaven Books, huge brick-like multivolume epics and why I'm not writing them, Sandman, signing as much as I can, Sushi Sasabune New York

Where I will be this week....

A quick reminder -- I'm in Edinburgh Tuesday Night - 7:00pm
Church Hill Theatre, Edinburgh
Capacity: 300 -- http://www.fidrabooks.com/events/ -- tickets 5 pounds with 5 pounds off The Graveyard Book.

Then Wednesday is Manchester -- Whitworth Hall, University of Manchester
Capacity: 650
Time: 7.00pm http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/martinharriscentre/mhceventspage.php?eventid=598
Admission Price: 7 pounds (5 pounds for concessions and UoM students and staff)

Then Thursday it's Dublin: Thursday, 7:00pm
Eason Books
O'Connell St, Dublin http://www.eason.ie/events

Friday's London, but it's sold out and there's a waiting list...

All details at Where's Neil. Now bed.

Labels: signing as much as I can

Circus Fish

The answer to yesterday's question is,

Dave McKean,

(or David Tench McKean, as Wikipedia and thus everyone else now seems to be listing him as, thus turning a small fish joke into an alternate universe fact)

for Dave illustrated The Graveyard Book, and also illustrated (and even made comics for) Hester Blumenthal's Big Fat Duck Cookbook. I saw a copy of the Big Fat Duck Cookbook when I was at Bloomsbury a couple of days ago, and it is unbelievably beautiful. Also unbelievably expensive. My own plan is to be incredibly nice to Dave and see if he'll give me a copy for Christmas.

Which reminds me, Dave McKean is signing in London on Hallowe'en, just as I am. He'll be at Forbidden Planet from 5.00pm to 6.00pm so if you're coming to see me anyway that evening, you could always go and see him first. And if you aren't going to see me, you could go and see him instead.

(Dave did design work for the third Harry Potter film, which links all three authors on the list.)

Graveyard Book UK Tour: London Talk and Signing (31 October)

Hi Neil, I just spoke to Blackwell, and they tell me the event is sold out. *cries* They do have a waiting list with 30 people already on it so I'm not holding out any hope... I thought you might want to know.

NB I love the Graveyard Book very, very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Enjoy the tour!
Susanne (A fan)

I'm really sorry. We stopped doing London events at 600 seat halls back in 2003, because they filled up too fast, and we switched to the 930 seat Logan Hall. This time I was told by Bloomsbury that Blackwells simply couldn't find anywhere of that size free for Hallowe'en, and could only get the LSE Old Theatre, which seats about 550 people... which meant that I was fairly sure we'd be upsetting as many people as get seats. But that's all there was.

Again, apologies.

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

You mention in your latest blog entry you'd be 'so there' for a line of fountain pens. Montblanc has a line of famous author/patron of the arts pens that are to die for, mostly. http://www.penslimited.com/index.html The Semiramis is a particular favorite of mine.

The famous authors/patrons they've honored with pens do tend to be dead which could be a drawback in getting a pen designed for you. If there are any Gaiman fans working for Montblanc perhaps they could whisper a word in the right ear?

Regards,
Laurie

The awkward truth is that, while I love Montblanc ink and their ink bottle design (especially their dried-blood-coloured Bordeaux, which I signed my way across the US with on the recent tour) I'm not a big fan of their fountain pens: the ones I've encountered seem made to look impressive sitting on desks. They aren't things I'd want to write novels with, and the ones I've used or been given skip too much to use as signing pens. (I've got a couple of Montblancs, both gifts.)

On the last signing tour I signed books with a Namiki Falcon until the nib went sproing in Chicago, whereupon I switched to a Lamy. (And I became a convert to the Pilot Vanishing Point Fountain Pen when I was in China, as it was a perfect writing implement for using in notebooks on the run.) I wrote The Graveyard Book mostly with a Lamy 2000, an elderly Watermans flexinib, and the Pelikan that Henry Selick gave me.

...

Neal Hefti's dead. His Batman theme was, I think, the first record I was ever bought (for, I suspect, my sixth birthday) that I actually wanted, and I was deeply offended because whoever had designed the cover had drawn Batman's cloak as a two-piece, wing-like thing.

XKCD vs The New Yorker in a to-the-death-cartoon-face-off. Yes! (Only not actually to the death, because that would be a sad waste of talent and human life.)

Here is a song I like by Vermillion Lies, called Circus Fish.

(I am also now listening to Mitch Benn's Sing Like an Angel)

Peter Straub in Time. (And belated congratulations to Emma and Michael!)

(Also Happy Birthday, Cat Mihos...)

Tasha Robinson at The Onion sent me a link to the Onion AV review of The Graveyard Book.

And looking into the mirror this morning, it occurred to me that as we age we slowly turn into Mort Drucker caricatures of ourselves, and I found that strangely comforting.

Labels: batman, Dave McKean, how to get a fish as a middle name, neepery, signing as much as I can, xkcd

Small signing note

I just learned that the finger I'd thought was sprained in China is actually fractured, so I will be signing books with the middle finger of my right hand in a small blue-felt and metal finger-brace.

The management accepts no responsibilities for the legibility of the handwriting or the consistency of the signatures.

And people have been writing to ask about "I Google You" -- you can get it when you order "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" from http://whokilledamandapalmer.com/purchase/ -- you get the CD, and a download, and the extra songs...

Labels: ow, signing as much as I can, who actually did kill Amanda Palmer?

Then, tomorrow was another day...

Yesterday I did a panel with Richard Price, and then I signed for (according to the newspapers)about six hundred people for five and a half hours. Normally I try very hard to be as nice to the people who've been waiting for hours as I was to the people at the beginning, but I think I may have been ordering the people at the back of the line around a bit just to make sure I finished before the Tom Stoppard talk started at seven. (I finished with 25 minutes to spare.)

The crowd was lovely, and all amazingly good-humoured given how long they were standing around.

Anyway. Five and half hours, which is about five hours and ten minutes longer than anyone else here, which meant that I was suddenly peered at suspiciously, as if revealed as some kind of odd alien being, by other writers with whom only that morning I was sharing jokes and food. I think they have now forgiven me.

[Edit to add, that was a joke, and the other authors were remarkably nice about it all. Tom Stoppard, who stopped in during the signing, thought it hilarious.]

After the Stoppard panel, which was marvellous, like a master class, (I'm typing this on the computer in the hotel lobby, and was just tapped on the shoulder by a Newspaper photographer who wanted me to come and pose for some shots, and seemed a bit baffled when I pointed out that I was working) -- one of my favourite moments was when asked how he would direct a Hamlet, and he took the (odd) question and talked about what he wants from actors, "Clarity of utterance." Then I went to dinner with one of my Brazilian publishers. I hadn't really eaten since breakfast over twelve hours earlier, and I discovered that when you are given a very large passionfruit caipirinha after a five and a half hour signing and on an empty stomach, you know it's working because your feet go numb. Possibly the feet simply went away. Luckily, my feet returned before I had to walk back to the hotel, but it was extremely odd.

Today it's the end of FLIP and the Desert Island Books panel, and I will read a bit from James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks.

Labels: Brazil, signing as much as I can, the unexpected effects of a caipirinha

With still a million things to say...

Today the Arcadian idyll turned into something an awful lot more like work. TV interviews all morning, press conference all afternoon. Oh well.

Neil,I'm in Campinas-Brasil, and it's a 5-hours-car trip to Paraty. If I get there, most likely on Saturday, where can I find you since I don't have a ticket to Flip? I really, REALLY would love to have you sign one of books. I, like many in this sunny country am a major fan of yours. I REALLY love your books! And I'm dying to get my hands on Graveyard Book and Neverwhere...Thanks for the attention Livia

Let's see... first of all, you don't need a ticket for FLIP. You do need a ticket to get into the main tent where the authors are talking, or to sit down and watch the overflow screen -- but you can watch the interview without sitting down or listen from anywhere near where the big screen overflow place is. Richard Price and I will be talking at 11:45 am. As for signing, there will be a signing at about 1.00pm on Saturday in the signing area, which will undoubtedly go on for a while. We will probably have to limit the number of things I sign (so for heaven's sake don't hitchhike or drive carrying all the Sandman books plus another set for a dying friend -- they won't get signed. It will be two, maybe three things are most). I'll stop signing at 7.00pm when Tom Stoppard's talk starts, because I want to hear it.

I'll also be on on Sunday at the DESERT ISLAND BOOKS panel at 5.00pm -- there's no signing planned after that, though.

There may be more signing, there may not -- probably not, as the organisers haven't planned for it. I may sign stuff if you bump into me on the cobblestones or in the town square and ask nicely or just hold something out and smile (I have been so far, but it'll depend a bit on how many people try and whether I need to get from place to place) especially if you can do it without making it look like I've suddenly decided to do a signing in the street.

Labels: Brazil, signing as much as I can

Gallivant's travels

It was fun.

(I'll do a slightly dessicated version here, because I'm in the lounge at Narita and don't have long before my plane boards now...)

I was brought in for the Ad Congress -- I gave a talk about the imagination and why it is a good thing, and then, on Saturday morning, did a reading of the complete first chapter of The Graveyard Book, an interview and a signing for about 200 people (it was only meant to be for the first 100 in the line -- some of whom started lining up at midnight -- but I added in about an extra 45 minutes signing at the end). Then to Manila -- on the way I read the finalists for the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards, and was really impressed by the quality of the prose stories. Fully Booked runs the awards, and on Saturday morning I found myself sitting in Fully Booked while stacks of copies of Expeditions were put in front of me to sign. These were the two collections (prose and comics) of winners and runners-up from the first Award, last year. Many interviews followed, and a mass press conference. And then, in the afternoon, I had the odd experience of being a magician's assistant (for local magician Erik Mana) and awards presenter, in front of a large crowd (and despite the rain), and I announced the thing we're adding to the awards for next year (a short films category), and at one point I dragged Mike up on stage with me (when I was asked about being a children's author and having children), and I sort of promised I'd come back for the third round, and that I'd do a signing if I did...

(I loved the whole trip but it was made much more fun by having a son with me.)

Then dinner with the winners and judges from this year and last year's competition.

Back to the hotel, and up at 5.00am to leave Manila. And now I'm here.

Expect postings to decrease between here and Xmas. I have a book to finish, and I'm done gallivanting, I hope...

Labels: airports, Awards, Erik Mana, Fully Booked, Mike, Philippines, signing as much as I can

A webcomic about me and my hair... or about my hair and me?

The signing was fun and, er, long -- probably the longest lunchtime signing I've done, which I wasn't really expecting. I played with the Japanese brush-pens a lot. I like the way that sometimes good drawings you don't expect come out of your brush.

Working on article about fairy tales for the Guardian right now, and they've also put an interview from several months ago up -- http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/sciencefiction/story/0,,2177992,00.html
and a pretty simple quiz that could win two pairs of tickets to the Criterion Event on Tuesday night at http://books.guardian.co.uk/competition/0,,2177394,00.html

The Times did an interview with Matthew Vaughn about directing Stardust, at http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article2538898.ece

Not a question but a heads up on the Latest Dork Tower strip:
http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=1286
I am sure others have pointed this out as well but hey ho.

Nope. You were first.

Which reminds me that John Kovalic sent me one of these -- http://dreamlandtoyworks.com/my_little_cthulhu.html and it has become of my favourite toys...

Hey Neil, Just watched the Beowulf trailer - very snazzy - but I wondered, is it too late to get that fella to put a shirt on? Or maybe the Photoshop guy could airbrush one on or something? It is all a bit disturbing and a bit Conan. :-) Thanks,Pete

Yup. Too late. That longship has sailed. Oddly, though, in the morning scene in the Inn in the Stardust film, Charlie Cox is wearing a CGI shirt, because there were concerns that his naked torso could bring down America.

I was wondering if you knew if the stage production of Wolves in the Walls would be playing anywhere other than New York. I live in Chicago and would absolutely love to go (and take my mother, who is also a huge fan) but just can't afford to make it to NY. You have a huge Midwest following - which I am sure you already know, and I know it would be a hit out here. Thank you for your time and help. Jessica

Not that I know of at this time. When I hear anything, I'll post it here. If you have an appropriate local theatre, tell them you want to see it. You never know...

And this last one really puzzled me, mostly because it's citing something I can't recall encountering before. I'm on the road, so couldn't check the reference works I'd usually look at,

Dear Neil,

Hi! Sounds like you're having quite the time traipsing 'round the world!

So, to business:

You have written something in your blog that set off my "pet peeve alert." :

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Do not use "me and him." (Your actual statement was "me and Susanna.")

Naming oneself first, rather than last, drives me crazy!

It used to be that only uneducated people talked that way, but now I hear it everywhere, even out of the mouths, and blogs, of People Who Should Know Better.

I realize that a) language changes, and legitimately so, over time, and b) you are using a more casual voice when blogging

But, still, let's set a Good Example for those impressionable readers out there!

(And would Neil Gaiman, master of the English language, actually say "me and ...?" I shudder to imagine that.)

Carefully stepping down from my soapbox, and wishing you a Chag Sukkot Sameach and Shabbat Shalom!

-Randi

So the sentence in question began And for those of you who want to hear me and Susanna Clarke chatting ... which is grammatically just fine, at least the way that I was taught grammar. I googled and saw no problems with that construction at http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/meandi where they give several mayor-and-party-based examples...

Me and my friend went to a party last night. [Wrong]
I and my friend went to a party last night.

My friend and me went to a party last night. [Wrong]
My friend and I went to a party last night.

The mayor has invited me and my husband.
The mayor has invited I and my husband. [Wrong]

The mayor has invited my husband and me.
The mayor has invited my husband and I. [Wrong]

...and then I tried randomly googling "you and me" (2.7 million) vs "me and you" (2.5 million), then "me and my friends" (about 2 million examples) and "my friends and me" (168,000 examples), and decided that if there was a general "me second" rule it was one that wasn't very well known. Is this a North American rule? Is it something I've missed? Definitive links or quotes from Fowler are welcome...

Labels: and me, Dork Tower, Guardian article, signing as much as I can, usage

More info to come. But this is a start...

Here's some Comic-con info.

incidentally, if you're planning on carrying something around on the offchance you find yourself bumping into me in a breakfast line or a lift, make it something light. I will feel guilty if anyone carries around an Absolute Sandman for the whole convention, just in case.

Hello Neil! I'm a huge fan and will be attending Comic-Con for the first time this year, and meeting you is what I'm looking forward to the most. With that being said, I was told from more experienced individuals that the best way to get something signed at the signing after the Friday session will be to skip the session altogether and just get in line for the signing. I really hope this isn't the case because I would love to do both. Any advice?

Actually, it looks like they are doing a drawing for tickets in the signing line at midday on the Friday so nobody will need to miss anything.

However, I've added in a bunch of signings during Comic-con, in order to try and make a few more people happy. I'll be signing on Thursday (probably), Friday and Saturday.

Here's the current version of the Comic-con schedule...

Wednesday 9.00 pm -- Roger Avary and I present the first batch of Beowulf to the world at the Horton plaza. If you miss it or can't get in, our presentation and the Q&A will be taped and reshown, along with the footage, at 5:00pm and 6:00 pm on Thursday. As per the previous post, and the link on the comic-con site, tickets to all these things from the Paramount booth... which won't be open on the Wednesday. Hmm. I'll investigate.

Thursday -- we're still finalising the signing for the day. I'll put it up here when I know. but it's most likely to be around mid-day and last about 30-40 minutes...

I'll be at the Paramount Pictures presentation in Hall H -- talking Stardust (and showing a scene or two) and then, with Roger, talking Beowulf.

Then I do lots and lots of interviews and things, and surface once more at the Stardust screening that night, 9.00 pm at Horton Plaza. I'll introduce the film, and then, around 11:00 pm, I do a Q&A. (Again, tickets from the Paramount Booth, or available from the CBLDF, if they have any left... the Stardust package has already sold out but it's possible that a few people who bought it may not be at Comic-con and will throw their tickets back in, so checking with the CBLDF table prove fruitful).

Friday -- currently

Midday is the drawing for signing line tickets (see above).

2-3:15 PM SPOTLIGHT ON NEIL GAIMAN. ROOM 6 CDEF

3:15-4:15 NEIL SIGNING: OFFICIAL COMICON AUTOGRAPH AREA ROOM 6

and then, to help with the signing thing...

6-7:00 PM CBLDF SIGNING AT THEIR BOOTH # 1831

And then that evening I'll be a presenter at the Eisner Awards.

Saturday --

I'm not yet sure what I can announce. Suffice it to say that if you turned up at the midday Focus/Rogue panel you might see or learn something to your advantage.

2:30-3:30 PM I'll be doing a signing with Brian Froud at his booth # 4818, for a poster we did of my poem Instructions, which will benefit the CBLDF.

7:00 PM -- the mysterious event that you might have learned of at midday will occur, and will go on till about 8:30ish.

(I'd rather just give you details, but so far I've been specifically told not to. Which is, in my opinion, a bit silly, and as soon as I can tell you things, I promise I shall.)

Then there's the CBLDF Benefit auction, which I plan to try and make it for the end of...

Sunday -- I get to do a proper panel!

10:30-11:45 Jack Kirby Tribute— Let’s face it: when it comes to comics, it’s Kirby’s World and we just live in it. 2007 has seen a bumper crop of Kirby projects, including the first volume of DC’s deluxe chronological reprinting of all the Fourth World stories, a major documentary about Jack on the Fantastic Four DVD, and Mark Evanier’s upcoming art book Kirby, King of Comics. Join Evanier as he talks to Neil Gaiman, Erik Larsen, Darwyn Cooke, Mike Royer, and members of the Kirby family about the lasting influence of the undisputed King of comics. Room 1AB

And I would love to do a signing on Sunday, but alas I cannot, for immediately after that panel I have to flee to LA for Stardust...

...

For years people have written and asked about a Dave McKean short films DVD. And now it's happened... It's coming!

The most information on it that I've found is at http://community.livejournal.com/davemckean/23697.html

Labels: CBLDF, Dave McKean, San Diego Comic Con, signing as much as I can

American Gods Blog, Post 103

I'm home, and I almost got through today without signing any books. But there were some copies of Biting Dog Press's beautiful limited edition MURDER MYSTERIES to be signed waiting for me at DreamHaven, so I went there from the airport. (Link at http://www3.sympatico.ca/george.walker/gaimanbkad.html although it displayed rather oddly in Explorer for me.)

There were also two copies of Angels and Visitations to be signed, some WARNING:CONTAINS LANGUAGE sleeves. And, um, about 500 presold mail-order copies of American Gods. So my day of not siging anything rather failed to happen. Still, it's a genuine down day. And it was good to play with Maddy. The garden has erupted, there was an awful lot of waiting mail, and pretty soon I'll have a bath and go to bed and sleep like a dead person.

Starting to suspect that the Ebook REB 1100 is going to prove useless and frustrating unless Gemstar decides to allow it access to more content, and cheaper. I keep batting my head against the whole thing of price and convenience, and with access to Public Domain stuff cut off, no way of sending my own content to the thing (which would be genuinely useful), and no easily discernable way to access the kind of stuff I'd need -- most of which is out on project Gutenberg (nice people, who lost a page with some in-copyright stuff on it when I pointed it out to them.) Which is a pity, because as a delivery mechanism, it' s rather wonderful. But it's a bit like having a TV that will only play a handful of proprietory shows. Unless the content is easily available, and in quantity, and it's the content you want, then the delivery mechanism is almost beside the point.

I signed all those books last night, by the way. They were for Golden Apple and Dangerous Visions respectively, for any LA bookbuyers looking for a signed book. And I was at one point tired enough that I wrote the name of the person on the post-it note instead of my name on a copy I was just meant to sign. So I sighed and blinked and did a drawing of Mr Wednesday, hoping the person would forgive me.

The weirdest thing about the whole NY Times Bestseller thing, is that the rest of the worlld doesn't know, and won't till next Sunday -- when I shall be in the UK...

Labels: American Gods Blog, computers and gadgets and things, New York Times Bestseller, signing as much as I can