It Snowed This Morning

It snowed this morning. I thought it had all melted by the time I went out walking with a camera, but here's a sprinkling of snow on a tree-fungus. It's just wrong. I am not ready for winter. Not yet.

And below is Cabal and some leaves (and Maddy). Many of you have written in to ask why he's not wearing his Go Away Hunters And Do Not Shoot At Me orange cape. It is because he dashed off into the woods the other night after a deer, and returned without it.

Probably the deer is now wearing it to bamboozle hunters.

I'm madly trying to finish things before I head out to China for a few weeks, to wrap up the research on my Journey to the West project (this trip was meant to have happened in Feb/March, but the one-two good-bad punch of winning the Newbery Medal and my father dying threw the whole planned shape of the year out of whack, and it's not back yet).

I finished a short story called "The Thing About Cassandra" and the editors accepted it (hurrah, especially because they were most gracious earlier this year when a story I was writing for them crumbled into dust and ash in my hands before it was done). I'm trying to finish a short story about a cave on the Misty Isle before I leave, and I'll be recording my stuff for my NPR Morning Edition piece. Sxip Shirey is working on the music for my short film soundtrack and every day he sends me bits of music and I play them, and send back a yes, or a no, or a why don't we try this?

We harvested the honey on Thursday, and Cat Mihos chronicled it all on her blog (http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/2009/10/bees-glorious-bees-title-suggested-by.html) including film footage of me shaking bees off a frame, so I refer you there for photos and an account of our day's Beeing. Strangely my favourite moment was when the bees from the Green hive got upset, and suddenly I found myself crouching by the hive in the middle of a storm of very angry bees... and found myself feeling very peaceful and placid, and didn't move and I let them stop being grumpy, and all was good. (Except for Hans and the Birdchick both being stung on their ankles and through their bee suits).

Let's see. Here's an account of the Toledo talk http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091006/ART02/910060367, and of the Cleveland talk (http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2009/10/05/a-geek-heros-welcome-for-author-gaiman).

Both were fun, and started giving me ideas for how to do the CBLDF Reading Tour next year.

Hi Neil,

I know Banned Book Week is over, but since you discussed it on your journal, I hope you won't mind one more question about it.

When is it OK to challenge a book? Should a book be challenged at all if it seems inappropriately placed? For example, I read a lot of young adult, and I found myself reading a book that was distasteful to me, as an adult. (I thought the language and sexual incidents were gratuitous to the story, and beyond what I would want a teenager reading.) I pointed this out to the children's librarian, and she said it would be reviewed. Afterward, I panicked a bit. Had I done something wrong, I wondered. Had I just banned a book?

In your opinion, is there ever a time to challenge a book's placement? For the record, I still don't believe in outright banning a book from a public library, but now I'm not sure how I feel about challenges to young adult sections.

Sincerely,

Amanda R., Louisville, KY

I'm not a librarian or part of the ALA, so you're getting one author's opinion here.

I don't think drawing a librarian's attention to a book, or even suggestion that it's been mis-classified is in any way wrong, or an attempt to ban books. My collection M IS FOR MAGIC exists mostly because I'd noticed some middle schools had begun to buy Smoke and Mirrors and really wasn't comfortable with that book, which contains some stories that really were just intended for adults, being in middle school libraries. (I don't have a problem with it being in High School libraries.)

I think librarians make judgment calls all the time, judgment calls based on community standards, on what they believe about books, and about those books that exist in the grey areas between Children's Books and YA, between YA and Adult Fiction. (Occasionally, as when I hear about The Graveyard Book being kept under the counter, or away from kids under 14, I find it irritating. But, as I say, I also think that librarians are allowed to make judgment calls.)

At the end of the day, I don't think the problem is the people who want to figure out where books get shelved. It's people who want to remove the books entirely, and would very much like to burn them. It's people stealing books as a way of making sure that other people don't read them.

(Here's an excellent article from the School Library Journal about the dilemma of shelving The Graveyard Book - http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6635766.html?q=graveyard+book+children%27s+collection -

which concludes,

Are some libraries shelving Gaiman’s book in the YA section because of its disturbing opening scene? If so, then that “clearly smacks of self-censorship,” says Pat Scales, president of the Association of Library Services to Children. Scales, who says that although determining what materials belong in the children and young adult section is oftentimes difficult, “Anytime you keep something from its intended audience or make it difficult for them to find, that’s self-censorship.” And that’s against professional ethics.

Scales’s advice is to buy one copy for the children’s section and another for the YAs. “Kids have loved ghost stories from the beginning of time,” she says. “What are you going to do? You can’t keep all ghost stories out of the children’s room.”

but truthfully, I wouldn't blame any librarian who decided they wanted The Graveyard Book kept in YA. I would get grumpy if confronted with librarians who had decided not to get The Graveyard Book for their libraries, despite the Newbery Medal, because they thought kids should be protected from it.

Dear Neil,

I’m sure you get loads of nice mail from lots of people around the world. How much nasty mail do you get, though, and does it make you feel bad? If it does, how do you deal with that? I’m a beginning author and I just got my first piece of nasty mail, wherein the writer said she had an absolute “hate crush” on me. I consoled myself with cake and wine but the effects were predictably fleeting.

Thanks,
C.B.

There are mean and crazy people out there, and the relative anonymity of the Internet means that there are always those who will glory in their ability to do the online equivalent of pushing a dead rat through your mail box and running away. You just have to pay attention and you rapidly notice,

a) they're a bit mad.

b) they are very few in number and

c) it's only the internet.

I get well over ten thousand FAQ messages in on this site every year. Most of them don't get posted, because most of them are people saying, in various ways, thank you. Out of that ten thousand there will be a handful, no more than a dozen or so, of weird, poisonous, creepy or crazy ones that come in (from a distinctly smaller number of people than there are email addresses). Most of those get filtered before they reach me. And the ones that make it through normally leave me with a strange, joyous feeling that I must be doing something right if those people don't like me. I'm fascinated by how much more upset they get whenever I get a big award or something good happens.

(On Twitter, I learned very rapidly that any people who posted something nasty, to whom I gave a second chance, would then post something REALLY nasty. So I learned to block first offenders without any troubling of my conscience.)

My advice to you would be to do with creepy emails what Kingsley Amis used to say he did with bad reviews: he let them spoil his breakfast, but didn't let them spoil his lunch. Let the effects of the creepy people be fleeting too. And keep writing, and keep doing well, because it really seems to irritate them.

Which reminds me, The Graveyard Book was made a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honours book, this year, and you can see video footage of the awards ceremony at http://www.hbook.com/bghb/video09.asp, including my editor Elise Howard reading the actual speech I wrote, and the video I recorded for them just as I went down with the hell-flu of last week.

...

Right, more Tabs closing:

I was sorry to learn that Henry Selick and Laika, the director of and studio who made the Coraline movie, are parting company. They were an unstoppable combination, and I wish both of them extremely well in whatever they do in the future.

Why you should dress up as Delirium for Hallowe'en.

Was thrilled to see One and a Half books by me on the Australian Favourite Books of All Time list.

Was fascinated by this New Scientist article -- I've been interested in this ever since I read Ann Hubble talking about the experiment breeding Arctic Foxes for tameness, which, in a couple of decades, produced an animal profoundly doglike. (And the footage of the tame vs aggressive rats is a little chilling...)

...

I just noticed that to celebrate our Year On The Bestseller Lists, over at http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx, where you can still watch me read ALL of The Graveyard Book for free, new Q&A videos have started appearing.

(It looks like they've been going up for the last 5 weeks. I should have mentioned them here, sorry.)

If you head off to http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx?VideoID=16 you will see lots of me answering questions. It's surprising to me how tired I look in them -- I'd forgotten just how gruelling the schedule was, and now all I remember is how immensely enjoyable it was to read stories to and answer questions from so many people across the USA.

Labels: bees, Cabal and me, dog photograph, mad people, the unbearable whiteness of beeing, videos

Remembering Coals to Newcastle

In a Minneapolis airport lounge on my way to Las Vegas, on Fireworks Night. Which seems appropriate somehow.


HELLO

Next time, pleasepleaseplease don't explain that you were moving a beehive around. I never would then have realised that you were in fact wearing a beekeeping outfit and not actually parading around town dressed as a giant bee.

Thank you!

Right. Sorry.


Dear Mr. Gaiman (or the people looking after him),
I have just finished reading The Graveyard Book, which I enjoyed immensely.
While reading it though, I believe I came upon a small blunder, which you might want to fix:
On chapter 5, when Bod is talking to the Lady on the Grey, she says:
'He is gentle enough to bear the mightiest of you away on his broad back, and strong enough for the smallest of you as well'
Surely the words gentle and strong were switched? Unless the switch has some poetical meaning that I missed.
I hope this helped in some small way. The book I read was the hard cover adult version, ISBN 978-0-7475-9683-7, mistake was on page 161, if it helps any further.
Thank you for making the world a bit more pleasant with your words,
Yonatan

It's the idea of "the people looking after me" I like.

And that's not a typo, I'm afraid. It's what she said. You'll have to take it up with her, when you see her.

(Someone did send me a terrific list of typos in the author's edition of Neverwhere -- thanks!)

Dear Neil,

It was your mention of NaNoWriMo that finally convinced me to participate for the first time. I'm now the proud creator of 6686 words (and counting), a magical wood, a main character I despise, and a squirrel named Nimrod. I just wanted to thank you.

Now off to continue the adventure.

You're welcome.

Good morning Neil,
Because today is such a monumental day in America's history I was wondering if you voted. Well actually, more specifically are you a citizen of the U.S.(and can you vote?) and what prompted you to move here from your native England? Get lots of rest!


Tricia

Nope. I'm still English and cannot vote in US elections. I can vote in the UK kind, though, and sometimes I do.

As to why I moved, it's now lost in the mists of history, but I think it was mostly because I liked the house.

Marrying Fictional Characters request:

Just in case that bloke in Japan gets the law changed I want to get in first so here goes…(takes a deep breath)

Dear Mr Gaiman please may I have Silas’s hand in marriage?

(well all of him if you don't mind, not just his hand)^_^

Thanks in anticipation,

Liz Taylor.

But if you can marry fictional characters, then... well, you can certainly marry Silas. But so can everyone else. And, well, there could be some bigamy, or trigamy or googlamy involved here. That's all I'm saying. And of course, you'd need to get his consent, not mine.

Dear Neil, while you are bouncing around, I am wondering if (given your history of also bouncing around between clean shavenness and scruffiness) you would consider giving a shout out to this site that encourages people to grow mustache in November for a good cause:

http://www.movember.com/

Mustaches are, after all, "one of the best things to put on your face" and sported by such mustache as Frank Zappa, Mark Twain, and G. K. Chesterton, and they get even better when worn for charity.

No. Trust me. No. There are things that no-one should ever see, and me in a moustache is one of them. I've seen it from time to time, in the mirror, when shaving off beards, and even I shiver at the memory.

Since you've often said no one noticed when Violent Cases was dropped
in price, I noticed that the Coraline audio book has significantly
dropped in price, from $22 to $9.95, so, Yay!
-Shield

Yay indeed.

It's the new "Movie tie in" edition, although it's the same book, with me reading the same story.

They still have some of the old audio CDs (with all the Dave McKean art) on Amazon, at a hefty discount, but not quite that hefty.

Also, thanks to Amazon for putting The Graveyard Book on their ten best Teen books 2008 list. I think that's the first Year's Best list it's made. (And thank you Amazon for keeping it at 40% off.)

Hi Neil
Being back in blighty, you can't have missed the astonishingly bizarre furore over Jonathan's radio show with Russell Brand. I just wanted to show some support for Jonathan, he's an amazingly funny man and if they take him off the air permanently, I for one will no longer listen to BBC Radio. I know he's a friend of yours so I thought you could pass that on.
Cheers
Helen

It was bizarre, a very small storm in a teacup blown up to monsoon level by the Daily Mail -- I found myself agreeing with Charlie Brooker in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/03/jonathan-ross-russell-brand. They did something stupid. It shouldn't have been broadcast. They apologised to Andrew Sachs, who accepted their apologies, and publically explained that they were all performers, and he was done with it. And then the baying for blood started to get loud, the Prime Minister weighed in, and Jonathan and Russell were soon being burned in effigy. Look, I'm biased, Jonathan is my friend, and he's proved a really good friend over the years; he is also someone who always finds the comedy in going too far (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NxWnMhlso to watch me discover the pitfalls of presenting awards on stage with him), but watching the real news suddenly being gazumped by Jonathan -- and Andrew Sachs -- and the Satanic Slut... was just silly. (If you weren't in England or Scotland or Wales, you probably missed this, and have no idea what I'm talking about. And it's just as well.)

***

There. I got on a plane, flew to Las Vegas, got off the plane, discovered that Penn and Teller were doing a "corporate gig" in my hotel, so ate some sushi and then went in search of them. I gave Penn (who wants to keep bees) a round of honeycomb from my hives, and talked about bees and beekeeping, and they in their turn filled me in on the view backstage from Las Vegas magic world, describing an appalling magic show they had seen recently with a angry delight in eviscerating it that made their descriptions sound a hundred times better than enduring the show in question would have been. And then up to the room to write. Where I am now.

If you remember Beanworld, or even if you don't, go and read this interview with Larry Marder at http://thedailycrosshatch.com/2008/10/24/interview-larry-marder-pt-1-of-3/ (and Larry's blog is at http://larrymarder.blogspot.com/). Larry and I were friends for years, stopped being friends during the McFarlane nonsense, when he was working for Todd and not making art, and then went back to being friends again when he stopped working to Todd and started doing comics again.

An amazing interview with the amazing Lisa Snellings at http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/?p=1016.

A review of the first issue of P. Craig Russell's lovely Sandman: The Dream Hunters at http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2008/11/05/sandman-the-dream-hunters-1-review/

If you're in Las Vegas, come along to the talk tomorrow night -- details at http://lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2008/11/05/news/local_news/iq_24916214.txt

Labels: Coraline audio book, Jonathan Ross, people in love with Silas, the unbearable whiteness of beeing, why I must never wear a moustache not even for charity

Why is the man on the right holding a microphone?

I did the Washington Post Book World online chat this morning -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/09/09/DI2008090902030.html and then did more telephone interviews (while also signing the sheets for the Subterranean Press edition of The Graveyard Book) after which Euan Kerr from National Public Radio in Minneapolis arrived.

I've known Euan for over a decade, but in the past I've always gone to the studios of KNOW in St Paul while he interviewed me. This time (because time is ticking before the start of the tour, and there isn't any to spare on things like driving out to the Twin Cities) he came out to my house. On arrival he donned a bee suit, and headed out with the bee team (me, Stitelers, Lorraine, Cat Mihos who is in town visiting Lorraine and who, fresh from Duran Duran and the Jonas Brothers, will be tour-managing some of the upcoming tour) to harvest honey. Euan sort-of-interviewed me while we did bee stuff, occasionally sticking his microphone down among the bees to capture authentic beeish noises, then afterwards we went together to the gazebo and did a proper interview, with actual questions and answers and things, and not just barked cries of "Can somebody please hold this?" and "Ow, I just got stung through my sock."

The first interviews when a book comes out are the fun ones, because you're finding out what you think: all the questions are new to you, and you're having to figure out what the answers are, and you aren't yet repeating yourself. The hard ones will be in a month, where I'll find myself thinking Did I ever really live in a very tall house? And did my infant son really ride a tricycle around the churchyard across the lane? Are these real things, or just things I've repeated so many times they've evaporated, so now all I remember is the memory of me saying them...?

Hello! I received the e-mail about your appearance at the National Book Fest, which I'm very excited about. In this e-mail, it said that you'd be doing signings, and that I should buy a copy of the Graveyard Book for you to sign. Buuuut, if it won't be available for me to purchase until September 30th, how can I have it for you to sign on the 27th? I'm confused, which I'll admit isn't an uncommon state for me. Will there be copies available in the Book Sales tent? Don't get me wrong, I'd be immensely happy for you to sign something else that I already own, but I'd love to know how this whole Graveyard thing can work, unless you have some sort of nifty time travel device that you've been working on in your spare time.

We have a special dispensation from Harper Collins to sell copies of The Graveyard Book at the National Book Festival (because it's, well, the National Book festival). The only downside on that is I don't think that copies sold on the Saturday will count on any of the bestseller lists, which start ticking on Tuesday night. But it would be silly to be there without books, and it's only three days, and I'm glad that Harpers thought it was a good idea.


I love some of your Books including Coraline...I can't wait to see the movie. I want to ask if its not much of a trouble is How can I contact Dave McKean? I also love his Artworks and I have to say your stories and His artwork are a very good combination. I have a lot questions I would like to ask Him as well. Thank you for your time to check this out...I hope that you continue your great works and am waiting for the Graveyard Book to come out ^_^

http://www.davemckean.com/ is now almost there. It has a front page up anyway. I'm sure that as soon as it goes live it will also have contact information. So that will be how people will contact Dave in the future. (And he's signing in Paris on the 4th of October).
...

When Kitty arrived she was wearing a new tee shirt which made me smile, as on it was a drawing which I'd done earlier this year when asked by Bloomsbury for a sketch of the kind of thing I was thinking of for a Graveyard Book cover, something they could show to Chris Riddell*, which I then sent Kitty when she asked about making a Graveyard Book tee shirt for Neverwear.net, to show her the kind of thing that was in my head when I was writing it, and the kind of direction that might be nice to go.


I didn't expect it to be a t-shirt, and I didn't expect to like the t-shirt that it became, but it's lovely.

...

I was checking something out today, and ran across what I think may be my favourite paragraph in ages. It's from a Chinese website about a county filled with conjurors and acrobats, and I shall reformat it as a poem, because I can:

People in Wuqiao County
are so knee on acrobatics
that they perform strings of somersault,
stack themselves up with amazing agility,
fight with fists or juggle magic
no matter in the streets or in the wheat fields,
even at the table or on the kang (bed).

Even some children hold the bottle
fully filled with oil or vinegar
when going to the store or grain supply center
buying oil or vinegar,
without one drop spilt. On rainy days,

groups of pupils walk in the rain with umbrellas
held on the nose. What’s more amazing,
on the wedding night,
eating cakes or drinking wine is effortless,
and the bride casts the candies
flying out with an empty hand
while the bridegroom send cigarettes
by clapping hands in the sky.


.....................................................................................................................................

*And because Chris Riddell can draw beautifully, and compose pictures just as well, he took my scratchy doodle idea and turned it into this:

Labels: chris Riddell, clapping hands in the sky, how to find Dave mckean, interviews, national book festival, the unbearable whiteness of beeing

For anyone who ever wondered what I look like not in black...

When these photos were taken (yesterday morning) I had longer hair and no dog. Ah, how quickly time passes.

This is me and the Birdchick brandishing our beeing tools (she's holding the hive tool, I've got the smoker). (Photos by Lorraine.)

Smoking the hive.

Me and some bees. We were checking for the Queens and for egg-laying activity, and we found both. (More photos and a play by play of our hive visit over on the Birdchick's blog at http://www.birdchick.com/2007/05/new-bee-hives-after-one-week.html#comments

...

And I keep meaning to mention that people have written in by the dozen to let me know that, contrary to the review I linked to, the Region 2 UK DVD of Neverwhere actually does have all the extras that the US one had, including the bemused "I'm in a box watching this thing for the first time in 8 years... Ooh, shiny," commentary I did, which is, I suppose, a good thing. It's still disappointing we couldn't have actually done new stuff for it, but at least you aren't being deprived of what they've got in the US.

...

Lots and lots of people writing in suggesting dog names. (And convincing me that he really is a white German Shepherd Dog.) Several people wanting to know how Dog's getting on with the cats. (Princess and Coconut -- Maddy's cat -- are wary but fine. Fred, on the other hand, thinks Dog should go back where he came, and keeps him under remote surveillance while reporting in to Feline High Command. Dog thinks we need protecting from Fred, and has made it clear that he is willing to give his life if necessary in saving us from the menace of a small much-battered black cat. It's going to be interesting...)

...

This one made me shake my head at the ease with which someone got a book pulled from a middle school library, when the people overseeing it are pusillanimous twerps. (I bet Maureen didn't even mention scrota.)

While this one just scares and amuses me in equal measure. (Read it. It gets worse.)

Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan's
influence on illegal immigrants. The group was unable to take official action
because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the
pleadings of party officials. The convention was held at Canyon View Junior High
School. Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County
Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want
to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty....

Labels: bees, how often do you get to write pusillanimous, neverwhere dvd, sartorial choices, Satan's immigrants, the unbearable whiteness of beeing