Drive-by blogging

Right now I'm flailing a bit. Trying to deal with the amount of email that came in while I was away, opening wonderful birthday presents and writing proper personal notes to all who sent them. Trying to work out who the Home Sushi Kit came from.

I've got a half-written blog post that I know I won't finish today, so I'm just doing a hasty hit-and-blog right now.

If you are wondering what was happening the exact moment I turned 50, midnight on November 9th, this was. In the Allways Lounge, in New Orleans. Photo by Kyle Cassidy, who was lurking somewhere nearby, and I only knew that when he sent me the photos...

More soon. Lots more.

And a link to something I love, and you may too: http://nonadventures.com/2010/10/16/quote-of-arms/

Also look, Something Beginning With (AKA ABCs of Love) is back in print! Read all about it at http://www.sarahsalway.net/2010/11/14/2359/

Labels: quotations marks and apostrophes matter dammit, Sarah Salway, turning 50, zoom

Playing a small imaginary me

I'm so behind.

In LA. Working hard, meeting people, sorting things out, the usual. Woke up this morning to a phone call from my agent, letting me know that CORALINE had been nominated for an Oscar. It would be nice if UP won Best Picture and CORALINE took Best Animated Picture, but truthfully, I do not believe that will happen.

Then went to record my part in PBS's "ARTHUR". I play me. And I also play a tiny imaginary version of me. (This is me recording my part, above. I am just wearing a black tee shirt, but it looks like I am wearing something much more interesting.)

Today, more meetings, then being interviewed for a documentary on the history of DC Comics.

Special thing: the people at Fantagraphics have put up a secret web-page to give readers of this blog a discount ($100, reduced from $125) on the Huge, Wonderful Three Volume Complete Playboy Cartoons of Gahan Wilson book they are publishing, and in addition are offering the first hundred people who sign up from here, free, a signed three-colour Gahan Wilson print, into the bargain. I wrote the introduction to one of the books, and am getting nothing back from this (in case you were wondering) but the warm feeling of getting 50 years of glorious, scary, disturbing and wonderful Gahan Wilson cartoons into the hearts and minds of the world.

The link is at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3750&Itemid=190

Labels: Arthur on PBS, zoom

Does Anyone Else have Something Further To Add?

Good morning. I cannot stay long as deadlines are happening.

Cat Mihos, in association with the CBLDF, has made the most beautiful print of Jim Lee's glorious pencil-art to accompany my poem "100 Words". It'll be limited to 750 numbered prints, and is lettered by Todd Klein. (Click on it in order to actually see it at readable size.) She decided that the first 24 hours it was on sale at her neverwear.net site, it would be $35, going up to $45 the following day. I linked to it on Twitter and... crashed the site. (Or possibly, crashed the shopping cart. I'm not sure. Different reports from people who couldn't get in.)

So Cat is extending the sale (at http://www.neverwear.net/store/) until the end of Monday, when she gets home from her trip out here, to apologise to people who had problems, and to allow people to get to it. You can read all about it (and see lots of Cat's candid snaps, including one of me in a 20 foot long Tom Baker style Doctor Who scarf I was sent by a reader who knits and likes Doctor Who and thought I needed one) over at http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com

And on the subject of photos, KImberly Butler is out at the house right now to shoot photos of me, with her daughter Caitlin as a camera assistant. She is a remarkable photographer (http://www.kimberlybutler.com is her website). She's here because I am the Honorary Chair of National Library Week next year (details at this ALA website).

She's taking pictures of me to find one that could be used as a poster for National Library Week, and for press releases. Here are a few of the photos from yesterday, raw from her camera. I put up a selection at http://twitpic.com/photos/neilhimself. Here are four of my favourites. One of them is not of me.

(Strangest twitter comment this morning was from the person who told me off for surgically trimming my dog's ears. Someone who, I assume, has never encountered a German Shepherd or has any idea what their ears do. His ears are fine -- he just sticks them up when he's interested or listening. )



During the shoot Lorraine brought me tea. I got happy. Kimberly kept shooting.



Princess the cat and deformed bunnies (and a two-headed teddy). Probably will not be a National Library Week poster. (Click to see it full-size.)

Does anyone else have something further to add?

I go. Maddy's violin recital, a short story and an introduction are waiting. Zoom.

Labels: Four Photos, Jim Lee, Kimberly Butler, Princess, R. A. Lafferty, Todd Klein, zoom

A quick one

Very quick one just to say I'm in the offices of a film company in London, spending two days interviewing editors, production designers, costume people and the like, for a short (ten minute) silent film I've written and will be directing in two weeks' time.

I can't tell you much more about it yet. It stars, er, a star, and another, different, star. I had the idea for it half way through the HousingWorks benefit Amanda and I did in April [Edit: er, June. April was PEN.], and pulled out my notebook and wrote it down.

It got the green light on Friday, will be part of a series of Silent Films broadcast in the UK in December, and I have probably already said too much.

Wednesday and Thursday I'm doing events in Edinburgh (sold-out talks, with open signings afterwards).

To close a few Tabs, once again the Guardian reports the Hugo Awards as news, making it pretty much the sole major newspaper in the world to do this. Damien Walter writes a lovely piece for the Guardian blog about me and it. (Wired also reported it.)

Labels: Hugo Awards, Statuesque, zoom

zoom. zzzzoom.

In Minneapolis Airport. En route to Atlanta airport where I change planes for Dublin.

My dog has now learned the signs of me leaving -- a bag coming down from upstairs, the kitchen table with travel-stuff piled on it (coat, pens, ink, passport) -- and he doesn't like them. Walks around trying offset the inevitable, ears back, worried...

On the good side, he has a week to go before he is allowed off-leash, and can go up and down stairs, and run, and do all the stuff that he is convinced he ought to be able to do right now anyway. So when I come home he will be a much happier dog.

...

For the record on the last post, I have a terrific agent, who looks out for me and whose job it is to make sure that a) I make money by writing and b) that I don't somehow wind up having sold the same rights to two different groups of people. So her concern that text to speech violates audio book rights is natural and sensible.

And when I got this,

I'm glad to know that you support the Kindle text to speech capability. As a C-4 quadriplegic due to a spinal cord injury a few years ago recent improvements in technology allow me the independence to write this e-mail with assistance only from my computer, software and a microphone. However the technology is still young, clunky and not without drawbacks. (It will probably take longer to "write" this short e-mail than it did to listen to my friend read me the first chapter of Coraline!) (Don't ask how long it took me to write the word Coraline either-twice even!) Because there isn't big money for marketing products for para and quads we have to rely on technology progressing just for the sake of technology progressing. I think it would be silly and sad to slow improvments just because of money issues. Thanks for supporting technology and hope to see you at comic-con. -Brook McCall

her reply was,

Well. Okay. Yes. (sound of agent with no argument)

Because she is a wise woman.

oops. gotta board. Happy Friday the 13th. Watch out for lovcratian beasties coming up the argh...

Labels: agent, Cabal and me, copyright, merrilee Heifetz, zoom

In Boulder, Colorado

I did indeed sleep on the plane.

Let's see...

I heard the first week's sales figures on The Graveyard Book, and they're terrific and wonderful. That's good. I'm also getting lots of emails from people who simply can't find it -- their bookshops don't have it or underordered, or eventually turn out to have one copy mysteriously filed under "fly-fishing". That's not good.

Some Barnes and Nobles seem to have it properly displayed, and up on New Releases and so on. Many don't. Borders seems a lot more problematic -- I've heard from Borders managers who got only a fraction of the copies they ordered, and who are having trouble getting re-orders filled.

(I've also heard from a few people who have misbound versions, missing or repeating a "signature" of pages it was misprinted, on pages 248-217 the pages are backwards (which is why I listed the numbers backwards) upside down, and cut off, tragically everything bad that could happen to a book in printing as one correspondent sighs, and pages 217-248 are missing and in their place are pages 249-280 printed twice. I am hoping that this is just a fluke in the time-space continuum, but perhaps people should be advised to double check to make sure those pages are there as another points out. So check your books and if it's misprinted, then return it to the bookshop for a correct copy. (If you got a signed copy that's misprinted, I'll do what I can to make sure you get a signed one to replace it.)

A Graveyard Book review I read and wanted to link to at Tor.com (as it's the first online critical article on the book that isn't simply a plot-summary-and-why-someone-liked-it), and kind words over at bookslut.


A Terry Pratchett article in the Daily Mail. It was hard to read, but wise.

What is needed is will and determination. The first step is to talk openly about dementia because it’s a fact, well enshrined in folklore, that if we are to kill the demon then first we have to say its name.

Once we have recognised the demon, without secrecy or shame, we can find its weaknesses.

Regrettably one of the best swords for killing demons like this is made of gold - lots of gold.

These days we call it funding. I believe the D-day battle on Alzheimer’s will be engaged shortly and a lot of things I’ve heard from experts, not always formally, strengthen that belief.

It’s a physical disease, not some mystic curse; therefore it will fall to a physical cure. There’s time to kill the demon before it grows.

Audiofile review The Graveyard Book audio at http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/showreview_pub.cfm?Num=39534

Oops. I'm late. Now to sign books for Boulder.

Labels: The Graveyard Book, zoom

Brazeeeeeel....

Maddy and I are off to Brazil in a few minutes. Well, we're off to New York where we change planes. But basically, we're off to Brazil together. She has the disarming smile. I have the unlikely facial hair. We're like Green Arrow and Speedy, only without the boxing glove arrows, the costumes, the similarity of gender and... okay, not really a good analogy, but what the hell, we're hitting the road. Or we will if the car turns up.

...

It turned up. We're now in JFK in the airline lounge. Soon we will get on a plane that will take us to São Paulo. I have bought Maddy every possible magazine a 13 year old girl could want, not to mention a bunch of books. I will carry on writing stories in longhand on the plane. Or sleeping. I could sleep.

...

Want a badge made out of my thumbprint and signature? Or Tanith Lee's lip-print and initials? Details at http://www.freewebs.com/grikmeer-match-it/ although the eBay links don't seem to be active yet.

Also we are all very proud of the former web elf.

Labels: Brazil, Webelf Wonders, zoom

a quick one

Lots of questions about the Siegel copyright decision, including "don't you have to be dead to take advantage of this?" (no) and "Does this apply to you and can you get copyright on your Sandman stuff now?" (no and no)-- here's an FAQ on the Siegel decision: http://uncivilsociety.org/2008/03/a-siegel-superman-copyright-de.html

...

And here's the schedule of my trip to Australia at the end of April and beginning of May:


Wed 30th April HOBART

7.00pm PUBLIC EVENT: Author Talk & Signing

Address: Hadley s Hotel

34 Murray St, Hobart TAS

Duration: 20 min author talk & 40 min Q&A, followed by
author signing

Bookseller: Ellison Hawker Bookshop


Sun 4th May MELBOURNE
9.15am PUBLIC EVENT: CBCA Keynote Session
Address: Melbourne Convention Centre
Corner Spencer & Flinders Streets,
Melbourne VIC


MON 5th May MELBOURNE


1.00pm PUBLIC EVENT Author Talk & Signing

Address: State Library of Victoria

Centre for Youth Literature

(Village Roadshow Theatrette)

325 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC

Duration: 20 minute author talk & 40 minute Q&A/ signing

Bookseller: The Little Bookroom





MON 5th May MELBOURNE

7.00pm PUBLIC EVENT Literary Dinner

Address: Georges Restaurant

819 Burke Road, Camberwell VIC

Duration: 20 minute author talk & 40 min Q&A session
following dinner

Bookseller: Dymocks Camberwell


TUES 6th May SYDNEY

6.00pm PUBLIC EVENT Author Talk & Signing

Address: Books Kinokuniya

Level 2 The Galeries Victoria

500 George St, Sydney NSW

Duration: 20 minute author talk & 40 min Q&A session.
Followed by author signing.

Bookseller: Kinokuniya


WED 7th May SYDNEY


12.00pm PUBLIC EVENT: Author signing

Address: Dymocks George St

424 George St, Sydney NSW

Duration: approx 1 hour

Bookseller: Dymocks George St

Labels: australia, Superman, zoom

Flying Away Now

Hi Neil,Are you aware that Beowulf has got a paticularly outraged review from the CAP movie ministry guy, (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/beowulf.htm) and is summed up as "quite probably the most heinous culprit for stealing childhood from children ever made". You didn't quite do well enough in the scoring system to get a perfect zero (not enough impudence/hate - please try harder next time), but this does mean that Beowulf is rated worse than Natural Born Killers, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, et al.Chris Reynolds

There you go. Then again, this is probably the first animated movie aimed at adults to go on broad release in the US for a very long time, and the idea that it's not actually intended for children is a hard one for some people to cope with. Interestingly, the Christian reviews I've seen so far -- Christianity Today and the Catholic News Service -- both liked the film, and were very sensible.

(It's one of those pleasantly surprising things that the Google News thingummy threw up, like the articles from local papers where they have English teachers and professors explaining that this Beowulf is rather more faithful to the original material than they had expected.)

Dear Mr. Gaiman;Firstly, I would like to say that I have just seen "Beowulf" and it was indeed a great movie. I read the poem many years ago and your story was one of the more interesting interpretations of the original poem.That aside I read up on the long process it took to get this film off the ground. As with what typically happens in Hollywood, there was a rewrite. As I'm sure you know, the final confrontation with the Dragon was rewritten. This discovery did not surprise me because the final confrontation just did not seem to be your style. Just what was your version like?
Robert M. Sharples

Ah, that one's easy. There's a script book, which contains our original 1997 script, two long essays by Roger intended mostly for film students about the realities of Hollywood (one on how he went into it in the first place, and then how I got involved and how we wrote the script together, and one on how he was persuaded to sell the script to Steve Bing and Bob Zemeckis), some of the storyboards for Roger's original version, the shooting script we wrote with Bob Zemeckis that they went into the 2005 shooting with (which is of course different to what they wound up actually making) and an afterword from me about how and what a film script is and isn't.

So you can read the original script or even the shooting script and make a film in your head and see how it differed from what made it to the screen. (I found a review of the book at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07320/834312-44.stm -- for some reason, none of the Amazon or Harper Collins sites make it clear what kind of thing the script book is.)

...

Right. Lots of people in the Philippines writing to ask how long I'll be there (until Sunday) and what I'll be doing. So I googled, and found http://heartofadream.wordpress.com/ a blog which seems to have all the information on it.

And the car to take me to the airport is outside, and I'm not yet dressed, so I will take my leave, vaguely regretful that I haven't done a big post on the writers' strike yet. Or even linked to the David Letterman show writers strike blog at http://www.lateshowwritersonstrike.com/ or Matt Selman's TIME Nerd bloggery at http://www.time-blog.com/nerd_world/2007/11/.

Labels: Beowulf, scripts, zoom

Zoom

Still alive. Long update to write -- but have to get on plane now so here is a photo of me and my lovely daughter at the London BEOWULF premiere on the 11th.

Photo by Elliott Franks.

Labels: zoom

Hanging on the telephone

I ought to be at work on the novel, but I'm sitting in front of the computer waiting for a phone call from the UK, so in the meantime, here's an article from the New Scientist (who have recently mostly rendered their website useless, even, pretty much now, to subscribers but have this up in full)

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626255.100&feedId=online-news_rss20

Geoffrey Miller and his team at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, compared the earnings of lap dancers who were menstruating naturally with those of dancers taking the hormonal contraceptive pill. During the non-fertile periods of their menstrual cycle, both sets of dancers earned similar tips. But when naturally cycling lap dancers entered their fertile period they earned significantly more in tips than their co-workers on the pill...

Vanity Fair on Sushi .

People have been sending me links to: A Where Do You Get Your Ideas cartoon that made me smile, and to a blogpost on infixing and stressed syllables...

(Several people wrote in to let me know that there are other examples of infixing in English than swearing, but with the exception of some chemical names I can't see that they actually change the meaning or emphasis of the word. Edumacation and hizouse simply demonstrate that, yes, you can put other syllables into a word, Ned Flanders-like for comedic effect or as cant.)

I was delighted to see that Barry Humphries (here seen being interviewed with his protege, Dame Edna Everage) is now a Commander of the British Empire http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7038277.stm, and not just because Michael Swanwick was kind enough to send me a signed copy of his book-length essay on James Branch Cabell - WHAT CAN BE SAVED FROM THE WRECKAGE? JAMES BRANCH CABELL IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY - with an introduction by, and also signed to me by Mr Humphries. Hurrah. (Read about the book here.)

I love Michael's essay, although I'm not entirely convinced by it. (Michael feels that Cabell doomed himself to obscurity. I think it was more time, and fashion what dun it.)

I enjoyed this Jamy Ian Swiss interview with Derren Brown. I love what Derren does, but I tend to feel uncomfortable when I read interviews by journalists who fail to notice that Derren is a magician and not a miracle worker. I don't know of any other interview with him by a magician where they talk about the difference between the trick and the effect...

Ooops. That's the phone. Going now.

Nearly forgot: Here's the New York Times review of The Wolves in the Walls.

Labels: zoom

Zoom. Zoom.

Let's see.

Went to Minneapolis airport. Flew to Tokyo. Changed planes. Flew to Shanghai. Got off plane. Got bag. Walked through customs. Thought, "I ought to find out about how I get to my hotel," when I saw my name written on a sheet of paper, and someone said "You're Neil. We're science fiction volunteers. We'll get you to your hotel now." And they did. Magic. (They were Vicky and Hida, and they read this blog, although they weren't sure if I really wrote it or if I got someone to do it for me. Er, behold. It is me actually. Thank you both.)

Sleep now. Up and fly to Chengdu first thing in the morning.

Labels: aeroplanes, Airplanes, airports, magically appearing volunteers, zoom