We're currently at 50 universities (49 in the US and one in Germany). So you know. Make that 51, another just came in. (I'd better think of somewhere that I can put all your e-mails about University courses in Sandman or Violent Cases or Smoke and Mirrors or whatever, because they'll make for an impossibly large post if I try and put them up here...)


Hi Neil,

What should I name my band?

Dave

I'm afraid this website can no longer, sight unseen, name kittens or bands. The service has been discontinued due to complaints from spouses and bandmates.

...

I wrote a song today for Chris Ewen (Future Bible Heroes). Actually I've been jotting down lines for it for weeks, but today I assembled them, with a sort of lapidary care, to make them fit the rather unpredictable piece of music which Chris originally gave me to use on A SHORT FILM ABOUT JOHN BOLTON. The song is for Chris's upcoming album of songs with lyrics not by Stephin Merritt for once, but by the likes of Kelly Link and Peter Straub and, well, me. There's something about the idea of having something I wrote sung by Claudia Gonson that makes me nervous, but it's a good sort of nervous. And the Future Bible Heroes have a new EP coming out, called The Lonely Robot, and a website with lots of photos on it. And here's a link to this Onion piece on why you should buy Eternal Youth, their last CD (in the photo Chris is in the middle; Claudia's on the right -- and is the girl -- and Stephin's on the left).

Because the music/lyric relationship is sort of unusual, I phoned Chris and sang it to him over the phone. He did not laugh, which probably puts him on the fast track to sainthood.

Hello. If there is a fequently asked question involving the date of my birthday, then I'd like to inform everyone that it's today. Happy Birthday me!!!

Sarah

It won't work, you know. I'll never just post something like that.

...

We're at 14 universities so far this morning, although I may have counted the late and VERY lamented Frank McConnell's UCSB class twice. Which would be only appropraite where Frank is concerned.

the dream project is an online magazine featuring lust art and animation
based on the dream life of real people. artists from all over the planet
are
mapping out the countryside of the dream world, offering glimpses into
our intricate nighttime landscape.

issue 1 begins to unlock the mysteries through the dreams and art of
neil gaiman, rick veitch, jesse reklaw, ben black, carsten bradley, and
many more...

you're invited to poke around and look behind the curtains at
http://www.thedreamproject.org

warmly,
olga nunes.
dreamer.

Olga's animated a dream I recounted on this journal there.

Dear Mr Gaiman, hello Neil
*how does one address a "critically acclaimed and award winning author"? ;)*
My question *although maybe not that frequently asked* is this:
How far are we (readers) allowed to go in interpreting works of literature, or taking something personal from them?
This could be all the way from: "ooooh that was a really cool book, i could really relate to the protagonist, she�s just like me"
to: "I think this is meant as a metaphor for pre-war germany, and isn�t a story about a guy on drugs, really"
In other words: in trying to interpret something, don�t some of us readers come up with interpretations that the writer didn�t mean at all,
and making ourselves look ridiculous..?
Or are you all (writers) that clever and is the depth in literature almost infinite...
Thank you for your charming journal, and thanks to you and Dave McKean for Mr Punch.
Ichixa

Er, as far as I'm concerned, you can go all the way. Of course the depth in literature is almost infinite, but that has as much to do with the person reading as the person writing.

Or to put it another way, if you are pointing out one of the things a story is about, then you are very probably right; if you are pointing out the only thing a story is about you are very probably wrong -- even if you're the author. And either way, you aren't making yourself look ridiculous, whether you're seeing things in a poem or story or a song that the author originally intended or didn't intend isn't always the point. We have minds that make connections; that's one of the wonderful things about being us.

Mark Askwith (who tells me he was at an event recently where the lady behind the bar saw his nametag and said "Are you the Mark Askwith who knows Neil Gaiman, then?" proving that there are readers of this journal thing everywhere,) sends me http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/top100.html. A perfect April Fool is one that people are still talking about thirty years later...

Living in America, one occasionally hears about the orange and yellow alert levels, normally accompanied by suggestions that one should also buy duct tape and water. I'd wondered what a Red Alert meant. Luckily, this article explains what a Red Alert means, at least in New Jersey: A red alert would also tear away virtually all personal freedoms to move about and associate.


...

And my favourite quote of the day is from Steve Brust,in an interview over at Quantum Muse:

QM: Does most of the S/F and Fantasy world take itself too seriously or not seriously enough?


SKZB: How seriously you take yourself, at least as a writer, is exactly how seriously you have to take yourself in order to turn out your best book. Some need to believe they are writing literature for the ages, or else they get sloppy. Others need to believe they are writing throw-away crap, otherwise they freeze up and can't do the work. As for the fans, well, I once heard an interviewer ask Jerry Garcia how he felt about all of these Deadheads putting all of their time, energy, and money into the Grateful Dead. He said, "Where do you think my time, energy, and money goes?" That's about how I feel. I put a lot of effort into this stuff, and it would be really small and silly of me to be upset or contemptuous because other people put effort into digging out what I've put in there. It is very gratifying. It pleases the hell out of me

Holly points out that in the entry about her blindly posting one envelope (which she did, today) I've probably confused everyone by saying application when I meant something else, I've already forgotten exactly what, probably acceptance letter. So, the letter she sent off was the one saying yes, she'll be going there thank you kindly and here's a cheque to be going along with.

Another not-a-FAQ, but the Japan Times had something nice to say about Coraline.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ek20030320pk.htm

and

Hi, Neil...

Thank you for the link to the etymology dictionary...I made the following serendipitous discovery about my favorite word:

serendipity - 1754, from the fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip," by Horace Walpole (1717-92), whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of." From Serendip, an old name for Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), from Ar. Sarandib. Serendipity formed c.1950.

The origins of the word immediately brought to mind what it is I have come to love about your work. I wish you and all of your stories to come the blessings of Serendip.

Allyson

Which put a huge grin on my face.

Greetings, my name is Matthew and I am currently in my second year of York University in Thornhill, Ontario. I am almost taking a Creative Writing course in which I have discovered a major weakness of mine in terms of writing.

It is called description of setting. To put it simply, I have difficulty describing geography -- be it a city, or a place of any kind that exists in the real world. I'm told though that research helps one around this problem.

Now here is my question (I'll put some asterixes around them to emphasize its importance):

*(1) When researching a place of any kind in real life, where would one, as a beginning writer, even begin?

I would appreciate an answer to this very much -- it is somewhat of a perplexion to me because lack of setting description really adds less depth to my stories. Thank you.

The easiest thing is to go there, and take a notebook, and jot down things that strike you. Tape recorders, if you can conquer the embarassment of talking to yourself in a public place, can be terrific for that. And note the things that make you feel something. Sometimes one detail will stick with you. Write it down, or remember it.

Then, if you want colour and background, use it, and don't dwell on it. A sodden teddy bear, face down in the grass, in the little section of a cemetery called BABYLAND may be all you ever need to mention...

You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different.

Find authors you like and see how they do it. They'll all do it differently, but you can still learn.

Not a question, just a link I thought you (and others) might enjoy: "Around the World in the 1890s: Photographs from
the World's Transportation Commission, 1894-1896"
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wtc/wtchome.html

What great photos.

And keep the university things coming in. (And remember, if you're reading this on a livejournal feed, if you post replies in the comments, I don't see them. So please use the FAQ form at Neilgaiman.com)

you said today in the blog (Tuesday the first) that Sam Delaney invented the Graphic Novel. I alwasy that that Will Eisner invented it, and the term Graphic Novel, when he wrote Contract With God. considering that i wrote an A- paper for college on the subject and used that as a premise, i am a bit horrified that i'm wrong and what will happen if my Proff. finds out, could you please explain?


I didn't mean that Chip Delany invented the graphic novel. Just that he's created some very cool ones in his day, more or less as an afterthought.

Will certainly came up with the term graphic novel, although I think he mentioned to me once that other people had come up with it independently before he did. (A Contract With God certainly wasn't the first graphic novel, I'm afraid, or even the first graphic short story collection -- which it is -- but I believe it was the first book to be marketed with the words A Graphic Novel on the book jacket. Does that help, or just make things more confusing?)

Hey Neil--

Just a quick not to let anyone on the blog know - Paul Zindel died on March 27th in New York City of cancer.

He was from my hometown (Tottenville, Staten Island) and taught locally as well, and throughout his career he always kept in touch with the kids of the neigborhood, who, along with his own unique childhood, were such an inspiration to him. To me also.

I only met the man once, and he shook my hand with both of his -hat's the kind of person he was. A student of mine grimly told me of his passing, all the while clutching a young adult book Mr. Zindel had recently written. Paul actually dedicated the book to him and a few of his grammar school friends. That was the kind of man he was, also.

His was a very unique voice, and I will miss it.

I met him at ALA last year -- he was the recipient of the Margaret Edwards award, for a lifetime of writing for young adults, and he made a speech and told us about his life, and I thought he was funny and very nice. His family were really proud of him as well: they glowed, and he glowed because they glowed.

Thanks for letting me know...

...

I heard that you are going to be at some kind of convention in Chicago within the next month (today's 03/31/03), but I didn't see anything listed under the "where's Neil" section. Is this true and if so, could I get some more info on it?

followed by

Wow! I feel stupid! I submited a question yesterday about a convention I had heard about in Chicago... well, I just re-read the message I had recieved about it and instead of saying April, like I thought, it says August. So... I'll just wait for posted info at a closer date. Sorry about that!

Not a problem. I won't be in Chicago in August at a convention, though - I do, at most, one big summer convention a year, and this year it's San Diego. On the other hand I will be making an appearance in Chicago in June, connected to the Chicago Humanities Festival, and will possibly be back there in OCtober or November to do something at the Festival proper, and I'll post the info on that here when I have it.

Dear Neil,
I had a similar problem as Holly when trying to choose which University I would go to. I was stuck trying to pick between Nottingham and York. I eventually decided to settle the problem by going to the Uni with the least iron content, because if a big magnetic meteor ever hurtles towards the Earth then you don't want to be in a place with a lot of iron. Or Manchester.

Matt

Right. I'll remember that....

Neil,

I am currently studying John Keats in graduate school and upon reading a poem immediately thought of you. So (as I cannot go through the book and decide for myself because I lent it to my cousin) I was wondering...Are you referencing "To Autumn" in the title for Season of Mists?

Sort of. Although I always misremember it as beginning, "Season of mists and mellow frightfulness...", which somewhat colours the poem in ways Keats might not have intended.

This one came in from someone with an MTV staff e-mail, and it feels like it's being asked for a reason. Where has Neil's work (Sandman or otherwise) been taught at a university level, to your knowledge? Thank you...

Is that something I should keep track of? I tend not to, I'm afraid (and on the whole universities, wisely, don't warn the author when they're teaching his works. Live authors are always a potential source of embarrassment, because they can say "No, it's not about that at all." Philip K. Dick became the best beloved SF writer of many academics when he was no longer writing, or indeed, living).

Anyway, if anyone has taught or been taught my stuff (Sandman or otherwise) at university level, send in the details on the FAQ line, and I'll post a list here.

...

There's a Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales review here at the Toronto Star and there's one at the New York Times, which doesn't seem to be coming up properly for me, so it's:

McSWEENEY'S MAMMOTH TREASURY OF THRILLING TALES
Edited by Michael Chabon.
Vintage, paper, $13.95.
''As late as about 1950,'' Michael Chabon writes in his introduction, short fiction meant stories with plots -- ''the ghost story; the horror story'' -- and not the ones we run across today, ''plotless and sparkling with epiphanic dew.'' Sick of his own epiphanies, Chabon invited category brand names like Elmore Leonard and Stephen King to break bread with Nick Hornby and others not known for hatching science fiction, mystery or adventure plots. The result is an uneven, somewhat gentrified ''Treasury,'' the self-consciousness of the exercise making it more fun in parts than as a whole. Michael Crichton writes pitch-perfect noir, but his loner-detective tale doesn't add up to much. Aimee Bender misfires with her cozy, as does Sherman Alexie with his zombie cannibals. There are thrills, though. Rick Moody's mournful, postapocalyptic thriller about a drug that lets people relive memories -- and alter the remembered events -- manages to feel personal while recycling Philip K. Dick. Chabon blends alternate history with Jules Verne to gripping effect. Karen Joy Fowler's and Neil Gaiman's acute tales skirt the edge of the supernatural. And Dave Eggers's story about tourists climbing Kilimanjaro seems suspiciously short on plot, but long on character and place, which anywhere else would be a compliment. Matthew Flamm

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

I'm the one who interviewed Alan for Ninth Art. However, I'm not the one
who put that ridiculous copyright notice on it.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for linking to my article. We've
already seen a dramatic rise in hits since you posted it, and it really
means a lot.

9A maintains a policy of "Ideolgical Freeware," which is sort of like the
Linux open-source model as applied to journalism. It's a concept I'm
totally on board with. By default, all Ninth Art pieces are "Freeware,"
unless the author of the piece wishes to retain the rights.

The notice was put there due to a miscommunication between Ninth Art's
editors and myself, but it's been fixed. I honestly don't know why the
notice appeared. I'm sorry that it made me come across like Captain
Copyright. That was never my intention.

Thank you again,

Frank Beaton

You're very welcome. I'm looking foward to the next installment of the interview -- let me know when it goes up and I'll post it here.

Several of you have written to point out that visors and palm pilots and I expect the next generation of phones will happily read etexts in all formats, and that I shouldn't faff around with getting the Gemstar eBook usable. I suppose really it's just because I have the eBook, it was a gift, and whether I keep it or pass it on, it would be better if it was working and useful.

I finished the afterword for Steve Brust today, and phoned him and read it to him and even though he was barely awake he laughed in all the right places.

And I went for a walk on a beach and saw several thousand dead jellyfish (actually, they may not have been dead. You can't really tell with a jellyfish. Sometimes waves would carry them back off the sand out to sea, and they'd bob off to keep jellyfish appointments) and played David Bowie records I'd loved when I was thirteen on my iPod, and, because the beach was perfectly deserted, I sang along very loudly, put scenes for the next issue of 1602 together in my head, and was perfectly, indescribably happy.

Let's see. Today is preeminent SF author, chronicler of our times, academic, and creator of graphic novels Samuel R. Delany's birthday, which means that by some strange coincidence it's also my friend Chip Delany's birthday. Happy birthday, Chip.

And on the subject of friends...

Sorry, you may have thousands of people sending you this, but
Diana Wynne Jones wonders if her own wizardry influenced J. K. Rowling, in the Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-623182,00.html
There again, last time I thought thousands of people would be telling you something and so didn't myself, it was that the fire on Brighton's modern pier actually started on the ghost train, which is why the train is no longer there.

I also had a question: when writing Neverwhere, did you come across any interesting books on the history of the Tube? I have acquired some curiosity about it since starting to use it every day, but there are a lot of books out there and many are probably dull, and I would trust your recommendation above those of most other people.

Thanks for the daily thoughts, always entertaining.

Paul

My favourite book on the world beneath London is called LONDON UNDER LONDON, and it has stuff on the Tube in it. It's still in print, after many editions, and one day I shall tell the story of how the brass bed got into the sewers. Beyond that, there were several stodgy books on the history of the Tube (many of which I bought from the London Transport shop) which all appear to be out of print. On the other hand I notice several books on the abandoned and disused underground stations are now up on Amazon.co.uk that I would have killed for in 1993...

Lovely interview with Diana Wynne Jones, although it's obvious that one off-handed reply by her has been made the lead paragraph and theme of the article, which is a pity, although if it tells readers who like J.K. Rowling that Diana was doing it first and, to my mind, better, then that can't be a bad thing.

Lovely part one of an interview with Alan Moore at http://www.ninthart.com/display.php?article=532. I was fascinated by the copyright notice at the bottom of the interview, which seemed to me to be a way of having your ideological cake and eating it too "Please note that while Ninth Art generally endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware, the author of this article wishes to reserve all rights, and the article may not be reproduced without the author's express written permission."

Hmm. Please note that while Neilgaiman.com vigorously endorses the principle of copyright, the author of this journal is perfectly happy for people to borrow, reprint, put up on their blogs, livejournals or moveable type wossnames, copy things into diaries or commonplace books, or even print out and stick to fridge doors anything on this journal that strikes your fancy. You can do anything except make money from it, really, and even if you managed to do that in an amusing and indirect sort of way I can't imagine I'd grumble.

I think that everything would be simpler if the governments of the world agreed to use Food-Eating Battle Monkeys! to solve their problems. It reduces the names to food eating battle monkeys and tells you who wins. America beats Iraq, but I'm afraid France beats America. Peter Arnett (a Coconut Eating Librarian Monkey) beats NBC (a Plankton Eating Robot Monkey). I could have got Holly to have entered Bryn Mawr (a money-eating giant monkey) vs Smith (a fire-eating disco monkey).

Good night.