pronunciation and how to get your questions answered (or not)

Tom Abba has read ANANSI BOYS and talks about it at http://www.of-clockwork-men.com/2005/06/with-probable-misuse-of-semicolons.html.

Which reminds me, several questions in recently asking the same question. For example,

...I'm always paranoid about pronouncing things correctly and my husband and I are in a bit of a disagreement - though not a major one - about how "Anansi" should be pronounced. Its a silly word to not quite get, really, but if you could clear it up, it would be really great. Thank you so much!~Christie

It's pronounced "A-Nancy." (Or sometimes, "Uhn-unsi".) I googled "Pronounce Anansi" to see what it gave me, and I found myself back at this journal, at http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/07/cucking-claptrap.asp. (A list of alternate names for Anansi can be found at http://www.answers.com/anansi.)

Some people get Anansi the Spider confused with the Anasazi Indians. (Which is pronounced Ana-sahzi. Go to http://www.answers.com/anasazi&r=67 and click on the loudspeaker symbol to hear it pronounced.) But they are nothing at all alike.

Remind me again...What is it I have to do to get my question answered in your journal....I wonder...

Well, I suppose more than anything it comes down to luck. But having said that, there are types of letters that get answered more than others. Fan letters, which is to say, nice letters telling me how much something I wrote meant to the person writing it, tend not to get put up on the journal, although they're very much appreciated. Questions that wouldn't mean anything to anyone except the person writing it and me tend not to get put up (by which I mean, I have to assume that someone else out there reading the journal would find the question and the answer interesting in order to post it). Shorter questions tend to get picked over longer ones: I don't like editing letters for length, so I'm more likely to simply go for a shorter version of something. Questions that would take an essay and some thought may not get answered, only because I'll put it off and almost never get to it.

Once those things are covered, overall, it's luck. Questions (or sometimes helpful answers) come in. I read them over. I put red flags next to ones that I really ought to answer (maybe half or a third of what comes in). Then the next time I feel like doing the blog, I grab a few of those red flagged questions and answer them, and it's whim and it's luck and it's whatever I happen to put in at the time. Lots of really good questions never get answered.

It's currently running about 10,000 questions a year. I could probably answer them all, if I did nothing else, but I'd not get anything at all else done if I did, and I suspect it would be incredibly boring for all of you. As I said, I don't even answer all the ones I want to answer.

Given that, I'm not sure there's any sure fire way of getting a question in. Patience, adopting a zen-like attitude, and assuming that even if I didn't reply I saw it is probably the best way.

I keep meaning, as an experiment and to give people an idea of what the FAQ line is like, to, one day, post and possibly even answer an entire day's worth of messages. Sooner or later.

...

Ace correspondent Kelly Sue DeConnick wrote to tell me that

Laurenn McCubbin and I are training together for the Pacific Grove Olympic-length Triathlon. On September 10th, 2005 we'll swim a mile, bike 25 miles and run 6 miles -- IN A ROW. We're participating in support of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and we've committed to raising over THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS each to improve the lives of blood cancer patients and their families and to accelerate the search for a cure. As of right now, we're just about half way to our goal.

Laurenn and I train well together -- I'm a strong swimmer, but I look like Benny Hill on my bike. She's terrified to put her face in the water, but she's like Lance Armstrong's pissed off little punk rock sister on two wheels. It works. We both post training updates to our websites. Laurenn's at http://www.laurennmccubbin.com and I'm at http://www.kellysue.com/personal

I just posted pictures of my bruises from yesterday's wipeout. It's very sexy indeed.

Kelly Sue DeConnick's donation site:
https://www.active.com/donate/tntmida/kellysue

Laurenn McCubbin's donation site:
http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/lmcc

If anyone cares about celebrity endorsements, we're supported by Reno 911's Dave Holmes (the triathlon was his idea, actually, and he'll be there with us at the event), Mike Doughty, Maggie Estep, Warren Ellis and Kieron Dwyer, among others. Oh, duh -- and you!

...

Finally, congratulations to Brian Aldiss and Jonathan Ross, who were both just awarded OBEs (or possibly OsBE), for services to literature and broadcasting respectively. (An OBE, for those of you in places that aren't British, is the Order of the British Empire, which seems rather sweet, considering there isn't a British Empire any longer. It's like being made a lord of the manor of a village that was long ago taken by the sea.)

storm warnings

A small, waking up thought: as an artist (of any kind) you make things for an audience, normally because you like them. You hope they'll work. (An analogy I used in the Locus interview, talking about short stories, was making clay pots at school. Sometimes you get a pot. Sometimes you get something only a grandmother could love.) And you hope, mostly, that people will like or enjoy or appreciate them. (Or sometimes, just that the story will prickle people or make them think.)

American Gods, for example, I discovered after it came out, slightly to my surprise, people tend to really like or really hate. A lot more people really liked it than really hated it (or it wouldn't have won the shed-load of awards that it did), but it was still rather an odd experience, compared to, say Neverwhere, which people either enjoyed or were indifferent to.

Now I've got Anansi Boys coming up, and I have no idea how people will react, so every reaction is interesting. This one just came in (it was a suprise to see it compared to Good Omens).

Hi Neil. I was one of the lucky 450 to get my hands on an advanced reader version of Anansi Boys this week (I am a children's bookseller at an independent bookstore, Harry W. Schwartz's, in Milwaukee). I read it as quickly as someone can who is very excited yet doesn't want the book to end. I wanted to let you know that it's fantastic. You're right of course; it is very different from American Gods and much closer in tone to Good Omens. I was particularly gleeful over the footnote, the chapter titles, and the Buddha-like lime. Now I'll be able to wait until September when it's released, and I'll enthusiastically recommend it to anyone. I had hoped that you'd come to Milwaukee through Schwartz's for a booksigning, as I believe you had a few years ago (before my time at the store). Good luck on the upcoming leg of your tour, and you might be glad to know I added "The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish" onto the Father's Day table in the kid's section several weeks ago. I think as a present, it's in the "really good" category. Thanks again for the stories! ---Colleen

You're welcome.

Holly just finished it as well, and she liked the lime too.

Meanwhile, over at eBay, I notice that a few people are starting to eBay the pamphlets (which I don't mind at all) and the UK proofs (which I would mind less if the one for sale wasn't proudly listed as "unread").

The US proofs are numbered -- I wonder if any of them will show up on eBay.

...

Speaking as a foreign national, in this post 911 world I find it hard enough to get into the US with a valid green card, and am always rather nervous about accidentally bringing fruit or suchlike contraband into the country. They don't like it if you bring fruit, and on several occasions at Minneapolis airport I've been taken aside and quizzed about whether I have any fruit on my person, or a cheese sandwich.

They seem to be loosening up on other things though:

Massachusetts lawmakers on Thursday called for a closer look at border security after customs officials allowed a man carrying a sword, a hatchet, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. Two days after being allowed into the United States in late April, Gregory Despres, 22, was arrested in Massachusetts in connection with the beheading of his elderly neighbor and the stabbing death of his wife in the New Brunswick town of Minto.

(It seems that the US customs/immigration people are saying that because he was a naturalised American, they had to wave him through. I bet they could have stopped him if only he'd had an apple.)

...

Hello Neil,I'm 24 and I just finished the first draft of my first novel. Now I'm faced with the rather daunting task of going through and editing the whole thing, sorting out all the loose threads, figuring out what to cut, what to shorten, and what to add.My suspicion is that there is just no way to make this process any easier, and that I'll probably spend every night for the next three or four months sitting in front of my computer reading and re-reading the same passages to figure out exactly what I was trying to get at when I wrote them last June. I searched your archives but couldn't find any reference to my particular dilemma so here goes. This is my question:Are there any tricks you've found for keeping huge sections of manuscript in your head so that you don't have to go back and re-read the whole novel to sort out some small feeling that what you're reading doesn't quite fit with something you wrote earlier? Is this just one of those things that comes with time and experience?-benjamin

Actually, I'm a lot worse at keeping huge chunks in my head than I was -- I used to have to keep the whole of Sandman in my head, while I was writing it. But for novels, what I try and do in the stage you're in is print it out, then take a couple of days (I tend to go off to my writing cabin) and just read it, as if I've never read it before, at a sort of comfortable pace, with a pen and a packet of post-it-notes and read and make notes and use my post-its. I wouldn't try and do it on the computer at this stage. Just read it. That's when you'll notice that the pie shop on page twelve is a tie shop for the rest of the book, or that Mr Finnegan becomes Mr Ferguson for a couple of sentences, or that the complete world destruction machine is described on page 50 as being a blank piece of metal with not even an on and off switch to mar its glistening lines, so what the heck is it that your heroine clicks to turn it off in the final chapter....

Hi Neil!I have a question for you, since you do lots of signings. My friend has just self-published her first book (http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~29608.aspx), and is having her first booksigning in her home town. We were talking about it, and she wants to hand out some bookmarks that she designed (she's also an artist!). She's not sure how many people to expect, since the buzz on the book is mostly word of mouth at this point.We were debating this: she wants to have enough bookmarks to cover any demand. I think she should take a very limited amount so she doesn't have a huge overstock on hand. I'm also thinking that if the book takes off, then she'll have created a sort of "limited edition" item.What, if any, thoughts might you have on the subject. I realize you've done tons and tons of signings, so you were the first person I thought of when the topic came up! Thanks bunches!--Sarah

What a nice idea! Where signings are concerned, hope for the best (as Mel Brooks once sang) expect the worst. The worst is you staring out at an empty shop. (Possibly the worst is the bookshop making the staff pretend to be customers, something I've heard about but haven't -- to my knowledge -- experienced.)

There were maybe twelve people at the first ever Sandman signing, for me and Mike Dringenberg, signing copies of Sandman #1 at Jim Hanley's Universe on Staten Island in 1988. (Someone sent me some photos of that signing fairly recently, which rather brought it all back.)

The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations

For anyone who has ever thought "I want to be a writer, but novels are, well, long, and even short stories are sort of intimidating, with all those words in them," finally, the perfect job opportunity. Haven't you ever wondered who writes the fortunes in the fortune cookies...?
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/050606ta_talk_olshan

And for anyone who's ever thought "No, I don't want to write fortune cookies, I want to write novels. For the novel is the best form of expression there is for a naturally shy person and at least if I'm a novelist nobody's ever going to make me dress up as pirate and travel by rickshaw from bookshop to bookshop signing stock," there's this article in the Guardian, on the writing, selling and marketing of a novel, to make you cringe with contact embarrassment: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,6000,1503261,00.html

Also over at Bookslut, there's a terrific interview with Jon Scieszka about his Guys Read project. He makes some excellent points about the way that boys are given books, or not given books to read, and are trained away from books they might enjoy into a world of no books at all...
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_06_005714.php

And I liked this article most because it kept making me think of the imaginary cover of the comic, undoubtedly drawn by Carmine Infantino and inked by Murphy Anderson, as Batman and Robin, hanging their heads, are expelled from a supergroup, walking away while Superman points and says "You're being expelled..." and Green Lantern (or possibly either Spider-Man or Ronald MacDonald) finishes "For violence, sexism and stealing from local branches."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1502264,00.html

...

In Smoke and Mirrors I mention a statue by Lisa Snellings I own, of an angel in a cage, begging for coins (or perhaps, trying to sell one of the feathers from her wings) while her jester captor sleeps. Lisa's just put up a photo of the statue at http://slaughterhousestudios.blogspot.com/2005/06/old-business-first.html
Click on the photo to see a larger version.

...

And in a cheap commercial move, I thought I'd mention that THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH is either a really good, or a really bad Father's Day present. Why don't you give it to a father and find out?

...

Hi Neil! Just a heads up for your Filipino fans. Fullybooked has released the time and schedule of your tour:

JULY 9, Saturday:
- Doors to "The Gathering" at the Rockwell Tent will open at 3:00pm

JULY 10, Sunday:
- A Reading and Book Signing at Fully Booked Promenade Greenhills (opening July 8, 2005) will start at 2:00pm

JULY 11, Monday:
- A Press Conference (by invitation) and the British Council Writers' Forum at the Music Musuem will be from 1:30-3:00pm
- A Reading and Book Signing at Fully Booked Gateway Mall will start at 4:30pm
- Winners Dinner (Raffle and Art Competition winners) at 7:00pm

Can't wait!

Sounds fun. I should have a complete schedule for Singapore and Australia very soon (there's a tentative one up at Where's Neil).


Hi Neil,

I wonder if you have any inkling yet of how many gifts you're going to receive here in Manila. Almost everyone I know who is in some creative field has been talking (either to myself or on their blogs) about how they're going to be giving you their albums, artwork, DVDs of short films, etc. I know some people who are likely going to give you their entire comics output.

Anyway, this whole thing is just to suggest you bring extra luggage for all that stuff. :)

Also, you may want to reconsider wearing the black leather jacket all the time. This being a tropical country with warm temperatures (though you'll be here during the rainy season). I recently went to Singapore (my first time there), and while less humid the sun is harsher; I assume because it's closer to the equator.

On my mailing list we are talking about what work of yours we would like signed most. Also what question we could ask that hasn't been asked before, seeing as you're probably the most interviewed comics personality.

Looking forward to your visit,

ramon
mindfuel.blogspot.com

No... leather jacket? But... but.... but....

Hi Neil, This just in, Beryl Articulatus appears to have been sainted by clockmakers! And i thought you and Mr. Pratchett made her up. See here: http://www.preserveusfromthehouseofclocks.com/exhibits.htmlabout three-quarters the way down under Reliquary Clocks. Seems they omitted the part about the miraculous beard though. It appears you're doing God's work. -Mike

Of course it's all true. You think we make this stuff up? At least the House of Clocks has a website, and you know you can trust them. Implicitly. To the end of the world. (I'd not visited the House of Clocks for a while, and it's nice to see that it's continuing to grow and evolve more and more interesting bits.)

I have no idea why I decided this post really needed the quote I put at the top. I mean, usually they have some significance, but that line was playing (the Bryan Ferry version) when I went to type the title, and it's such a nice set of words, I put it down there.

And finally, in a link I received from Jonathan Carroll himself, a house of books.

The wandering me

Much of the day got eaten by stuff to do with travel and the upcoming Singapore-Philippines-Australia trip.

The bad news is that the Hawaii signing isn't going to happen on this trip. Harper Collins didn't have any bookshops they felt comfortable with putting a signing for me in there, and while we then spoke to DC Comics about a potential comic-shop location to host a signing, that coincided with discovering that, while Sydney to LA via Hawaii has been the easy sane and normal route I've taken every time I've gone to Australia so far, this time, for reasons that only travel agents understand, it was enormously problematical, and at the point where the travel agent triumphantly announced that I could definitely get from Sydney to Honolulu as long as I didn't mind going via San Francisco, I gave up.

It now looks like I've got a 30 hour layover in Tokyo instead, around the 23rd of July. Not that I'm planning to sign anything there, but it'll be nice finally to get to Japan.

temporary photographs

I don't know how long these links will work, so...

If you go to http://www.karolduclos.com/audies

And then you click on the link to the Audies, you'll see a bunch of fun photos, including me and Terry doing the Good Omens pics (and some of me and Terry and Jennifer Brehl, who is our editor at Morrow), and many more photos of the pre-show stuff. (I was MCing, in my new tuxedo.)

For the next 3 weeks only, there are pictures of the Griffin Theater's STARDUST production at http://www.griffintheatre.com/nowplaying.html (which look wonderfully Charles Vess) and many reviews over at http://www.griffintheatre.com/stardust_reviews.html.

...

And when I was at school, we read about King Canute. I see from the Guardian his name is now spelled Cnut (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1497065,00.html) making him sort of the FCUK of Early British Kings....

"My heart was under lock and key, But somehow it got unhitched"

If you've ever thought to yourself "I would love to help the CBLDF by volunteering, or just go and say hello and tell them they're doing good work or something but I live in New York City -- why oh why are the Gods so cruel as to make me want to trek all the way to Northhampton Ma. in order to meet Charles Brownstein and see the CBLDF offices in all their glory?" then you will be enormously relieved to know that the Gods have listened to you, and have magically moved the offices of the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund to New York, just so that you can get involved.

The fund's new offices will be just around the corner from the New York Public Library, at 271 Madison Avenue. http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000256.shtml is the news story.

...

I've ordered a replacement black and white Samantha for Maddy from http://www.electrictiki.com/sambw.html.

In addition:

Hi Neil, In regards to Maddy's love of Bewitched: I'm afraid I don't know of any Samantha maquettes for sale. However, I live in Salem, MA, where they are currently constructing a 9-foot statue of Elizabeth Montgomery in full Bewitched garb in the center of the downtown area. Next time you're in New England, you might consider taking her to see it. In fact, they'll probably start selling all kinds of Bewitched memorabilia to go with it. I'll let you know. I also feel it necessary to mention that I was terribly depressed about this, seeing as how Salem's tourist trade is quite tacky enough without oblique witchcraft references in the form of cutesy TV shows; however, if the statue can become a part of the Maddy Gaiman Show, then perhaps it will be worth it. P.S. Can't wait to get Anansi Boys signed in Boston!

I'll bear that in mind. She seemed very excited when I mentioned to her that I had a copy of the Al Hine Bewitched novel downstairs (it's where I learned, as a boy, that Samantha's maiden name was Dobson, and that she used magical powers to check out Darrin in the shower when she got interested in him) that I'll go and find for her. I haven't yet told her that the theme tune had lyrics (sung here by Peggy Lee).

...

Several hundred more messages from people about tea, which makes it the single most contentious subject since I told someone here that I really didn't want to know about real person slash fiction, especially not the kind with me in it.

Many people wanted me to mention this:

Hi Neil, You may already have seen it, but Douglas Adams wrote about the perfect cup of tea. It's available via the h2g2 site at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A61345: "Americans are all mystified about why the English make such a big thing out of tea because most Americans have never had a good cup of tea." Actually, I think this applies to Indian food as well.Regards,Gavin.

Scaryduck (http://scaryduck.blogspot.com/) wrote to plug a site:

Neil--- Tea! You really ought to visit this website (if you haven't already, and I'm certain that at least one of your readers has prodded you in the right direction): http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/
Then, buy the book. It comes with the Scaryduck seal of approval, but spends rather too much time on biscuits rather than on the important art of tea-brewing. After that, I'd encourage you to buy the film rights for this important body of work before it's too late and Hollywood wrecks the entire tea-drinking experience for everybody. Regards, Alistair / Scaryduck

and when someone writes and says his Dad makes interesting teapots I sort of click on the link with an eyebrow raised and then it turns out that they really are some of the most interesting teapots I've ever seen,

So...

Hello Neil It occurred to me after reading your latest journal post on tea, that you'd probably be needing a teapot (well actually I assumed you already had one, but probably not like these)My dad makes interesting teapots and I thought some of them might appeal to you... have a look at: http://www.andytitcomb.com click on the Current Range page for....well for the Current Range. All the bestJago http://www.jagoillustration.com

and the current range link is at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/teapots/teapots/current/current.html

...

I'm a big fan of yours, Neil, and have been for a long, long while, but something lately has been bothering me. You keep mentioning blurbs. And how you don't want to give them, etc. Which is fine. I realize you are, indeed, a busy man who hasn't quite mastered the art of bilocation when in fact tri- or tetralocation would probably be extraordinarily handy.But still, "Gaiman is a treasure trove of story, and we'd be lucky to have him in any medium." -Stephen King
That's the one that sticks out in my head, because it was in big ole' type on the back of *Neverwhere,* which was the first novel of yours I skeptically picked up after I'd avoided *Sandman* for years (as it wasn't My Sort Of Thing). King was, then, my favorite writer.Tori Amos and Norman Mailer (the former not much a surprise, of course, but the latter) are two other names I remember from that first novel, by a guy by the name of Gaiman (I was always pronouncing as "Guy-m'n," so I had to keep explaining to people I hadn't actually said I was reading a book by Neil Diamond). I can't read it as arrogance or forgetting-you-were-once-in-the-other-guys'-position, because I know you aren't and I know you remember (because you're not that like that arrogant Hitchens idiot from several posts ago), and I enjoy your works far more than Atwood's (of course, that's like saying I prefer, say, the Magnetic Fields over the Indigo Girls. I do, of course, but it's a designation that makes no sense). And I remember reading how happy you were to have received a rather glowing blurb from Harlan Ellison (whose opinion would never matter to me in the first place, anyway, but did to you).
I have no point, really. I like your books, and I already like -Anansi Boys- enough that I'll buy it no matter what anyone says about it. It just niggled at me, and I thought I'd say something.Keep up the good work, because I'll keep reading it.-Will

Well, it's not that I don't give blurbs any longer -- Barry Yorgrau's NASTYBOOK and Susanna Clarke's JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORRELL are probably the most recent ones, along with M. John Harrison's LIGHT and Bill Gibson's PATTERN RECOGNITION. Several blurbs over the last couple of years, from authors as diverse as Greg McDonald, Nick Sagan, Robin McKinley and Peter Straub were actually taken from entries in this blog (not that I mind that). And it's not that I don't write introductions from which blurb lines can be extracted just as the Stephen King quote about me was. I do (I just wrote one for Al Davidson's new Spiral Dreams book, and I have three mutually contradictory drafts of an intro to M. John Harrison's Viriconium sitting in notebooks needing to be typed).

But it's also something that I approach with a little trepidation. Books accompanied by imploring letters arrive daily. They may well be books I'd love to read, but the stack of books and manuscripts wanting blurbs gets bigger daily (until my assistant decides they've been sitting there long enough and they need to go and visit the basement), and I still haven't finished Flashman's March [edit make that Flashman on the March], the last book I bought for pleasure. It gets to the point where people approaching me with books they wish blurbed gives me a terrified, guilty feeling -- which was why I mentioned that it was very nice to be given books by people who just wanted me to have them.

And to add weirdness to it all, of course now that ANANSI BOYS is coming out, the publishers would like blurbs for it. Preferably from people who are known for being funny. If Wodehouse were still alive we'd be camping out on his door...

the last tea post

More people than I could count using the fingers of a small scout troop wrote in to say "Right. How do you make tea then?"

This is the biggest, most important thing to know: For a black tea, you pour boiling water on tea leaves.

That's ninety percent of the art of making a decent cup of tea. Hottish, not boiling, water tends to make a weird tea that's bitter and weak at the same time, and is no fun to drink. (Boiling water. It's why God invented the kettle.)

It's the final ten percent of the cup of tea that you'll get people calling each other heretics for adding the milk (not cream) first, or whether to use teabags or loose tea and whether burning in effigy or a nice box of chocolates was the correct reward for whoever decided adding bergamot oil to tea was a good thing*, or all the other tea things that people like to argue about.

And to all that, I'd just say De Gustibus.

(And having said that, when I first moved to the US I discovered that the local water supply, when boiled and added to tea, had some kind of weird chalky scum on the top, and I installed a reverse-osmosis water purifier by the kettle, so that it didn't.)

The very best cups of tea I ever had were in Australia and in Patagonia (actually, in a Welsh tea-room in Patagonia in a town called Gaiman). They were good enough to be memorable, and they were both loose-leafed tea in teapots.

(I got the lady who made me the tea in Australia to teach me how to do it, I was so impressed. She showed me how to warm the teapot with warm water before the tea went in, to make sure the water was at a rolling boil, how after a few minutes she turned the pot around 3 times clockwise and 3 times counterclockwise, which, she told me, was like stirring but didn't risk bruising the tea and making it bitter, and she was definitely a milk-first into the cup sort of person. It was, apart from turning the pot instead of stirring, just like the BBC scientific guide to a perfect cup: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/uk_how_to_make_perfect_tea/html/1.stm
which is from this news article -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3016342.stm. And you can read George Orwell's original article on A Nice Cup of Tea at http://www.booksatoz.com/witsend/tea/orwell.htm)

But I'm easily pleased. I tend to think of tea as being like sushi -- there's great sushi, there's perfectly good sushi, and then there's rubbery, chewy, evil fishy strips on cold rice-puddingish lumps, that humans should not have to eat. In the same way, there's great tea, and there's good tea which comes in a variety of different kinds (including serious strong-enough-stand-a-teaspoon-straight-up-in builder's tea, made using teabags and best served in a stained mug with a chipped handle), and then there's what you get in a cup after trying to make a cup of tea using some rapidly cooling hot water delivered to you with a paper-wrapped tea-bag and a small tub of non-dairy creamer that really human being shouldn't have to drink...

If you're in the US and want to get some decent British or Irish loose tea or teabags without either going to the UK or paying a fortune, there are some places online. I've been using http://www.britishtea.com for tea for years now.

(I should add that, bizarrely, the hotwaterandateabag thing has started to spread to the UK, where you would think they'd know better.)

...

Hey Neil-I am curious how the book expo went. I hope that my fellow New Yorkers showed you a nice time. Lisi

The best thing about Book Expo was giving out and signing the little chapbooks of the first 2/3 of a chapter of Anansi Boys. It made people happy. The text in the chapbooks is actually closer to the finished text in the novel than the version that's currently up online...

(that's at http://www.neilgaiman.com/books/anansi_hc.asp, at least for now)

...and the responses so far to the book from people who've read it seem almost disconcertingly enthusiastic. You sort of hold your breath when a book goes out in public for the first time, and I was doubly holding my breath because Anansi Boys is so far from American Gods in tone and texture (of the things I've written, it's nearer to Neverwhere or Good Omens, but it isn't actually like either of them; of the things I haven't written it would probably be comfortable on the same shelf as Topper and Leave it to Psmith).

I remember saying that the fun would be figuring out a voice to tell the Anansi Boys story in, and when I did it sounded a lot like this blog. (I just looked. It was http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2003/11/in-which-you-learn-that-in-comics-l.asp) And I think that's probably true. It's friendly, informal, and funny, when it isn't scary or weird.

So, yes. I was happy. Also people gave me books, and didn't seem to want blurbs, just for me to have the books, which I liked. Early yesterday morning, in an airport, I found myself reading The Holy Tango of Literature, which poses the question: what sort of poems and plays would have been written if authors had to write something that was an anagram of their names. It's really sharp, and it had me laughing aloud in an airport and getting odd looks. (Unless anyone wants to use the preceding sentence as a blurb, in which case it was all extremely depressing.)

...

Finally, a small request.

My daughter Maddy's become a huge fan of early Bewitched (because the TIVO decided that it ought to record the black and white first season for us, and she got hooked) and I got her the new Bewitched black-and-white-and-grey maquette (see it here) as a surprise present for being a straight-A student and an utter pleasure to have around. Alas, when it arrived today one hand was broken off (and three fingers had been broken off the broken hand, which weren't even in the packing), and when we called to find out about getting it replaced, we were told that they couldn't replace it as it had been a very limited run and they were now sold out.

So if there are any shops or entities out there with an unbroken black and white Samantha Stephens maquette for sale, can you let me know through the FAQ line? You'll make a small girl extremely happy (actually, she's pretty happy anyway, as it's the arm you can't really see. But still).

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*It was Charles, Earl Grey, William IV's prime minister, who was given the recipe by a mandarin, which is not a citrus fruit but a Chinese official. Oddly enough, the bergamot is not a Chinese official but a citrus fruit, a cross between a lemon and a sour orange, and the oil that they add to Earl Grey, which turns a normal cup of tea into an odd-smelling concoction, is extracted from its peel.

Optimism. Faith. English Breakfast.

I think one of the key things to remember about human beings is their optimism and their faith. For example, in America, you have a country filled from sea to shining sea with people in the food service industries all of them convinced that a person can somehow make a drinkable cup of tea using only a) a teabag and b) a cup and c) a container holding water that was once reasonably hot. They bring me these three ingredients proudly, convinced that somehow I'll be able to combine them in a way that will produce a drinkable cup of tea.

And in a credit to my own optimism and faith, I keep trying. Haven't succeeded yet, of course. But still. It makes you proud to be human.

Which probably bubbled into my mind because Terry Pratchett and I were talking about Crowley and Aziraphale over dinner the other night and wondering what they'd been up to ("...on the South Downs? You really think so?"). It was very pleasant, honestly, like catching up with news of old friends.

A note from the braindead...

Bit braindead, so this is just to say

a) congratulations to Penn and Emily Jillette on the birth of their daughter, Moxie Crimefighter Jillette. Really this was just an excuse to type "Moxie Crimefighter Jillette". I hope more children get called "Moxie Crimefighter", so Miss Jillette will just be "Moxie Crimefighter #1" and there will be a whole legion of them...

b) Lots and lots of people wrote to ask what I thought of the article in the Times about comics at http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14931-1636789,00.html, and I honestly don't think much of it, or about it. It's not actually a news story, just a silly opinion piece from someone with an opinion without much to back it up (I'm not sure how comics fans manage to be both phallocentric and boob-obsessed, I would have thought it was one or the other, but there you go). The jokes aren't funny. The bit I thought oddest was...

�Women just don�t go into comic-book stores,� explains Trina Robbins, the author of The Great Women Cartoonists, speaking recently to the New York City Comic Book Museum. �A woman gets as far as the door, and after the cardboard life-size cut-out of a babe with giant breasts in a little thong bikini and spike-heel boots, the next thing that hits her is the smell. It smells like unwashed teenage boys, and it has this real porn-store atmosphere.�

...because over the years I've been in comics shops with Trina Robbins. I've chatted to her in Forbidden Planet, for example, and in Comix Experience, and I think in Golden Apple, and there were lots of women around each time, and she never complained about the smell once. She didn't even do that thing people do when they suspect possibly the cat has sprayed, where they sort of try and pretend that they aren't sniffing something unpleasant. So I doubt she intended her description (if she said this) to apply to all comic shops...

(You can read what I think about certain stores in the introduction to the Friends of Lulu "How to Get Girls Into Your Store" book, which you can read for free in PDF over at http://www.friends-lulu.org/handbook.html. But the whole point of the Friends of Lulu handbook is that women DO go into comic shops these days. The boys clubs are in the extreme minority.)

There's not much point in arguing with the article, any more than there's much point in arguing with someone who's convinced that the Martians are stealing his toilet paper. But lots of people are enjoying pointing out that the article's sort of dim, including Tom Abba and the Metaquoters.


Hello Neil,

I find myself in a quandary of sorts and wonder if you have any advice or insights you may be able to offer a young-ish, aspiring writer of fiction for the screen. For at least two years now, my working practice has proceeded more or less as follows:

1. Get an idea.
2. Scrutinise the idea with unhealthy intensity for any traces of plagiarism, clich�, deus ex machina, etc.
3. Sit down to write the first draft
4. Write less than a page, delete the whole thing, convince myself the idea is worthless, and abandon it altogether.
5. Repeat.

Something about seeing the ideas in my head committed to paper makes me balk, no matter how I try to force myself to just finish something - anything. Does this sound familiar to you at all, perhaps from your earliest days as an artist? I wonder if it all boils down to something as obvious as the fear of being misunderstood. If so, what can I do to enable myself to Just Get On With It?

Thanks for anything you might be able to throw my way.

- David

Well, you have a couple of options. One of which -- the easiest -- is simply not to worry about writing and use the time to do something else instead: golf, for example, or macrame, or the breeding of prize gerbils. The other option is to write. What you're doing currently is Not Writing. If you do want to write, then what you have to do is Not Do That Stuff You're Talking About in 1-5 above, and write instead.

You might want to try handwriting, or even, if you can find a typewriter anywhere, typing. It's harder to delete stuff if you're making marks on paper as you go. And make a rule that you can't go back and change things or fix things until you've finished whatever you're on. You could try giving yourself a wordcount, too -- a thousand or so words a day is probably good to start off with. Finish it, even if it's crap (especially if it's crap). Then go onto the next.

Ted Hughes once said words to the effect that the progress of any writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own inner police system. Bear that in mind. And good luck.

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Sixteen years ago the photo on the back of Good Omens was taken. Today the photo that'll be on the upcoming new edition of Good Omens was taken. I put on the dark glasses, for old time's sake, and I was in a black tuxedo and Terry was in white one, so people will think that he's the Good One. The pictures weren't in a graveyard, but we got sort of tired of graveyard photos on the Good Omens tour, long long ago, so we didn't mind at all.

And I ran into Miriam Berkley today, who is a wonderful photographer of authors, who told me that on her page, in addition to some marvellous thumbnails of people like Kathy Acker and Susanna Clarke, she has a shot of me she took in 1988. So on the far right on the top row at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/MiriamBerkley/ is me, aged 27, and in profile. She's a marvellous photographer.

author sensitivity...

Over at the Dreaming website, Lucy Anne the Librarian has gathered together all the reviews of Stardust the Stage Play, including a number that haven't been posted here. It only runs for another three weeks, so if you're in the Chicago area, and you were thinking of going, you probably should.

Dear Neil,I'm disturbed that you posted the Christopher Hitchens exchange in amusement. Normally I find your treatment of fans (and pretty much everyone else) unimpeachable -- which is why it's hard to see you apparently sympathizing with Hitchens's derisive and arrogant treatment of a fan. I have to agree, it would be terrible if everyone were like him. Glenn Peters,Portland, OR

I just reread it to see if I still thought it was funny or if I was failing somehow in sensitivity, and I'm afraid I still think it was a funny exchange, possibly because it was such a strange interlude in the middle of the Guardian's Two Hitchens Brothers Finally On Stage event.

It seems very much par for the course where Hitchens is concerned in terms of his relationship with the world, and I didn't really see it as him being specifically nasty to the woman in that tent who simply wanted to know if, seeing that he was smoking, could she smoke too; when she said that they all ought to be allowed to smoke, he said that he wouldn't stop her, but pointed out that he was in a privileged position, and there wasn't a lot anyone could do to stop him.

Having been up on stage a few times over the years with The Only Person Allowed To Smoke In The Room (and art spiegelman is always much better behaved than Hitchens), I've often wondered whether something like that would ever happen, and thus I was amused when it did.

(This post should not be seen as in any way condoning smoking, smoking on stage, appearing on panels, using the phrase "If anyone doesn't like it they can kiss my ass," Christopher Hitchens, behaving like Christopher Hitchens, literary festivals, the Guardian, or rudeness to people in the audience who are dying for a ciggie.)

(Oddly enough, the last time I mentioned Hitchens on this blog by linking to my friend Roz's Live Journal article about him a few years back I was roundly told off for not agreeing with his politics and implicitly condoning the view that he was a "drunken fop". So for the record, I think Christopher Hitchens explaining just why he believed Mother Theresa of Calcutta was an evil woman, while smoking and drinking his way through his interview, during Penn and Teller's "Let's see how many people we can piss off this week" episode of BULLSHIT, was a remarkable piece of television.)

Ultra-basic question: How should a non-published writer approach a comic artist with a script he hopes to get the artist to draw?

"Hullo, would you like a drink?" is a good sort of a start. Best bet is to go somewhere that artists are and go and meet them. Once they like and trust you, spring the script on them.

how do you come up with all your ideas like for Coraline

You probably need to read this: http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/essay03.asp which explains, I hope, everything you will ever need to know about where I get ideas from.

hi neil! i was just wondering, when it comes to reviews I can't imagine how absolutely nerve-wracking that sequence of being published must be. so what do you do to take bad reviews (as if you've ever received one) and put them behind you? do you read them alone late at night and scoff silently and mumble condecending things like "you fool, you'll never understand" or "one day, when i'm ruling the world you'll regret those words" or even "how about I tie my literary awards around your neck and drown you at sea?". or do you really just wait until your fans accept the book and respond.it must be a tough and grueling process...trevor,toronto canada

I took my very first review very seriously. It said the book was too expensive, so Dave McKean and I persuaded the publisher to make it cheaper. Nobody ever noticed.

Reviews are opinions. That's all. And I've had so many of them over the years that they tend not to stay in my head longer than it takes to read them. When I was much younger I'd walk around the house and put together long letters in my head to the reviewers I'd never send. These days if I think anything about bad reviews I think that maybe they'll like the next book, or maybe they won't, and then I get on with whatever I'm doing. It takes less energy.

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Over the years I've said no many times to doing readings from comics. Dave Sim's come up with a way to do it... http://www.comicon.com/thebeat/archives/2005/05/dave_sim_reads.html