Let me ask you a question. What went right today?

It’s a powerful question that makes you think about your day and prompts you to give it a positive shine. It can also be a great conversation starter.

On this edition of Just One More Book, author and songwriter Joan Buzick shares how her book What Went Right Today? can start a dialog with a child, the use of a refrain in both music and books to provide an anchor for a young reader and the role that Toastmasters has had on her writing.

Photo of Joan Buzick: wwrt.org

Tags:Joan Buzick, Toastmasters, what went right today, WWRTJoan Buzick, Toastmasters, what went right today, WWRT

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Hi, Neil,

I was trying to read your last post at your Journal (the one titled "Roger and me"), or what my RSS agregator points like your last post, but I'm redirected to an Error Message page (404 - page not found).

Well, uh... Thanks,

K

Apparently Blogger is having problems right now and things aren't posting. Why they are happily appearing on the various feeds but appearing late or not at all on the journal is a mystery, but one that shall I have no doubt be resolved in time...

So this is more or less a placeholder blog entry to see if publishing it is likely to make it or any previous entries show up.

This photo from last night is possibly the only photo ever taken with me in it in which someone else is wearing a leather jacket and I am not.

As I said the other day, I'm happy about the Beowulf early reviews that are coming in, because I had got really tired of the amount of on-line silliness I'd been reading by people who were exercising the ancient internet privilege of writing confidently about things they didn't know anything about.

I don't think everyone will love the film, no more than everyone loves any film, but I think it's a lot more of a movie than people might have been expecting, and am taking possibly too much pleasure in the tone of "I thought it was going to be rubbish but then I saw it..." early reviews that have started to trickle out. This one in animation magazine -- http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/7565 -- says things like

...It’s a thoroughly engrossing and thrilling achievement, and everyone who worked on it should be very proud.

From the monster Grendel’s first attack on King Hrothgar’s mead hall, it’s clear that this is not The Polar Express. Beowulf is bloody, bawdy, cheeky, sexy and generally cool. The year is 518 A.D. and the title character has come to the Danish kingdom of Herot to rid it of its demon. Boastful, cocksure and overly macho, he comes off at first like a close cousin of the Gerard Butler character in 300, but eventually proves to be a deeply flawed hero more akin to the subjects of Greek tragedies. The screenplay by Neil Gaiman (Coraline, MirrorMask) and Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) takes some liberties with the original tale and weaves a smart and tangled web that suggests that the epic poem passed down through the oral tradition was only half of the story.

I’ve often questioned the logic of going through the trouble of making realistic CG humans when you can simply photograph real actors, but it makes sense with this particular project because it’s important that the humans and the monsters look like they belong in the same world....

...It’s a shame the film probably won’t be qualified to compete for Best Animated Feature at this year’s Academy Awards because most people will see it as animation. On the other hand, it might not be fair to lump it in with films involving performances that are completely animator-driven. As it stands, Beowulf is in a category of its own and the Academy doesn’t know what to do with it. But it may be forced to come up with something, especially if it proves to be a major box-office hit.

Beowulf succeeds in delivering where most of the summer “event” films have failed this year. It’s solid entertainment with a gripping story and complex characters that aren’t off-the-shelf clichés. It’s not a perfect movie, and one that is sure to have its critics, but I think it’s one of the year’s biggest surprises and deserves to be seen by a lot of people. I’m sure it holds up in standard projection, but do yourself a favor and drive the extra distance to an IMAX theater and see it in 3D.

Anne Thompson's Variety Blog entry on Beowulf -- http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2007/11/beowulf.html -- quotes Stephen Schaefer's review, which begins

Seeing is believing with Robert Zemeckis’ mighty, monumental “Beowulf,” which opens Nov. 16. This extravagant adaptation of the epic poem about a cursed kingdom invents a 6th century A.D. Denmark that is so richly detailed, romantic and engrossing it’s like seeing the Prince Valiant comic strip brought to blazing, 3-D life, a childhood fantasy realized in such a complete way you’re stupefied with delight.

and ends

Big Oscar Question: Is this in the running for Best Picture or Best Animated Feature?

And my favourite quote came from the LJ of someone who was at the premiere last night --

It's always fun to go into a movie with no expectations and then realize, as the credits roll and the final moments sink in and the exhilaration of powerful storytelling lights up the crowd -- the applause, the dropped comments and overheard conversation as we work our way up the aisles -- that you were one of the first to experience what will be a major hit, and you came to it fresh, without buzz or hyped-up expectations or knowledge of the story's main revelations, which will soon be impossible for audiences everywhere except for those who might be emerging from under logs and rocks. And that it will be a hit not because it was a manufactured hyped-up corporate Event (and the sequel of a sequel of a sequel), but because it's just good, right down to its well-structured story bones, and people will just like it and tell other people how much they liked it. Like I'm telling you now. How positively quaint and old-fashioned.

...

(Here's more or less the complete transcript of the Beowulf Press Conference from which the Angelina Quotes were taken out of context, all around the world.)

Incidentally, I think the educational pack done for Beowulf is simply wrong. Part of the point of the Beowulf movie that Roger and I wrote is the places it diverges from the story of Beowulf, and the ways it explores the relationship between a person and a story about a person. I don't think they should be putting the stuff we made up on material intended for schools -- it seems like a way of justifiably irritating teachers, who have enough to put up with when they try to teach Beowulf without us making their lives harder. It would have been much more interesting to have put up either the original, or one that talked about the differences -- I'd absolutely encourage high schoolers to see our version and talk about what changed and why.

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What was the red carpet like? It was like this...

And here's Roger Avary and me on the Red Carpet line.




Maddy has promised to write me a blog entry about this evening. She is now on a Red Eye home in order not to miss any school -- her insistence, not mine, bless her.

It was a lovely night.

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An urgent message from Dave McKean, who is making a low-budget film called LUNA right now:

I urgently need 2 white paper origami crabs to appear in a scene in Luna, like this one:
http://db.origami.com/displayphoto.asp?ModelID=2244
if anyone is willing to make them and send them to the UK straight away, I can pay a small fee to cover time (or a signed drawing or book?), give them a name check in the final credits, and give them a fedex account number for shipping.

Go to the FAQ page if you're an Origami whizz (and I know there are Origami whizzes out there, as I get given amazing things at signings) and drop me a line, and I'll put you straight in touch with Dave. Who will probably soon be drowning in Origami crabs.

Went in to Hair Police today and saw Wendy who turned the strange messy mop that my hair had turned into into a rather nice haircut. From there to Dreamhaven where I signed lots of stuff for Elizabeth and the www.neilgaiman.net site, including a half a ton of Absolute Sandman Volume 2s. As I drove home Roger Avary called to let me know that he's reopening his website after a couple of years without one -- http://www.avary.com/.

Then to Maddy's Parent Teacher conference. She's doing wonderfully at school, and got an impressive report card -- which, for the first time ever, she really had to work for, as she came to the UK for the Stardust premiere and having lost a week of schoolwork. (She's coming to LA with me for the Beowulf premiere, but is only missing one school day to do it.)

And then home. Opened the copy of Bust I'd picked up at DreamHaven (officially I get it for my assistant Lorraine, but I always read it first -- sort of like when I'd pick up a copy of Bunty for my sisters as a boy), and found myself staring at an unexpected advert for the Good Omens and Stardust scents from BPAL. Which reminded me that I had meant to congratulate the amazing Beth, who is the mind (and the nose) behind BPAL -- and a woman who has raised an enormous amount of money for the CBLDF this year -- on her wedding.

(And if you haven't looked at the CBLDF site recently -- http://www.cbldf.org/ -- Gordon Lee goes to trial on Monday. Finally. After three years, two completely different sets of "facts", and $80,000 in legal bills so far for something that should never have been a police matter in the first place... http://www.cbldf.org/articles/archives/000318.shtml for the story so far.)

Lots and lots and lots and lots of emails from people telling me that Marmite can be found all over America, normally beside the baking supplies (probably because of the word Yeast). I don't think I'm going to need Marmite again for another couple of years now, but than you all for the info.

I try reasonably hard to credit people who helped (see the very long list of names at the back of American Gods) but find it hard to find fault with the author in question. Authors are packrats. If you tell us an anecdote -- unless you preface it with "I am about to tell you an amusing and/or interesting anecdote. Should you at some future time use it in a book you will need to contact me to obtain my permission, or at least credit me by name. I shall now tell you the anecdote and then give you my contact details in a form in which you won't lose them," -- then it's fair game. I think our attitude -- I don't speak for all of us, but enough -- is that if your friend thought his anecdote would have made a good book, he should have written it himself.

I don't know the names of the people who took me down the sewers or into the disused tube tunnels when I was doing Neverwhere, but their anecdotes certainly made it into the book. I didn't give the name of the financially dodgy agent whose interesting approach to paying over royalties inspired the character and behaviour of Graham Coats in Anansi Boys either (probably a wise move, that). And, as you say, very often you know someone told you that Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria obtained a doctor's note to get out of being married, but who it was or when has melted down in the compost heap in the back of your mind to the brown sludge of memory. It's like remembering jokes, and who told them to you. The shape is now there in your mind, and you know the punch line is "Two coffees and a choc ice," but how it entered your head is a mystery.

(And it's worth pointing out your friend might be wrong. I get letters sometimes from people saying "You got this from me." And the people who send the letters believe it, but it's not the case. I find myself replying "Actually, I wrote this four years before you wrote your story," or "I understand you think I got this from something you said. Actually the entire story was in this newspaper on this date, and that was where I got it from.")

Having said all that, I'm also really sympathetic to your friend. Many years ago I was on a panel where I said "I'm going to write a book called X," and no-one laughed longer or louder than the bloke next to me on the panel who, eleven months later, brought out a book with the title I'd mentioned. I was in a conversation with another author who mentioned being stuck on a plot thing, and I said "Oh, that's an easy one," and made a suggestion, and suggested a title for the book for good measure, and he said "I owe you lunch for that one," but I scanned the acknowledgements in vain looking for a thank you when the book came out, and didn't get a lunch out of it either. And conversely I have fuzzy warm feelings for all those people who wrote books and actually did say thank you, and used their acknowledgments to acknowledge.

...

After a long day, i got "your" love letter that the new york times sent out. It was rather funny and made me laugh a lot.(was even funnier trying to explain to my roomate that it wasnt a real love letter)Did you have anything to do with the writting of those love letter? Or did the new york times write them without the help of the varies authors? Do you know if every one got the same letter? Just curious, thanks.

Yes, everyone got the same letter (it's the UK Times, by the way, not the New York one). And yes, I wrote it. (Really, it's a short story.) The day before me people got one from Margaret Atwood. Today, I think it's Leonard Cohen. I think you can still sign up for the last three... http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/commercial/article2623706.ece

...

Finally -- this gave me a warm and happy smile.... http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/when-the-wolves-come-out-of-the-walls-its-all-over/

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Last night I wrote a thirty second scary story. Actually I wrote a 90 second REALLY scary story, then chipped at it, hacked and deleted and rephrased until it was thirty seconds long. Afterwards I wished I'd saved the 200 word version.

This morning I went to the local NPR radio station and recorded it -- we cut out another sentence, and I slowed down a hair -- for an NPR Hallowe'en special...

....


I believe that the curious can see the whole, uncut, me getting an award at Scream 2007 thing at

Neil Gaiman Receives Hell's Dildo - Scream 2007

Posted Today

Neil Gaiman accepts "Hell's Dildo" at the 2007 Scream Awards.

It cuts off before I welcome Roger Avary and Ray Winstone to the podium to introduce Beowulf, but if it hadn't you would have seen Roger wearing his "Scary Trousers" tee shirt in front of a billion people.



(Cat Mihos blogs about the awards at http://furrytiger.blogspot.com/2007/10/birthday-girl-scream-awards-dream-life.html. Lovely photos, but my Big Pupil Thing means redeye all the way...)

I should mention that the amazing Cat's Neverwear site is over at http://www.neverwear.net/ and you can get your Kendra Stout "Scary Trousers" or your Dagmara Matuszak "Anansi Boys" tee shirts there. (I suggested that Cat should do a tee shirt with the full "I believe" speech from American Gods on it next...)

Which reminds me -- I've now finally seen the bound insides of the Hill House ANANSI BOYS (you can see pictures at http://hillhousepublishers.com/hh-update-22oct07-01.htm) and they are astonishingly beautiful. Hill House are still trying to get straight answers out of the Polish printer about when he's actually going to have the books bound and delivered to the US -- he's made too many promises to them that haven't come through -- but it looks like it's getting closer and closer to being a reality.

...

Ross Douthat replies to my post of the other day at http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/10/dumbledore_is_gay_ii_1.php

...

This is more of a marmite locating datalet then a question.

There is a large and rather unusual store near Cincinnati, OH called Jungle Jims.

Along with Jim's collection of large animatronic singing creatures, there is a decently size section of foods from England in the international part of the store.

They have a website at junglejims.com at which you can view some off the strangeness under the attractions section.

Marmite, of course, is there and also Hobnobs and various and sundry other foods of interest.

I feel like I'm writing a pamphlet for a tourist attraction now, so I'll stop.

Whenever I drive across America -- which isn't often -- I try and stop in at Jungle Jim's on the way back. And not just for the UK food, but for the amazing variety of world food. It's an amazing place. Would that all supermarkets could have that magic.

...

I just heard about the event chronicled in http://117hudson.blogspot.com/2007/10/show-must-go-on.html
We were lucky in that the actor who was hurt was the only one who was sort of understudied (as one of the wolves had also played Lucy's brother in an earlier production) so they reconfigured the second half for seven people instead of eight to do the wolf party...


...
Mr. Gaiman,

I checked to see if you've mentioned it yet this year, and saw that you hadn't-- would you mind taking a second to remind your fans who haven't already signed up that National Novel Writing Month begins in a week?

I'm a first-timer, but a lot of your journal entries recently have really inspired me to sit down and write, and NaNoWriMo is a great way to combine your advice and a great community. Figured I'd send in reminder in case there are others who feel the same way I do. Thanks!


-Laurie

I can do even better than that. I can point people to http://www.nanowrimo.org/
And I can finish my Letter Of Encouragement to the troops...

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So, I'm home and writing this in bed before the day starts and the phone begins to ring. Am expecting the jet lag this week to be pretty hellacious, as it was last time I did one of these "nip across the Atlantic for a few days" jaunts.

Let's see...

The screening for 50 People on Sunday night was nerve-wracking (these were not people chosen for their diplomatic abilities -- if they'd disliked it, I would have known) not least because this was the first time I'd seen something close to a finished cut.

I put up some links to reviews in the last entry. I've noticed a few more: Here's big hairy Mitch Benn on his myspace blog, for example.

Monday morning I had breakfast with Michael Chabon, who had also been to Hay and was staying in my hotel, and then it was interviews, from early in the morning -- mostly magazine pieces with long lead times, but also some TV and radio, most of which will come out in the UK in October when the film does. Lunch was on Rotten Tomatoes UK, and was recorded in a Japanese restaurant for a podcast which will mostly consist of chewing noises I expect.

The oddest moment of the day was being interviewed by the BBC for a BBC4 documentary on Fantasy. They did the interview in an old church in Paddington, in the crypt, and as the car pulled up I had one of those feelings of deja vu that only get when you really have been somewhere before. And as I went down into the crypt, I knew. "We filmed Neverwhere here!" I told the interviewer. "This was the Black Friars' place." I was being interviewed where Richard Mayhew was given his nice cup of tea, before the ordeal.

Then back to Soho for food -- Ten Ten Tai in Brewer Street, which is my favourite unpretentious little Japanese restaurant in London, and is also the nearest eating establishment to Paramount London, so when I'd eaten I walked around the corner and went downstairs and was interviewed by The Man at the Crossroads, Paul Gravett, and answered questions for people who'd just seen Stardust.


Dear Neil,

I was lucky enough to be at the Stardust screening in London on Monday where you also talked about the process of writing the original story, and about your involvement in the film.

I wanted to ask you how it feels to see your original idea filtered through so many different people - going from you, through (in some regards at least) Charles Vess illustrating it, and then through Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn in production of the film's script. How does this process change your feelings about & connection to that original idea - if at all?

You see, I really did want to be intelligent and to ask this on Monday. But I was so excited at seeing the film that my brain went a little bit gloopy and wouldn't work properly. So instead I asked about your dog.....

Lou M


The expression on Paul Gravett's face when he realised that the first audience question was "How's your dog" was a wonderful one.

You always fall short of the original idea. Sometimes you make something else on the way. But I feel like Stardust, especially the illustrated one, is very similar to the thing I set out to make in the first place.

The film is a film (and a really good one) which squeezes and pushes and slides in order to tell the story as a movie, and, I think, succeeds beyond my dreams. I think I must like collaborating.

Anyway yesterday Holly and flew home. My dog was happy to see me. Maddy and Holly and Holly's friend Sarah and I watched the first part of the Dr Who two parter (how could I not like an episode which begins on my minus forty-seventh birthday? And has a little girl holding a red balloon?). I had a fight with Holly and Sarah about not watching the next episode without us, of the dammit this is a communal family TV watching experience variety, which I suspect in retrospect I only won because they didn't know where the second half DVD was, so we'll watch that today. Lovely stuff, Paul Cornell should be justly proud. And an enormous relief after the last couple of episodes.

And then bed and, with my sleep schedule all mixed up, not much sleep at all. Oh well.

Hi Neil,

BBC Radio 3 is repeating the documentary on HP Lovecraft you contributed to -- Sunday 10th June at 20:00 BST.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/sundayfeature/pip/96knh/

Best wishes

Tom

Particularly good news as I missed it the first time.

Also, this coming Saturday the Times (the UK newspaper, which is just called the Times) will be publishing an article of me talking about H. G. Wells's short stories.

Which reminds me...

Why is your voice different when you're talking to some anonymous interviewer about Lovecraft from when you're talking to a con audience about Fragile Things? Your "I can't tell you why that is, other than that Lovecraft is Rock and Roll" voice is much lower than your "They're buying my books, just waiting to get sued" voice. Do you deliberately modulate the pitch of your voice to match the situation, or did you get your soul eaten along the way, rendering your voice higher for some unfathomable reason?

which just left me shaking my head in puzzlement. (Does your voice always sound the same, and not change with what you're talking about?)

I met Lynn Hacking from Final Draft at a trade show this weekend, and he told a very funny story about being caught between you and Roger Avery in an argument. So I have to ask: one space or two after the period?

You can actually tell from a script Roger and I have collaborated on, who wrote what, because I always put one space after a full stop, and he puts two. The reason you can tell now is because he has finally given up carefully going through anything I write and inserting that extra space, having given it up as a lost cause.

...

Friends of Amacker's (and those who worry) can follow her medical progress as they put her back together over at http://bullwinkle.org/amacker/, which is the blog her brother is keeping.

...

And I feel guilty I didn't mention this before, as some of the events have already happened, but go to http://www.wkrac.org/stardust/stardust.html to learn about the exhibition of Charles Vess Stardusty stuff at the William King Regional Arts Center "serving far Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee". They have amazing Charles Vess original art, along with the books I handwrote the story in and lots of other cool things.

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