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Everyone poops... apparently even former press secretary Scott McClellan. Here's an actual excerpt from his much-hyped tell-all book (this passage refers to questions about the Valerie Plame CIA leak case):

"I could feel something fall out of me into the abyss as each reporter took a turn whacking me," he writes of the withering criticism he received as the story played out.

Can it be? Is McClellan actually admitting to $h!tting his pants during a press conference? I smell a NY Times bestseller! (No pun intended.)



"Don't worry, I washed my hands. See?"

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Author/Illustrator: Tom Tierney

Anyone following the election knows that every Republican nominee had been desperately trying stake claim as the heir apparent to Ronald Reagan. Mitt Romney had the looks, but not the soul. Fred Thompson had the acting chops, but not the stamina. Mike Huckabee had the charm, but not the stature. (I'm not even going to bother with Giuliani and Ron Paul... the rest of the country isn't, why should I?)

Now, for all intents and purposes, there is one GOP candidate left standing: John McCain. And now, thanks to Tierney's book, McCain can actually put on Reagan's clothes and try to convince America that he is Reagan's true successor.

Though I don't see it happening. Reagan's greatest asset was his gift as an orator--he was such a great speaker that he fooled the country into thinking that a silly idea like Trickle-down economics made sense. As for McCain, his speeches sound about as convincing as a 4th grader reading the book report that his mom wrote for him.

But still, let's take a look at how McCain might conjure the spirit of Reagan to convince America that he is as paper-thin as the Gipper himself.

Straight Shootin' John McCain

I am the candidate that is not afraid to tell it like it is. I shoot straight from the hip. I drive the Straight Talk Express. And the straight truth is that despite my better judgment, I have no choice but to pander to my party's base in order to secure the Republican nomination.

If that means supporting the Bush tax cuts, so be it. If it means fudging my stance on torture, why not? If it means denouncing evolution, bring it on! In fact, if I did see a dinosaur, I would shoot it dead and serve it at my next fundraiser to prove just how straight I can shoot... at whatever it is the base wants me to take aim at.



Damage Control McCain

What, this picture? I've told you already that Ms. Iseman and I are merely acquaintances. I am saddened and frustrated by the obvious liberal media bias being perpetuated by the New York Times.

I also find it comical--if a bit flattering--that anyone would believe that a man of my age would still have any sexual impulses left. Because my friends, let me assure you... when it comes to little John McCain, he's been little John McCan't for some time now.


Bedtime for Bonzo McCain

My friends, we live in dangerous times. We must take care not to let our guard down lest we allow the terrorists to win. Just like Ronald Reagan held firm when caring for an unruly chimpanzee named Bonzo, I, as your Commander In Chief vow to accept the challenge and stare the great ape of terrorism in the eye. And trust me my friends, I won't be the first to blink.

The Democrats don't have the backbone to put Bonzo to bed. But I assure you, the American people, that when I am President, I will not rest until we get the monkey of terror off our backs and we put the issue to bed once and for all.


When I consider the prospect of another neglectful Democratically-led country, I think back to something the great Ronald Reagan once told me. He told me, "Johnny, whether you're babysitting a chimp or battling terrorists, you can be sure of one thing: If you turn your back for even one second, you are going to get feces thrown at you." So America, the choice is yours: do you want to get feces thrown at you? I didn't think so.

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The Annotated Dracula introduction is finished and delivered, as is The 13 Clocks introduction. (Still to do: an introduction to Cabell's Jurgen and to Brian Aldiss's Hothouse, and then no more introductions for a long time.) Meanwhile, The Graveyard Book is in its very last pages. I might finish today or tomorrow. There's still revising and fixing to do, but it's so close to the end I can taste it.

Dear Mr. Neil,

In your last post, you said:

I went back to writing it all in UK English as it's set in the UK, and we'll fix things in the copyedit.

Wait wait wait wait! Don't fix things! It's fun to read UK English. American brains need the work, and we need to know that we're not the only English speakers in the world. UK English came first!

Point taken, and I didn't mean to come across quite that glibly. The truth is that more than ninety percent of the changes that will get made are copyediting changes that are pretty much invisible to the reader, and are things I think of as House Style anyway. Whether you have double or single speech marks, for example. In the US edition colour will, I have no doubt be spelled without a u and towards will probably become toward. And I doubt that anybody will notice. Sometimes, if I have a sympathetic copy-editor, I'll go in and fight for specific UK spellings and usages when things are set in England (you may have noticed that grey is spelled like that, and not gray, in the US edition of Stardust).

Overall, I suspect that The Graveyard Book will stay pretty English in terms of vocabulary -- nothing as huge as changing the title of the book. Some words may change like nappie to diaper and cot to crib -- possibly the rubbish bins in the alleyway on the other side of the graveyard might become garbage cans, but really, it's a graveyard on a hill in an old English town. Nobody gets into elevators, and the fish and chip shop at the bottom of the hill will resolutely remain a fish and chip shop.

It's normally not about insulting the intelligence of the reader. With something like Coraline or The Graveyard Book which is going to be given to kids in schools, it's often about making it easier on their teachers by not giving the American children the extra Us in Honor or Honour, and not taking them away from British children. (The Canadian children will, I'm afraid, continue to cope as best they can, and some of them will probably sensibly wait for the French edition anyway.)

Help! I'm in need of legal advice regarding ownership rights in collaborations, particularly an artist and writer. Is there a trustworthy online resource about such matters, either for free advice or to locate reputable counsel? Thank you.

-Kay

Not that I know of, but I'll post this in case someone has any suggestions. (The Scrivener's Error blog, over at http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/ is very useful and smart. But it is a blog.)

Adam.

From http://www.answers.com/pavement&r=67

pave·ment (pāv'mənt)
n.

1. 1. A hard smooth surface, especially of a public area or thoroughfare, that will bear travel.
   2. The material with which such a surface is made.
2. Chiefly British. A sidewalk.

I mean definition one, as opposed to definition two.


Peter

And now there is a video of the Alan Moore song. (Alan has always maintained that it is a wise thing to have a name that rhymes. As he once said, "'Alan Moore knows the score'. It's because it rhymes. What else were they going to say... 'Jamie Delano plays with Meccano'? Neil Gaiman... doesn't really rhyme with anything, does it?")

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Lots and lots of you are sending me messages saying things like

I'm sure loads of people are sending you this link:

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp02132008.shtml

about Alan Moore.

It made me smile!


Béatrice

And it made me smile too.

We'll close the polls on the Which Free Book Vote tomorrow, but the final results of the vote are, I think, at this stage, predictable, considering they took on this pattern by the time the first hundred people had voted, and have only wavered by a percentage point here and there since. As you can see here, we're now pushing 26,000 votes, and the pattern hasn't changed. American Gods sits in the lead with 28% of the vote, Neverwhere has 21% of the vote, the three short story collections have about 28% of the vote between them, trailed by Stardust at 9% and Anansi Boys and Coraline at 7% each.

(Interesting, as Harper Collins would have gone for Stardust, and I really didn't know which to put up but would have expected Smoke and Mirrors to be very high on the list.)

I am enjoying the author's preferred text version of Neverwhere on my iPod. Here it is surrounded by British words and British accents from various BBC podcasts (including the Archers) so any Americanisms stand out, such as Richard Mayhew's use of the word "hooker". You are too good with words for this to be a mistake so what was the thinking in using Americanisms in a book that is otherwise very English, and proud of it?

You're too kind, but, honestly, after 16 years out here, as Sherlock Holmes said when chided by Watson for an Americanism, "my well of English seems to be permanently defiled".

On Neverwhere (which I'd started writing before ever I came to America) I suspect the words that are a problem are either:

a) used mostly because they're words used in London too. Take "hooker". A quick google of the Guardian website threw up the following passage from The Guardian,

Thus encouraged, the media have followed suit. Everywhere in the past week, reporters referred to "working girls" - that is, when they were not describing the women as simply "girls" or "vice girls" or "hookers", as in the Mirror's "Hooker No 2 Found Dead", or "tarts", courtesy of the Telegraph's Simon Heffer.

along with about 3000 other uses of the word "hooker" or "hookers" by Guardian writers, many of which were talking about Rugby players, some of which were talking about people named Hooker, and the rest of which were all using the word to describe sex workers (often foreign or at least exotic). It may be an Americanism, but it's one that successfully crossed the Atlantic.

or sometimes it may be that,

b) the Neverwhere audio edition was recorded by Harper Collins from the edition of their text, which contains "sidewalks" rather than "pavements" (a pavement in the US means something else, not the thing on the side of the road you walk along) and a few things like that. If you read the Hodder Headline UK edition of Neverwhere while listening to the audio recording you may well find a word here or there that's different, and they may, in some cases, be the words that trouble you.

(Oddly enough, I wrote Chapter One of The Graveyard Book using American idioms -- "cribs" and "diapers" rather than "cots" and "nappies" -- as it was going to be read by my US publisher first, and then felt weird, so in the following chapters I went back to writing it all in UK English as it's set in the UK, and we'll fix things in the copyedit.)

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Author: Sam McBratney
Illustrator: Charles Fuge

The cover of this book really does a good job of capturing the momentum that is building behind the Obama campaign. Here you see animals enthusiastically jumping in the air, which is appropriate because this election has drawn more interest and enthusiasm than any election in recent memory.

But note that the animals are not your standard elephant and donkey. No, here you have a kangaroo, a mouse, and a duck. In their diversity, they represent the vanguard of the movement towards a post-partisan political climate. We are more than just democrats and republicans, blue states and red states... I mean, a blue kangaroo? That's just silly.

Look a little closer and you will notice the leaves falling from the sky, indicating that we are indeed in a season of change, which has been one of the prime buzzwords of this election season. It is no wonder that Obama chose this book to be the foundation of his campaign message: Yes We Can.

Here is the Obama Yes We Can speech in New Hampshire, the one used for the will.i.am video. While the video is cool, I prefer the speech without the celebrities because, call me square, but I'd rather not have my vote swayed by the lead singer of the Pussy Cat Dolls.

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Author/Illustrator: David Wiesner

That's right, it's Tuesday. But not just any Tuesday... it's SUPER TUESDAY. And Wiesner's masterpiece, which features a night of flying frogs, is oddly appropriate on this day. How so? Not just because the title is Tuesday, but because Wiesner's surrealist vision asks us to challenge the boundaries of what we believe is possible. And isn't that kind of the point of this whole process? It's Tuesday, a chance to imagine the world as you would like to see it and to cast your vote accordingly.

For a minute, allow yourself to imagine a world that has finally woken from the nightmare that is the Bush Administration and consider where we go from here. So, if you are in one of the 24 states participating in this political royal rumble, determine which candidate's policies, vision, and leadership speaks to you and most closely matches your hopes and dreams for this country... and then whether by car, bike, foot, or lily pad, get yourself to the polls and cast your vote.

Because it's Tuesday, and anything is possible.

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It looks like Odd and the Frost Giants is on sale from Amazon.co.uk at 90% off. They're selling it for 10 pence...  It might be a mistake, or it might be a loss leader, and it's not like it's expensive at a pound either. But I thought I ought to tell you, as Amazon tend to honour their mistakes. And remember, it's not out until March. (And it's being illustrated by Mark Buckingham. Hurrah!)

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I seem to have been asleep for most of the last 26 hours.

My world seems to have shrunk to, Slept. Got up. Went back to sleep again. Repeat. (Somewhere in there I blogged and even answered the phone, although I'm not sure who I spoke to or what I said.)

"You're looking a bit better," said Lorraine, my assistant, when I wandered downstairs just now, on her way to walk the dog. "You look less transparent."

I feel a bit less transparent, but not entirely solid yet. I think maybe I'll eat something, and then go back to sleep once more.

The weather when I arrived home was summer-hot, as if the colours of the changing leaves were some kind of mistake. Now it's autumn and rainy and chill...

...

Susanna Clarke has done a beautiful interview with Alan Moore for the Daily Telegraph.

I only just discovered that Terri Windling didn't know that Stardust started at her house, but it makes it even nicer that she was at the Premiere. Here's Matthew Vaughn having a surreal Stardust-and Thor week. My favourite bit was,

To Paris for the NRJ movie (the French equivalent of MTV) awards. I was with my wife, so the press line went berserk and I was literally pushed off the red carpet. Claudia was asked why she was there - to which she replied it was to support her husband and his film.
And where is he again? Getting soaked in the rain looking like a deranged fan. She then realises that I'm not next to her. She points to me and a disappointed security thug lets me on the red carpet.

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I have a little Chengdu information:

On Aug 24th at 7.00pm at the Chengdu Bookworm there is some kind of meet-and-chat with the visiting authors (I think) and the public, and I expect some signing.

And on August the 25th at 3.00pm I'm going to give a talk on The Nature of Fantasy at the conference hall of the science and technology museum.

And here's a Daily Scans link to a two page comic that Mark Buckingham and I did to celebrate Alan Moore's 50th Birthday: http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/3895760.html

Neil- Sorry to waste your time, but as someone who is away from home frequently, I thought you might have some insight on the matter. I am starting a new job next month that will require me to be away for extended periods. How do you cope with doing this? My daughter is eight, and she is having a rough time with the idea of Daddy being away (and I am as well-and not taking the job is not really an option), and I'm hoping you can help. Please don't use my name if you post this.Thanks!

It's always hard. For years we never went on holiday, because I was always so glad to be home and Going Somewhere felt like work. Being home, with my books and my family, ah, that was a grand adventure....

When Maddy was that age and younger I went away for several months to work on American Gods, and I'd still read to her every night, over the phone (she'd have a copy of the book as well at her end), which somehow helped. She'd still get half an hour or forty minutes every night, and I'd read her a chapter and then we'd talk. We'd also write poems in email back and forth. It helped -- having a rhythm, having something predictable and time that was hers. And trying to make it as much of a game as we could. But it's not perfect. And it's never easy.

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I'm still proofreading the second volume of ABSOLUTE SANDMAN. It's not just proofreading the comics -- I just finished going through the script for Sandman 23 -- the first time I'd read it since I wrote it back in 1989...


Which means I'm not writing the story of how "Ivory Bill" Stiteler and I figured out what was wrong with the house network (unsurprisingly it sort of had something to do with the photo back in this icy entry), and I'm barely blogging about the Cornish Tamworth Racing Pigs and my puzzlement over the animal rights spokesperson's quote at the end of the article, which seems to come down in favour of killing the pigs as long as they don't have to race. If I was a pig, I can confidently assert that I'd rather race than be eaten. And I'm not going to blog about the campaign to get Northampton's Finest Son an honour of some kind (http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/AlanMoore/) which seems very sweet, but frankly I'm not interested unless they make him Official Wizard of England. Now that would be an honour. An MBE, on the other hand doesn't seem the sort of thing that Alan would need.

Over at http://www.birdchick.com/2007/05/memorial-day-bee-update.html you can see photos and even some videos of Bill, Sharon, Lorraine and Cabal the wonderdog a bee-ing on Saturday in my absence. That's a blog entry. (This isn't.) And Sharon was so impressed by Clan Apis that she's decided to write a graphic novel about Peregrine Falcons, and is looking for an artist -- learn more at http://www.birdchick.com/2007/05/seeking-comic-book-artist.html.



I know you're fond of the Web Elf, and we're all fond of the Web Elf for doing such a great job with the site -- but if things ever get tough, and you've got to let her/him/them go, you could always be your own webmaster, like this author:


http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/


I've never heard of her, have no idea if her writing's any good, but that's a great idea for a site -- if I wasn't poor and all, I'd run out and buy her book right now. And thanks many times over for your own site, it's the best!-- Teresa C.


Yup. That's the kind of website that makes you want to buy the book and give chocolates to the author. How cool.



How did you get ahold of so many Jack Benny recordings?-Ticia



I think I got them at http://www.otrcat.com/jackbenny.htm

...


Now back to proofreading (and colour-checking, and obsessing over details on) A Game of You...

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