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What am I reading now? Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
 

On Sunday, July 10, 2011, CTV aired an episode of Hiccups entitled ”Novel Idea.” Here’s a brief summary:

After the top mystery author at Haddison House casts aspersions on Millie’s Grumpaloo books, she decides to fully explore her authorship by writing a novel.

Ah, sweet ignorance. Some people truly do believe that writing children’s literature is just a matter of stringing a few words together. In fact, you’d be surprised at just how often I am faced with such remarks.

They are always quick to say, “How hard can it be?” Well, at times, it can be impossibly hard. The truth of the matter is that a children’s author is always working with a number of parameters in mind.

An author of picture books is restricted by both page count and word count. Writers of chapter books are constantly aware of their target audience’s reading comprehension level. With young adult literature, comes the concern of darkness. An issue that made waves recently with Meghan Cox Gurdon’s article “Darkness Too Visible” for The Wall Street Journal. And that’s, as they say, just the tip of the iceberg.

A children’s author must forge a connection with his or her reader while operating within the most rigid of boundaries. Sometimes all an author has is eight hundred words to create magic. Therefore, every word must have a purpose. Only a select few possess the skill it takes to write something that will linger in a child’s consciousness long after the book is closed. Those who do, deserve far more than they receive.

I forgot to mention that I'd be at the Royal Alberta Museum as a guest artist yesterday. I taught a little bit about acrylic painting to the kids who showed up (almost 60 kids by the looks of the filled seats). It was the most interesting experience I've done teaching thus far as I've never been trained to teach children... You might have missed it but I also got on the evening news yesterday doing my little lecture. I of course didn't turn on the tube (who likes to see themselves on tv anyway?). Does anyone know if you're supposed to look at the person interviewing you or at the camera? I never know and usually end up looking back and forth!

Holly, my daughter who moved to the UK, had a day seeing the family history sights of Portsmouth and Portchester on Sunday, and came back with a photo of the room I was born in. (From the outside.) For the curious, it looks like this, and is, I am told, the one with the curtains:


and being pedantic sometimes, I saw it and thought, "Every day, dammit. Everyday means something else." But then, I still think that momentarily means for a moment, not in a moment, so don't mind me.

...

I think this came in less than half an hour after I posted my question. You people are good.

Neil was asking about a Journey to the West Map. Can be found here:

http://www.quanpc.com/3575/EJB.aspx

Map's in Chinese though, but should be easy enough to follow - start in Xian in Mid-West China, then heading North West, then making a U-Turn into Afghanistan, Pakistan and then India.

Hope this helps. Just want to quickly thank Neil for signing my stuff in Chengdu, twice.
mafai

and then Martyn Drake came in with this --

http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/curriculum/monkey/geographic/

is perhaps the closest you're going to find for a map of the journey.

Regards,

Martyn

and then a dozen of you offered other maps... thanks to you all. Not sure what this'll turn into if anything, but I got interested in Monkey again while in China and wanted to learn more about the cultural stuff that wasn't in the Journey to the West.

Dear Neil,

Why is it that you (almost) never do television interviews? Certainly none that I can find in the UK.

Other than references to one you did in Poland, it seems that your wonderful assistant is particularly wonderful at saying no to the "will your Boss please do television appearances?" part of the job spec. Which seems odd given the number of more speciallised personal appearances that you do make and your expanding profile (not that I'm casting any aspersions upon your dietary habits) in the mainstream public consciousness.

The new run of Jonathon Ross' excellent show would seem like an ideal opportunity - or have you turned it down so many times before that they've decided to stop pestering you and leave you in peace?

I'm guessing that its not a priority because it doesn't connect you personally with your supporters, and with time tight as it is you prefer to focus on human connections? Or maybe the thought is a little too terrifying? Either way, however, it would be lovely if those of us who are ardent supporters but not in the convention-attending mould (for one reason or another) could occasionally get a slice of your off-the-cuff unedited insights and dreams.
Yours in hopeful anticipation
James

I do some TV -- I think I've mentioned in this blog fairly recently that I've been interviewed for a BBC documentary on Jamie Hewlett, and for one on Steve Ditko (done, oddly enough, by Jonathan Ross). I've been interviewed for film documentaries about Harlan Ellison, Gahan Wilson and H.P. Lovecraft.

I say no when TV documentary teams ask if they can come and live nearby and follow me around for six months (as they do from time to time) but I mostly say yes to documentaries where I think I can say something useful about something or someone I'm interested in.

I'm an author, and as a breed we tend not to do a lot of national TV in the UK (although I always wind up doing TV when I'm, say, Ireland). Mostly authors in the UK go on the radio. I did Jonathan's radio show a few years ago, but I don't actually think I'd be a good fit for his TV show -- it tends, like most TV chat shows, to interviews with Celebrities and with Personalities, and I really hope I'm neither.

But there are lots of video clips listed at http://www.neilgaiman.com/exclusive/Video/
and several hundred more over at http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=neil+gaiman&hl=en, and then there are things like http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=397

....

I see from http://johnwatkiss.blogspot.com/ that the paintings that John did for the Sandman presentation Paul Levitz and I did to Warner Films a few years ago (mostly to explain Sandman to them, because while they knew that many people liked it they hadn't a clue what it was about -- and truthfully, I'm not sure they were much the wiser after the presentation was over) are going up for auction. Jill Thompson did a few hundred black and white pictures and John did several colour paintings of scenes. Here's an illustration he did from Season of Mists: