posted by Neil
The hardest part of having
a wife on a rock tour is when something like today happens. Amanda had a gig tonight in Christchurch, with our friend Jason Webley, who was staying with our friend
Hera.
I love Christchurch. Amanda and I stayed there a year ago: we borrowed Hera's parents' house (they had a copper bathtub in the bedroom, unconnected to anything, which puzzled me a great deal), and went for long walks along the beach, and talked and talked and talked.
And then, suddenly, a couple of hours ago, everything changed. An earthquake in Christchurch -- less powerful, but more damaging, than the one last September. Amanda's plane, about to take off, was grounded in Napier as they closed Christchurch airport. Jason and Hera were unharmed per Hera's twitter feed. But per
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10707997 there have been ten aftershocks so far, and entries like the following are really worrying...
2.51pm
Police say multiple fatalities have been reported at several locations in Christchurch CBD. They say two buses were crushed by falling buildings.
3.14pm
The Provincial Chambers building is reported to have collapsed, with people trapped inside.
Meanwhile, Amanda is having to figure out how to get to Auckland for tomorrow's gig. And many people in Christchurch have had their lives and world shattered.
You can make donations to the New Zealand Red Cross at
http://www.redcross.org.nz/donate...
Michael Zulli gave me, as a 50th birthday present, a copy of his book THE FRACTURE OF THE UNIVERSAL BOY. It was a special limited edition he had had printed up, and was really beautiful, moving, strange and harrowing.
Here are a couple of panels. Michael is trying to raise the money on Kickstarter to self-publish it. There's a write up about the book, and many more pages, (and the fact that Michael will even draw Batman for people who support him with $2,000 or above) at
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/02/19/michael-zulli-will-even-draw-batman-to-fund-new-graphic-novel-the-fracture-of-the-universal-boy/.
He's already raised over $12,000 of the $17,000 he needs. You can support it (and pre-order a copy of the book for yourself into the bargain) at
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1151517311/michael-zulli-the-fracture-of-the-universal-boy.
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Dear Neil,
I thought I would submit a favorite blog moment. It's not my absolute favorite but it rather sticks out in my mind as something that made me smile.
I'm thinking it was a few years ago that you were at some lovely restaurant whilst on tour and you ordered some soup that came to the table with a dollop of cream artfully swirled into the concoction. You took a picture of it and posted it on the blog because the artful display of cream-on-soup looked just like a sperm.
I used to k
I was born and spent the first 2/3rds of my life in the UK, in a world in which health care was simply a human right. You got it, like an education, by virtue of being alive. And then I came to America and simply it isn't that way here, and, even after 16 years, that still keeps surprising me. (Every now and again I've told people who can't understand why from time to time I write movies, who say things like "You don't need to, you're a best-selling writer, you get paid more for a novel than for a film script," that it keeps my Writers Guild health insurance current, and I'm at least half serious.)
It's always hard to put up medical appeals, but Caitlín R. Kiernan needs financial help -- you can read about it at her journal, over at http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/428785.html.
Here's the "Absolute Sandman Not Included" ad that DC will be running for the Mark Buckingham bookends.
Neil, I am getting impatient with you! I read part of The Graveyard Book in the "M book" and now I would like to read the whole story. Now.
When is "The Graveyard Book" coming out? A tentative date would be kind....thanks!
You can't get impatient with me until the book is finished. I still have to finish writing Chapter Eight (which will happen in the next few days), then do the second draft of Chapter Seven, then read the whole thing through and make sure that it's all the same book and that Mr Pennyworth doesn't become Mr Pennyweather somewhere in the middle.
But the book will be out by Hallowe'en. Come high water or Hell. Probably in the shops end of September.
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I'm playing with Last FM whenever I'm in front of the computer. I love having Radio Me -- the idea of a radio station that magically plays only stuff I like when I'm away from home or away from the iPod. And I was surprised to discover there are people out there with musical tastes so scarily close to mine (which is, in my head, so all-over-the-place as to be uncategorisable) that I've started checking out things they like too. Gave in on the friending people thing, because, as someone pointed out, it made it easier for people than just bookmarking my page.
(The music it hasn't been scrobbling is an advance copy of Who Killed Amanda Palmer which arrived as a gift from Amanda Palmer, all wrapped in ancient lace, along with DVDs. It's amazing stuff. It was a great day for things-to-listen-to swag, as it also brought Hera's Feels So Good, on CD and also on DVD. I'd somehow assumed the song was about sex, but I learned from the video that it is actually about chocolate, bubble wrap, being covered in puppies, and destroying televisions.)
And I just went looking for the query someone sent me about Mr Croup's use of the word "Scrobble" in Neverwhere, used to mean "get at" or "kidnap" and couldn't find it. But for the record, I got it from John Masefield's wonderful book The Box of Delights... (Now out in the US, curiously published before the book it followed, The Midnight Folk. I suppose you don't need to have read The Midnight Folk first, but still.)
And talking about classic children's fiction,
Dear Mr Gaiman,
I read with interest your recent advice on fountain pens and ink.
Personally, I use a pen that was designed for me by, Cowgill, my engineer. It is superbly engineered and I have only ever had to fill it twice.
I use a special concoction of Wizard Blenkisop's - his Black as Night Everlasting Ink. Suffice to say that the refill was only necessary when the pen was used to counteract an attack by Beaver Hateman.
If your readers desire to improve their penmanship may I recommend the services of the writing master Benskin. I know that he is always on the look out for new students.
Yours Faithfully
Uncle
http://talesfromhomeward.blogspot.com/
Today was spent doing Absolute stuff. For the Absolute Stardust (which is technically not an Absolute Stardust but an oversized hardback Stardust with stuff in) I proofread all the extra material, added a postscript to the reprinting of the original "pitch document" to publishers from 1993 (did I really think that Croup and Vandemar belonged in Stardust?), and for the next volume of Absolute Sandman we dug out dozens of little thumbnail comics I'd drawn for Sandman over the years, found the still-unopened First Sandman Statue (#1 of 1800) in order to photograph the box for the book (which will also have the short story on the back of the box in it) and even found photocopies of the pencils of the first 8 pages of Sandman 23, which will probably be the script that gets published in the book.
Also mysterious boxes of stuff to do with beekeeping have arrived. I've always wanted bees in the garden, and it turned out that the birdchick has always wanted to be a beekeeper but didn't think that it would work, keeping bees in an apartment in Minneapolis, and anyway her rabbit would object, so we've agreed to join forces: she gets to keep bees in my garden, I get to help, and all our friends and loved ones get to keep their distance nervously and eat honey. What could possibly go wrong? In this way we shall make up for the vanishing of bees across America.
I've just heard that there will be a limited edition of M is for Magic, the story collection for young readers, from Subterranean Press. The copies in the bookshops will be illustrated by Teddy Kristiansen. The Subterranean edition will have illustrations by Gahan Wilson: one thousand numbered copies and 26 lettered copies -- details up at http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/2007/03/05/announcing-m-is-for-magic-by-neil-gaiman/
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Hi Neil, random question. So does Lorraine live there? Because she seems to be around all the time.
No, she has her own house, and she's goes there in the afternoon when she finishes work, and at weekends. It's a very nice house, filled with paintings, dead things and even a small Hallowe'en village. (As Lorraine was off in LA Hallowe'en week last year I got to go to her house to feed the trick-or-treaters -- because nobody ever comes to my house on Hallowe'en, possibly because it's too far from everything or too spooky or something -- and the kids all looked around when they came to the door and were impressed that someone had made that much effort for Hallowe'en, and I didn't have the heart to tell them that Lorraine's house was like that the rest of the year as well.)
Lorraine will not, however, be there next Sunday night, March the 11th. This is because Hera is going to be coming in from New Zealand and the two of them will be playing together in Stillwater, MN. (Details at http://lorraineamalena.blogspot.com/2007/03/hera-and-fabulous-lorraine.html) Lorraine has been learning lots of Hera songs in preparation. Lorraine says that I should make a point of plugging the gig on this blog because that way the whole of Minneapolis will turn out to see them.
This is a photograph of Hera. Lorraine is certain that if I post it, the gig will be completely full. If you're in this part of the world, you should go. After all, it's Sunday Night in Winter in Minnesota; you have perhaps something else are you going to be doing?
I recall that a while ago you mentioned your daughters' fascination with a web site where photos of models and celebrities were retouched, often substantially. Here's a consumer software package that offers to do the same. It's been on Boing Boing so a hundred other fans have probably also sent you this link, but here it is in the unlikely event you haven't seen it yet. http://www.portraitprofessional.com/
But, but that's horrible. I mean, I looked at their gallery, and it seems to be software that turns photos of human beings into photos of soulless androids, and they are proud of it. All of their befores have interesting human faces. Their afters just look wrong...
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Lots and lots of emails coming in each day from people with lists of questions for me to answer for their papers or magazines or websites -- normally five questions, for some reason. I explain why I don't do them here http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2003/08/fair-and-balanced-well-fair-anyway.asp and here http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2006/06/hmg.html, and it's still true. I suppose it's probably time to amend the FAQ line thing to explain that not only do I not do homework for people, but alas, I don't answer lists of interview questions either. I might do if people would send in the time to answer them with the questions, mind you.
Were your high school english classes helpful to you as a writer, or were they a waste of time?Thanks, Amy
Probably more much helpful than a waste of time. I remember enjoying them, for the most part, although I sometimes suspect that if I'd come to Thomas Hardy on my own, when I was ready, I would have really enjoyed him, and instead I found English to be a sort of Thomas Hardy aversion therapy.
Truth to tell, when I became a writer I realised that a lot of stuff I had thought pointless at school was now desperately important, and I had to teach myself piles of history and geography and science that I hadn't bothered with, and which were now really interesting subjects because I had a use for them. Writing and English I always had a use for, and some fairly decent teachers so they were never boring.
I'm starting to put together my movements on the German, Polish and French micro-tour in March. This is assembled from a few different emails, and obviously needs more data, but I thought it might be a good thing for Europeans if I got the word out early:
Cologne
March 16th, 7:30 pm
Toyota Autohaus Yvel, Raderberggürtel 4
Literature Festival "Lit.COLOGNE"
http://www.litcologne.de/va/160307/gaimankoester.php
KRAKOW
Sunday 18th. 16.00 -19.00 booksigning at EMPiK Rynek Główny
WARSAW
Monday 19th. 17.00-19.00 booksigning at EMPIK Nowy Swiat
Hamburg
March 21st, 8:15 pm
Thalia Bookstore, Europapassage, Ballindamm 40
http://www.service.thalia.de/thalia.vorort.php?vst=361&event=5335
Leipzig
March 22nd -
1:00pm - Book Fair
9:00 pm SPIZZ - Jazz & Music Club, Markt 9
http://www3.mdr.de/scripts/leipzig-liest-2007/suche.cfm?s4=name&value=7416
PARIS
Friday, March 23rd from 17h00 to 20h00
Saturday, March 24th from 17h00 to 20h00.
Signing at Salon du Livre, Porte de Versailles, 75015 Paris; Au Diable Vauvert stand #H148
When I'm sure that this is all there is, and I've got all the relevant phone numbers and so on, I'll put it up on Where's Neil (the amazing new, improved and plugged into Google Calendar version of Where's Neil).
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Incidentally, Hera-from-Iceland is going to be playing at the SXSW Festival (http://2007.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/33129.html). And then she's coming out here to play a gig with Lorraine at Charlie's in Stillwater, MN, on Sunday March 11th.(http://lorraineamalena.blogspot.com/2007/02/spring-cds-laundry-and-hera.html for details). I'm hoping I'm in town and able to make it to see them.
