The Quotable Neil

On the Topic of Imposters

2010-02-15T09:14:00.001-08:00

Just so I don't end up disturbing any more of Neil's Facebook fans, I want to clear up the quasi-joke I made last post with a few... well... quotes. That's what I do here. It should at least explain the impetus behind the comment, if not the actual fact, which I'll address at the end.

Q: "Does Neil have an official myspace page? If so what is the adress?”
A: "No, I don't. There's an unofficial one, or more than one out there. I keep meaning to set up official myspaces and facebooks, but really tend to feel that keeping this place under control is more than enough for one author, and it never happens.” – Neil Gaiman 07/02/08

“A small, shamefaced and very nice apology came in... (Apology from guy posing as Neil on MySpace can be read HERE) Not actually a problem. It's just that it's the internet, and it has, like the night, a thousand eyes, the owners of which immediately write to me and each other to find whether something is really me or not. If anyone decides they need to role-play as me (shakes head, blinks, shrugs, mutters oh god why?) then it's probably best if you just announce right up front that you aren't me, to get that out of the way. (Several people have already sent me this one -- although not surprisingly none of them thought it was me at all.)” – Neil Gaiman 05/04/06

“There are lots of Neil Gaimans on Facebook, and a fan site that's nothing to do with me.” – Neil Gaiman (on Twitter) 01/25/10

Q:“Dear Neil, I was wondering if you read your fan page on facebook, (because most people seem to think that you do) but I couldn't find an answer on your site.”

A: “I'm afraid not. And Neil Gaiman Not the real Gaiman. An unofficial fan page. at Myspace... that's not me either. (Every now and again I (get) grumpy messages from friends and relatives who are convinced that it is.)
I'm me here at www.neilgaiman.com. I'm me at Last.fm -- http://www.last.fm/user/neilhimself.I'm me at Goodreads. Sooner or later I'll be me at librarything.” – Neil Gaiman 10/26/08

Q:“Hey, Neil. Facebook says that you're on the faculty of UChicago. Is that you or just someone else with the same name and using your picture?”

A:“Well, I suppose technically I'm a University of Chicago Presidential Fellow in the Arts from last year, but no, I don't have a Facebook account.” – Neil Gaiman 02/15/06

All of which are all good indicators that at various times in history, our dear Mr. Gaiman has been impersonated by various sundry individuals of dubious moral character. It's not been unheard of. The joke comes in because he has also recently posted (and because it's pretty obvious that the most recent Neil on Facebook has the kind of knowledge that only someone to access to his innermost thoughts, and hopes, and dreams, and worth-it-to-murder-a-relative type secrets would have) this:

“Dan Guy, webgoblin of this parish, and I, have put up a proper Facebook fan page to replace a couple of ones people had put up in the past that everyone seemed to think was actually me. Not a lot of content there, and there are no plans to put up anything you can't find here. It's at http://www.facebook.com/neilgaiman”

- Neil Gaiman 02/11/10

Raises His Head and Waves Feebly

2010-02-12T21:11:00.000-08:00

Not sure why the older posts have all degraded into weird hypertext vomit, but I'll try to clean the place up a bit since Neil (or someone eerily like, but possibly NOT, him) has linked to this site from Facebook.

I've toyed around with the idea of picking up this blog again, and going on quote-hunts again now that a few years have gone by. There's one quote I certainly hope to never post here though: The one where Neil tells us he's finished with his blog.

On Writing (Again) and Weird Old Words

2008-03-03T15:59:00.000-08:00

This post starts off as a fairly focused collection of on-writing quotes, and then degenerates into the ramblings of a madman on the english language. (Just kidding, I just decided to gather together a collection of quotes where Neil casts about for definitions or roots of old, oddball words, and the differences between Olde-English and American "english"... and tack them on the end of this post.) A short one this week, but still, enjoy!

“I just reread the pep talk I wrote for National Novel Writing Month, for authors who were at that point three-quarters of the way through the book when you just have to keep going, and it helped a bit. ("Hah!" I thought. "What do you know, foolish author-man?" But secretly I knew he had a point.)”
--Neil Gaiman 01/28/08

“There are things that you can do as an author in a narrative that are unfair to a reader. Ever read something really interesting that ended with a disappointing "And he woke up. It had all been a dream"? Normally it tends to be an incredibly irritating ending to a good book or short story, because it breaks part of the compact between reader and writer, that, in fiction, you're being told something that matters, and that you'll care about, and which will have consequences, and won't leave you feeling cheated. (I'm not saying that an author can't make "And then she woke up" work -- I loved using that as part of the ending of The Doll's House, and having it mean something very different. And it's the only way out of the Alice books that makes sense, but I've still not forgiven Masefield for the ending of the otherwise perfect The Box of Delights.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/05/04

“I don't think I've ever said there were no rules. I've definitely said that you can do a lot of interesting things by breaking them, and also by not knowing them. But overall, I tend to believe something that my old elocution teacher, Miss Webster, used to say, whenever I'd done what I considered a particularly interesting reading of something, which was, ‘Neil dear, please remember that before you can be properly eccentric, you must know where the circle is.’”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/05/04

“Given that art spiegelman's Maus won the 1992 Pulitzer prize, and is a, oddly enough, comic book about the Holocaust, I think that argument was settled 16 years ago. (Dave Sim's upcoming Secret Project is Holocaust-related, and is one of the most emotionally affecting things I've read in comic-book form.) I think any argument that states that comics (or radio or film or a musical or the novel or insert your favourite medium here...) by its nature trivialises its subject matter is foolish, shortsighted, dim, lazy and wrong. You can say "This is a bad comic." You can't say "This is bad because it's a comic."
--Neil Gaiman 02/21/08

“Sometimes it's nice to have an idea for a book or a story in the back of your head for years, accreting bits to it, growing and becoming bigger and more interesting, sometimes it's a worrying thing having a story you'd like to write and aren't getting to, for very occasionally, alone in the darkness, they die and rot and turn to mould and slime.It tends to be less intentional (except for The Graveyard Book, which was a better idea than I was a writer twenty years ago) than to do with how much I write and who's waiting for what.
Sometimes an old idea gets relegated to the back of the line in the mad delight of a new idea, one you've never had before, and that you write fast in the thrill of the new. No rules. Just stories, and you tell as many of them as you can.”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/25/08

“At a guess, either you aren't writing enough, you aren't finishing things, you aren't getting them published, or, if you're doing all of those, you're worrying about the wrong things. Anyway, famousness is probably about as useful for an author as a large, well-appointed hiking backpack would be for a prima ballerina. Honest.
Right. Back to work.”
(When asked: “I read your site everyday, and STILL I'm not a famous author, what am I doing wrong?”)
-- Neil Gaiman 11/29/07

“I have lots of ideas already. I don't have enough time to write my stuff.
If your idea is good, then you should write it. If you're not a good enough writer to do it justice, then get better. Write other things until you're good enough.
If you really want to collaborate with someone, then find a friend who writes, and wants to write with you.
There is a hunted expression you can see on the faces of writers. All you ever have to do, if you want to see it, is to walk over to a writer of fiction and say, "You know, I have an idea for a story. I'll tell it to you and you can write it and we'll split the money fifty-fifty." You will watch their smiles glaze over and watch them back away. Because no matter how good the idea, the execution is everything. And the real work is done at the keyboard or huddled over the notebook, putting one word down after another.
All of my collaborations have come about because at some point I was talking to a friend, and the phrase, "Why don't we do it together then?" was used. At its best it made for something cooler than either of us could have done individually, at its worst it made for something that tasted sort of like the authors, but not really...
The only reason I can think of for collaborating these days, is for fun. I loved collaborating with Gene Wolfe on A Walking Tour of the Shambles because I couldn't wait to get the next envelope with the next four pages in it from him.”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/05/08

“I think that rule number one for book reviewers should probably be Don't Spend The First Paragraph Slagging Off The Genre. Just don't. Don't start a review of romance books by saying that all romance books are rubbish but these are good (or just as bad as the rest). Don't start a review of SF by saying that you hate all off-planet tales or things set in the future and you don't like way SF writers do characters. Don't start a review of a University Adultery novel by explaining that mostly books about English professors having panicky academic sex bore you to tears but. Just don't. Any more than a restaurant reviewer would spend a paragraph explaining that she didn't normally like or eat -- or understand why other people would like or eat -- Chinese food, or French, or barbeque. It just makes people think you're not a very good reviewer.
One can assume that if a reviewer is reviewing a book then it's interesting enough to be reviewed. If you as a reviewer, begin by explaining why you don't like a genre, then you put up the backs of everyone who does, and is interested, and probably would be reading your review in the first place. And you lay yourself open to the cardinal sin of dim reviewers, which is excusing something from being part of a genre because it's good. Just assume that horror, or YA, or whatever it is, deserves the attention you're giving it, and then review it as best you can.(As a reviewer, you are probably allowed a couple of "I didn't think I liked these, but this [book/film/restaurant] changed my mind" reviews, but you had better know what you're talking about before embarking on them...)”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/05/08

“I've long known that Claptrap means rubbish or nonsense. I was browsing in a dictionary the other day, as one does, and learned that it came from things one could say on a stage or to an audience that meant very little, but were automatic applause-getters. (Things that literally trap, well, clapping.) And it's also the name of a machine they had once in old theatres that simulated the sound of applause. It's such a good word: anything declaimed from the stage that gets people clapping without thinking. Claptrap. And just as applicable to any side in a political debate...
The other word I've been pondering recently is cucking-stool, the original form of what later became called a ducking stool. Cuck is a word that remains on the fringes of colloquial English as cack (as in such phrases as "when the headmaster said 'now, empty out your pockets' I thought I was going to cack myself"). The OED seems to think that it was probably a cucking stool because people thus punished were tied to a privy seat and ducked into a pond. Knowing the robustness of old English, it's quite possible that the people so ducked were considered cuck, or, even more likely that they might soil themselves in the ducking...
(Which sounds much more like the sort of thing that scaryduck would post than I would really. Only he'd put it so much more robustly.)
Of course, E. Cobham Brewer thinks it was just a "chucking" stool (ie it was chucked into the water); while an 1897 account suggests, unconvincingly, it was a toilet seat used to display the ladies' posteriors in public, and that nobody got dipped in a pond at all.
I love language. It's such fun.”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/18/04

“Hopples is indeed a wonderful word. I shall look it up in the big OED with the magnifying glass downstairs, because I can't find a useful definition for it online.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/22/04

“Just that ‘hopple’ is a synonym for ‘hobble’, and that ‘hopples’ might mean ‘hobble-bushes’. Dead unhelpful, and nothing at all about piles of stones.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/23/04

“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.)”
--Neil Gaiman 02/15/08

“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 colouru 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).”
--Neil Gaiman 02/16/08

A Brief (Or Not So Brief) History of the Graveyard Book

2008-02-24T16:57:00.000-08:00

Today, Feb. 24th on Neil's Blog, (here) he announced he was finally done writing the Graveyard book. To celebrate I present to you a reverse-engineered history of the Graveyard book as it has existed on Neil's Journal. Rejoice!

“The Graveyard Book is so close to being finished I can taste it. All the writing's been done and now it's a matter of typing it and reading it and fixing it. (Interestingly, and rather to my surprise, The Graveyard Book looks like it's going to come in at about 67,000 words. Which is a nice meaty read, and about 12,000 words longer than Stardust.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/20/08

“I wrote the end of Chapter 8 today. Then I went back and started writing a couple of scenes from Chapter 7 I skipped while I was writing it, so the book isn't quite finished. But it sort of almost is.”
--Neil Gaiman 02/17/08

“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.”
--Neil Gaiman 02/16/08

“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.”
--Neil Gaiman 02/16/08

“Normally when I finish a book, it's over. Maybe there are more stories, but it's done. I get letters from kids asking why I don't do another Coraline book, and maybe she's at school and the Other Mother could be pretending to be her teacher and... but I can't really imagine writing another Coraline book. It's done.
The Graveyard Book on the other hand, seems to be generating other stories in my head. I guess I'm really interested in what happens to Bod next. Interesting. I suppose it's understandable -- my model was The Jungle Book, and there was The Second Jungle Book. (Although The Graveyard Book also reminds me in odd ways of Kim. And I always wanted to know what happened to Kim next.)”
--Neil Gaiman 02/13/08

“(The Graveyard Book) will be about twice the length of Coraline -- a novel, not a novella. It's eight stories, each more or less complete in itself, each different in tone, each story set about two years after the one that precedes it, that placed side by side make one big story. Or I hope they do. I think it's "all ages", whatever that means. It's a book I wish I'd had as a kid, and had always imagined as a children's book, but the reaction from the adults who've read it so far is scarily enthusiastic, and I'm not making any compromises in it. (Having said that, nobody has read any further than chapter six, except me, and Lorraine when she was typing it.)”
--Neil Gaiman 02/13/08

“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.”
--Neil Gaiman 02/12/08

“I skipped out on seeing Hannah Montana 3D last week when I did chauffeur duty, and sat in the next door Starbucks and wrote The Graveyard Book instead.”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/08/08

“(The oddest moment of today was finding a slip of paper in The Graveyard Book book I'm writing in, on stationary from the hotel I was in in Budapest in June, which listed everything that needed to happen in Chapter 7, including the climactic denouement which I was very proud of having come up with last week. Not sure whether this says something about my rubbish memory, or about the sometimes inevitable nature of storytelling. As in, "Of course it went there, because that was where it was going to go.")”
--Neil Gaiman, 02/07/08

“Chapter 7, so far 102 pages long and not quite done yet (probably tonight), will, I think, be more than twice as long as any of the other chapters/stories in the book. It also has some bits (written in the very small hours of last night) that are scarier than anything since the first couple of pages, and it does some very odd things with viewpoint, too. But I know that it's almost done since I've started worrying about the eighth and final chapter, and you don't do that until the one you're on is nearly done. "The Witch's Headstone” (which will be chapter 4 of The Graveyard Book) was picked by Locus as one of the year's best novelettes. This makes me happy.”
--Neil Gaiman, 02/05/08

“Chapter 7 of The Graveyard Book still isn't done, but that's fine. It's going really well. I think when it's finished this chapter will be twice as long as any of the other stories in the book. It ties them all together, too, to make a set of short stories into a novel.
Yesterday I reached the moment I'd been dreading for years, where you learn why the things that happened in the first chapter happened (which I hadn't known when I wrote them. I knew that they had happened, but not why) and as I started to write it, I realised that it was pretty obvious, so I wrote it, and learned a lot. This was an enormous relief. It does not always work out this way. Chapter 6 is all typed and tidied and there's no evidence from what you'd read that it was a nightmare to write and that I had no idea what was happening paragraph to paragraph, or felt like I was making it up as I went along (a terrible thing for an author to feel)”
--Neil Gaiman, 02/03/08

“There's an odd point in writing, when you reach a bit that you've known was going to happen for years. Years and years. And then it doesn't happen like you thought it would...
It's as if there's a ghost-story behind the text and nobody knows it's there but me.
Still on Chapter Seven of The Graveyard Book, but I'm well into the last half of the chapter, and it no longer feels like I'm walking towards the horizon, with the horizon retreating as I advance... I've written about eleven easy pages today, and cannot wait to get back to it. If I'm still awake and writing I may pull an all-nighter.
It barely feels like I'm writing it. Mostly it feels like I'm the first one reading it.
Pretty soon now, Mr Ketch will fall down a hole. Mr Dandy, Mr Nimble and Mr Tar will have a gate opened for them, and the man Jack will get just what he always wanted...”
--Neil Gaiman 01/31/08

“Sorry. Writing Chapter Seven, still, and doing almost nothing else. (In the book, Scarlett Perkins has just arrived at the library to look at the microfiche files of old newspapers.) It's a bit of a wrench to go back from the fountain pen to the keyboard. Just received the sad news that the writing cabin in the woods I use sometimes -- mostly to type or proofread undisturbed -- now has wireless... (damn!) [further into the blog…] Truth to tell, I don't honestly think of The Graveyard Book as a children's book. It's a novel, and the protagonist grows from about 18 months to about 16 years during the course of it. I think some young readers will like it and I think that some older readers will like it (and some young readers, and some adults, will find it too scary or too morbid or too odd). It's not like anything else I've done, anyway...”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/25/08

“I just got sent the first version of the Dave McKean cover of the Harper edition of The Graveyard Book.
A book that is now three weeks late, and inside of which I'm somewhere hacking my way through the jungle of Chapter Seven.
There's nothing like being sent a book cover for the book you're currently writing to concentrate the mind wonderfully.”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/23/08

“The Graveyard Book is back on track, I think, and the thorny and evil thicket that was Chapter Six has been traversed and, I am told, does not sound like I was making it up as I went along, but sounds as if I knew what it was about the whole time. This makes me happy, because it was miserable writing it.
Chapter Seven is being written right now, I'm enjoying writing it and I do sort of know where it's going (I have for years) but it seems to be willing to surprise me anyway. A dead poet that I wasn't expecting just showed up, named Nehemiah Trot, who has "Swans Sing Before They Die" on his tombstone, and, I hope, will never know why.
(It won't be explained in the text, so it's from a quote I'd heard attributed to Pope, but is actually from Coleridge, alluding to the belief that swans sing most loudly and beautifully just before they die, which goes,
Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing
Should certain persons die before they sing.
And leads me to believe that Nehemiah Trot was not considered much of a poet by the people who buried him.)
I am, as I said, really enjoying it.
-- Neil Gaiman 01/21/08

“I'm more or less happily writing Chapter Six of The Graveyard Book. I say more or less as I'm at that place where I hope that the book knows what it's doing because right now I don't have a clue -- I'm writing one scene after another like a man walking through a valley in thick fog, just able to see the path a little way ahead, but with no idea where it's actually going to lead him.”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/08/08

“I'm writing The Graveyard Book with a very antique Waterman flexnib, which makes it very pleasant to write but not the most legible manuscript you've ever seen.”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/07/08

“I have to get unstuck on The Graveyard Book, so I am in the process of going off on my own to somewhere far away that probably doesn't have any internet connection. (Well, it may have dial-up. But I don't know that I can get dial-up working on this computer.) After 19 hours of travel I'm half way there.”

-- Neil Gaiman 12/08/07

“I'm starting to get a bit frantic about the last couple of chapters of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, I may go to ground to finish them and vanish completely.”
-- Neil Gaiman 12/03/07

“I started typing The Graveyard Book today. I'm chugging my way through chapter one.”
-- Neil Gaiman 08/02/07

“I have almost -- almost, so close I can taste it -- finished the "Danse Macabre" story, which means I'm over half way through the Graveyard Book. Now the plot starts...”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/14/07

“I had great fun reading at Bryn Mawr - I subjected a very patient audience to the whole of the second chapter of The Graveyard Book in handwritten first draft (well, I read it to them, I didn't force them to read it), and I got to learn where they laughed and what worked and what didn't quite. Then I signed a book for each of them and stumbled away.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/24/07

“I don't know what page I'm on of the final printed book -- that will depend on the size of the type, illustrations, layout and many other things. I can tell what page I'm on of the book I'm writing in though.Hang on. I'll get out a cellphone and take some pictures. I'll include my hand for scale. (Although it's only an accurate scale if you know how big my hands are. Er, they're quite big.) I got the blank book in Venice and it is almost too beautiful to write in, but it's really solidly built and takes the amount of punishment that being hauled around the world by me tends to give. I have four of them -- two I bought, two were a gift. This was one of the gifts. I wrote The Graveyard Book and my name on the first page because it made me feel like I'd started something... I tend to write an average of a little under 200 words a page in this book. Depends on the pen-nib, really... go off and number the pages about 50 pages ahead of where I am, because otherwise I will absentmindedly misnumber them while I'm writing. And as I start a new page I circle the number. Putting the circle on the number makes me remarkably happy. Also drawing a small gravestone with a number on it at the end of each chapter. I'm writing less words to a page than will be in the printed book, of course. There's about 20,000 words in the notebook so far. The chapter I've already written, "The Witch's Headstone", is about 10,000 words long. And I think* the book itself will be around 60,000 words - twice as long as Coraline.
*Well, I hope. It's unlikely to be less. I tend to underestimate, though.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/18/07

“The best thing about going off and writing, and not having a phone or internets and things, just a tiny rented cottage, pen and paper and stories in your head, is that everything gets sort of simple and I remember why I do this writing thing and why I love it. When I got stuck, I'd change notebooks and write an introduction or something similar that someone was waiting for. Then I'd go back to the story. I never turned on the computer, except once to check a detail. Oddly enough the story that seemed the lesser of the two (most of the chapters of The Graveyard Book are also stories), which is called "The Friend" was easy and comfortable to write, while the one I was excited about, "The Hounds of God" (which I may retitle either "Miss Lupescu" or "The Ghoul Gate" on the next draft, or I may not) was sort of odd and lumpy and is going to need a lot of repainting and moving of heavy furniture when it gets typed up. Still, it has some really good bits in, and I love the ghouls, particularly the Bishop of Bath and Wells and the Duke of Westminster. I'm on page 98 of the book, and including "The Witch's Headstone" I think I'm actually half way through the book right now. Although some of the final chapter-stories are going to be long ones.
I'm writing a poem that runs through the next chapter, a P.L. Travers-like fantasia called "Danse Macabre", which I think is going to be chapter 5, after the already-written "The Witch's Headstone". Then I'm not sure. Then it's a chapter called "Every Man Jack". Then the last chapter, probably. Probably more than you really wanted to know, but I'm an author who's been writing a book, and mostly it's what my head is filled with, and it's interesting if you're me. (Most of the spare bits of head are filled with something that may eventually be called Lyonnesse.) The worst thing about going off to write for a bit is returning to civilisation and finding several thousand emails needing to be read, work mail, personal mail, Blog FAQ mail.... I'm not sure I'll ever catch up.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/17/07

“This is a message from your neighborhood Web Elf. Neil's dropped a line from his mysterious whereabouts to say he's finished chapter two of The Graveyard Book, entitled "The Friend," and is now sinking his wee teeth into chapter three, "The Hounds of God." (In the meantime, there's a snippet of video on YouTube where Neil talks about the origins of The Graveyard Book.)”
-- The Web Elf (Not Neil But Still an important quote!!!) 04/11/07

“I'm falling off the world for a bit to work on The Graveyard Book. I don't think there will be any internet where I'm going, so it may be a bit before I post again. Then again, I sometimes announce that I'm falling off the world, and then follow it up with lots of posts about random things, so you never know.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/06/07

“This morning I had my photograph taken in (among other places) a graveyard by photographer Phillipe Matsas, and I flashed back to GOOD OMENS, when Terry and I had our author photos taken in Kensal Green Cemetery, which meant that every second American newspaper that photographed us had arranged a trip to the local graveyard. And I thought "My next book is The Graveyard Book," and realised with a sinking feeling that too much of 2008 will be spent in graveyards trying to find an appropriate facial expression...”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/24/07

"In 1985 or 1986, watching my son Mike wheel his tricycle around the graveyard next door to our house that we used because we didn't have a garden, I thought of an idea for a story about a small boy who wandered into a graveyard and was raised by dead people. Then, deciding I wasn't a good enough writer, I didn't write it.
Over the years I'd pick up a scrap of paper and try to write a scene from near the beginning, conclude I wasn't good enough yet, and put it aside.
Recently I came to the conclusion that I wasn't getting any better. So I wrote a short story called "The Witch's Headstone", which will probably be chapter 4 or 5 of the book.
And today I finished writing Chapter One of The Graveyard Book, and it's a real book. I know it's a real book because there are all sorts of things I don't quite know yet, and I can't wait to find them out.
Happiness.”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/15/07

“I auctioned a name on a gravestone in the upcoming Graveyard Book, which went to the magnificently named Miss Liberty Roach, bid for on her behalf by a parental unit.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/08/06

“(I) wrote most of a Graveyard Book short story thanks to Maddy, who I read the first chunk to at the point where I was convinced it was rubbish, and she liked it and wanted to know what happened next, so I had to keep going.”
-- Neil Gaiman 12/31/05

“I'm about to write a short story that may actually turn out to be a part of The Graveyard Book. It definitely feels like I'm home.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/20/05

“I saw Sarah Odedina, my editor at Bloomsbury, for lunch, and talked about the next book I'm writing, which is called The Graveyard Book, and which is for her.(I had the idea for the book in about 1985, when we lived just over the road from a graveyard, with blocked-off-tunnels beneath the house leading to the graveyard, and the graveyard was also where my two-year-old son used to go to play. And I thought at the time I'd put off writing the book until I was good enough to do it justice. Which, in retrospect, was probably partly silly -- you don't get a better book at different times, just a different book -- but probably in other ways sensible, because the idea of writing The Graveyard Book used to scare me, and now the idea of writing it just makes me inordinately happy.)”
--Neil Gaiman 04/26/05

“Once I've finished ANANSI BOYS (a novel for adults) I'll write THE GRAVEYARD BOOK (a novel for kids). The strange thing is that I suspect that THE GRAVEYARD BOOK (a kids book) will have much more sex, more death, and be deeply scarier on most levels than ANANSI BOYS (an adult book). ANANSI BOYS is, at least so far, a huge big funny enthusiastic puppy of a book that just wants to be loved, and will probably be pressed on kids by librarians. THE GRAVEYARD BOOK will be something else -- something really creepy and cool, I hope. The first few pages of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK (more or less all that exists) follows a serial killer called Jack around the empty house in which he's just killed everyone in the family but the baby. He's looking for the baby.”
--07/18/04

“My story is "October in the Chair", which was a sort of a test run for some of the themes in The Graveyard Book, the next childrens' novel.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/31/02

Planes Trains and Automobiles. My Triumphant return!

2008-02-03T17:29:00.000-08:00

A QUICK NOTE FROM RRNN:

I have to apologize. I haven't maintained this blog for a very long time. The reason being I found that Internet Explorer somehow stopped being able to highlight text from Neil's blog. I couldn't get past this problem for a very long time until someone suggested that I try mozilla/firefox. I did, and it solved the problem, but by then I'd gotten out of the practice of keeping up on the wisdom of Neil. It's something I plan to correct in the near future. So stay tuned! Thanks!

Here's a collection of travel-themed quotes from Mr. Gaiman. Enjoy.

“The most exciting bit of yesterday was when the plane landed, and as soon as it stopped moving they turned the plane's electrics off. It was dark outside, and raining, and the passengers moved through the plane by the light of their mobile phones (not sure who had the idea first, but in a pitch-dark plane the phones gave enough light to see by). Climbing down, by the tail, I could smell burning and there were a number of airport firefighters pulling up, so I suspect the landing was much more exciting for the crew than for the passengers.
Anyway...”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/29/03

“I would like to go on record here as saying that I miss Concorde. I only flew it once, and that was only because of some stuff falling apart which meant I discovered I was going to have to use an obscene amount of air miles to cross the Atlantic, and when the lady on the other end of the phone said "Wow. For that many miles you might as well do it on Concorde" I took her up on it. And I know how wasteful of fuel it was, and was very aware while riding in it that I was in a thirty year old plane. But right now I could really do with a 3 hour trip across the Atlantic.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/08/06

“Set off on Sunday evening for the airport. Maddy and I flew to Amsterdam, then we waited in Amsterdam airport for a replacement plane to Venice (the one that we were meant to be travelling on having become whatever the air equivalent is of unseaworthy, due to an overeager baggage handler having rammed into the side of it. "It has a hole in the side," said the purser, in high Dutch dudgeon. "We shall get another plane.")”
-- Neil Gaiman 08/10/04

“Nearly didn't make it off the plane this morning at Gatwick. First the jetway didn't work, then the stairs they brought over for us to get off the plane with didn't go up high enough. I was just starting to worry that we'd be stuck there forever, and that within the week we'd be forced to eat the other passengers, and we were all eyeing each other to see who'd be first for some kind of improvised galley cookpot when they got the jetway working and we got off, grateful not to have been reduced to cannibalism.”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/03/06

“Up and awake and about to stumble out of the hotel and off to the airport, wondering suddenly why I'm not going to Washington by train as I could sleep on the train rather than negotiate more airport hell, but ours is not to wonder why, ours is just to blink uncomprehendingly at the daylight and do what the schedule says… Right. Airport awaits.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/29/06

“I was chatting to my friend Doctor Dan last night, about what I was doing today, and being glum about the six hours of driving that I have to do to get to and from Madison when I need to get an article finished. And Dan said "It's only 45 minutes in a plane," and offered to fly me down in his plane. (Dan flew me all over Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin when I was researching American Gods.) So I shall be having a small adventure on my way to Peter Straub and Gary Wolfe and the Orpheum. ”If you blog about this," said my assistant Lorraine, "Can you say something about how your assistant Lorraine took this news remarkably well, all things considered?" By which she means, I think, that she has decided, after some discussion, not to form a human shield by lying on the driveway in order to stop me doing something so utterly foolish, and instead will spend the rest of the afternoon somehow magically keeping the plane in the air. Lorraine is unconvinced by planes at the best of times, and suspects that one day someone will discover that heavier-than-air travel is impossible… And she's not too sure about lighter-than-air travel, if it comes to that.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/22/06

“oops. they just called us to board. got to go.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/30/06

Well Hello There All you Happy People

2007-01-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

Oh Poop. I have been a bad boy, and have not kept up with my Quotable Neil Blog in a very long while... I have skipped Christmas and New Years, and all tht sweet-sugary stuff that I am sure Neil Gaiman fans will want to have read about...

Unfortunately, something to do with either Neil's Blog or my computer makes it very hard for me to cut and paste text from his entries into mine, and I therefore have been lax in my duties, since so much more work is now required on my part. But I will do my best in the new year to adapt and put more quotes from everyone's favorite, shaggy englishman writer on this page.

Here's a fat juicy one with all kinds of comments on Neil's craft:
--RRNN

“I'm on deadline. Actually it's worse than that -- I'm on deadline on several things, which means I can't simply fall off the earth for a few days and wrap up whatever's late, because there are other things to do as well. (Deadlines sometimes run in packs, damn it.)
So I'm mostly working down at the bottom of the garden, not doing much email, my phone turned off. (This is being typed by me in bed before getting up in the morning, while also on the phone, and put together from an unfinished blog post from the last few days.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 08/29/06

“I've been published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, and in Realms of Fantasy (who reprinted "Troll Bridge" in their early years). There are a few magazines that published me over the years that don't exist any longer. I haven't dealt with the others out there currently, because I don't write enough short stories, so cannot speak for popularity or respectedness or payment rates and speed of payment (most writers I know rate the latter two conditions before the former).As a general rule, though, a short story writer should probably send her work to anyone who will both pay for and publish it. Making a list of all possible places who would publish it, from most desirable to least, is always good. And then, when it comes back from the first one she sent it to she should send it to the second one on her list, and she should repeat the process, moving down the list, until someone sends her an acceptance letter and a cheque.”
-- Neil Gaiman 08/29/06

“It's nice to learn that I'm a perverse romantic. Spread out all over the kitchen table in a drafty kitchen I was mostly worried that the collection of stories was all rather depressing.
Also nice to learn that I'm a neo-goth-pulp-noir author. Next time anyone asks me what kind of an author I am, I can finally tell them. I wonder if there are any other neo-goth-pulp-noir authors out there. We could form a society or something.”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/11/06

“I wrote the words "The End" today, out in my little writing cabin (actually I wrote my name and the date) on page 306 of the leather-covered book in which I've been writing Anansi Boys. (Although I did 102 pages in another notebook when I was in Ireland.) Which doesn't mean the book is done -- more that, if this were a patchwork quilt, I've now cut out all the squares. Now I have to sew it all together -- there's around 42,000 words still untyped which now need to be typed and moved around and changed and polished and thrown away. But I know the shape of it, and I know it all ends on a beach, and with a song, and I know what happens in Basil Finnegan's meat cellar, and where Fat Charlie got the lime from. So that's all right.”
-- Neil Gaiman 12/31/04

“I think I wrote most of Act 3 of the thing I'm doing with Penn Jillette in about two utterly mad days and nights. (I am very unshaven, and the white of one eye has gone bright red, so I look really scary and vaguely manic.)
"When we do Letterman," said Penn, today, "I'll tell him it took us eight years."
Of course, it sort of did. We had the idea for this shortly after we first met properly, on the Babylon 5 Episode I wrote, "Day of the Dead", in 1998. It then took us four years to track down who controlled the rights, and another four years to find the time to get together and do it. And our eventual solution was that we don't have time to do it so we may just as well put it on our calendars and do it anyway, which was what we did.
So today we took everything he wrote, everything I wrote and everything we wrote and we stitched it together, and were astounded that it came to about 128 pages of film script -- which is probably about 8 pages beyond where it should be, but I do no doubt that once it's been trimmed it'll run to about 120 pages.
Deadlines. One down. Five or six or seven to go.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/03/06

“I don't know that I can be objective. On the one hand, in a country of, what, nearly 300 million people, there are a few hundred novel writers, if that, who support themselves only though writing fiction, maybe another few hundred, at most a thousand, who completely support themselves scriptwriting for films and TV, and at a guess somewhere around 50 people who support themselves writing comics. And as someone who is earning more than a decent living wage from all three fields, I know I'm in a tiny, very very lucky minority.
On the other hand, it really is 90% just showing up and doing the work, and doing it as well as you can. (I remember one comics writer, now long gone from the field, telling me I was an idiot for spending 3-4 weeks on a Sandman script. She'd figured out how much her time was worth, and never took more than 24 hours to write a single issue of a comic. On the other hand, all the Sandmans have stayed in print, in trade paperback, for year after year, and have more than repaid the effort I put into them.) A certain, single-minded, idiot persistence in the face of all odds is certainly very useful.
So it's obviously not an impossible dream, as far as I'm concerned. And it probably is for a lot of other people. And some of them may find, as with any dream, that once you've got it, it's not what you want any longer.
And furthermore, when you take away the condition of "making a living" and add in those writers who teach, or doctor, or police, or do another kind of writing, or whatever, to make the money to supplement or to support their writing habits, you get a lot more "working writers" out there -- and a lot more varied author biographies.”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/18/03

“When I said "I love collaborating. And I love being in control too. As long as I get both I'm fine." I meant that I like the mixture, going back and forth from collaborating to doing things that were mine, and I did not mean that I only like collaborating if I'm in charge…”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/15/06

“I fell off the world for a couple of days, and finished up a bunch of incomplete things. The most overdue was the H. G. Wells introduction for a Penguin Modern Classics collection of his SF short stories, and that, along with a couple of other things, is now on the done side of the ledger, and I am so much happier. I'm going to fall back onto the world tonight, but in the meantime...”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/12/06

“Mostly I just carry on. The bad stuff can mostly be fixed or thrown out. The most valuable thing is the period between finishing it and when you reread it pretending you've never read it before and definitely didn't write it, the few weeks when you allow yourself to forget it. Then when you read it as a new reader, sometimes it's obvious what to do to fix anything that needs fixing. I'll also send stuff out to people whose opinions I trust, explaining that until it's done they aren't really allowed to say much more than "Is there any more?" but once it's complete I'm happy to take all and any input onboard. Just as long as no-one minds me throwing it back overboard as soon as I start rewriting.
(Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/29/04

“Several people wanted to know my opinion on Anne Rice's recent outburst on Amazon.com.
I think that unless a reviewer gets their facts completely wrong, the author should shut up (and even then, the author should probably let it go -- although I'm a big fan of a letter that James Branch Cabell wrote to the New York Times pointing out that their review of FIGURES OF EARTH was bollocks*). As Kingsley Amis said, a bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't let it spoil your lunch.
I suspect that most authors don't really want criticism, not even constructive criticism. They want straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked praise, arriving by the shipload every fifteen minutes or so. Unfortunately an Amazon.com reviews page for one of the author's books is the wrong place to go looking for this. Probably best just not to look.
(On the other hand, the statement "You read it wrong" is not an entirely meaningless one. When I first read Gene Wolfe's PEACE, aged 17, I thought it was a bucolic and sort of pointless set of reminiscences by a sweet old man. When I read it again, aged 26, having spent some years as a writer and critic, I found myself, rather to my surprise, reading a deeply chilling and murderous novel narrated by one of the darkest characters in literature, who was a ghost to boot. But Gene Wolfe isn't going to make people who didn't like or get PEACE suddenly like it by going on Amazon and telling them it was too good or too clever for them, even if it was.)
When you publish a book -- when you make art -- people are free to say what they want about it. You can't tell people they liked a book they didn't like, and there is, in the end, no arguing with personal taste. Different people like different things. Best to move on and make good art as best you can, instead of arguing.
I think Anne Rice going on Amazon and lambasting her critics was undoubtedly a very brave and satisfying thing for her to do, was every bit as sensible as kicking a tar baby, and, if ever I do something like that, please shoot me...
For most authors, not being James Branch Cabell, it's probably wisest after reading a particularly stupid or vicious or bad review to mentally compose your letter to the editor, fill it with your sharpest and most cutting and brilliant bon mots, and then, having made it up, to successfully resist the urge to put it to paper, and to return cheerfully to work.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/22/04

“Big Deadline is still a thing of madness. The other two little deadlines at its feet chivvy and squeak and grunt and bare their sharp little teeth. Several smaller deadlines howl impatiently from the bushes outside.
Argh.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/01/06

It's Baaaack...

2006-09-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

A Satanic tomato will not be held down for long.
--RRNN

“I'm forever running across accounts of people who notice the faces of saints, gods, mothers of god, and the like, that turn up, as a Message from Above, on their grilled cheese sandwiches or their burritos or something, and until now, I have to admit, I have scoffed.
That, of course, was before I went out into the garden and found myself face to face with The Satanic Tomato. I picked it and brought it inside.
I do know that the appropriate religious response to these divine food manifestations is to put it on eBay and to rake in the cash; and yet I fear that if this tomato fell into the wrong hands, it'd be Armageddon, before you could say Demonic Salad Vegetable. ..”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/02/05

“Lots of people writing to ask me to eBay the satanic tomato for charity. My hesitation on this is simply that it's a tomato. They don't last long. By the time an auction would be done, I'd be sending someone a rotted, icky thing that would no longer resemble a tomato.
Having said that, if anyone can figure out a way to make money for Katrina relief out of a demonic one-horned tomato that's currently sitting in the fridge looking slightly less bouncy than it did yesterday, let me know. Er, relatively fast… In the photo, He was sitting in all His Infernal Awfulness on a copy of the new mass-market paperback edition of Smoke and Mirrors.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/03/05

“I need to sleep, so this is just a hasty post to say that you are an amazingly inventive lot, and while freeze-drying, lacquering or any of the other demonic tomato-based suggestions were really good, the overwhelming vote is for...
Demonic Salsa.
We'll figure out the details tomorrow.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/05/05

“Right. So we decided to do a label or two for the Salsa. There has already been one gratefully accepted offer of art for a cartoon label, and then I thought that, in addition to that, it might be fun to try potential photographic labels. Not sure whether I'll use one of them, all of them, or none of them... Two of them are me and the tomato in question. One is the kitten, planning total world domination. I shall leave it to you to figure out which is which. Frankly, I like to think that I could be the Paul Newman of Satanic Salsas. Or, failing that, at least the Tony the Tiger of Satanic Salsas. Having said that, of course, I think that, in their hunt for the face of Satanic Salsa, most focus groups would pick the kitten...”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/05/05

“Went off into the garden, picked many tomatoes, not to mention the last of the onions, and sorrell, basil, cilantro, jalapenos and other hot and sweet peppers, garlic and everything except limes (which I bought), and I made a large quantity of salsa.
The devil-tomato is in there, although I forgot to save the seeds. Lots of jars have been bought and prepared, and tomorrow while I'm off talking to press people, it'll all be canned. I haven't figured out the label bit yet, but whatever I do will probably also involve numbering each bottle. And then I expect we'll eBay them, or something.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/06/05

Vewwy Bad Wabbits

2006-09-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

It is my wife's birthday on the 16th of September.
Happy Birthday Honey!

And as for the quotes? It's all bad bunnies this time around, from MORBID TENDENCIES. --RRNN

“Almost forgot to mention, this morning's post brought the first of Windy Lewis's bunnies. I bought several of them at the World Horror Convention, where they were the hit of the art show: my favourite being a fluffy purple three-eared, six legged bunny with huge alien eyes. Somewhere I decided that really what I needed to make my life perfect was the Strangely Disturbing Bunny of the Month Club, and Windy agreed. The June Bunny is amazingly cute, and sits, semi-octopus-like, on four legs, rather than the usual two. There are no pictures of Strange Bunnies up yet at Windy's Morbid Tendencies site, but I'm sure there will be eventually.
Good night.”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/10/02

“You know, I should do a photo gallery or something here of the collection of Strange Bunnies I've been sent ever since I asked Windy Lewis to start the Bunny of the Month Club and sign me up as the charter member. Every month I am made happy... Last month's was a centaur bunny. The one before that was a snow white bunny with one huge yellow eyeball, which would pull out from its body on a string with a horrendous ratcheting noise, and then slowly pull itself back. There's the bunny with the single ear and a lightbulb inside its head, and the Baba Yaga bunny with chicken legs, and a gorgeous mismatched patchwork bunny who reminds me of Delirium. They arrive wrapped in cloth, with mysterious notes and, on occasion, props, inside sealed-up coffee cans, to ensure that they don't get damaged on route, and they never do. From this, we can deduce that Windy (a) has a unique imagination, (b) understands packaging and (c) drinks a lot of coffee.
It's the perfect gift for the person who has everything except really disturbing monthly bunnies. (And Windy's ordering instructions, at http://www.morbidtendencies.com/botmc-details.html, are hilarious, as she explains what you get at different price points...”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/14/03

“The mail today included… a new Bunny of the Month Club Bunny (two-faced, this one, like Janus, with little pink dungarees, and red eyes on one face and blue on the other).”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/03/03

“Ah, you're probably thinking of Windy Lewis's Morbid Tendencies site: http://www.drizzle.com/~morbid/art-buy.html is a good place to start, but make sure you click on the info about the Bunny of the Month Club. (The last one to arrive, about ten days ago, was a Bunny-skin Rug. The one the month before that had two heads. "Oh," said my wife. "Finally one that isn't disturbing. Two heads. Well, compared to most of the bunnies she sends, that's kind of sweet." "Yes," said Maddy, happily, who had seen what I had seen immediately. "And look, one of the heads is dead!")”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/18/03

“Q: Just out of interest, was there anything waiting for you that wasn't by you, and didn't have a story by you in?
A: Of course. Lots of things. A Disturbing Bunny, for a start.
Q: This would be from the Disturbing Bunny of the Month Club, I suppose?
A: Of course! http://www.morbidtendencies.com/botmc-details.html has all the details, not to mention photos and suchlike.
Q: And this particular Bunny was...?
A: Pink, with huge werewolfy teeth and an enormous red velvet tongue. His mouth opens all the way, like a thylacine's. He also has a green bathrobe. Holly is trying to decide whether or not he will be accompanying her to Bryn Mawr this year, in case she needs something you can both cuddle and use to terrify burglars.”
-- Neil Gaiman (from a Q&A with himself) 08/23/04

“While on your right, the latest Bunny of the Month from Morbid Tendencies and Cat Grey. (After the first year or so we actually took the bunny frequency way down so now they arrive every few months and are always a delightful surprise when they do.) This is the bunny equivalent of the Eyeball Kid.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/07/06

Even More Maddy Madness

2006-09-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

I discovered I had a rather large collection of Maddy-related quotes all collected and ready to go that I'd forgotten about. Since she was so popular in the last post, I thought I'd go ahead and use them, with the hope that too much Maddy is not a bad thing in the eyes of the folks who haunt this blog.

WARNING! SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION AHEAD: Also, I'm trying to get a bit more serious about maintaining my own blog over at RRNNT's, so click on over (in my sidebar (you may need to scroll down if I haven't fixed the problem yet) and give it a check. Mostly just comic reviews right now, and some fun announcements about a few of my family and friends, but soon I'll be all dark and foreboding again. Thanks.
--Really Rather Not Nice.

"My only contact with technology is a single phone call home each night, to read a chapter of Daniel Pinkwater's LIZARD MUSIC to my daughter Maddy.She has a copy of her own, at the other end of the phone, and fills in occasional paragraphs."
-- Neil Gaiman 10/11/01

“Yesterday I went to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival to watch a seven year old daughter play the violin in public. People put money into her basket. She smiled at them very sweetly, and kept on playing. It's good to know I have a back-up plan if this writing lark falls to pieces.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/02/01

“Last night Miss Maddy watched the episode she missed on Thursday "America's Next Top Model" on a Tivo 4000 miles away, and it made me smile, mostly because I'd never watch something like that for pleasure, but watching it with her, as she covers notepaper with the names of the contestants she likes, crossing them out when she decides she doesn't like them after all, drawing thumbs downs next to them when they don't get selected or get sent away, makes it somehow enormously enjoyable.”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/12/06

“I took Maddy for a walk down to Covent Garden, bought her shoes (light blue Converse high tops) and fish and chips then wandered up to the British Museum and we had a cup of tea in the courtyard. I showed her the Reading Room, and failed to explain to her why it was so magical for me, or why getting my first Reading Room Card was so unutterably cool and important (I was about 21 and wanted to read rare James Branch Cabell stuff, and to research Caspar Hauser, for, I think, a radio play I was writing). She sort of took it on trust, and I hauled her through the Egyptian Room trying to explain why the Rosetta Stone was cool, but mostly she just wanted to be back in the hotel talking to her friends back home on the hotel computer.”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/12/06

“I need to leave almost immediately to go and work on Black Hole, so have spent the last two days Not Blogging, but instead doing things like going and buying lots of small samples of blue paint for Maddy's wall, and putting them on so that she could decide what colour it's going to be (and let her use up the excess sample paint writing MADDY WAS HERE on her wall in leftover Ocean Mist), sorting out the firefly lights so they're now working, checking out the plum trees and the grapevines and getting songs onto Maddy's iPod Nano (a gift from Paramount for Stardust's first day of shooting; I already had one from Beowulf's first day of shooting). Also took Maddy to Dairy Queen.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/21/06

“This morning I got up early (landed late last night, in a blizzard) and drove Maddy about 40 miles to a Young Author event (she wrote a story for school that got her into it, and decided that she wanted me to take her, rather than her mother, mostly I think so that she could say "You'll enjoy it dad. There will be some real authors there, and you may even get to meet them," with a straight face. Little minx).”
– Neil Gaiman 03/19/05

“Maddy (aged 8) would like it mentioned here that she's off-school with Something That's Going Around, and she doesn't see why I should get all the sympathy, especially as she'll be back at school on Monday. She'd also like me to mention that she and I played Scrabble this afternoon.”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/28/03

“And read to Maddy again tonight, for the first time in five days. She came down to World Horror for a couple of days, and had a very good time indeed, as only seven year olds can have at conventions. (I doubt many of the other convention attendees made much use of the hotel swimming pool, for example. Well, I know I didn't.) She discovered she likes fountain pens, after borrowing mine to sign with, and she was approached to write poems by a Tanguera editor. "I'd love to read some of your poems," said the Tanguera. Maddy looked uncomfortable. "Your dad says they're really good." Maddy shifted from foot to foot. "And we pay ten dollars for every poem we use." Huge seven year old grin at the prospect of unbounded wealth ahead. "Dad will send you some of my poems," she said, very definitely.
I reminded her of this tonight. "Oh," she said. "It's all work, work, work. Once I get home from school I have to practise my violin, and I have to do reading for school, and then we do reading... now I have to write poems too."
I suppressed a smile. "At least you aren't bored," I pointed out.
"I'm never bored," she said, as if that were obvious. "It's just I'd like a bit more time to play on the computer."
-- Neil Gaiman 04/17/02

“Took part in a much more pleasant mass signing last night, made really fun by the fact I had small daughter Maddy there to help out. Helping out mostly consisted of leaning over my shoulder and saying "Are you going to do a drawing for them?" whenever she liked the look of anyone, or wanted to see a drawing. She took exception to the goldfish I would draw in people's copies of DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH and would add more bubbles coming out of the goldfish mouths. She also, very proudly, signed several books for people who asked her to. ("I signed Madeleine in that one, for a change, instead of Maddy," she told me, at about signature number three, thus indicating that she was finding her own solutions for the big question of How to Sign the Same Things Over And Over WIthout Getting Bored Or Repeating Yourself. Then, having had enough, she went off to the hotel pool to swim, and I kept right on signing.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/13/02

"Just told Maddy that I have to go away for a few weeks to make the short film. She was pretty sad, and so was I. You'd think that as we grow older, partings would be easier, but they never are."
-- Neil Gaiman 11/07/02

“Now I must go. A small girl needs to watch CARNIVAL OF MONSTERS, and you know how it is...”
–Neil Gaiman 02/03/06

THE QUOTABLE MADDY

2006-08-27T16:58:00.000-07:00

Rumors of this blog's demise are highly overrated. I, "Really Rather Not Nice" have simply been horrendously busy, and short on collected quotes to slap in here for a very long while. And I do have plans to correct this situation. In the mean-time, I hope to honor Mr. Gaiman's young progeny, Ms. Maddy, with her own very special edition of Quotable Maddy, as Aug. 28th is her birthday. We'll kick things off with a quote from Dad, and then give the floor to his demented offspring.

“Let's see -- today's big news is MADDY GAIMAN IS NINE TODAY. (And on the subject of birthday parties, why is there a plastic box filled with wobbly water-balloons in the kitchen? Do I have anything to worry about?)
– Neil Gaiman 08/28/03

“Holly HollyMaddy Maddy Maddy Maddy Maddy Maddy Maddy Maddy Maddy Maddy Maddy (This is Maddy typing, ((Holly wanted me to type the Holly part)) could you tell?)”
– Maddy Gaiman 08/10/04

“Now everyone (This is Maddy for your information) I suppose you think Dad's blog is wonderful and want to read it every day and wait for the marvelous things he says like that thingie up there. But, really I must tell you I am the inspiration for all this things! Plus, I can make computer cats and fish. Wanna see? Fish: ><)))"> and Cat" =^..^= Meow! Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.”
– Maddy Gaiman 05/02/05

“Good evening and welcome to the Maddy Gaiman show! And now... the moment you've all been waiting for... (drumroll please)......MADDY GAIMAN!!!!! "Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. I want to thank everyone for coming tonight! But I must bid you goodnight. So, now, before it gets to, like, two in the morning let's hear sports from Neil Gaiman"
– Maddy Gaiman 05/22/05

“My name is Maddy. And Dr. Who was quite good. I liked it when the world blew up. Yes, quite. :-)”
– Maddy Gaiman 11/26/05

“Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Merry Kwanzaa! Happy New Year! A.K.A. Happy Holidays Everybody! Yo yo yo sup doggs! Maddy is in the house! I had a pretty good day today.... I bought two new pairs of shoes and they are pretty sweet!! Except for the fact Holly thinks they are ugly. I strongly disagree. My father and I have been watching Dr. Who lately... the one with Christopher Ecclestone, I mean. It was reeeeaaaaalllllyyyy good. But we watched it soo much that...um... we kind of ran out of episodes. So... now we must wait patiently for the new season to come out. Yes, quite. Well, as much fun as this has been I must sadly and sorrowfully bid you all good night. Good night.
- From the desk of Maddy Gaiman”
– Maddy Gaiman 12/21/05

“Maddy: Dad. I need to know the truth. Are you famous?
Me: No. Not really.
Maddy: But there are people who know who you are, aren't there?
Me: Well, yes.
Maddy: And they think you're famous?
Me: Some of them do, I suppose, yes. Why?
Maddy: Well, you see, I've been looking at people a lot recently. People in cars. And sometimes I think that maybe they're movie stars or people I've seen on the TV. And I thought to myself, "Don't be silly. People on the TV wouldn't just be driving about." But then I thought about you. I mean there are people who'd see you, and go "He wouldn't just be driving about" and you are. So I think probably they are movie stars after all.”
– Neil Gaiman [Quoting Maddy Gaiman] 09/20/02

“Hello everyone, it is your friendly neighborhood Maddy speaking. I'd just like to say a few words. My dad is a weirdo peirdo shmeirdo, My dad is a weirdo peirdo SPLAT! Thank you very much... now you can carry on with your day. P.S. Remember Dad is a weirdo, but Maddy is the best! P.P.S. La la la, sing with me!! Hmm hmm hmm, hum with me!! Dum de dum, dum de dum with me!! P.P.P.S. Thank you very much and now back to that one weird guy.”
-- Maddy Gaiman 01/16/05

Happy Birthday Maddy!
--RRNN

More Reccomendations from the Man in the Know

2006-07-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

I know I was all doom and gloom about the longer quote collections the last time I reall had much to say, but lo and behold! I discovered this collection of Neil's reccomendations that I hd collected together and forgotten about. Check some of this stuff out! I'm still trying to in some cases, and have been very rarely disappointed in the stuff I've managed to see/hear/read so far.
-- Really Rather Not Nice

“Am getting fonder and fonder of the Adverts CD "Cast of Thousands". When it came out, I remember thinking it a feeble followup to their debut album, "Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts", and I thought the Adverts were a sort of second rate punk band (I saw them play Crawley Leisure Centre when I was 16, and loved the gig, and wished they were the Clash or the Pistols). They've aged better then almost all of their contemporaries, though. These days I find myself looking at "Cast of Thousands" as the place that TV Smith's blend of heartfelt-outrage-and-dreams-and-content songwriting really started to come together. Which I mention because I notice that TV Smith has released his first new CD in a few years, the first since "Generation Y" (if you don't count "USELESS" which was a sort of greatest hits CD, with all the songs rerecorded with a German punk band). The new album is called ‘Not A Bad Day’”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/29/03

“Last time I put something musical up here it was Fredo Viola's beautiful "Sad Song". This time, for balance, you probably need to hear William Shatner, aided and abetted by Ben Folds, singing Pulp's "Common People". You may not think you need to hear it, but I'm afraid you do.”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/26/04

“(Now playing as I finish playing this: "Psycho" by Jack Kittel.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/29/04

“Well, for coin tricks you want J. B. Bobo's Modern Coin Magic . http://store.doverpublications.com/0486242587.html for details.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/25/02

“I got Lambchop's Is A Woman yesterday. Overall the album's a bit samey, but the second song, "New Cobweb Summer", does that strange and transcendant thing that Lou Reed's song "Coney Island Baby" does, or does to me, anyway, where it moves from being quiet and restrained to tearing its heart out and making me gasp, and the volume never increases, and it remains every bit as laid back and restrained all the way through as when it began (which is practically lying down in a straightjacket), and when it's over I still don't know how it did it. Absolute magic.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/07/02

“Just wrote a paragraph for the Langley Schools Project website. (Some of you need this CD. Some of you need it very badly. Some of you definitely do not. It's... well, unique. And sometimes it's really good, as well. And sometimes it's better than good, even when it's, er, bad. Go over to http://keyofz.com/keyofz/langley/ and listen to some of the clips, and you'll see what I mean. Or possibly not.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/05/02

“One of my favorite books is Count Jan Potocki's Manuscript Found In Saragossa. I review it in the December 2001 journal (http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal_archives/2001_12_01_archive.asp).
Some years ago, knowing my fondness for the book, author Ian McDowell (not to be confused with any other Ian Mcauthors) found for me a copy of the film. It was on two VHS tapes, and had been copied so many times that, despite having started out in black and white, it was now picking up colour. I watched it for weeks, over and over -- two and a half hours worth of quirky, brilliant, intricate, funny, scary, sexy, and strange film, and then put it away and later gave it to a friend: things like this, I thought, should keep moving. Set in Spain, acted and directed by Poles in 1965, it was special. Once I'd given it away I started to doubt that I'd ever seen it all. I'd run across mentions of it from time to time (Angela Carter, saying that the way she and Neil Jordan constructed COMPANY OF WOLVES was inspired by the film of Saragossa.)
And I put it into American Gods.
Last August, a message came in on the FAQ line, from someone at a DVD company, letting me know it would be out on DVD around now, and would I like a copy?
I said yes. (You had to ask? This is why I love being an author.)
And it arrived, a crisp and clean black and white print, a full half hour longer than the version I'd seen. It may be the oddest and coolest film ever made, for those who like stories.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/05/02

“I actually signed (and saw) my first copy of the book for kids with the very long title last night, and discovered something very important that you should know if you like Children's Fiction. (It was actually something I suggested to them, and which I had forgotten about, but it happened and it has made me happy.) Which is: in addition to containing short fiction by me and Nick Hornby and Mr Snicket and the like, it also contains, in, I hope, its entirety, GRIMBLE by Clement Freud. This is a story I have loved since I was seven and which has been out of print for a very long time indeed. And now it's back in print, in noisy outlaws etc and you can read it. (I'm not the only Grimble fan in the world. In an Amazon.com interview J. K. Rowling described it as "one of funniest books I've ever read" -- which you would think would have been an incentive for a publisher to bring it back into print before now.)”
-- Neil Gaiman –9/27/05

“I've only ever optioned one book or story by someone else. It was a book called WASP, by Eric Frank Russell. I was convinced it would make a perfect movie, and once it was optioned I started to write it. And then September the Eleventh 2001 happened.
I stopped writing the film and simply let the option expire. WASP wasn't fiction any longer. It had become rather too relevant, and I couldn't imagine a universe in which anyone would pay for it to be made in the foreseeable future.
If you read http://www.boston.com/
ae/books/articles/2005/09/11/echoes_from_sci_fis_golden_age/
you'll find out why. Or read the book.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/11/25
(Apologies for the split link, but it was playing havoc with my sidebar.--RRNN)

“The last time I was in Australia, on my day off at the end, Eddie Campell showed me his book The Fate of the Artist, and I loved it. And now, just in time for me to zoom back to Australia for the Sydney writer's festival, it's finally coming out -- http://www.firstsecondbooks.com/fate.html
for details...”
-- 05/12/06 Neil Gaiman

And One anti-recommendation, which Neil rarely doles out(he almost never poo-poos on others, except when it is really warranted):“The script for BLACK HOLE is starting to feel like a real movie script, I think. Roger and I bought a bunch of CDs with names like "CHARTBUSTERS From 1974!" and have them playing in the background a lot of the time. Oddly enough, the intervening 32 years hadn't erased how much I didn't ever want to hear "Billy Don't Be A Hero" again. One verse in and it all came crashing back...”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/29/06

A Holly Jolly Birthday

2006-06-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

And a very happy and special Birthday Post for Holly Gaiman, who turns 21 today. You'll notice there are some quotes in here I've used in part or in whole before on the blog, but I thought they were worth repeating on this occasion. (Oh, and try to ignore the fact that the first post, from Holly herself, is about Thanksgiving. It still fits.)

“Hello everybody around the world, this is Holly. Some people think that my father is smart, a good writer perhaps. But the truth of the matter is that he would be nobody without his amazing daughter to give him ideas and to tell him what jobs he should and should not take. I mean, what would he do without me? So really, it all comes back to me, and how wonderful I am. My father once said that I will make myself famous. But in my opinion, I already am, seeing as it is because of me that he has been such a wonderful success. So what we are to conclude from this, is that what my father has to be thankful for is me! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and a happy day.”
– Holly Gaiman 11/22/01

"I'm now in a nice hotel in LA, and Holly's here, which made me a lot less cranky than I was. She was thrilled when we opened the door to the hotel room to find lots of people had sent flowers, champagne and faxes telling us that the New York Times List thing was a good thing, and she was astonished that journal-reading people came up to her at Vromans wishing her happy birthday and congratulating her on passing her driving test. (Her license has a photo of her with an ear to ear grin on it. It's astoundingly cute.)"
-- Neil Gaiman 06/26/01

"And last but not even a little bit least, Happy Birthday Holly! (She's 17 today.)"
-- Neil Gaiman 06/26/02

"There was something else important in the post-that-vanished, which I should repeat here. Happy 18th birthday to the very wonderful Holly Gaiman...."
-- Neil Gaiman 06/26/03

"Got to Venice, met by Holly and a friend who has elected not to be named in the journal (Miss X). Holly is nineteen. Holly turned nineteen in Italy about six weeks ago. Holly has observed that while I congratulated Mike on his birthday, hers didn't actually get a mention in this journal. Holly does not plan to let me forget this.

Ever."
-- Neil Gaiman 08/10/04

"For Holly's 18th birthday she asked me for a short story as a present, which she wanted delivered by her 19th birthday. It's been 960 words long for several months now, and is almost two months late, but I'm cheerfully finishing it for her, when I'm not dozing, eating, or being dragged around on walks.
("You like the walks! You're the one who drags people! That's not fair" says Holly, reading this over my shoulder.)
The story's called SUNBIRD. It just occurred to me that an awful lot of animals get eaten in it, which is a very odd sort of present for a vegetarian, but I expect she'll forgive me.
("You never told me that!" she just said, over my shoulder.)"
-- Neil and Holly Gaiman 08/13/04

"It was twenty one years ago that I was woken up at about eight-thirty one morning by Mary, my wife, letting me know that she was in labour and that she had already phoned the maternity hospital to let them know, and we were leaving now. And, possibly because I seemed rather agitated by all this information, she said she thought it might really be better if she drove and I timed the contractions. We owned an elderly, tiny yellow MG midget at the time, which she fitted herself into somehow, and she drove us like a maniac through tiny curving Sussex backroads to get to the Maternity Hospital, while I timed the contractions and worried.
I'd somehow got it into my head that the baby would be a girl, and, after the kind of long and protracted negotiations that normally result in the drawing up of borders in Eastern European principalities, we'd settled on "Gemma" as a name.
We pulled up in front of the hospital by nine, and by about ten I was amazed and delighted to find myself proudly holding a small, baldish, grey-eyed baby who seemed to be taking in everything that was going on and had a very sober look on her face, as if she wasn't quite sure whether she entirely approved of any of it.
"She doesn't really look like a Gemma," I thought. "Bugger." I checked. Mary didn't think she looked much like a Gemma either.
And I drove home pondering the naming issue, with Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side running through my head.
Somewhere in there twenty one years went by, and I continue to be amazed and delighted by her, and really most appallingly proud. Right now she's on a different continent beavering away...
Happy 21st Birthday Holly."
-- Neil Gaiman 06/26/06

"This evening I had a very pleasant time with Holly, which began with her mentioning how much she liked the song "Across the Universe" and me playing her the version of the song by Laibach, which has always been my favourite. "Dad," she said, happily, "This was the version of the song I knew as a little girl. You used to play it. I always wondered why the Beatles one sounded different from the way I expected. I mean you could understand the words for a start." Then we sat in front of the computer for a few hours and I made her a playlist of more songs she had loved as a small girl, the ones she'd remembered and the ones she'd forgotten, which led to our having The Conversation. You know, the one I've known was coming for the last almost-nineteen years.
I dragged songs from her childhood over to the playlist -- "Barcelona" and "Nothing Compares 2 U" and "I Don't Like Mondays" and "These Foolish Things" and then came Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side". "You named me from this song, didn't you?" said Holly as the first bass notes sang. "Yup," I said.
Lou started singing.
Holly listened to the first verse, and for the first time, actually heard the words.
"Shaved her legs and then he was a she...? He?"
"That's right," I said, and bit the bullet. We were having The Conversation. "You were named after a drag queen in a Lou Reed song."
She grinned like a light going on. "Oh dad. I do love you," she said. Then she picked up an envelope and wrote what I'd just said down on the back, in case she forgot it.
I'm not sure that I'd ever expected The Conversation to go quite like that."
-- Neil Gaiman 05/31/04

Politics, The Weather, and Blue Moon Ice Cream (Cleaning out the Fridge.)

2006-06-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

As the title suggests, this is a bit of a mish-mash week, and I'm posting late, sorry about that. But unfortunately, I also have to report that Quotable Neil will be taking a sort of semi-hiatus for a few weeks, until I can collect together another cache of quotes. So I'll be posting only very small collections until I've done some work. Neil has much to say... and I have much to sift through, and unfortunately not as much time as I used to, to do so.
-- Really Rather Not Nice

“I don't think I'm particularly evasive, or even close-chested, about my political views. (Mostly what I am politically is vague and issue-specific.)”
– Neil Gaiman 11/17/04

“If pressed to pick a political system, I think that some country or other ought to try jury duty as a way of picking its politicians: if your name gets picked, and you can't come up with a good enough excuse, you'll have to give up four or five years of your life to helping run the country… If you have a country and want to try this as a political system, let me know how it works out.”
– Neil Gaiman 11/17/04

“I normally leave political comics to those better qualified than I am to do them, which is pretty much everyone who doesn't believe that putting silver foil in your baseball cap will keep you safe from meteorites...”
– Neil Gaiman 03/30/05

“What do I think? I think a bunch of things, many of them contradictory and some of them fuzzy (which is the main reason I don't do much on politics in this blog).”
– Neil Gaiman 02/06/03

“I'm English. (If I was American, I'd be telling everyone who to vote for -- or at least, who to vote against.)
--Neil Gaiman 10/24/04

“The weather in this part of the world can sometimes change the way you think in peculiar ways. Take, for example, your correspondent this morning, looking at the outside thermometer on the kitchen wall, and beaming. "It's nine degrees," I announced happily. "Brilliant. It's warming up." (That's minus 13 C).
Last night, according to the thermometer, it went down to minus twenty-one (-30C). When it's that cold outside the cold creeps into your bones, and going outside becomes more than a little problematic, and yesterday I didn't leave the house and crept off, with black long underwear beneath my jeans, to write in the attic.
Today, at nine degrees, it's almost springtime...”
– Neil Gaiman 02/18/06

“This is my favourite sort of weather: bluer-than-blue skies, enough warm blustery wind to set golden leaves spinning past the window and push the curtains around, a promise of possible thunderstorms in the evening. It's good.”
--Neil Gaiman 10/17/05

“There are days that are purely themselves. Today is one of them: Indian Summer at the start of October. The sun bright and warm and golden, the sky blue as a dream, the maples burning into autumn colours in shades of yellow and amber and flame, and several hundred thousand ladybirds on every south-facing surface of the house, crawling and creeping and flying, the bedroom window being pattered by the tiny beetles as they fly headfirst into it , adding a rather strange noise to wake up to this morning. It sounded like someone with a pea-shooter was aiming for my bedroom window.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/01/01

“I don't know what flavour Blue Moon is. (The only places I've encountered it were at the Lark toys place, and at the Baraboo CircusWorld Museum.) It's sort of vanilla-citrus flavour, is an extremely bright blue in colour and smells (Holly says) of fruit loops.” – 08/17/03

“I'm thinking that pineapple and almond taste nothing at all alike, even when coloured a particularly violent shade of blue… and I'm just pondering the canteloupe possibilities, when… marshamallows enters the picture, and I realise there's also a whole website filled with comments from people who also don't know what flavour Blue Moon is.... Several people wrote to say "It tastes BLUE" but it doesn't, not really, not in the way that certain pink desserts taste pink, anyway. I suspect that the genius of Blue Moon ice cream is that if it were, say, canteloupe orange, you'd go "Ah, it's canteloupe flavour" (if it was) and never think about it twice. Whereas it's the gulf between the vivid blueness of the colour and the pineapple flavour (or the marshmallow-almond. Or whatever it is) that makes it work.”
– Neil Gaiman 08/18/03

Writer on Writing

2006-06-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

Another ever-popular collection of quotes filled with Neil's own advice on Neil's own craft. One of my favorite topics to hear him talk about, and one of the major reasons why the Quotable Neil exists in the first place. Oh... and happy Father's day. I don't really have much on Father's day right now, but I'll try to make up for it next year.
--Really Rather Not Nice

“The "I am too good to be an SF writer" people tended to have read no SF at all, and to regard every idea they came up with, no matter how mined out, as Vital and New, and to write books that SF readers didn't enjoy and that, as far as I can tell, mainstream readers didn't enjoy either. There's not a lot of point in naming names, as most of the books and many of the authors are forgotten by now.”
– Neil Gaiman 06/10/02

“So now I'm back, and the novel, which seemed to have finally found itself as I left, seems to still be itself, and I've already written several thousand words today, and it was fun and easy and pleasant writing with some good jokes in it, and the characters are acting like themselves. It's nothing like I thought it would be, mind, but that's not a bad thing. There will be bad days ahead, of course, but I think I'm now writing my book.”
– Neil Gaiman 11/29/03

“I'm still in Deadline World, which is getting old fast, and no nearer to seeing the end of it than I was a week ago. It feels like I'm clambering up a sandy cliff-face, of the kind where, when you're half-way up, you realise that you're going to have to keep climbing as fast as you can just to not end up sliding back down to the bottom.”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/22/06

“What I try and do is:
1) Finish it.
2) Put it away. Drawers are good. Don't look at it for a week or so.
3) Read the whole thing, doing my best to pretend that I've never read it before.
4) Fix the big things. (These tend to be things that pop out at you when you read it, like noticing that you've led up to the prison escape, and then meeting the prisoners after they've escaped, and realising that it might really have been a good idea to write the escape. Or that the first chapter would really work better as chapter 5.)
5) Read it through page by page and fix the line by line things. Notice that Omar mysteriously becomes Mustapha on page 50 and stays Mustapha until page 90 when he becomes Mustafa. Pick one and make it consistent. Wonder whether anyone will notice that you've put Paris in Belgium. Decide to leave it there, on the basis that no-one will notice.
6) Get up in the middle of the night and move Paris back to France.
Does that help?”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/29/04

“I started writing the new Neverwhere novella, HOW THE MARQUIS GOT HIS COAT BACK, in a blank book for writing in that some nice person gave me at some point. It was not a happy experience, as the book turned out to be shi-shi enough to have little bits of flower petal in the paper, which might be okay if you're writing down your dreams in a thick felt pen, but which combine with a scritchy fountain pen to render the whole thing more or less illegible from the off. Which is rather irritating. I may see if I can find a thicker-nibbed fountain pen and darker ink. Meanwhile, I have learned all about how many pockets the marquis has in coat, and about the things that got lost in them...”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/29/02

“It's the whole thing of deadlines being cowards, and not spacing themselves out sensibly, but hiding behind things and leaping out at people all at once.”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/11/06 (Thanks to Lauren C. who suggested this quote. Cheers!)

“Hmm. Sometimes I know when I'm writing that something's good -- there's a wonderful bubbly feeling as it hits the paper, and often it didn't exist even a moment before. Mostly I have no idea -- when I'm done I'm incredibly nervous. Sometimes I write something I like very much that utterly fails to set the world on fire, and sometimes I write something that I think is deeply flawed that many people love. Sometimes I write something that really doesn't work, and everyone else thinks it doesn't work too.
Mostly I don't mind. I'm already trying to write the next thing.”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/10/02

“1602 chapter 3 is misbehaving. Dammit.”
– Neil Gaiman 11/09/02

“The premise of Keep Out the Night is old, forgotten, but perhaps beloved stories, or rather, ones the author wishes weren't forgotten. I took a comics story I wrote some years ago that I was never quite satisfied with, and wrote it as a collaboration with myself 12 years ago, as prose. I have no idea if it's any good, or anything more than a curiosity. If I like it by the time I do the next short fiction collection, I'll put it in there. Otherwise it will never be seen again...”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/03/02

“ ‘You're a writer? I've got an idea for a book you can write.’ This is right up there with ‘If you all just hand over your wallets nobody's going to get hurt. Except for any writers amongst you. We really hate writers,’ on the list of things writers generally hope not to hear.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/01/04

“When one plays with archetypes one should know what the archetypes are one is playing with.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/13/02

“Writing like a mad thing. Wishing that time were more, well, rubbery… Everything would be okay if we just had rubberier time. If you could lean against a week so it would have ten or fifteen or thirty days in it. That's all we need.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/05/02

“Am writing like a mad thing currently, and keeping more or less up with everything except e-mail. Yesterday I somehow managed to squeeze in writing an essay on the painter Richard Dadd as an introduction to Mark Chadbourn's novella The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke. I have no idea how I did it. Maybe time is rubberier than I had thought.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/07/02

“I went over to writing novels in longhand back in 1994, when I started Stardust, and liked it so much I've been doing it ever since. I don't think that much faster than I handwrite, and it makes me think a little more about each sentence before I write it. Also I enjoy the process of going from first to second draft, typing it in. I don't know that it would work for everyone, but it works well for me.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/14/05

Zoom. A Miscellany. Zoom zoom.

2006-06-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

Just a mixed bag of (hopefully) entertaining (to people other than myself) and unrelated (by anything other than the man being quoted) quotes, with (twice hopefully) very few parentheses. --RRNN

“Zoom (me arriving) Zoom (me leaving)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/21/06

“That's about it for excitement today, other than noticing in the mirror that I actually now have a beard. I have a theory that no-one can recognise me with a beard, which, despite no-one ever not recognising me bearded, I persist in believing, because I surprise myself each time I look in the mirror.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/22/02

“Family dynamics, while complicated, tend to include love as a major component.”
–Neil Gaiman 09/25/02

“I'm not entirely sure how I feel about learning that there really were hobbit-sized members of the human family (and of course they rode ponies and fought dragons. Or ran away from them). It's like someone discovering fossil remains of a one-horned horse: something suddenly slips from idea-space into the world.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/28/04

“Had a wonderful day in St Lucia. Wonderful scenery wound with roller-coaster roads. I visited the "drive-in volcano", stood under a waterfall and got magnificently wet, and I left with a general sense that a day was not nearly enough time to spend in St Lucia.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/26/04

“While I was at World Horror Con, something truly horrific had happened at my house. Er, ladybirds. Well, not really ladybirds, which many Americans call ladybugs, but some kind of beetle that looks almost exactly like a ladybird. They crept into the house in the autumn and hid in cracks. Today was the first day of summer, with temperatures in the 90s. (Five days ago there was snow on the ground and it was the end of winter. Spring seems to have been omitted this year, and will probably finally turn up in July where it will turn out to have been put under some newspapers, or to have slipped behind a chair, and been forgotten about.) The ladybirds-which-aren’t have decided that hot weather means that they should immediately breed in record numbers without bothering about going outside, so they creep everywhere, making otherwise normal surfaces move and writhe like something in a Ramsey Campbell short story, and they dive bomb people who are trying to write their journal entries. Also if you flick them off your pillow, they emit an extremely unpleasant smell and you have to stop typing and go and wash your hands.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/16/02

“Someone on the FAQ line told me that the ladybirds are actually japanese bean beetles. Everyone told me to vacuum-cleaner them up (which would work better if this weren't a very old house with very high ceilings) to avoid the smell and to move them in quantity. One person added: ‘our dog has taken to eating them (I guess because they move - dogs, go figure), and without getting too graphic, let's just say that the digestive system of the common canine does not alter their odor.’ Aren't you glad you know that?
I can add one piece of information to the whole japanese bean beetle lore: goldfish will eat all of a japanese bean beetle, even the spotted wing case, but they don't eat the wings. I figured that out when I notice the drifts of beetle-wings on the top of the water in the goldfish-tank.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/17/02

“Lacking bear pepper-spray, I walked home across the garden last night singing very loud bear songs, which went something along the lines of, "Lalala, I am singing very loudly to alert the bear to my presence, Lalala because most of the websites I've found talk about making noise and giving bears lots of time to get away, Lalala also I do not want to startle a bear at all because according to everything I've read on the subject bears do not like being startled." You don't have to worry about rhymes with bears. They don't mind about rhymes. Or tunes. Or scansion. Frankly, hypothetical bears are a very easy sort of audience.”
-- 05/12/06 Neil Gaiman

“Had one of those conversations last night with academic and critic Gary Wolfe about children's literature, fantasy, Lucy Clifford, E. Nesbit, how fiction ages and changes, what Victorian fantasy is still read and so on that I only left, with regret, when I realised that I was about to turn back into a pumpkin, and stumbled bedwards. It was the kind of conversation which remind me why I enjoy conventions, despite all the bits I don't.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/13/02

“I met Jerry Juhl this evening. Former head writer of the Muppets. One of my heroes. I acted really cool, even though this was the man who wrote dialogue for the Great Gonzo. I even learned why Chris Langham was a Guest on the Muppet Show (which will allow me to impress certain friends in the UK with my newfound knowledge the next time I see him). Every now and then in interviews, I get asked "Is there anyone who would turn you into a quivering fanboy?" and I lie and say not really. But I got to eat ice cream with Jerry Juhl... I mean, how cool is that?”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/03/02

“Well, one reason I've kept this blog up is that, in a lot of ways, it helps undercut all the Cult Of Personality stuff. While it's probably much easier if you want to be a hero just existing in people's heads, being whatever they want you to be, it's also more than a little odd, and probably very unhealthy. I'd rather, at least as long as I keep up this journal, try and remain as accessible as I can while still being able to get the work done and have some privacy; I have no desire to be anyone's hero. I'm a writer, and a very lucky one in that I've mostly been able write what I wanted to, and enough people like to read what I write that, unlike the great majority of writers, I can make my living writing (I'm a Beowulf, rather than a Dante, in Neal Stephenson's brilliant analogy). And that's enough.
I didn't sign up for this to be a hero, or any of that nonsense: I'm here to tell stories. And the stories aren't me.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/29/04

“When I'm ready to stop, I will. I always do. The important thing in that interview was "For me, it's always that Mary Poppins thing. I'll do it until the wind changes." I started blogging in Feb 2001, certain that I'd do it until September 2001, but I've enjoyed having a soapbox, not to mention somewhere to witter on about writing and socks and things too much to stop. Still, one day the wind will change, and I'll either stop or take a break or something, probably as an initial step towards becoming a mysterious recluse rumoured to have tissue-boxes on my feet and a long scraggy beard. Mostly what I was trying to stress was the oddness of realising that there are A Lot Of People Reading This, and the weird feeling that gives -- the knowledge that something small I do for fun somehow matters, and that if I stopped people would care.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/28/05

“One of the best things about this blog, for me, is that it's the diary I don't keep.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/29/05

“You know, just for the record, and I hate to spoil anyone's fun, but no,
http://www.myspace.com/neilgaiman
has absolutely nothing to do with me. I'm not writing the blog there either. (And a note to any future would-be me-impersonators: Please work on your spelling. hygene?deticated? assumtion? And, for obvious reasons, I can't ever imagine describing myself as a red-blooded American...)”
- Neil Gaiman 04/29/06

“At least, in my head I'm English. Although some English people hear my accent as American.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/24/04

“I'm 44, and I do not have a beard this week.”
–Neil Gaiman 11/21/04

“Also ate some very nice sushi for lunch. Very interesting. Now on my way somewhere else.
Zoom zoom.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/02/02

Memorial Day

2006-05-26T15:08:00.000-07:00

This post is a long one, simply because Neil knows a lot of people. The curse of knowing a lot of people is that eventually, you lose some of those people. I'm sure he's lost more than he's mentioned on his blog, but he takes the time to remember quite a few of them there, and it always causes me to take pause. Take a few moments a learn a little more about some of these folks, the marks they made, the lives they led.

Remember those who have passed on before us.

“Too many deaths. Too many people I know. Too many names that come with memories.Locus :George Alec Effinger is dead -- He wrote a wonderful story for the Sandman Book of Dreams, a Little Nemo in Slumberland pastiche. We had several meals in good restaurants, always discovered and recommended by him, and would discuss rewriting famous books from the points of view of more interesting characters than the ones who told them originally. I didn't know him well, but I knew him as the partner of a friend, and we'd make a point of getting together, eating and chatting, at conventions. No more.
And two entries down, on the same page, I learn that Joan Harrison, author Harry Harrison's wife, has died. I've not seen Joan or Harry for over a decade, but I first interviewed Harry for Knave in about 1984, in London's Natural History Museum for reasons that escape me now, and Harry wrote the introduction to Ghastly Beyond Belief, and I knew them both socially, and liked them both very much, when I lived south of London and they lived mostly in Ireland. Joan was the kind of person who made you feel, instantly, like family, if she liked you, and she liked me. When they'd talk about the famous SF people of the 40s, 50s and 60s, she was the one who'd say things like, "Well, of course his wife left him, and I couldn't blame her, it was just after that party, the one where he hit Bob Sheckley with a glass ashtray, you remember, Harry?" giving me a much more interesting and personal version of the history of the Science Fiction field than I might otherwise have had.
I remember when reading the Year's End Obituaries, in the Year's Best Fantasy or SF collections, I'd be looking at a list of names, which often meant something in terms of the work but nothing as people. These days they're all too often people I know.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/30/02

“I was going to write a quick late at night journal entry, about a long day at the World Fantasy Con (3 panels -- Punch and Judy (fun), Role Models in Children's Fiction (interesting) and Gods and Monsters (weird but interesting) and lots of food and friends) but then I got in and turned on the computer and learned that Charles Sheffield's died. We met 18 months ago at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the arts and liked each other much and talked poetry and english history and literature together and haven't seen each other since, and now we won't.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/03/02

“Bill Liebowitz owned and founded Golden Apple on Melrose, a comics-and-entertainment store. I've known Bill and his wife Sharon since I did my first signing in one of their stores in 1989. He was a good man, he really enjoyed what he did and loved the medium of comics as much as he loved yo-yos. (He gave my son his first yo-yo.) He did good things for the CBLDF, and long after I'd pretty much stopped doing signings in Comic Shops I kept on doing signings and events for Bill, because he was unique and so was Golden Apple.
He died yesterday, and is already much-missed, not least by me.
Mark Evanier has an appreciation of Bill, and a photo. http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2004_10_27.html#009147 (In the photo, Bill is the one who isn't blonde.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/28/04

“When I was fifteen going on sixteen, John Peel actually played punk bands on the radio, back when it didn't seem like anyone else did. That was when I'd start listening, and apart from discovering bands like the Undertones, I'd also hear things like "Sir Henry and Rawlinson's End" and songs by Tom Lehrer or John Cooper Clarke reading "Beasley Street". Definitely broadened my horizons. But mostly I'm sad because he was the kind of broadcaster who treated the listener as a friend, so you felt that you knew him.
”Note to not-English people: you can read about John Peel's death at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/news/altnews/041026_john_peel.shtml?rhppromo
And I'm pretty sure that Radio 1 and Radio 4 will both be doing the sort of tributes to him that will give you a good idea why he was that loved. (Although you needed him to be part of your life for most of it to really get it.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/26/04

“And, according to Locus, Damon Knight is dead. I only met him once, with Kate Wilhelm in New Orleans, but we were on GEnie together, and as I was growing up I read what Damon wrote, edited and criticised. On GEnie, I was always conscious that this was Damon Knight, and if he was crusty and persinickety, then he'd earned the right to be crusty and persnickety, and he was astonishingly perceptive as well. He sent me a copy of his novel, Humpty Dumpty, in ms. form, to offer any input, and I never sent back any input because I couldn't think of anything to say.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/16/02

“I can go and look at an entry like this one -- http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2002/04/you-know-if-i-wasnt-completely-tired.asp -- and remind myself how incredibly fortunate I sometimes am. That was the night I got to eat ice-cream with Jerry Juhl, and talk Muppet history and everything. He was an incredibly nice, funny, wise man, and we corresponded by email afterwards, a little, and I sent him books.
Mark Evanier's journal at http://www.newsfromme.com/ is one of the best blogs on the web, an ongoing and informative commentary on comics and showbiz and Vegas and some politics, not to mention Mark's occasional tribulations with places that should be selling him things to eat or use but don't. He also keeps up entries on those who died recently, with personal n otes and memories. I think this is the first time I've gone there and learned that someone I knew had died: http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2005_09_28.html#010384”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/25/05

“I interviewed my friend Will Eisner a few year ago, at the Chicago Humanities Festival. At one point I asked him why he kept going, why he kept making comics when his contemporaries (and his contemporaries were people like Bob Kane -- before he did Batman -- remember) had long ago retired and stopped making art and telling stories, and are gone.
He told me about a film he had seen once, in which a jazz musician kept playing because he was still in search of The Note. That it was out there somewhere, and he kept going to reach it. And that was why Will kept going: in the hopes that he'd one day do something that satisfied him. He was still looking for The Note...
Will Eisner was better than any of us, and he kept working in the hope that one day he'd get it right.
I was woken up this morning, with the news that Will had died last night, aged 87, and I've let a few friends know, and already had to speak to one journalist about who Will was and what he did ("It's as if Orson Welles had made Citizen Kane and redefined what you could do in film, and then carried on making movies until now," I said, wishing I could come up with a better analogy, and knowing that that didn't explain it. And I didn't mention how proud he was of any of us who did good comics -- how much he cared about the medium -- or how glad I am that I got to tell him that I wouldn't have written comics if it wasn't for him. There's a reason that the Oscars of comics are the Eisner Awards.)
I'm suddenly very grateful for the time I've had with Will over the years, in England and Germany and Spain and the US, for the times that I went over to see him and Ann when I was in the Fort Lauderdale area. I'm glad I was there in Erlangen, when they gave Will an award and the place erupted into a standing ovation that went on and on until I thought that the walls would collapse and the Millenium come and we'd still be in that theatre cheering and clapping, with Will looking modestly satisfied and Ann Eisner beside him beaming down at us from the stage.
I'm going to miss him enormously, more than I can say. I made a speech last year, where I said how strange it was to discover that the gods of comics, the people who made the medium, were, when I met them, cranky old Jews. Will Eisner wasn't cranky, and he was never old. He was, in all ways, a mensch.
And I keep weighing it in my head, the sorrow at losing Will with the knowledge of how fortunate I was to have known him ("you're always sorry, you're always grateful," as Sondheim said about something quite different).
I'm more grateful than sorry.”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/04/05

“I didn't know Octavia Butler well -- we met at the Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Florida and we ate together and talked, and she was incredibly tall and wise and imposing. We shared an agent, Merrilee Heifetz, but I loved her books and somehow thought of her as a permanent presence, although nobody ever is...
http://darkush.blogspot.com/2006/02/octavia-butler-died-saturday.html “
-- Neil Gaiman 02/26/06

“Josh Kirby has died.
It's been almost twenty years, I think, since I last saw Josh: a beaky, blinking, owl-faced artist, who lived in a crumbling East Anglian rectory. A dreadfully nice man. These days he's famous for the UK covers of Terry Pratchett books - covers he painted in a busy, colourful, explosive bigfoot style. For a few years in the mid 80s, every funny fantasy novel (and many that only aspired to be funny) published in the UK had a Josh Kirby cover. Terry Pratchett got the really good ones. The lesser lights of comic fantasy got paintings that looked like they were knocked out in an afternoon, or several afternoons (if memory serves he only painted by natural light, in the one room of the rectory where the sunlight was at its best).
At the time I met him, before this, he was still an SF cover artist, doing the covers for Bob Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle series -- huge, intricate paintings which, he grumbled, the publishers ran in a ribbon-high strip around the cover.
I remember being astonished to discover how many styles he had and how many covers of books that I'd read as kid he had painted. He did the Pan Book of Horror Stories covers, for example, before they went over to photos of eyeballs in buckets, and most of the Alfred Hitchcock presents short story collections -- wonderful paintings in which he'd create Hitchcock's face out of vultures and beasts, or instruments of murder...
The only cover I ever had by Josh was the German version of Good Omens. (It's not one of his great covers, alas, but I'm very happy that it exists.)
People stick in your memory as you last saw them. He was 72 when he died. In my head he's still in his early 50s, and will be forever.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/30/01

“Just learned that Peter Tinniswood died last week. Tinniswood is someone who tends to be forgotten when people talk about great fantasy writers, but he wrote The Stirk of Stirk, a strange, wonderful, historical fantasy (about the noble Stirk of Stirk, his evil enemy, and an ancient, gay, Robin Hood). And the strange darkly wonderfulness of A Touch of Daniel. All of his books were funny, although often the humour hovered out past black, somewhere in the ultraviolet.
I interviewed him, as a young man, for Knave, and he was kind and intelligent and reserved, and very relieved when he realised I'd actually read his books. We talked about the opening lines of his first novel, A Touch of Daniel:
When Auntie Edna fell off the bus, she landed on her pate and remained unconscious for sixty-three days. At the end of this period she died, and they had a funeral.
At the party Uncle Mort, husband of the deceased, said:
"What I can't fathom out is why conductor didn't tell her they was only stopped at a zebra crossing."
and how he wrote them and had no idea who these people were, so kept writing to find out. (And to make sure that I'd get that quote right I went down to the library in the basement, and found that most of my Tinniswood paperbacks were signed by him, to me, "Thanks for being a super interviewer" he wrote in one, which means, looking back on it, probably that he was dreading the whole experience, and found it less horrid than he had feared.)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/ram/tinniswood.ram is the Real Audio feed of a tribute programme to Tinniswood.”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/17/03

“I was about to post this and go to bed, when the email went Ding and I got an email from my friend Alisa Kwitney telling me that her father, Robert Sheckley, had died. It wasn't unexpected, and mostly I'm glad I heard from Alisa rather than reading it at Locus Online. Here's the SFWA obituary.
If you want to know why this matters, why Bob Sheckley mattered, not just as someone I knew and liked and will miss, or as my friend's dad, go and read his best SF novels, collected as Dimensions of Sheckley -- http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Sheckley-1.html or better still, a selection of the short stories, collected as The Masque of Ma�ana, http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Sheckley-2.html Go on. One day you'll thank me.”
-- Neil Gaiman 12/09/05

“About fifteen years ago I was the chairman of the Society of Strip Illustration, which was, for a while, the nearest thing that comics in the UK had to a professional organisation. I had to write a monthly "Talk From a Chair" for the SSI newsletter, and in February 1988 I wrote a paragraph regretting the passing of artist Don Lawrence.
Several days later I got a phone call from the late Don Lawrence, pointing out that he strongly suspected that I'd meant the late artist Ron Embleton, who had just passed away. They were friends, and had similar styles, and I'd meant to type one of them, and had written the other one instead. He was very nice about it. So I wrote an apology for killing Don off early, and it gave us something to talk about when we finally met, somewhere in Europe, a decade later. He was funny, gracious, filled with anecdotes...
When I was a boy, Don painted a comic I loved. It was called The Trigan Empire -- two comics pages a week, in the otherwise comicsless and dryasdust children's magazine "Look And Learn", which even schools who banned comics allowed. It was the story of something a lot like an SF Roman Empire on a distant planet, and was gorgeous. (And has, I've just discovered, its own web page at Trigan.com.) The Trigan Empire was the most popular thing in Look and Learn, and when, after a decade, Don asked if he could have a royalty, he was simply sacked by IPC. So he went on to do "Storm", his own comic.
He died on December 29th. You can see a photograph and a webpage here. http://www.donlawrence.nl/eng/dynamic/4_1.htm. And here's a page about Ron Embleton http://www.lambiek.net/embleton_ron.htm-- which I should warn you contains a smidge of nudity, of the Oh Wicked Wanda persuasion.”
-- Neil Gaiman 12/31/03

“Julie Schwartz is dead.
Harlan Ellison is writing Julie's obituary for the New York Times. "Hardest thing I've ever written," said Harlan, when he told me this morning.
Julie was a fan, and agent, an editor. By the time I met him, about seventeen years ago, he'd just retired, age 72, as an active editor, and DC Comics had appointed him their "goodwill ambassador". I liked him, and he liked me, even though I was by no stretch of the imagination a gorgeous young woman, and we'd make time to find each other and talk, at conventions. Julie was all about stories, and he had known everyone. (He once came to a convention with photographs of Eric Frank Russell, solely in order to find me and say "You know who this is?", so I could say "No," and he could tell me Eric Frank Russell stories.)
His passing really is the end of an era.
Go read what Mark Evanier has to say, for he says it all much better than I could: http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2004_02_08.html#003668”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/08/04

“I was doing a telephone interview about American Gods when I saw it on the screen. The interviewer was in Tokyo where it was gone 1:30 am.
For a weird moment I thought it was a joke, then I realised it wasn't.
"Douglas Adams is dead," I said.
"Yes," said the interviewer. "I know. Did you ever meet him?"
I said yes. And I was obviously shaken enough that the interviewer offered to stop for half an hour, and I said no, it was fine, we should carry on.
After that the interview was pretty much a bust. Or at least, I don't remember anything else that was said. (Sorry, Justin.)
I'd known Douglas fairly well in the 80s -- interviewed him originally for Penthouse then used the leftover material in a dozen other magazines, then in 1987 I wrote "Don't Panic -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion" for Titan Books, which involved lots more interviews with Douglas and his friends and colleagues, and lots more spending time in his flat going through his files and archives looking for cool stuff.
Saw him at David Gilmour's 50th birthday party, in 1996, and I told him how the Neverwhere TV series was going, and he said at least it wouldn't be the same experience he'd had with the Hitchhiker TV series, but it was.
Saw him in Minneapolis a couple of years ago for a signing for the Starship Titanic game. (Only a dozen people came to the signing. He started out by demonstrating the game, but it kept crashing and he couldn't get out of one of the opening sequences. It was kind of sad.) He'd previously asked me to work on a radio adaptation of the later Hitchhiker's Books, and I'd said no as I didn't have the time.
We'd e-mail from time to time.
He was a very brilliant man. (Not said lightly. I think he really was one of those astonishingly rare people who saw things differently and more clearly and from a different angle.) I don't think he liked the process of writing very much to begin with, and I think he liked it less and less as time went on. Probably, he wasn't meant to be a writer. I'm not sure that he ever figured out what it was that he did want to do; I suspect it's something they don't have a concept for yet, let alone a name -- and if he'd been around when this thing was around (World Designer? Explainer?) he would have done it brilliantly.
(I hope that his death isn't followed by the publishing of all the stuff he hadn't wanted to see print.)
He was immensely kind and generous, with his time and his material, to a young journalist, over 15 years ago; and watching how he, and how Alan Moore (who I met around the same time), treated their fans and other people – graciously, kindly and generously – taught that young journalist an awful lot about how famous authors ought to behave. And how most of them don’t.
& I'll miss him.”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/12/01

“I pulled out my copy of Don't Panic (the original Titan edition of 1987, not the reissue that Dave Dickson wrote extra chapters for at the end, nor the US Pocket Books edition where page 42 – which we’d left intentionally blank because the first time I’d printed out the book page 42 was [not on purpose, just a glitch from whatever computer program I was using to word process in those dim dark days] a blank piece of paper with “page 42” on it, and that seemed improbable enough to be some kind of a sign – on the US Pocket Books edition Page 42 was just part of the book... ) and I read the book I'd written fourteen years ago, and heard Douglas’s voice all the way through it, affable, baffled, warm and dry.
There are worse ways to say goodbye. And it may have been a strange one, but it worked, and we take our goodbyes where we can.”
-- Neil Gaiman
05/13/01

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Satanic Tomato Scorned

2006-05-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

Actually, Hell hath fury exactly like a Satanic Tomato scorned... but regardless, it looks like the socks won this battle. But the Satanic Tomato is waiting... oh yes. He WILL be back, and you will rue the day you voted against him. In the mean-time, here's the BALLAD OF THE BLACK SOCKS (though to be honest, it isn't a ballad... it just sounds good for the title.)

“On antibiotics for middle-ear infection. It rained today. Tonight I do laundry.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/22/02 (2:03 pm)

“Am now officially boring. Did laundry. Am one sock down.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/22/02 (4:47 pm)

“The missing sock has not yet turned up. I am suspicious. How far can it have gone? It was black, you know. Black socks don't just fade into the background. (Not unless the background's black, and the flat I'm in is very light-brown-wooden-floors-and-white. No black anywhere.) And if socks set off to seek their fortune or something, why don't they do it in pairs? Why alert us to their mysteries like this?”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/23/02

“The last time I grumbled about socks on this blog, I was missing one sock. Now I seem to be missing all of them. I'm starting to suspect that somewhere in this house there must be a secret drawer filled with socks that no-one's told me about -- or possibly that some huge, stealthy bird in the attic is building a terrifying nest out of black socks. (This last bird-related ponder was not endorsed by the official bird lady of neilgaiman.com who will probably write to let me know that no actual birds build nests out of socks and it's probably some kind of enormous rat, or gnomes.)
This morning I sighed and unwrapped a pair of Bryn Mawr black socks that Holly had given me, because they were all that was left at the back of the sock drawer. Other than those, I am sockless. Tomorrow morning I plan to go around the house with a magnifying glass, looking for the spoor of the missing socks. How far can they have gone? And why this mass exodus?
We, the sockless, demand answers, not mysteries, dammit. I shall keep you informed of any developments.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/01/04

“Several hundred messages in, 99% of which were funny, or useful, or both, and about socks. I've been referred to http://www.blacksocks.com/ and have already placed my first order, because, well, there's a website for black socks...)”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/01/04

“[http://www.lonelysocks.co.uk/ is] fine on the one-missing sock aspect of things. But not much help when it's both socks going. All socks going.
And incidentally, no, socks are not the larval form of wire hangers. Paperclips are the larval form of coathangers, which later emerge from their closets as bicycles. Avram Davidson demonstrated this conclusively in his 1954 Hugo award winning short story "or all the seas with oysters". If you don't believe me, you can look it up.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/01/04

“Well, credit where credit is due. It was Sam Newman, from http://www.magpiebrain.com/ who wrote to tell me about the existence of http://www.blacksocks.com, and who finished his note, I'm in no way affiliated with them, nor in fact do I subscribe to their service - I'm dropping heavy hints around my girlfriend in the hope I get some for Christmas. Is it wrong that I actually want socks of Christmas?
So Sam ought to get the free socks. Not me. (My socks have not yet arrived. Will report back when they do.)”
– Neil Gaiman 10/06/04

“Lisa-from-Harper-Collins gave me all the things I'd been given during the day (including four brand new pairs of black socks. Nice black socks. And do not think I'm not grateful. In fact I'm wearing a pair of them right now,) and she went back to New York.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/09/04

“It's time to hang up my dressing gown (bathrobe if you're American) and go and see if I have pair of jeans anywhere and possibly a black tee shirt. (I wound up with a subscription at http://www.blacksocks.com/ so I know I have socks.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/17/05

“The biggest trouble with black clothes is trying to work out which bit of the general blackness in the suitcase in a dimly lit hotel room when you aren't really awake yet is going to turn out to be socks.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/28/05

Thanks to those who gave me their input, and who cast their votes (regardless of anonymity). We're no American Idol here ate Quotable Neil, but we do like the attention.

Mother's Day

2006-05-14T07:03:00.000-07:00

A bonus Mother's Day post for all you faithful out there. Don't worry, haven't forgot about the current Socks vs. Salsa competition (a lot of Anonymous socks out there, apparently, turning the tide in that favor...) but thought a nice (albeit brief) Holiday post was in order.

“I wonder if we could do Other Mother's Day next year...”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/10/03

“While across the ocean (but still only a click away), Bloomsbury's website has the gorgeous Wolves in the Walls screensaver and ecards at http://www.bloomsbury.com/wolvesinthewalls/wolves.htm. I'd suggest giving it as Mother's Day present, except it probably isn't a very good one. Nor is Coraline, unless they start having Other Mother's Day.”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/05/04

“Happy Mother's Day”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/09/04

And Since Mary Gaiman is the mother of Neil's brood, I will take today, Mother's day, to introduce: Mary Gaiman: Fact or Fiction? Does she really exist? I've collected the evidence. Now you decide.

“While Maddy [told] jokes and rimshots… Holly and Mary were down at the other end of the table trying to have a sensible conversation...”
– Neil Gaiman 05/22/05

“As for family... I've told on several occasions the story of how I got my first really powerful review in Locus, from Tom Whitmore, in 1989, and I read the sentence that made me happiest to my wife. "The voice of Gaiman," I read aloud, proudly, "is the voice of Marlowe and Poe." "That's very nice," she said. "Now will you take out the garbage?" which brought me down to earth with a sensible bump. And I did.”
–Neil Gaiman 01/27/02

“Went with Maddy and my assistant Lorraine last night to see Pacific Overtures in Minneapolis (Mary wanted a report back on the show before she goes).”
– Neil Gaiman 01/23/04

“Mary arrived home a couple of hours before I had to leave for the airport.”
– Neil Gaiman 12/09/05
(Which discounts the you-never-see-them-in-the-same-place-so-they-must-be-the-same-person-theory that's been floating around for years... I think.)

"I don't think that an understanding supportive spouse is important. I do think not having a spouse (or significant other) who doesn't believe in you is probably very important…"
--Neil Gaiman 07/17/04

“I did a site search for "wife" and was relieved to see more than twenty references to mine, by me, on this journal. She doesn't get mentioned as much as, say, Maddy, but then, Maddy will say things like "Have you mentioned me on your journal recently? Say that I'm cool. No, don't say I said to say I was cool. Just say I'm cool." Whereas my wife is happier to be a shadowy and mysterious figure in the background, or something.”
– Neil Gaiman 12/26/03

And I must wish a Happy Mother's day to my on beautiful wife, Djenn, without whom, I would be a terrible (and most likely jailed-for-neglect-and-endangerment) parent. She teaches me how to be a better parent every day, and mothers my daughter better than I have seen any woman mother any child. I'm thankful that both my daugher and I have her to learn from, and I want the whole world to know it.

A Few Words on Fandom From Mr. Gaiman

2006-05-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

I have to say, as evil as Neil Gaiman may be behind closed doors, in public and online he is a very gracious and dutiful man when it comes to his fans. Always respectful and even, may I say it, downright friendly. He even, sometimes, goes so far as to allow fans to create blogs based on his wit and wisdom. So here's a few comments from Mr. Gaiman on his fan-base (sort of). Sorry if I've spoiled you with all the longer posts lately, this week's colection is sorta small... but worth it.

“Wouldn't it just be easier if you came over and said "Hi, I read your blog. I think you're keen"? And then I'd say "That's very kind of you, I'm glad you enjoy it," and you could say "Lovely weather we're having" or "It's raining" or "Are you having fun?" and I could say "Yes, isn't it?" or "I suppose I must be," and before you knew it we'd've had a conversation, and the world would be a better place.
I'm not very scary, and will happily talk, unless you catch me at the wrong time (eg. on my way to a panel/signing/the toilets/bed). And it probably would work better than secret signals, which are always liable to misinterpretation. (You, thinks: I have flicked my earlobe at him several times, yet he has failed to respond by tapping his cheek. Perhaps he hates me. Me, thinks: I wonder what's wrong with that person in the third row's earlobe? Probably an ill-fitting earring or something.)”
– Neil Gaiman 01/31/02 (When asked if fans could have a “secret wave” to greet Neil in public, so as not to bother him.)

“So far, whenever I've encountered the papparazzi, they've always wanted to take photos of whoever I was with, and I was just the bloke standing beside the famous person. Which is a nice place to be, if you ask me.”
--Neil Gaiman 04/24/06

“I remember Frank McConnell grumbling magnificently that he would have got Sandman a Pulitzer the year he was a Pulitzer fiction judge, if only I'd had the courtesy to be a US Citizen. I doubt it, but it was a nice thing of him to have said.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/07/02

“According to the Washington Post, I did the extra hours of signing because I am "a savvy businessman". I'm still trying to figure this one out. I thought I did it because there were about 500 people in that line at 10:00am, many of whom had come a very long way, and it seemed like the right thing to do.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/09/04

“So I wander into a bookshop, and am browsing the children's area at the back, looking for books to read to Maddy (eventually purchased The Ogre Downstairs by Diana Wynne Jones, Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg) and a young man -- I estimate his age at about eleven -- asks if I've seen Holes by Louis Sachar. I point it out for him. "You took our parking space," he tells me.
"Sorry."
"It's okay."
He looks at the small pile of books I'm accumulating in my arms. "You must like reading," he says, with awe in his voice.
"I do," I admitted. "I like it better than anything."
His eyes opened wide. "Are you an author?"
I felt like a species of exotic fauna that had just been correctly identified by a naturalist. "Yes," I said.
His eyes narrowed. "Have you written anything I could read?"
I suggested Neverwhere. "You'll find it in Science Fiction and Fantasy," I told him.
He caught up with me five minutes later, in the CD area, picking out a motley bunch of CDs (including Suzanne Vega's Solitude Standing, as background for the thing I'm writing right now, as is Patti Smith's Land and Tori's Hey Jupiter single with the live Somewhere Over the Rainbow on it, The Langley Schools Music Project , which is even odder than I'd hoped, Bowie at the Beeb, and the remastered Heroes) and said "Er... science what and what?"
"Huh?"
"The place where that book you wrote is?"
"Science Fiction and Fantasy. I think it's over that way."
"Oh. Okay."
I don't think he'd ever been out of the children's area before. Arms piled high with stuff I wandered over toward SF and Fantasy. He approached me with a copy of Neverwhere, and I signed it for him (he was Brian with an i and I had to write Hi to Tina in it as well), and left the bookshop hoping that he likes it, or that he puts it on one side until he does.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/03/02

“Actually the not posing for photographs thing has been my call. You can take any photos you like of me scribbling, you can take photos of you next to me, if you're lucky I'll try and look up when it's time for the flash to go off, but these days everyone has a camera/cameraphone, and while it doesn't add a long time to each signing, if you multiply it by hundreds of people, it can add a few hours to the signing line. (Also, the continual flashes were starting to hurt my eyes.)
(Having said that, tonight Borders put a staff member onto fulltime camera duty, and it went smooth as clockwork.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/26/05

“Elizabeth Hand is a marvellous writer and a perceptive critic, and she gave me a decidedly mixed review for American Gods in the Village Voice some years ago, but it was the kind of review that, though it wasn't entirely positive, left me happy that she had at least read and was criticising and had understood the novel I had written, even if she didn't feel it was particularly successful.
Still, remembering that review, my heart sank a little when I saw that she'd reviewed Anansi Boys in the Washington Post. And then I read her review, and by the end of it I was prepared to battle her enemies or whitewash her fence…
And what made it so good for me was not that she likes Anansi Boys or that she says good things about it but that again, reading her review I felt, with a sense of giddy happiness, that she had read and was describing the novel that I'd written -- that she liked it, and it had worked for her, was a bonus.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/24/05

“I've never had a stalker, I'm glad to say, and am very happy for it to stay like that. I know a handful of authors who have had stalkers or unhinged fans hiding in their attics or whatever, though, so I think I'm either very lucky, or more likely, that I just have very nice fans.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/24/06

And here's a little challenge for you kooky Gaimanites: Drop a comment here and tell me if you'd rather see a collection of quotes about The Ballad of the Black Socks or The Saga of the Satanic Salsa... and whichever topic gets the most votes will get posted here next week. --RRNN

(Let's Hope He Doesn't) Drop Dead Fred

2006-05-06T17:15:00.000-07:00

The intensely long chronicle of one intensely unlucky cat began in 2003 and is still running within the Neil Gaiman blog. Therefore I'm treating you all to an intensely long list of quotes (some of which are intensely long in and of themselves) that detail the history of one Fred, The Unlucky Black Cat. Enjoy. I'm thinkin gmaybe next week I'll post the Saga of the Black Socks... but am undecided.
--RRNN

“Tomorrow I shall tell the story of Fred the Cat. Which may turn into an appeal, of sorts...”
-- 10/27/03 Neil Gaiman

“So. Fred the cat.
Fred turned up in the summer, shortly after Coconut and Captain Morgan arrived. He was a wild just-a-bit-more-than-a-kitten, black with a white chest. He spent about a month circling the house nervously, running away if we put food out for him. Then he suddenly decided that we were safe, and came to live under the back stairs. We'd've called him The Black Cat, except that then we would have confused him with the cat who got to be the star of my short story "The Price". So I called him Fred.
The day I set off to go on tour, I noticed he was limping, and mentioned it to my-assistant-Lorraine. I thought no more of it, until I got an e-mail from Lorraine, who had found him, several days later, on the point of death. Something had bitten him in the leg, and the wound had festered -- it had opened up all the way to the bone. "He looked like an anatomy lesson," said Lorraine.
He spent five weeks at the vet's.
Then he came home. He's healed remarkably -- he has a raw patch of flesh, the size of a quarter, on his rear right leg, but the bone is no longer visible, the flesh is still regrowing, and in a year it'll just be a scar.
He'd also doubled in size while at the vet. He went off a skinny black cat, came back a sleek black machine of muscle. Who, until his leg heals, is not meant to go outside.
We discovered very quickly that he couldn't be given the run of the house. He's a male (although now neutered) fighting machine, when he wants to be, who needs to demonstrate that he is top cat, and promptly started beating up all the other cats. Which wasn't good. He needed to be kept in a space in which other cats weren't.
He's really friendly. He likes company. He ought to be outside hunting for things, and spends most of his nights prowling for smaller things to kill. Things like, well, people's toes.
First off he stayed with Lorraine. But she was getting no sleep. So I, who have done practically nothing but sleep since I got back from touring, volunteered to look after him. Fred's now got the whole attic to prowl, along with the attic-bedroom-office that's really my son Mike's but he doesn't mind me using. And I can sleep through earthquakes, so even a black cat on the prowl launching himself at my toes with intent to kill is unlikely to wake me.
So I'll keep looking after him until I head off for the UK, by which time he may or may not be able to move out of the attic. I'm not yet quite at the point of putting out a "Does anyone with a garden in the Twin Cities area need a Fred" appeal. But I suspect it may come.”
-- 10/30/03 Neil Gaiman

“And Fred the cat talks.
I've never had a talking cat before.
He wanders round the attic saying things like "Hullo..." and "Mimi". Well, the "hullo" is more like "hurro", but it's still quite off-putting if you aren't used to it.
His leg is healing fast. I'm really going to miss Fred when I go to the UK.”
--11/05/03 Neil Gaiman

“I've been Fred-free for a little while, although I go home very soon… The report from home is that he's happy and healthy, but a handful, as he desperately does "I-am-the-most-important-cat-here-and-I'll-beat-you-up-if-you-don't-acknowledge-my-wonderfulness" stuff, which none of the other cats are particularly impressed by.”
-- 12/16/03 Neil Gaiman

“Home again, a bit tired. Fred the cat is off at the vet, with some kind of oozing head-wound from fighting something else. He's fatter than when I went away. Everyone else is more or less the same weight, except for Lorraine, who is thinner.”
-- 12/25/03 Neil Gaiman

“Fred the unlucky black cat gets put out once a day, so that he can get some exercise. Unfortunately for Fred, Fred's idea of exercise consists of attempting to beat up other neighbourhood cats to demonstrate to them what is self-evident to Fred: that he, Fred the cat, is the toppest, coolest, dangerousest, bossest cat there is.
The other cats just think he's a tosser.
Fred was a stray who only became an inside cat after receiving a gaping leg wound (Sharon Stiteler, official Bird Lady of neilgaiman.com, thinks it was an owl-inflicted wound) which meant that he lived at the vet's for a month before he was allowed home, and it was another month before he was allowed outside. Once that had healed there was the oozing head wound. This morning I noticed he was limping, and not using his left front paw. An expensive visit to the vet's later they've discovered another ulcerated wound. So now he's taking his antibiotics and limping around the attic, looking faintly martyred, and all the other cats of the neighbourhood are glad of the peace and quiet.
I wish I could explain to him that if he left the other cats alone, they'd leave him alone, and they don't react to every tiny wound by going into some kind of septic meltdown, and he does. But there's no explaining things to cats.”
--01/23/04 Neil Gaiman

“I would be feeling much more sorry for myself than I am if it weren't for Fred the Unlucky Black Cat, whose paw has healed nicely... just in time for him to spend tonight back at the vet's, having a tumourous lump removed from his chest. Poor thing. Let's hope it's not malignant, although with Fred's luck, I'm afraid it almost certainly will be. So I'm feeling sorry for Fred, and worried about him. He really is a very nice cat, and is very easily made happy, as long as you have the bottletop from some bottled water around for him to play with.”
-- 01/27/04 Neil Gaiman

“Fred the Unlucky Black Cat is now home from the vet. He has a comical and conical white plastic collar around his neck, to stop him licking his wound. His belly is pink, discoloured, knobbly, hacked and stitched, and looks rather like something from an 80s horror movie.
Fred's tumour has gone off to the university for testing.
Fred seems perfectly cheerful, although he looks baffled by the collar-cone, which will remain on until he gets the stitches out, in a couple of weeks.”
-- 01/30/04 Neil Gaiman

“Fred the Unlucky Black Cat spends all of his spare time trying to remove the conical white plastic collar that the vet put on to stop him licking his stitches. He tries to remove the collar by rubbing it, continually, over and over, against the carpet, or against a blanket or the carpet-covered-cat-climbing-thing-I-got-him-to-keep-him-busy. Rub rub rub rub rub rub rub, over and over, in the dry air of a wintery bedroom. As he does this he builds up static charges which do not discharge, then wanders the room with all his fur on end, attracting hair, dust, small pieces of paper, fluff and lint, a black cat slowly going grey with dust. I am sitting here typing, and I just felt Fred go past, six inches away, like a prickly ghost of static wind.”
-- 01/31/04 Neil Gaiman

“I keep taking photos of Fred, who doesn't like having his photo taken in the collar, and, a moment before it clicks he moves or turns away or wiggles or looks in the wrong place, and is all in all astoundingly unhelpful. All the other cats in the house immediately started taking the opportunity to be photogenic and statuesque and generally have begun to do obscenely cute things and continue doing them until I've taken a really good photo of them.
So now I have lots of great photos of other cats, and lots of terrible photos of Fred.
The Good News was that Fred's tumour wasn't malign.”
-- 02/02/04 Neil Gaiman

“Fred's well, right now. Much too well to be living in the attic, but he's still up there due to his irritating habit of attacking all other local cats with gusto. And teeth and claws. (Sigh. Twitcat.) He's also started doing tricks, but mostly only if there's no-one else watching, in an attempt to make me look really gullible. ("Do you want to see him do a trick. Okay, Fred. Fred? look, he did it just fine when there was only me here... FRED! DO THE TRICK! Er. Sorry...")
-- 02/22/04 Neil Gaiman

“Fred the Unlucky Black Cat has been doing fairly well recently. About ten minutes ago, he inspired a small poem, for a start.
Ahem.
---A Cat in the Ointment
For some, life's one long fine surprise
the ointment's pure: there are no flies.
For some, life's one long disappointment
there's only flies: there is no ointment.
The rest of us live in the middle.
You own the cat -- clean up the widdle. ---
Although actually it's not widdle, but cat vomit in astonishing quantities. (None of the rhymes for vomit or puke seemed to fit though. No, don't take it as a challenge, please.) No cat can have eaten that much cat food, I thought, as I got out of bed and looked at the bedroom carpet. Then Fred staggered back over to it and began retching and hiccupping and gurgling again, and deposited yet more undigested catfood onto a fairly white bedroom carpet.
Excuse me. I really only came downstairs for more paper towels. I have some late night carpet cleaning I should be getting back to.”
--05/25/04 Neil Gaiman

“Fred the Unlucky Black Cat went to the vet today, as he was obviously in severe stomach pain. Lots of people had helpfully written to me to tell me all the potential medical awfulnesses that his throwing up could have been a symptom of, until I was convinced that his problem was some kind of intestinal cancer or something, but it turned out to be puncture wounds -- some animal had bitten him, deeply, on the stomach. He's back from the vet now, with a shaved tummy, and on painkillers and antibiotics. Sigh. At least we caught it before it abscessed this time.”
-- 05/28/04 Neil Gaiman

“Right. Cat update. Fred is huge and black -- not as huge as the original The Black Cat, the one I put into the story all those years ago, but still big -- and he still talks when he gets agitated: he wanders around the house going "hurrow? hurrow?" sounding bizarrely human. When I go for walks in the woods, Fred follows along, like a dog. Unfortunately he also terrifies all the other cats: he's bigger than them, and likes being boss cat. Because he terrifies them I throw him out a lot.
Princess is still white, still long-haired, but frailer than she was. She knows that she once used to be the meanest cat on the block, and she remembers being feral and living for years in the woods, but these days mostly she just sleeps and begs for chicken. I don't know how old she was when she turned up here, almost twelve years ago -- at least a couple of years old.
I keep meaning to write something about Captain Morgan, who used to try and push himself up people's noses (and still does, from time to time, but mostly he just snuggles up in a position that makes it really hard to type and then drools on you affectionately). He's getting big, and his ears are the oddest ears I've ever seen on a cat who wasn't actually a Scottish Fold. The top half inch of his right ear is flat and tilted forward, like something from a cartoon. Bizarre.”
-- 04/15/05 Neil Gaiman

“Let's see. Lots of people have written asking if Fred the Unlucky Black Cat was the inspiration for either the Black Cat from "The Price" or the cat in Coraline. I'm afraid not - Fred didn't turn up until the summer of 2003, long long after both stories were written. The cat in Coraline came out of my head -- we weren't allowed pets in the flat in Nutley, and I wanted a cat badly -- while The Black Cat was real (and about twice the size of Fred) and was around in about 1997. We found a good home for him eventually.”
-- 07/29/05 Neil Gaiman

“For the last two days I've been exiled from my bed to my son Mike's empty bedroom off the attic, due to painting work currently going on in my bedroom, so Fred is, as I write this, sleeping near the foot of the attic bed and is incredibly happy. When we first let him into the house he was badly injured, and I slept up here to keep him company. And I did the same thing months later, the next time it happened. So Fred believes that the natural order of things is for me to be sleeping up here and for him to be at the foot of the bed, guarding against dust-balls. He continues to be Unlucky, and several enormous vet bills following other-animal-inflicted injuries have gone unreported on this blog.
Misty's arrival mucked up the precarious balance of cat-power in the house -- as she turned from a kitten into a young lady the two male cats, Coconut and Fred, both realised they adored her despite being fixed, and needed desperately to impress her, while the two female cats, Princess and Zoe, both disapproved of all this, and all four of them suddenly needed to start urinating everywhere in order to make sure that their feelings were known and territories were marked and so on. Our vet suggested Feliway diffusers, and three weeks later there's a noticeable improvement.”
-- 01/23/06 Neil Gaiman

“I am worried about Fred the Unlucky Black Cat, back into the vet again, in my absence.”
-- 03/21/06 Neil Gaiman

“Fred, by the way, for those of you who write in and ask, is currently doing as fine as can be expected when you're not allowed to eat with any other cats, or near any other cats, and have to take daily medicine, and you're only fed soft food (which he hates) rather than nice crunchy hard food (which he loves, but won't drink anything when he eats it, so he winds up with a gut filled with food that is, er unpoopable). But as Sharon says, it's time to keep him inside at night.”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/01/06

Even More Silly-ish-er Quotes

2006-04-28T20:56:00.000-07:00

Should have done this post on April first, and even thought about slipping in one "fake" Neil quote like... "Blimey that Quotable Neil site is the best! Pip pip and all that!" And have readers guess which one was the April Fool quote... But then reconsidered. SO here's some strange, silly, or oddball quotes on the opposite end of April.
--RRNN

“Got to issue my first piece of directorial advice to an actor today. "You're dead." I said. "Your motivation is to stay in one place and rot." Which he did, just fine.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/20/02

“British supermarket chain Tesco's officially deny that they are routinely using black widow spiders for pest control purposes. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me.”
--Neil Gaiman 11/27/02

“They just don't teach Inventive Victorian Serial Killers and their Hotels Of Death in school enough these days.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/27/02 (When asked by a fan why more attention hadn’t been paid to H.H. Holmes)

“I'm not sure that I'm managing to make the easy conceptual leap from the one to the other that you're essaying here: seems a bit like you're going "you say you hate oranges, but you like sushi, and I say this sushi is orange, so explain that if you can, young man". But I'm happy to clarify both sets of ideas, and hope it helps.”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/10/02 (In an exchange too strange to recount here with any sort of clarity)

“For some reason, most people have decided that now is a good time to ask questions that need long, well-considered answers. All I can suggest is that, if this applies to you, you ask your question again when I'm a bit less crazed.”
– Neil Gaiman 03/24/05

“Furball is an astonishingly fat cat. She is so fat that many people, on seeing her for the first time, start impromptu comedy routines ("Is that a cat or a pumpkin? That cat's so fat you could use it as a pillow! I'm not saying that cat's fat, but, well, she is pretty fat, actually." etc.) She's a long-haired confection of orange, white and black, and is faintly reminiscent of a calico feline walrus. Her many skills include convincing everyone in the house, and some people who are just passing through, that she hasn't been fed in weeks, and convincing gullible songbirds that a cat that heavy and spherical could never jump high enough to be any kind of danger.
Being incredibly fat means that she often sits up on a chair or a sofa, on her haunches, like a person, which can be slightly off-putting. It also means she can't always clean herself properly. She's developing dreadlocks.
So tonight I gritted my teeth, rolled up my sleeves, and washed her. In the sink.
When she stood bolt upright and started trying to sink her claws into the mirror above the sink to get away, I merely smiled and carried on washing her. I knew that cat-claws, while wonderful things, cannot get traction on the glass of a mirror. And that just-trimmed cat-claws can't allow a cat the size and shape of a small walrus to climb sheer glass.
Nobody had explained these simple things to Furball, though, and she went straight up the side of the mirror.
Sooner or later, I'll figure out how.”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/06/02

“It would be very interesting if Morocco was secretly in Britain, probably just outside of Birmingham, and nobody knew it except Borders.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/25/04

“Snow has gone, so I went out today and hung bars of smelly soap in socks from young apple trees. Do not believe anyone who tells you that hair, urine (human or wolf), deer repellent, dried blood, or any of the other things that are reputed to stop deer eating young apple trees actually work. They don't. You will come out one morning and find nothing but a nibbled-down stump.
Hanging really smelly soap in socks from the trees, however, works like a charm. I used to get it from hotels, but hotel soap has improved too much in recent years, so now I go to the soap aisle of the supermarket, close my eyes, and walk until it gets really unpleasant. It may seem unlikely, or silly, but we have apple trees these days, and we used to only ever have stumps. And very satisfied-looking deer.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/10/02

“Removed the link to the Babycakes URL for now -- we seem to have slashdotted a little Finnish server. I'll put it back up when they mirror it to somewhere that can cope with people clicking on it.
(You know, I know what I meant, and you probably know what I meant, but that sentence would have been incomprehensible a decade ago....)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/12/02

Seeing I'm the copyright holder and have every right to grumble, no-one's ever done anything more than take the book or story down, occasionally -- very occasionally -- muttering something hopeless and grumbly like "information wants to be free!" as they do, but mostly being very pleased someone let them know that it was up there.
("No, that's pizza," I want to tell them. "Pizza wants to be free. Concentrate on liberating pizza from evil pizzerias. Information, on the other hand, really hates being free, and is never happier than when manacled to a wall, like Kirk and Spock in some piece of late 70s bondage-oriented slash fiction.")
-- Neil Gaiman 04/10/02

“For those in too much of a hurry to click, slash fiction is basically erotic fan fiction, normally TV series based, pairing off two (er or more I suppose) members of the same sex who don't normally couple for the cameras. From the "/" mark in the middle of "Kirk/Spock" or "K/S" fiction, which is where it all started. ("But Spock," said Kirk, huskily, realising, finally, irrevocably, what his true self had been trying to tell him ever since the beginning of season one, "it's so huge. And it's green." "And it would be logical for you to... touch it, Captain," said Spock. And so on. It's normally written by extremely nice ladies. I have several very sane, respected, and respectable friends who write slash fiction, and do not try to make me read it.)
(I wasn't making up the Knight Rider thing either: I remember a table selling printed fanzine slash fiction, before there was ever a world wide web, with several volumes of "Now impale yourself upon my throbbing gearshift" stories which I thumbed through with delighted and horrified amusement. But then, I was never a David Hasselhof fan.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/10/02

“They also have a full-page photo of me in DreamHaven Books a couple of weeks ago, and, for the curious, since I was just sent it, here's a scan (I think the yellow blotches are just from the scan, not from the photo, and probably not from me)...”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/10/05

“Too tired for a sensible post.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/12/02

And because any REAL quote that mentions this site bears showing here:

“I was going to link to the Quotable Neil website as a way of avoiding posting, and I realised on reading http://quotableneil.blogspot.com/2006/04/random-quotes-of-arbitrary-sort.html that one of the good things about having a blog for years and years is that your opinions change -- my opinion of webcomics, for example, has gone way up since that early 2002 post, mostly because that Scott McCloud would insist on pointing me at good ones...”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/21/06

Random Quotes of the Arbitrary Sort

2006-04-22T05:55:00.000-07:00

No explanations, no apologies. Just quotes that had no other homes and decided to band together to form this week's Quotable Neil. -- RRNN

“Got up, did another TV interview, was fed lunch (Polish mountain trout, yum) by my Polish publisher, determined that I should never go without lunch in Poland ever again (the 6ths song "In the City in the Rain" playing in my head as we ate, as it has several times during this trip so far, although this was the only time I've eaten outside in the rain, under a giant umbrella), then waved goodbye to my new extended Polish family of publishers and translators and several children (not mine, theirs) in Warsaw airport, and headed off on a plane to Copenhagen.”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/11/03

“Look! …Embarrassing tour photos (I need to caption them, I suppose. Or I should get Jennifer Hershey, who took many of them, to caption them. This is Neil signing in Chicago. This is Neil looking dazed in Cleveland. This is Neil writing a blogger entry on the Libretto in a sushi place in... where was it? Argh. I don't remember. That is why Jennifer needs to caption them.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/07/01

“There is something about enthusiastic human stupidity that fascinates me. It looks like every credit card company responsible for every credit card in my wallet immediately went "He's trying to buy a TV in Poland? This is an odd and anomalous thing to do. We will deny it and put a block on the card," ...except, of course, for the credit card department of my local bank. My local bank went, "He's using his bank card as a credit card for the very first time, and buying thousands of dollars of electrical goods in Warsaw? Well, it's about time he started using that card." I heard that they seemed rather disappointed to learn that it wasn't actually me buying computers and TVs all over Warsaw (I suppose they thought it was just the kind of unusual thing that I might be counted on to do), and tomorrow my wife has to go in to the bank and fill out forms promising it wasn't me buying all those TVs.”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/11/03

“Sorry about not posting – life’s currently turned into a mad game of ping pong with me as the ball. Scribble scribble scribble type type type.”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/08/06

“A short post to say that, yes, we do know the FAQs are coming out black on black right now, and, no, we aren't just doing it because we thought it would look cool. This is not frustrating stylishness, as several of you seem to think; this is just a common-or-garden cock up.
But you can think it's style if you like...”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/05/01

“I had some brilliant idea of linking Foodporn and Bookslut as a sort of look! cool sites that sound like they're rude but aren't! thing, but I can't be bothered, so I shall just put in a plug for the Bookslut blogger, and the whole site.) “
-- Neil Gaiman 07/23/02

“I agree that some kind of Emperor Norton memorial is in order. For myself, I shall either declare myself Emperor of America, issue my own money, or (more likely) have a long and interesting Emperor Norton Memorial Mug of Tea. I hope that there are people out there who can come up with better ideas than that.”
– Neil Gaiman 11/29/04

“Not yet unpacked the majority of the things people gave me on the tour, including the significant socks, (although I am enjoying the Calamansi juice). “
– Neil Gaiman 10/17/05

“I have great arguments with Scott [McCloud] about online comics, which tend to end up with him saying, "But by the time you get to panel 36 my first panel is now larger than the entire known universe, so you see I couldn't do it on paper!" and me going "But why do you want a panel larger than the known universe anyway?" but by that point in the conversation Scott has a strange light in his eyes and is starting to levitate and expound...
I can't imagine I'd ever do online comics for the sake of doing online comics. If ever I had an idea for a comic that would only work if it was online, and didn't involve characters falling for a very long way or panels larger than the known universe, and that wasn't a novelty act, I might well do it.
Lacking Scott, I don't go and read online comics for pleasure. I have too many piles of unread paper comics to read, and they make me feel guilty by being things that take up space on the floor in boxes. Online comics do not make me feel guilty. Yet.”
--Neil Gaiman 10/24/02

And here are three quotes that I would originally have posted under the Heading: "Gay-Man?" Because I, myself get more people either teasing ME or questioning ME on the pronunciation of my favorite author's name. So I thought it should be addressed, but surprisingly found very few references to it on the site. So they jumped in here.

“My cousin Adam Gaiman told me about listening to one of them* telling a comic shop in Newcastle everything he knew about me. Adam thought it was particularly hilarious, because none of it was even remotely true. At the point where the gentleman announced that it was common knowledge in the industry that "gaiman" was a pen name chosen to proclaim my sexual preferences to the world, Adam went over and showed him his bus pass, with his name on it."
–Neil Gaiman 08/20/03
*(RRNN -- The “Them” in this case refers to:)
“People who talk loudly in comic stores… the ones who hang around the front counter -- normally really irritating the staff, and getting in the way of the customers -- talking loudly about the secret world of comics. Because these guys know the secrets. And they tell everyone. That they know nothing is no impediment to them talking...”
--Neil Gaiman 08/20/03

“And the most frequently asked question is this:
’How do you pronounce your last name? Is it gay-man or guy-man or something else?’
It's Gaym'n.”
– Neil Gaiman, from the FAQ 09/27/01

“I… found myself agog at the fact that you said that you never have had a nickname… Your last name is Gaiman, translated as Gay-man!! Hint, hint. Assuming that this was your birthname, then I can't believe that you weren't hit with every scrap of homosexual innuendo and the connotations(?) that go with it. I'm from Australia and we always found excuses one way or the other to throw a nickname at someone, always in fun of course… What gives?”
-- Question sent in to Neil’s site by David Nelson.
“I suppose I was fortunate in having most of my schooldays before the mid-Seventies, then, or just in not having been to school in Australia...”
-- Neil Gaiman 01/03/06 (Answer to the above)

You May Slight Him, You May Praise Him; Either Way It doesn't Phase Him.

2006-04-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't chcked in in a while, but (Insert Excuse of Choice Here) and so you see I couldn't possibly have gotten around to it any earlier than this. Anyway, here's hoping I get back on some sort of weekly schedule with this, as Neil has a lot to say (brilliant or otherwise). This weeks post: Awards, Criticisms, Reviews in general and how Neil deals.

"You'll never convince someone they liked a book they didn't. The best you can hope for is that one day a reader will go back to it and find that she or he is no longer the same person who read the book and didn't like it."
-- Neil Gaiman 03/09/02

"And, if the books are published, then you can pretty much guarantee that bad reviews will be as well. And you'll need to learn how to shrug and keep going. Or you stop, and get a real job."
– Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

“Somebody with good taste's favourite story is certain to be the one story someone else with taste just as good but different is certain I should never have allowed to see print.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/28/02

“Overall, I try not to take the praise too seriously. I like making up stories, I'm lucky that people want to read the stories I make up. If they didn't want to read them, I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, after all.
The stories wouldn't change...”
– Neil Gaiman 01/28/02

“I've written enough words that I sound more or less like me when I write, and, mostly, I trust the story. I'm pleased when people enjoyed stories I wrote, but don't mistake it for praise of me, or for any kind of objective standard of excellence. (A writer is not the work. An artist is not the art.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/28/02

"I have no idea what kind of book this is. Or rather, there's nothing quite like it out there that I can point to. Sooner or later some reviewer will say something silly but quotable like "If JRR Tolkein had written The Bonfire of the Vanities..." and it'll go on the paperback cover and thus put off everyone who might have enjoyed it."
– Neil Gaiman 02/09/01

“Then I'll be at the Hugo Ceremonies. And I'll be wandering about afterwards, either clutching a Hugo with a bemused expression on my face, and hoping they'll still let me into the Hugo Losers Party, or nibbling crisps happily in the Hugo Losers Party.”
– Neil Gaiman 08/26/03

"The Hugo, incidentally, is not the kind of award that makes meaningful phonecalls of the "We just thought you should know that you REALLY OUGHT TO COME TO CLEVELAND FOR THE AWARDS CEREMONY. We can say no more than that," variety. Or the "You've won, you won't be there, please write a speech so it's not embarassing," kind of award. In the case of the Hugos, nobody knows who's won, except the awards administrator and whoever's getting the plaques made."
– Neil Gaiman 08/28/03

“Several years ago I had an extremely miserable day when I went to link to the website of a major award, the morning before the awards ceremony, only to discover that someone had got confused and posted the winners -- and I'd won Best Novel. I alerted the organisers and they took it down, and then I went through the day -- and in particular the evening awards ceremony -- feeling like a heel, because I knew I'd won, and had to pretend that I didn't. No fun.” – Neil Gaiman 10/15/05

“Somewhere in there I learned that awards and praise don't make it easier the next time it's just you and a blank screen -- sometimes they make it harder.” – Neil Gaiman 01/27/02

Less Like Quotes and More Like Recommendations from the Man Himself

2006-03-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

Well, this is certainly not a complete collection of the music and literature that Neil has mentioned on his blog in the past (I'll collect some more in the future, I'm sure), but have some fun and track down some of these songs and books to see just how good they are. I haven't been disappointed with Mr. Gaiman's tastes yet. -- RRNN (P.S. You can all thank Librarian Pirate for getting me up off my lazy butt and posting these this week, since various family illnesses, my job, and a sudden burst of creative energy that's got me writing again were tempting me away from my blogging duties. I apologize, and will try to behave better in the future.)

“I've been listening to an awful lot of Alan Bennett over the last month, because the BBC are bringing out his backlist on CD, and I listen whenever I'm driving. I didn't think it had had any effect on me until I sat down to start reading WITCH WEEK and noticed it seemed to be coming out of my mouth in a faintly querulous Leeds accent.”
–-Neil Gaiman 01/31/02

“When I was a kid, as anyone who has read my Heliogabolus story knows, I loved Gilbert and Sullivan. Like anyone else who has ever loved Gilbert and Sullivan I suspect, once in a while the urge to write a Gilbertian Patter Song wells up unbidden in the auctorial breast, and some years ago, I succumbed.”
–-Neil Gaiman 10/15/05

“Playing in the background, at least when I started typing this, Richard Goldman’s Girls N’ Cows, a present from Terry Pratchett a few years back, which comes as a relief (well, a break) from The Gourds hillbilly version of “Gin ‘n Juice” which I kept playing because it made me smile.”
–Neil Gaiman 01/23/02

“One Ring Zero are doing a CD of songs with lyrics by writers of books and such. Up on their website for the as yet untitled CD at http://home.infi.net/~urbngeek/authorproject.htm you can hear a little of some of the songs they've done so far -- including one by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket).”
--Neil Gaiman 02/27/03

”Right. Tea break over. Back on my head. With a lot of Penelope Houston who I only just discovered (yes, rather late, I know) playing in the background.”
--Neil Gaiman 02/13/06

“Now playing on an iTunes party shuffle of recently-added CDs: "Harry Rag" from the Kinks BBC Sessions CD. No, that stopped. Now it's the Dresden Dolls' "Coin Operated Boy."
-- Neil Gaiman 11/29/04

“I keep running into the problem of not knowing whether to say nice things about books here or not. Mostly I still do, because it's fun to recommend books to people. But if I put something up here on the journal I tend to qualify statements, and write something like"If he'd paid more attention to details this would have been a perfect book. As it is, it's only unmissable if you have nothing else to read. Still, the description of the Assassins Anonymous meeting is absolutely gripping and if the rest of the book were this good it would have been magnificent," which publishers then leave out the qualifying bits of, and I find myself saying "a perfect book... unmissable... absolutely gripping and... magnificent!" on the back of someone's book. Whereas something that's meant to be a blurb normally stays a blurb.”
-– Neil Gaiman 10/14/03

"The next book to be read will be Martin Millar's just finished novel Lonely Werewolf Girl, which my assistant Lorraine has already read, and tells me is quite possibly the best book that anyone's ever written. This is high praise, and even if it doesn't manage to clear that particular hurdle I'm still really looking forward to it."
-–Neil Gaiman 08/23/03

"I love Poe. I got to write an appreciation of and essay about him for the 2004 oversized hardback Barnes and Noble SELECTED TALES AND STORIES, which was one of those things that simply made me happy to do, and happy to be given the opportunity to read some of Poe out loud again, which I firmly believe is how he should be read (or listened to)."
-–Neil Gaiman 01/20/06

“Just read my favourite book of 2001, Poppy Z. Brite's not-yet-published LIQUOR. It's the story of two young cooks in New Orleans who open their own restaurant. The characters are utterly likeable, and the food, and the backstage restaurant world, are wonderfully drawn. Poppy's nervous, as there's no horror in it, and precious little angst. I don't think she has anything to worry about -- it's a fabulous, funny, foodie New Orleans roller-coaster ride, as gripping as a great Iron Chef episode or Tony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential that's going to make a whole lot of fans who don't know Poppy as a writer of darker stuff.”
--Neil Gaiman 12/29/01

“Am currently reading Maddy, my small daughter, Norman Hunter's Professor Branestawm stories.”
-- Neil Gaiman 12/29/01

“My bedside reading of the last few days has been Jim Steinmeyer's Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear, the story of the Golden Age of stage magic, and the amazing personalities -- Maskelyne, Devant, Houdini, Thurston, Kellar and the rest -- who made it happen, who built the grand illusions, who decided that it might be a good idea to saw a lady in half, and so on. It was a gripping and delightful book which a) anyone with any interest in stage magic and illusion should read, and b) is quite excellent, informative and necessary and c) disappointed me. I think it only disappointed me because I'd read "Art and Artifice", a privately printed, low printrun book, in which Steinmeyer's inner magic-geek runs free, with occasional diagrams. He was writing for magicians in "Art and Artifice", and the sense of discovery and joy as he figures out how you recreate Morritt's disappearing donkey, or David Devant's Moon Moth Illusion was almost tangible, whereas in Hiding the Elephant it feels as if he's keeping his geek-self in check, and giving a much more sober view of the history of magic to the wide world of readers.”
– Neil Gaiman 02/08/04

I've Somehow Misplaced My Weekend

2006-03-13T14:00:00.000-08:00

Wow. Lots going on for me this weekend, so Quotable Neil had to be put on temporary hold. Here's a few little neat ones about specific works Neil has done to hold you over until this coming weekend. --RRNN

"If Neverwhere was about the London underneath, (American Gods) would be about the America between, and on-top-of, and around."
–Neil Gaiman 02/09/01
(From a Letter actually written in June of ’98)

“I don't think I'd call it a reworking; but there are definitely a couple of places where Stardust and Great Expections wink at each other from across the room, yes.”
–Neil Gaiman 08/23/03

“She [Barbie] didn't want to come on. I kept expecting her to come back, but she didn't -- she was perfectly happy having walked off-stage at the end of [Sandman:] Game of You and didn't see why she should come back. I wasn't going to force it.”
–Neil Gaiman 09/10/02
(On why Barbie didn't show up during Sandman: The Wake)

A Bizarre Mixed Bag of Nuts (Human, feline or otherwise).

2006-03-04T16:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, this week I'm pushing my luck. These four "Quotes" ar less quotes and more like nearly-full blog-entries. But they are HILARIOUS blog entries, and I'm putting all of them right here together because I'll never have any better way of putting them on here. So enjoy these little mini-stories that Neil has told on his site, and next week I'll try for the shorter, more tradtional quotes.-- RRNN

“I never ever do dinner party things. I'm useless at them. But there I am, in Islington, at a family function, sitting next to someone I don't know at a dinner, trying to make conversation. "So," I say, to the lady on my left, "What do you do?" This is, I learn, the wrong question. She explains that she's terrified of saying the wrong thing to me. Apparently it happens a lot at dinner parties. She's quite sure, you see, that she could say something and I could take it the wrong way. I tell her I don't do that very much. Well, she essays, a bit nervously, that she does things like work on helplines for battered wives (which seems to me something that no-one could possibly take offense at, but she figures that, being male as I am, I might find this deeply dodgy or something) and suchlike useful things. I fail to get upset, so, encouraged and emboldened and pleased to be over the contentious bit of the conversation, she tells me that she writes. She's not yet published, but she writes. Then she decides to guess what I do. She guesses, wrongly, for a while. Eventually she gives up on guessing and I tell her I'm, er a writer actually. She doesn't believe me, and the man sitting opposite says that I certainly am, he's seen my name in airport bookshops. She realises that she has told a writer that she wants to be a writer, and is unable to take it back, and goes off to tell my cousin (who is hosting the event) that she really should have warned her. The conversation, such as it is, never quite recovers, and I remember why it is that I never, ever do dinner partyish things.”
-–Neil Gaiman 11/21/04

“So a hasty late night post, being typed around an asleep-on-my-keyboard medium-sized tabby kitten who rejoices in the name of Captain Morgan. He looks a little like Buddy-who-vanished, being sort of brown and sort of stripy, and was found by Lorraine hanging hungrily and miserably around the house a month or so ago. He and Coconut, Maddy's kitten, immediately became inseparable. Captain Morgan is a sweet-natured kitten, who has only one failing.
He waits until you're asleep, then climbs onto your bed, and tries to insert himself into your nose.
It never works, a hefty kitten being much larger than the interior of a nostril, but he keeps trying until you open up an eye and pick him up and drop him onto the floor. And then he bounces back onto the bed and tries to stick his head into one of your nostrils again. So you sweep him unceremoniously onto the floor, and bury your face in your pillow; and he sneaks back onto the bed and waits patiently while you go back to sleep and roll over, or just come up for air, and all of a sudden there's a small brown cat patiently trying to push its head into your nose.
Sooner or later he'll wake you up enough that you'll get up, carry him into the hall, and shut the door firmly, with him on the other side of it, and go back to sleep for the rest of the night.
I commented on this peculiar habit to my assistant Lorraine today, in the casual way you do when you don't want someone to think you've gone mad. "Er, Captain Morgan the kitten keeps trying to push his way into my nose while I'm asleep," I told her. She looked relieved. "Yes, he does that to me as well," she said. "I think it's because he probably wasn't weaned properly."
It's possible, I suppose, although I thought that misweaning just meant they sucked and chewed on things, not that they had grandiose fantasies about being nasally insertable, small wet muzzle first.
Sometimes I worry that one night I won't wake up, and he'll succeed in his bizarre quest, and in the morning there'll be nothing but the tip of a kitten-tail sticking out of one nostril to tell me he was ever here at all.
Which wasn't what I meant to type when I sat down to do this -- I thought I'd just stick up a bunch of interesting links before bed...”
-– Neil Gaiman 08/26/03

“Blam. That was the sound of someone dropping a brick onto my car.
The problem, I eventually concluded, was the walnuts. Not the nice, wrinkeldy brown nuts you get in Festive Nut Hampers, but the kind that fall from trees, like compact green cricket balls with the nut somewhere inside. The outer covering contains walnut juice, as I find when I pick one up. In fiction, as a boy, people were forever staining their skin with walnut juice in order to pass for Indians or Arabs, and I couldn't understand how the nut gave the juice. It doesn't. It's the yellow goop inside the green case.
So. I'm hiding out in a pretechnological world, with a wood-burning stove and lethal rains of noisy walnuts, getting some writing done between engagements…
Blam.
That was the sound of another exploding walnut crashing down from the heavens onto the roof and rattling down onto the ground.
Snuffle snuffle grurp munch.
That was the sound of a large pot-bellied pig eating walnuts. The pot-bellied pigs live on the farm next door. But they wander. And they like walnuts. I suspect the pig's mouth and chin are stained with Walnut Juice.(I just went and checked. They were.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/11/01

“The lady next door runs a home for pigs. I went down each morning to say my hellos to the pigs and the people: cute little wee black piglings and mighty great boars and snufflers. Not for eating:Vietnamese potbellied pigs, pet pigs, some being boarded, some for sale, some for adoption.
The lady who owns it took me around and introduced me to many of the pigs.
"Now this one," she said, pointing to one small and chirpy looking black fellow in a cage "was a pet pig. He was an ungelded boar, who was owned by people with Pomeranians. But they couldn't cope, and we're looking after him until he can be adopted."
"Why couldn't they cope?"
"Ah," she said. "Well, there's no way to put this delicately. I gelded him myself a couple of days ago. But an un-neutered boar needs to ejaculate at least twice a day to remain healthy. And this fellow, not being neutered, was trying to meet his ejaculatory needs with whatever came to hand. Mostly the Pomeranians. And the family, well, they really hadn't bargained for that."
I agreed that they probably hadn't. And then I shook my head, listening to the grunt and snuffle of the pigs, and contemplating the silence of the Pomeranians.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/11/01

Sushi-Smooshie

2006-02-25T17:35:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but if my favorite author ever came up to me in public and tried to offer me uncooked meat of any kind, expecting me to eat it... I would find the largest and heaviest edition of their longest work (in this case, the complete, collected, 75 issue run of Sandman in Hardcover) and smack them in the head with it until they forgot their British accent entirely.

But that's me.

On a completely unrelated topic, there are also people who enjoy eating poo. Just putting that out there to drum up conversation. No hidden agenda or subversive propaganda implied whatsoever.

Interestingly enough, in a comic written by Neil Gaiman for Clive Barker's Hellraiser, poo-eating was mentioned. In his blog, the eating of raw fish meat is explored extensively. Are these topics related?

You decide.
--RRNN

“To be honest, Minneapolis sushi is much of a muchness. There's nothing that's outstanding, like a Nobu, and nothing I've had so far that's been dreadful (apart from Fuji Ya when they first put sushi on their menu, about eight years ago, but they soon got the hang of it). I tend to go to Sakura in St. Paul, because Miyoko and her staff treat me like family, and the food's good.”
– Neil Gaiman 03/08/03

“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.”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/06/05

“I sit here repeating to myself that airport food court sushi is NOT a good thing to eat and is in fact a very bad idea. Sometimes my natural optimism makes me forget this, and pay real money for sad, fishy, rubbery things that make me sad when I sit in the food court and eat them.”
–Neil Gaiman 03/09/02 (Which I already posted 02/10/06, but could not be ignored for this post)

“The rule about never eating sushi in airports because it will taste like wet fish-flavoured rubber strips laid over lumps of cold rice pudding does not apply to Amsterdam airport sushi counter, where the sushi is basic but very decent.”
-- Neil Gaiman 08/17/04

“Jill Thompson and her husband, Brian Azzarello, took me out for wonderful sushi at a restaurant called Katsu (2651 W. Peterson Ave, Chicago 60659) for sushi that was really world class, and I was impressed, and we all ate too much. ("You must eat last piece sushi," said the hostess. "Is lucky." And we looked at her like Mr Creosote in The Meaning of Life, being offered his wafferthin mint. "Maybe one of you need some luck?") Jill and I both talked too much, and Brian mostly listened, and smiled in all the right places.”
– Neil Gaiman 04/12/02

“Let's see... I promised I'd put in a plug for ConCat, an SF convention in Knoxville TN over the Thanksgiving Weekend (Nov 23-25). Caitlin Keirnan will be there, Yvonne Navarro is the G of H, and if you're extra-nice to the con staff they will send you to the Japanese Restaurant whose speed of service, cold soup and warm sushi was immortalised in American Gods.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/24/ 01

“I'm in Washington DC right now. Nothing much interesting to report, so instead I shall recommend Kaz Sushi Bistro (1915 I St NW) -- really, really good sushi, and an intelligent and interesting menu. Not nightmarishly pricy, but not at all cheap.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/12/01

“Dinner was with friends at Sushi Sasabune. This used to be my favourite Sushi place in the whole wide world, small and perfect in the middle of nowhere halfway to Santa Monica, and because it wasn't a very big restaurant I didn't ever dare plug it on this blog. This time I got to the restaurant to find it closed and big For Lease signs up on the windows. "They've moved," said a man walking past holding a bunch of flowers, helpfully, "They're now up on Wilshire. The food's nearly as a good but the atmosphere's completely gone."
We went off to find the new location, and discovered it. The food was nearly as good as it used to be (and it was, and still is amazing) but, as the man with the flowers said, the atmosphere isn't the same -- I wished they'd kept the old location and simply started another, rather than expanding so dramatically. Still, the restaurant is now big enough that I'm happy to mention it here. Try the chef's Trust Me menu.”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/02/06

“If the Food Channel asked me to do a Sushi special across America, I'd say yes like a shot, but mostly because I know I'd learn stuff. And get to taste good things.”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/26/03

“While it's certainly true that there have been times when people bringing food has been a lifesaver, sometimes for me and sometimes for the people standing in the line waiting to see me, it's also really, honestly, probably not a good idea to bring sushi to signings. Long signings in warm bookshops... Consider me already grateful, but better to bring something that has less risk of giving the author food poisoning. The people at the place I'll be the following day will thank you...”
-- Neil Gaiman 08/18/05

“Incidentally, I see that the interview with me at Food Porn is now up: Thrill! as we eat eggplant sushi and admire the colour. Gasp! as I try to explain who Fanny Craddock and Keith Floyd were. Scream! as you discover that they serve pony sushi in Reykjavik. Easily the most food-and-drink oriented interview I've ever given. (And yes, the 1955 Strathisla really is that good.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/23/02

“Well, for the best [sushi] in the poshest sense, it's either Nobu or Nobu Next Door. I thought the food was better at Nobu Next Door (and was not impressed by the way that Nobu gave Miso with clams in it to a diner at our table who had explained, when the waiter had asked if anyone had any allergies, that if she tasted shellfish she would stop breathing. She went off in a taxi to the emergency room, and, while they didn't charge us for the food she'd eaten before being taken away, I felt that, all things considered, they fell somewhat short of perfect service). (This was a meal for the people who won an E-Bay auction and paid several thousand dollars to the CBLDF for dinner with me, on the Last Angel Tour.)
Beyond that, all New Yorkers have their favourite places, and they take me to them when I'm in New York, and I almost always find myself agreeing that that really was lovely. I did a google search which turned up http://www.sushi.infogate.de/rest/na_usa_newyork_newyorkcity.htm When I'm in midtown I tend to go to Kurumazushi on 56th between 5th and 6th for lunch. Not posh at all, but nice food.”
-- Neil Gaiman 03/11/02

“It's easiest just to assume that a Pound is a dollar and a Euro is a dollar and that way I only go "Oh, that's expensive" in a vague sort of way, rather than doing the conversion in my head and going "five bits of conveyor belt sushi cost me WHAT?"
-- Neil Gaiman 11/30/04

“It was around midday, and Gwenda turned up bearing sushi for us all for breakfast. (Really good, by the way. I never thought of Lexington as one of the great Sushi places in the world. Whodathunkit?) “
-- Neil Gaiman 06/23/01

“If you register for the con prior to August the 14th you're eligible to win a dinner with a Guest of Honour on Friday Night. If you don't like Sushi you should probably pick someone who isn't me or Jill Thompson to eat with.”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/26/04

“I signed lots of CD booklets for Warning: Contains Language and Telling Tales), getting a haircut from Wendy at HairPolice (a woman who can make the single word "dude" perform pretty much any function in the English language) and eating at Midori's Floating World Cafe (amazing tea selection, nice sushi, great rice-balls): was aided and abetted in much of this by John M. Ford & Elise.”
-- Neil Gaiman 06/18/04

"I'll have 120mb of yellowtail, please.
Thanks to all of you who felt that I should mention here that you can get USB drives that look like sushi. ...or possibly you can now get sushi that you can also store information on.
I should eat something now, shouldn't I?”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/22/04

“Now in hotel. Was taken out for sushi dinner by Danish publisher, and the salmon was extremely wonderful.”
-- Neil Gaiman 05/11/03

And for the record, should you assume I am implying that if you enjoy the taste of sushi that you will also enjoy the taste of poo? No. It's one of those claims like: "If we allow gay marriages, then surely bestiality and necrophilia will be the next chic wedding trends this spring!" I'm not a closed-minded sushi bigot. I just like exploring how the stupid-half think.

Don't write me all angry about sushi, either.

I'll just vomit.

(Next week I promise will be a more useful, happier, and less stomach-turning collection of posts.)

A Nice Meaty One For the Writers Out There

2006-02-18T08:29:00.000-08:00

First and foremost, I find the advice Neil hands out (sometimes off-handedly, sometimes with the intent to advise) pertaining to writing to be the most inspiring. There have been some really powerful little snippets to come out of the blog that have helped me whan I was at my worst creatively. So here, again, is a ost dedicated to writing: The craft, the culture, the continuous combat of simply putting one word in front of another in order to get a point across to a person besides yourself.

"It's not a science. It's an art and a sometimes it's a craft. The most important thing (and I know I say this a lot but it's true, or at least it's true for me) is finishing things, because that's when you find out if they worked or not. The rest of the time it's just hoping."
–Neil Gaiman 12/01/05

"Today I sat and listed all the characters in the book, and what each character needs by the end of the book. (Some need lots of things. Some don't.) I think it helped."
–Neil Gaiman 07/12/04

"Spent the afternoon writing the novel, which went from completely despondent "this is awful the whole thing is unusable I have no idea what I'm doing" to, a thousand words later, "I suppose it's not that bad really and I think I know what happens next," and there are worse places to be."
– Neil Gaiman 05/31/04

“I hate being in the final stages of a story. It's like trying to run programs on a computer with 100% CPU use. I'm left with just about enough native intelligence to walk, talk monosyllabically, and tie my shoelaces. I assume that I'm off figuring out the end of the story I'm writing, because the alternative, in terms of sudden-onset mental decay, is too dreadful to think about. Meanwhile I walk around aimlessly, cannot remember where I put things, or the names of the things that I can't remember where I put them. And I say "er..." a lot, and pick things up and look at them.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/10/03

“I can't think of a definition of "fiction" that isn't a variation on "stuff you make up", and fantasy is a branch of fiction. Personally, I think it's an enormously useful branch of fiction.”
–Neil Gaiman 09/02/02

“I tend to find that comics fans read books, and that anime fans also watch other things. Most people don't just like one thing.”
– Neil Gaiman 09/09/04

“[I don’t] go "Wow. A short story -- here's my opportunity to depress people." But I know what you mean -- the cumulative effect of the short stories isn't one of unalloyed joy and delight, and the characters who creep out into the short fiction tend to be slightly more hurt and damaged than the ones at novel length.”
–Neil Gaiman 12/16/05

“I long ago resigned myself to the fact that the next thing I'll write will be the next thing I want to write, and it doesn't really matter what people are waiting for. Readers mostly want more of the last thing they liked, anyway. I'd rather write something that nobody knows if they'll like yet or not, which may be perverse of me, but is how I'm built.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/08/03

“I know what you mean, and have no solutions to offer, other than, you do it. The only comfort I can offer is that the "small, less significant, often transitional sections of plot" may be obvious to you while you're writing the book, but by the time you've finished it you normally can't remember what was a bit of plot that only existed to link two scenes where you knew what you were doing, and what was an integral part of the story from the start. And often some of the best bits turned up in the transitional places. How do you do it? You grit your teeth, and you do it. Some days it's about as romantic and magical as ditch-digging, but you carry on, because that's how you make it happen.”
--Neil Gaiman 08/15/03

“I love being a writer because it is something you can do anywhere. Some jobs like for example being an astronaut you can only do in special places like in for example space rockets or outer space or somewhere like that eg the moon. If you were trying to be an astronaut in the supermarket people would just laugh at you and say What Is He Doing Is He Absolutely Barking Mad Or What? The same thing goes for people who pick grapes and the people who show you to your seat in theatres after the light is all gone down. They can only do it in their special place.
But I can write anywhere.”
--Neil Gaiman 10/24/04

“I've been writing now professionally for twenty years and it's not yet become "another monotonous job" -- although when I was done with journalism I stopped, and when I could see myself becoming tired of comics if I didn't take a break and learn some new skills, I took a break and learned how to write novels and screenplays, before coming back to comics.
Learning how to do new things makes me happy. ( I think I was happier making "A Short Film About John Bolton" than I have been in the last few years, just because there were so many new things to learn.)”
--Neil Gaiman 02/27/03

“(I think I told someone who asked if writing fanfiction would be good for "honing writing skills" that of course it was, but if that was what he was writing for, he'd have to start writing his own stuff eventually. This was, I was told at length and by many many people, a terrible thing to say.) So... yes, I think that playing with other people's ideas and work is a perfectly valid way to make art. I also think it's much wiser and safer to do it with ideas and work that are comfortably in the public domain if you want your work to be seen professionally.”
–Neil Gaiman 11/21/04

“Discovered to my chagrin this evening that Alfred Austin, Victorian Poet Laureate, quite probably never wrote the poem on the illness of the Prince of Wales in 1871 that included the couplet,

Across the wires the electric message came,
He is no better, he is much the same.

…And what's really sad and funny at the same time is that, whether he wrote them or not, they're the only thing he might have written that anyone remembers or quotes at all, and they're only remembered for demonstrating how incredibly crap British Poet Laureates can be when they attempt to be topical.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/11/03

“I try and hear stuff in my head while I write it. I'm mostly too self-conscious to read to myself in empty rooms as I write, but I do tend to read aloud as soon as I can -- sometimes as soon as something's in first draft I'll telephone friends and read it to them. That's where I hear things that don't work, and fix them.”
-- Neil Gaiman 12/29/01

“The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering "Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!" and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there's nothing left to write. Because the rejection slips will arrive.”
–Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

“I don't think writing means you don't do your share of the house stuff (it never got me out of anything significant).”
–Neil Gaiman 07/17/04

“The biggest problem with author photos as far as I'm concerned, is the disappointment that sets in somewhere in the vast gulf between Cool Author Photo and Sadly Not As Impressive Author in Real Life, which is why I try and get new author photos taken every few years, so with luck people don't look at me and feel sadly disappointed at how much older or scruffier or less impressive I am than I was in the photo.” – Neil Gaiman 03/22/05

“I always used to like knowing what authors looked like, perhaps because I've always liked thinking that real people made the books I loved: it made it even better, somehow, knowing that Mike Moorcock was huge and bearded, that Samuel R. Delany was black, that Will Eisner looked strangely like Commissioner Dolan, that Harlan Ellison looked like a feisty Jewish Puck in shades. (I don't think I ever thought that Zelazny heroes looked like Roger, except on the inside, just as I didn't think that Elric of Melnibone looked like Mike Moorcock.) I wanted to be an author, so I liked seeing photos of authors, because it made them real.” – Neil Gaiman 03/22/05

“Well, I remember Roger talking to me and Steve Brust. We'd just suggested that if he did an anthology of other-people-write-Amber-stories that we'd be up for it (understatement), and he puffed on his pipe, and said -- extremely firmly -- that he didn't want anyone else to write Amber stories but him.
I don't believe he ever changed his mind on that…
Would I love to write an Amber story? God, yes. Would Steve Brust? Absolutely. Will we? Nope, because Roger told us he explicitly didn't want it to happen.”
-- Neil Gaiman 12/29/01

“Does it matter if he's respected? Not a bit. Does it matter if he's read? Damn right it does.”
– Neil Gaiman 12/31/01 (On R. A. Lafferty)

“I've spent a day fighting with an uncooperative novel and every scene I wrote kept turning into two people having a conversation, and it was driving me nuts. It wasn't even that they were sitting around having interesting conversations. They were telling each other things the reader had already seen occur, and I felt powerless to stop them... "You're not allowed to do that any more," said Dave. "Something else has to happen."
–Neil Gaiman 12/11/04

“(Writing American Gods) was a bit like wrestling a bear. Some days I was on top. Most days, the bear was on top.”
–Neil Gaiman 02/09/01

"(Writing) has no job security of any kind, and depends mostly on whether or not you can, like Scheherazade, tell the stories each night that'll keep you alive until tomorrow."
-- Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

"Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins."
–Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

A Valentine's Day Treat

2006-02-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

Usually, I only post on Fridays lately, but I make exceptions for Holidays and special events, of course. Happy Valentine's Day all you kooky kids!

“Happy Valentine's Day. I nearly forgot.”
--Neil Gaiman 02/14/03

“Small Valentine’s Day Poem

Roses are red,
Violets are purple,
Which is a very hard word to rhyme
And makes me happy that on February the 14th we don't traditionally have to give each other oranges.”
--Neil Gaiman 02/14/06

“Signed 350 copies of Adventures in the Dream Trade. Then realised I was no longer making any sense and went up to my room to sleep but thought I'd post a Valentine's Day hullo to everybody first.”
--Neil Gaiman 02/14/02

“Happy Valentine's Day. Except in India, of course... Wondering how Valentines Day is celebrated in other countries, I turned to the Times of India, where I learn that they celebrate by calling in private detectives --This has probably been made necessary by an influx of blonde Australians.”
– Neil Gaiman 02/14/04

“This morning the phone began ringing at around 7:00am as small girls across town realised that a) school was cancelled and b) this was a disaster, not a cause for celebration, as they had Valentine's cards to give to each other, with small packets of sweets, candies, and other such edible delights attached, which meant that the phone was soon ringing off the hook as plans to c) get together and exchange Valentine's cards and sugary treats were made. I went off to my writing cabin to write and missed all the excitement as a small posse of ten year old girls managed to lock themselves into a room during the few minutes there wasn't an adult there. They hatched plots to free themselves, most of which seem to have involved climbing out of an upper-story window onto a snowy roof and attempting to walk around the house. Luckily they were freed before their plans were put into effect.”
– Neil Gaiman 02/15/05 (Seven past midnight)

“Valentine's Day is coming sooner or later. It's possible that you may, somehow, have missed the Valentine's Cards at http://www.meish.org/vd/. In drawing your attention to them, I am not proposing that you send one to anyone you love, might love, or are hoping to sleep with. I am especially not suggesting it if the person or people you send the card to also reads this journal.
It wasn't my idea. Honest.”
-- Neil Gaiman 02/08/04

"SONNET

I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such,
Although I liked a few folk pretty well.
Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch,
For brave men died and empires rose and fell
For love: girls followed boys to foreign lands
And men have followed women into Hell.

In plays and poems someone understands
There’s something makes us more than blood and bone
And more than biological demands...
For me, love’s like the wind, unseen, unknown.
I see the trees are bending where it’s been,
I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown.
I really don’t know what ‘I love you’ means.
I think it means ‘Don’t leave me here alone."
--Neil Gaiman 10/18/05

“[Writing Mirrormask] We had a character with the place-holder name of Puck, and we'd been trying to come up with a better name for him, and then it was February 14th so I called him Valentine, and we were done.”
--Neil Gaiman 06/17/03

“There's a Victorian sex-cries generator. Online. Honest. A Victorian sex-cries generator. It's at http://www.hootisland.com/cgi-bin/victorian.cgi .”
-- Neil Gaiman 08/15/03

Also meant to stick this up during Valentine's Day:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/opinion/13SEIG.html?pagewanted=print&position=.
It's all about bras.
– Neil Gaiman 02/15/04

“Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you get to kiss someone nice. Or not, of course, depending.”
–Neil Gaiman 02/14/04

A General Display of Silliness (On Neil's Part and My Own)

2006-02-10T16:25:00.000-08:00

Much like a sewer rodent, or a raccoon, or a gremlin, I collect little scraps of shiny things that are of value to no one else but myself. This nasty habit has also bled into my efforts to trawl the online Journal of one N. Gaiman. The following collection of quotes this week is nothing more than some shiny bits of this and that which caught my eye and were collected for the sake of silliness alone. Some of these are funny. Some of them are not funny at all, but just wouldn't fit under any other umbrella. Some of them are funny, but only because they are slightly out of context. Others are funny to no one else but the little creature that lives behind my left ear, and he forced me to put those ones in there. He's telling me to shut up now and get on with the quotes. This week: Nothing but oddments and sillnesseses. -- RRNN (And yes, I know that oddments isn't a real word, so don't bother e-mailing me.)

“I discovered from the Scotsman that a couple of crap blogs out there mean that The Blog Is Now Dead, It Has Ceased To Be etc. That's an enormous relief, of course.”
–Neil Gaiman 05/31/04

“ ‘I have no idea what a patron does, but I plan to do it all over the place for years to come,’ I said, in my email to Suw, but she sensibly removed my attempts at humour from the press release. Very wise.”
– Neil Gaiman 02/03/06

"A CBLDF scent. Cool. Can anyone who tries the scent let me know if it really does glisten with vibrant white musk?"
–Neil Gaiman 11/17/04

"When I was a teenager I used to risk the ire of shop assistants in newsagents by going up on tiptoes and taking the copy of Playboy from the top shelf, and flipping through it looking for the Gahan Wilson full-page cartoon. And now I'm in one (a Gahan Wilson cartoon, not a copy of Playboy). How cool is that? (Mr Gaiman wanders off into the sunset, his bosom swelling with pure fanboy pride.)"
–Neil Gaiman 03/07/02

"I said it was an odd keyboard, didn`t I? The Y and the Z are swapped over. I bet they think that`s funnz."
– Neil Gaiman 01/03/02

"Not sure what'll be on the postcard -- me in a coffin, or me and Malena my undead assistant I expect. Either way it'll be something to send to a friend..."
–Neil Gaiman 07/17/04

“I've been asked questions ranging from the obscure and erudite to proposals of marriage to people wanting to know if I can recommend good sushi in (town of choice). I've been asked what I've got in my pocketses and questions about the wing velocity of the laden vs. the unladen European swallow... I just blink, and answer, or don't, and carry on.”
–Neil Gaiman 09/25/02

"One may safely assume that when bookmarks are outlawed, only outlaws will carry bookmarks."
–Neil Gaiman 09/20/04

Upon hearing that Winnie the Pooh’s Christopher Robin was being replaced by Disney with a spunkier, younger, female counterpart, Mr. Gaiman responded with:
“The rest of this blog entry will be written by Skippy, a fictional six-year-old tomboy and computer genius, with a small number of endearing catchphrases:”
“Gosharootie!”
“Bitchcakes!”
“Hugs!”
“There we go. Thank you, Skippy.”
--Neil Gaiman 12/07/05 (Which is basically the boiling down of one very long entry into Skippy’s three most endearing catchphrases. – RRNN)

"Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihi- maungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu -- which is a word I'm only posting to reset the margins of this journal. I bet if you're really technical there's a way to do it that doesn't involve posting Maori place names."
–Neil Gaiman 09/25/02

“I find the idea of people being infected by "It's a Small World After All" deeply disturbing. But a world in which you could catch the complete works of Dickens, or Kipling's "The Gardener" or Dangerous Visions might be rather interesting. ("We've done all the tests, Mr Brown, and I'm afraid you seem to have a rather nasty case of Huckleberry Finn.")”
– Neil Gaiman 01/08/03

“Descriptions of cheeses can all be mailed to David, who will undoubtedly either welcome them or tell you what you can do with them.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/08/03

“The kids know there are people out there who think I do cool stuff, but then, they've watched me wandering the house trying to remember where I put down my tea, and know that I have no sense of time and an exasperating habit of drifting off into my head in the middle of a sentence without noticing that I've stopped talking, not to mention a tendency to make things up that needs to be watched ("Is that true?" they'll say. "Er, no," I'll admit).

They are occasionally impressed when they realise that someone I know is famous.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/27/02

“Remember – ‘Think Once, Think Twice, Think ‘Don't Get A Tattoo From a Guy At The Door With A Homemade Tattoo gun’.”
– Neil Gaiman 02/04/06

“I sit here repeating to myself that airport food court sushi is NOT a good thing to eat and is in fact a very bad idea. Sometimes my natural optimism makes me forget this, and pay real money for sad, fishy, rubbery things that make me sad when I sit in the food court and eat them.”
–Neil Gaiman 03/09/02

“Work beckons.
Actually right now it doesn't beckon; instead it holds up a megaphone in front of its mouth and is shouting "OY!" through it, and then making rude gestures as soon as it's got my attention.”
– Neil Gaiman 03/30/05

“It's just a red traffic light reflected on the back of the black leather jacket.
I mean, there are no Neptunian Brain Parasites. And if there were, what would one want with me? What you see in the photo is definitely not a parasitic alien brain-slug. No. Why would you possibly think that? Here, come into this small room with me while I press my hand against the back of your neck... See? Now we are united as one in the slug overmind. Is it not wonderful?”
– Neil Gaiman 03/17/05 (When asked by a fan if he was wearing a shiny disco jacket or had a parasite on his back in a photograph.)

“Yes, since you were wondering, if I stop and think about it, it is a bit weird. Cool, but weird.
But cool.
But weird.”
– Neil Gaiman 03/15/05 (Which is actually a reference to the Beowulf movie getting off the ground, but which makes you smile when applied to any situation, really.)

“There's an honestly-not-bitter complaint from http://quotableneil.blogspot.com/ that there isn't an official link to it from this site. Soon, I'm sure there will be. In the meantime, it seems to be shaping up into an excellent This Blog -- The Good Bits site.”
– Neil Gaiman 02/04/06

"Also, I'm not a big strawberry pie fan."
–Neil Gaiman 07/17/04

Promise that next week we'll try for more grounded, sane and useful quotes that are entertaining to people other than myself.

A Thousand Plagues Upon This House

2006-02-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

Since the official Neil Gaiman Web-Site was revamped this week, (And alas, Quotable Neil is tragically nowhere to be seen on the Links page, which includes a diverse collection of colleague and fan-sites, and the like... but I'm not bitter.) and the official anniversary for the American Gods Journal is coming up on the ninth, I thought I'd kick things off this week with:

“The journal is open.”
–Neil Gaiman 02/09/01 (First official American Gods Blog Entry)

and

“...is this thing working?”
– Neil Gaiman 02/01/06 (First official entry on the newly revamped site.)

Which brings me to this weeks theme: Horrible illness. My entire family has been down for the count this week with one form or another of some sort of terrible flu/cold hybrid. I was seeking some healthy (or not so healthy) quotes from the great and powerful Neil. Hope this week finds you happy and healthy. --Really Rather Not Nice

“I'm the next-to-last-person standing in a house of people with something viral that probably isn't flu but might as well be, and which makes everyone who gets it miserable. Thank heavens for a sensible country doctor who wanders over in the evening and is reassuring. Judging from Maddy (the first to get sick) it only seems to be a 48 hour thing, anyway.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/14/05

“Everyone else is now up and better, back at school or back at work, which is my cue finally to collapse with the lurghi and go to bed for the day.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/18/05

“Having somehow managed to avoid actually getting sick for many months, I now have a cold, and am Officially Grumpy about it. (Although I've been almost getting a cold for a couple of weeks, so it's sort of a relief to actually have it now.)”
– Neil Gaiman 01/26/04

“Today, I found myself with an evil painfully scratchy throat and a deep desire not to get up, so I spent the day in my dressing gown and had chicken soup and lemon-and-honey-drinks. This meant I failed to be properly excited when our visiting bird chick (setting up feederside cameras and so on) caught sight of an English bird that shouldn't have been there at our garden feeders…Besides feeling a bit under the weather, I also found it hard to get excited about a bird I saw outside my window every day of my life growing up, that's just in the wrong place, and is probably just puzzling about where to find a decent cup of tea, or, more probably, half a coconut.”
–Neil Gaiman 05/15/05

“In hotel room, sick and resting, and sounding a bit like Barry White. I don't do sick and resting terribly well.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/25/03

“‘If I die,’
I told Mike, with the gloomy relish of the afflicted,
‘This will all be yours.’
‘You're giving me your cold?’ he asked, unimpressed.
– Neil Gaiman 12/24/05

“I'm just in the final stages of the cold, the place where you have the headache and you're all clogged up and stuffy and the sides of your nostrils are red and raw, and you start pronouncing words like Mamba "Babba" (fortunately, I have had no cause to say "Mamba" to anyone today); also I am getting very tired of chicken soup.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/27/04

“Slept for a long time. No longer evilly sick, just sort of gluey, as if dwarves had snuck in in the night and filled my lungs and nose and throat and head and chest and ears and mind with one of those thick sort of glues you'd get as a kid by mixing an epoxy and a resin, that never actually set.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/27/03

“I kind of feel that while I've been sick I've not been dreadfully entertaining.”
– Neil Gaiman 03/02/03

“Good morning. I think I'm emerging from a lemon-and-honey flavoured gloom back into the daylight. I have things to write. Things to finish. Things to copyedit. And it's time to hang up my dressing gown (bathrobe if you're American) and go and see if I have pair of jeans anywhere and possibly a black tee shirt.”
– Neil Gaiman 05/17/05

On Being the Father of Daughters

2006-01-27T14:23:00.000-08:00

This week's quotes bring us back to a much more wholesome place. Neil's daughters, Holly and Maddy. Be sure to stay tuned in the future for special "Quotable Holly" and "Quotable Maddy" features (probably around their respective birthdays) as they have both made their presence known on the journal in years past in their own special ways. Also, don't think I've forgotten Mike. Having sons and daughters is as different as having cats and dogs, and so the young master Gaiman will be covered in a different Quotable entry, at some later date. (Also look forward to my special edition, Quotable Neil Urban Legends : Mary Gaiman, Does She Really Exist?)

"Maddy had the entire journey to school to confront the dread embarrassment of the idea that, on arrival at school, I would get out of the car in dressing gown and slippers and then she'd have to get out on my side. We negotiated, and instead of dropping her off outside the school, I found a discreet spot in the car-park, and she slipped out there, pretending as hard as she could that she didn't know me."
–Neil Gaiman 12/05/05
(Which I know I already posted once in Dec. 2005, but which fit so perfectly here that I just couldn’t resist.)

“Maddy is nine, which means we have long conversations about how embarrassing I am. In Maddy's ideal world, her parents would be invisible, inaudible, and, apart from somehow making food appear on the table, in all ways imperceptible, like the unseen servants in early versions of Beauty and the Beast. And transport would happen too. We're definitely good for transport. Although that too has its drawbacks.
There are many things I do that are embarrassing to Maddy, and frankly most of them consist of simply existing within a five mile radius of her school. The most embarrassing thing of all, though, is Having a Mini. If you've ever wanted to watch a nine year old girl do her best to squirm into nothingness, picking her up from school in a Mini will do it every time.
"Ah well," I told her tonight, as I drove her back. "You in your turn will probably one day have children to embarrass."
"What? Like YOU were embarrassed as a kid?"
"Well, certainly," I said.
"HOW?"
"Well, for example, when I was a teenager my father had these peculiar bright orangey-yellow shoes of a very strange European design. They looked sort of like giant bananas. They were embarrassing."
"Grandpa wore Yellow Banana Shoes?"
"He said they were the most comfortable shoes he had."
"See! That's EXACTLY like you. He had banana shoes and said that they were comfortable. You've got a Mini and you think it's cool. It's EXACTLY THE SAME."
"But his banana shoes were embarrassing. Whereas my Mini..."
"DA-AD."
I suspect she's right, of course, which makes it worse.” – Neil Gaiman 02/12/04

“I went off and sang a goodnight "The Teddy Bears' Picnic" to Holly, which is something I always keep expecting her to grow out of and am always oddly relieved she hasn't.” – Neil Gaiman 05/22/05

“Holly and Maddy and I went to see Wendy at Hair Police in Minneapolis. Holly got a foot of hair taken off (and saved, to be donated to something that uses hair only for good) and had what remained styled, and looks stunning; Maddy got green, blue and purple hair extensions, and looks both cute and outrageous; and I no longer look like a yeti.” – Neil Gaiman 01/08/03

“After a week off school, Maddy went back to school today, and now I have the 'flu instead. Sigh.” – Neil Gaiman 02/21/05

"For Holly's 18th birthday she asked me for a short story as a present, which she wanted delivered by her 19th birthday. It's been 960 words long for several months now, and is almost two months late, but I'm cheerfully finishing it for her, when I'm not dozing, eating, or being dragged around on walks.
("You like the walks! You're the one who drags people! That's not fair" says Holly, reading this over my shoulder.)
The story's called SUNBIRD. It just occurred to me that an awful lot of animals get eaten in it, which is a very odd sort of present for a vegetarian, but I expect she'll forgive me.
("You never told me that!" she just said, over my shoulder.)" – Neil Gaiman 03/13/04

“Maddy has just got a much bigger goldfish tank in her room, which needed more goldfish in it, because the four she has were looking rather lonely. So she and I went out and bought four new goldfish. She named them, each in its plastic bag, as I drove us home:
Maddy: The black one's called Jelly. The smaller one is called Cheesy Popcorn. The middle one is Salsa. And the very little one is called Bubble.
Me: Cheesy Popcorn? Why Cheesy Popcorn?
Maddy (as if talking to someone very, very slow on the uptake): Because I really, really like Cheesy Popcorn.
Me: Well, you like Macaroni and Cheese. Why don't you call it Macaroni and Cheese?
Maddy (raising an eyebrow): Da-ad. Mac and cheese is SO two minutes ago.
To which I was unable to find a reply. Maddy has a goldfish called Cheesy Popcorn.”
--Neil Gaiman 09/09/04

"Then came Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side".
"You named me from this song, didn't you?" said Holly as the first bass notes sang.
"Yup," I said.
Lou started singing.
Holly listened to the first verse, and for the first time, actually heard the words.
"Shaved her legs and then he was a she...? He?"
"That's right," I said, and bit the bullet. We were having The Conversation.
"You were named after a drag queen in a Lou Reed song."
She grinned like a light going on. "Oh dad. I do love you," she said.
Then she picked up an envelope and wrote what I'd just said down on the back, in case she forgot it."
–Neil Gaiman 05/31/04

"As I write this Maddy is diligently sitting next to me removing TV programs she doesn't want on the TIVO any longer. The first three seasons of AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL have already been zapped into oblivion (she's kept season 4, though). Now, because she knows what she likes, she's carefully, one by one, deleting all the Dick Sargent episodes of BEWITCHED."
–Neil Gaiman 01/21/06

“I bought [Holly] a glow-in-the-dark rubber duck, and a new copy of a book I used to read her every night when she was tiny (Outside Over There, by Maurice Sendak, a book Maddy found much too disturbing and weird, when it was her turn to have it read to her.)We had a wonderful time, in a quiet sort of ohmigodmydaughter'sactuallyleavingforcollegenextweek sort of way.”
– Neil Gaiman 08/17/03

“Holly (age 16) has decided she wants to go to Vassar.
"Go somewhere else," I tell her. "It's cheaper. Go to a local college. Or go to the one your brother is at -- it gives a sibling discount. Do you realise that I could buy a small South Pacific island for the cost of sending the two of you to college for a few years? With a submarine? And an octopus pit for dropping spies in?" But she is immune to reason, and wants to go to Vassar, because she likes the look of it, and the history, and wants to go and experience upstate New York and learn how to pronounce Poughkeepsie.
"What if it's awful?" I said.
"Ask on your journal," said Holly. "Put something up. Then Vassar students and professors and people can tell you what they think on the FAQ line."
I suspect she'll win on this one, and I won't get any kind of a small South Pacific Island, not even the cheap kind with a swimming pool that slides out of the way to let the underground spaceships take off.”
– Neil Gaiman 03/31/02

“Got to dinner with Chip Delany & friends (and Holly, who now has a lip-ring "It looks very... interesting," I said, thus proving myself a dad, but I'm getting used to it)”
– Neil Gaiman 01/27/06

“Forgot to say... I've been reading Diana Wynne Jones's WITCH WEEK to Maddy recently. Several nights ago, Holly, over twice Maddy's age, came in and listened to a chapter (it was a book she'd read many times). Then the next night Holly came back. And the night after that. And now Holly sits on the floor and does her homework while I read WITCH WEEK to them both.
And it makes me incredibly happy.”
– Neil Gaiman 01/31/02

See all y'all faithful Gaiman fans next week, when we answer the question: What Do We Really Know About the Neil Gaiman Fellow Anyway? (unless I completely forget.)

WARNING: May Contain Sexual Content

2006-01-21T06:56:00.000-08:00

Y'know, I started this week's Quotable Neil with the most innocent of intentons in mind. This was to be a clean, wholesome collection of quotes, that would warm the heart and make the world seem like a more innocent and pure place to be. Instead, I went with sex. Sex sells... even when you're not selling anything. So here we go. --RRNN

“At the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. It is very hot today, and everywhere one looks one sees sweaty cleavage. Acres of sweaty cleavage. Not that I am complaining of course...” 08/24/03

"Trying to find a Penn Jillette essay, I discover that the Penn and Teller sincity.com website has been gazumped by a porn-film site. My initial reaction is that it's some kind of strange Penn and Teller joke, especially because there are scary-looking lady twins with things that look almost but not really like actual human breasts in their chest region staring out from the home page." -- Neil Gaiman 01/05/03

“I don't think I write sex terribly well: I'm often concerned that it's too clinical, when I write it, and not passionate enough. Having said that, I was fairly pleased with the scene following chapter one of American Gods, with Balquis and her client, and Shadow's dream of Bast in the same book.” – Neil Gaiman 01/12/03

"Well, I'm only half-way through it… but so far it boasts an astonishing lack of full-bodied swearing and a complete and utter failure to describe any reproductive organs, lethal or otherwise." –Neil Gaiman (When asked by a fan: “Will there be man-eating-vaginas in Anansi Boys?”) 07/12/04

“One short story in Smoke and Mirrors, "Tastings", took about four years to write, because whenever I got too embarassed I'd stop writing. And while I once wrote an extremely filthy Cherry Poptart story, I left the mechanics of what the people were doing in the panels up to the imagination of the artist...” –Neil Gaiman 10/15/05

“I once said in an interview that I'd just about got used to the idea that my parents would probably be reading anything I wrote when I realised that my kids were now reading anything I wrote. It's not that it changes anything I ever wrote, one way or another, but it was certainly something I was aware of -- I suspect the emotions are closer to how one feels suddenly discovering as a teen that something really cool on TV has material you're not really sure you want to watch with your parents sitting next to you (or the surprise you feel twenty years later at realising the same embarassment happens in the other direction when you're the parent).” – Neil Gaiman 02/24/05

“I would say that it's astonishing how much people's imaginations will do for you, which is to say, ever since I was accused of writing explicitly pornographic sex in Stardust, I realised that people can always fill in the blanks with far more detail than you think you've provided. So you can probably do more by writing less than you imagine.” – Neil Gaiman 10/15/05

“When I wrote it I was certainly doing my best to write a scene that would mean one thing if you understood the mechanics of sex (from an "insert tab A into slot B" point of view) and would mean rather less if you didn't. But either way I really didn't see it as being irrelevant: if it weren't for that one act of sex there wouldn't be a book. For a start, nine months later, the book's hero wouldn't have been born.” –Neil Gaiman (On the sex scene in Stardust) 02/21/05

“I tend to avoid sex in children's literature, because it makes kids feel uncomfortable (or it did me) in the same way that a kid feels uncomfortable seeing an adult drunk throwing up across the road.” –Neil Gaiman 11/21/04

“I was also amused to find in myself a potential for embarrassment that I didn't know I had, a year or so ago, when I was reading my friend Alisa Kwitney's novel Does She Or Doesn't She? I've known Alisa for over 15 years… I found when reading Does She or Doesn't She? that there were bits I read while doing the reading-to-yourself equivalent of humming very loudly or asking suddenly if anyone would like a cup of tea because you're going to make one for yourself now. (And it wasn't that the material was particuarly strong. It was because it was written by a good friend.)” – Neil Gaiman 02/24/05

“Meanwhile the story is something that starts out more or less normally, and then dissolves into a lunatic farce of FBI men, Russian aphrodisiacs, TV Soap Opera, hot water pipes, identity, infidelity and attempted murder. And sex. Lots of sex. Lots and lots of sex. Lots and lots of sex, written by an old friend, which is marginally more embarrassing to read, even when you're really enjoying the book in question, than you might think.” – Neil Gaiman 10/14/03 (Also about Alisa's book)

"One thing I'd suggest, whether it's writing sex scenes, writing partings, writing anything really, is look at how writers whose work you like did it." - Neil Gaiman 10/15/05

“I really don't think there's any one-size-fits-all reaction to sex on paper or on the screen, any more than there's a one-size-fits-all reaction to sex in (as it were) the flesh. Nor are any of us expected to be consistent about these things.” – Neil Gaiman 02/24/05

At whcih point I must promise a more family-friendly and nobly-intended collection of quotes next week. --RRNN

A Few Words on Censorship (Divine, Feline, or Otherwise)

2006-01-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

“I've heard of many copies of Dream of a Thousand Cats destroyed by people's kitties -- I've signed quite a lot of cat-mangled copies"
–Neil Gaiman 07/17/04

“I'm sure this is the kind of pastor who would assure you that in the bible, Jesus always made a point of burning his novels, tee-shirts and CDs on proper bonfires. None of that new-fangled shredding nonsense for him."
–Neil Gaiman 07/13/04 (In reference to a CNN news article in which an Iowan Reverend was prevented by fire codes from holding a public book burning.)

“Whenever I notice that my name isn't on the list of banned and challenged authors, I feel faintly like I'm letting the side down. Although I suspect all I'd have to do to get on the list is to write a book about naked, bisexual, hard-swearing wizards who drink a lot while disparaging the Second Amendment, and I'd be home and dry."
–Neil Gaiman 09/20/05

“Is the CBLDF going to wind up supporting material that someone considers "obscene"? Yup. Quite often. Is it what you'd consider obscene? That depends on who you are. Ask the Virginia man who spent the night in jail for selling a kid a copy of Elfquest."
–Neil Gaiman 08/20/03

“I don't recall a lot of censorship [at DC]. There was a monologue about masturbation in the Serial Killer's Convention story that I had to take the word masturbation out of, and I lost a few swear words, until, in Sandman: The Kindly Ones, I really really really needed Rose Walker to be able to say "Fuck" and Karen Berger went to get special permission from Paul Levitz, who was very bemused as he thought we'd all been using it in Vertigo for years. We hadn't, but shortly after that, most people were.”
–Neil Gaiman 11/07/03

“The only word that got censored was 'masturbate. 'It was explained to me that people do not masturbate in the DC Universe. Actually, that explains a lot. That's probably why the characters all dress in tight costumes and go around thumping the shit out of each other."
–Neil Gaiman (Quoted from The Second British Invasion, by Michael Berry, here)

"Where adults are concerned I get to be a First Amendment absolutist.”
– Neil Gaiman 11/17/04

A Bunch For You Writers Out There

2006-01-09T05:07:00.000-08:00

RRNNT took a brief hiatus after the holidays, but is now back, and will shower you with golden Gaiman goodness. (Er... that didn't sound right at all, did it?

“I drove home, to discover my missing luggage had been unexpectedly found and delivered, so I now have my leather jacket, not to mention many pairs of socks. Then I cooked a duck for New Year's Eve dinner, and while cooking it I suddenly decided to make a tamarind-sour-cherry-cider sauce to go with it, which, slightly to my surprise, worked perfectly. So really, the old year has ended remarkably well.
(I hope yours did too. )”
– Neil Gaiman 12/31/04

"My own new year's resolution? I want to write more. There are too many stories not told, and a limited amount of time to tell them in."
– Neil Gaiman 12/31/01

"Feb 13th -- wrote some stuff. It was crap."…
"Feb 14th -- wrote some brilliant stuff. This is going to be such a good novel. Honest it is." …
"Feb 15th -- No, it's crap"…
--Neil Gaiman 02/09/01 (While Writing American Gods)

"I thought it might be better to go off and be a writer, even if what I learned from the experience was that I wasn't a writer. At least that way, I'd know."
–Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

"Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent."
– Neil Gaiman 11/17/04

"If you stop writing when a promising beginning runs out of steam, maybe you need something more in the planning stages. Or maybe you just need to soldier madly onward and see what Chance and Necessity (the mother, it must be remembered, of invention) provide."
–Neil Gaiman 12/01/05

"If I were teaching creative writing I'd want to encourage creativity. (Although I'd also want to encourage people to play in unfamiliar sandboxes. Remember, just because you like reading a particular form of fiction doesn't mean that that's what you'll be best at writing. It's true. Write Historical Fiction. Write Funny. Write Scary. Write "Mainstream". Write.)"
–Neil Gaiman 09/02/02

"I've never been involved in a creative writing program… I had a vague suspicion that people in authority might suggest that I should write respectable but dull fiction, and then I'd be forced to kill them, and it would all end in tears or in prison." –Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

“I think that people telling you that you can't do something, or are no good, or whatever, can certainly affect your writing ability, if only because it makes you want to do it less. It's like telling someone they can't sing: after a while they don't sing, or not around you. And no, you haven't lost the knack. I highly recommend going "Right -- you said I was wasting my time. I'll show you," as something to tell yourself when you sit down and start writing. And then go on to demonstrate to anyone who thought you were wasting your time how wrong they were.”
–Neil Gaiman 11/21/04

"I can't recall ever having met a writer who said that their Person didn't like them writing. Mostly, we marry people who believe in our dreams."
– Neil Gaiman 07/17/04

"It does help, to be a writer, to have the sort of crazed ego that doesn't allow for failure."
–Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

"I'm always convinced that precious wonderful things that get written once can never be reproduced. And on the other hand, most of the times I've mislaid something and have had to rewrite it, it was, I learned when I ran across the mislaid original, better the second time."
–Neil Gaiman 07/12/04

“I was trying to think what considerations I use when writing for children, and mostly it's just "Do I like this? would I have liked this when I was ten? Do I think it's cool? Would I have thought it was cool when I was eight?" And then you're writing, and after that it's just a matter of putting the words down in a way that makes the story come alive for someone else.”
–Neil Gaiman 11/21/04

"On the whole I just follow the story along, often running along behind it making phone calls to people asking frantically how much flamingoes weigh and whether they can injure you if they peck you or not."
–Neil Gaiman 07/17/04

"If you want to be a writer, write… If you aren't going to be a writer, then go and be something else."
–Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

Neil's Perrenial New Year:

2005-12-31T23:13:00.000-08:00

"May your 2002 be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't to forget make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in 2002, you surprise yourself." --Neil Gaiman 12/31/01

I have to agree with Neil on this one, there's not much more he can say on the topic of New Years and New Beginnings than he did back in 2001. Happy New Year everyone, and look forward to more brilliant quotes, quips, bits, bytes, remarks, reminiscences, observations, and anecdotes from Google's #1 Neil here on Quotable Neil in 2006!

Boxing Day

2005-12-26T16:02:00.000-08:00

“It's Boxing Day! As a kid I always liked Boxing Day best -- it seemed so anticlimactic, and I've always liked anticlimaxes. And then I moved to America, a country of 300 million people who mostly don't know what Boxing Day is. (Basically it's the day you eat leftovers and sprawl a lot, named after the Victorian custom of servants getting their holiday "boxes" -- gifts of money -- the day after Christmas.)” –Neil Gaiman 12/26/02

Three Wise Women

2005-12-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

Goodness how I spoil you all. But, 'tis better to give and all that. Enjoy some "friends of Neil" quotes for Christmas.

"It looks as tho The Hot Birdchick, her husband and the Sexy Librarian will be coming over for Chirstmas day for something called Naked Christmas. I am assured it has much more to do with Pajamas and Pie and bad movies than it does with actual Nakedness. Fingers crossed." -- The Fabulous Lorraine 12/20/05 From her blog entry here.

"It's just past midnight and the house is mostly dark and very quiet. Tomorrow night, daughters and sons and friends will begin to gather, filling it with sound and light. We are strange birds and we will make strange bird noises. We will tell stories that only strange birds would tell and make jokes only strange birds could understand. We will cluster around tables of food and light and celebrate being strange birds in the way that only strange birds do.

Strange birds everywhere will do the same.

While I have a quiet moment to say it; wherever you are, (or who, or what, or why, or how) thank you and.....Peace." -- Lisa Snellings-Clark 12/21/05 Her blog here.

"I was in the cherub choir when I was three and I remember, there was a special church production that we put on at Christmas. I think you always want to be an angel when you're a little girl--either that or a devil. It's one or the other. But I ended up being the donkey. I know somebody has to be the donkey. But it's always that moment of where my father would say, "Be a good sport now, you be the donkey." That's my first memory of being in the choir." -- Tori Amos 11/02/98 From and interview with Yahoo! Music here.

Happy Festivus (A Festivus for the Rest of Us) to those Seinfeldians out there. and Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays.

On Santa's Siblings, and Neil's Beliefs

2005-12-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

Last Three Christmas Quotes of the Season (See You at New Year!)

“Sooner or later you will see Alan Moore wandering the streets of Northampton like Santa Claus's demonic younger brother.” – Neil Gaiman (From the Online Chat between Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and a Moderator on EOSCON 4.0: “Lighting Out for the Territory”. Go to this link for the complete transcript)

“When Alan [Moore] gets his photo taken he sort of looms grimly, and shadows wreathe around him, and he looks like Santa Claus's thinner, more murdererous, magical younger brother.” –Neil Gaiman 07/30/03

“My children have, on occasion, strongly suggested that there might not be a Father Christmas. They also seem very doubtful about the existence of the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and the Weird Knife Lady In The Attic. I humour them by pretending to go along with all this, but I keep my own counsel on the matter.” –Neil Gaiman 12/01/04

A Few Christmas Quotes

2005-12-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

"My assistant got me smoked salmon."--Neil Gaiman 12/25/03
(Not sure why that one struck me so funny, but it did. Sorry.--RRNN)

"No sign of my luggage yet, in case you were wondering. And I have just been told that I am needed downstairs to make cranberry sauce." --Neil Gaiman 12/25/04
(Or that one, I promise it's the last of the weird ones. Sorry again.--RRNN)

"I decided it might be fun to read a chapter a night of "A Christmas Carol", starting two nights ago. The first night, it was to Maddy and her friend, who put up with it stoically." --Neil Gaiman 12/25/03

"Next you'll tell me that... the General Public is not, to a man, woman and child, utterly disgusted and up in arms with the slaughtered red-nosed-reindeer done in lights hanging from a tree in Orlando" --Neil Gaiman 12/20/05

"My parents were never terribly comfortable with Christmas, being Jewish, but we kids lobbied for it and got it. And what the hell, Jews wrote all the best Christmas songs anyway." --Neil Gaiman 12/25/01

"Woken up by Maddy and Holly and taken downstairs, installed on a sofa, and it was time for presents. I think my favourite moment was watching Mike open his Godfather-Horse's-Head Pillow. (The Godfather's his favourite movie.)" --Neil Gaiman 12/25/04

"Was woken up too early and sat, blinking, on a couch, as the family opened presents -- some fun, some cool, some goofy..." --Neil Gaiman 12/25/03

"Every year I suggest faintly that it might be a fine way to have a Christmas 'I have a dream,' I tell them. 'A dream of sleeping in until maybe ten pm, and having a cup of tea, and then, after lunch we could open presents'... And they look at me, from the youngest to the oldest, and every year they shake their heads in the same sort of way. It'll never happen. And I grumble, but after about fifteen years I'd miss it terribly if they actually let me sleep." --Neil Gaiman 12/25/01

"You can still get friends memberships in the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund. The perfect Christmas/Channnukah/Kwanza/Solstice/Mithras's Birthday present..." --Neil Gaiman 12/23/02

"Am currently trying to get home [for the holidays]. Am also very tired, in Atlanta airport, and (because my plane in from the UK was delayed) there's no guarantee that the connection I'm about to get on will actually get me to a plane that will take me back to Minneapolis. Am starting to feel like one of those people in movies, the ones where you and John Candy eventually wind up finishing the journey in the back of a truck filled with Elvis impersonators... And John Candy's dead, now I come to think of it, which would make it a really weird journey indeed." --Neil Gaiman 12/22/04

"And a Merry Christmas to all our readers." --Neil Gaiman 12/25/02

"Which is a roundabout way of saying, compliments of the season to all of you. Thanks for reading. I hope you find something fun in your stockings." --Neil Gaiman 12/25/01

Merry Christmas, Happy Channnukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and a Wonderful Solstice to all of you Neil Gaiman fans out there! -- Really Rather Not Nice.

Opposing Viewpoints?

2005-12-10T22:34:00.000-08:00

I don't think I have to work to hard to explain why I quoted Grant Morrison here. Besides the obvious synchronicity (or the opposite thereof) Morrison is another founding member of DC's "Vertigo Club" and a mean writer in his own right.

The interesting question is whether or not these two quotes actually contradict one another, or if they are simply two different sides of the same poyhedron.

"Real Jobs"

2005-12-10T21:41:00.000-08:00

As for giving up (writing), well, sure, if you want to… There are undoubtedly hundreds of easier, less stressful, more straightforward jobs in the world. Personally, I can't think of anything else I'd rather do, but that's me.
–Neil Gaiman 02/03/04

Every now and again people write me kind letters letting me know just how much they'd like my job. On a day like today, I'd happily take their job. Even if it involves heavy lifting, standing around in the cold, or telling people they can't park there. Honest.
–Neil Gaiman 12/11/04

All my life, I've felt that I was getting away with something because I was just making things up and writing them down, and that one day there would be a knock, and a man with a clipboard would be standing there and say, "It says here you've just been making things up all these years. Now it's time to go off and work in a bank."
–Neil Gaiman (From an Interview with the Onion’s John Krewson, reproduced on Neil’s site, date unknown)

A few from Rachel A.

2005-12-08T16:28:00.000-08:00

Here's an e-mail I got from the mysterious Rachel A. She had these quotes to toss out there:

A couple quotations that amused me...I don't know if you're looking
for plain amusement or that plus inspiration, but they are:

"Remember your name. Know how to spell it, even under pressure, such as being asked."

"Mr Gaiman just dropped his cellphone in his scrambled eggs. He thinks it's time for bed now."

And if you're looking for people-connected-to-Neil quotations, there are always ones from Tori like:

"Healing takes courage, and we all have
courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it."

and

"I think that people who can't believe in faeries aren't worth knowing..".

Yes. Well. Thank you for the site - it's great to reread all those quotations.

None of which I have any reference materials for (dates? sources?) but that I thought were worth adding to the site. I think you can reasonably expect to see some more quotes from the beautiful and talented Tori Amos up here at some point.

I'm taking to heart a lot of the suggestions you guys have put out there, and will most likely try to start posting more quotes without graphics. Just to get some volume to the site, so people have something to read.

For Instance:

"I try not to make the same mistakes. Wherever possible I'll go for new and different mistakes next time." –Neil Gaiman 11/27/05
(which I think will still look nice as a graphic at some later date)

and

Maddy had the entire journey to school to confront the dread embarrassment of the idea that, on arrival at school, I would get out of the car in dressing gown and slippers and then she'd have to get out on my side. We negotiated, and instead of dropping her off outside the school, I found a discreet spot in the car-park, and she slipped out there, pretending as hard as she could that she didn't know me. – Neil Gaiman –Neil Gaiman 12/05/05
(which would have just looked like a mess)

Thanks again for the e-mail Rachel!

p.s. Be sure to head over to the main Really Rather Not Nice Thoughts site (see the sidebar) for a short story about a children's theater operating while the world is ending. "Vaudeville in the Ashes".

The True Origin

2005-12-03T06:34:00.000-08:00

"If I'm a fabulist, I have no idea why I am. (As I said to someone who asked a similar question at a Q&A recently, It's because I'm me and it's what I like to write. I don't think I have a convenient origin story, such as: 'When I was five years old I was bitten by a radioactive myth.')" -- Neil Gaiman 11/23/05

Some Corrections and Directions

2005-12-02T20:40:00.000-08:00

AAARRGGHH!
So I fixed 'homage'. Yes, I do actually know how to spell, I'm a bit embarassed, and I often type faster than I read... if that makes sense... but all excuses aside, 'omage' was just an old-fashioned down-and-dirty spelling mistake.

It is so incredily cool to get so many suggestions from so many Neil fans. Along with my spelling of homage, I also added some 'admission guidlines' over in my righ-hand sidebar. Scroll aaaalll the way down please. I'm getting a lot of excellent quote ideas from my own journal-scanning, but the ones you guys toss out are beautiful and cool too, so keep tossing them out there. As I mention there, I'm doing quotes mainly from the blog, not as much from the books, comics, movies, interviews, etc. But with that said, there are some quotes and comments that CANNOT be ignored, as well as quotes from other folks (like today's Lisa Snellings quote) that also canot be ignored.

I'm also trying to combat shitty picture quality, and being new to some of this, will try my best to experiment and get things up to snuff.

I'll be trying to post new stuff on weekends mostly, so check back then for new quotes. I'll try to have at least three or four up each week. Some quotes will be oooold. Rarely will I quote directly from the current, daily blog, unless something cries out to be repeated. I'm setting up guidelines here people, not laws from the bible.

Tahnsk fro alal the speeleliing tops and help in the coomemnts for tht firts entrry.

--RRNN

Lisa on Creating

2005-12-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

"No matter what you've felt, or thought, or seen in your deepest visions, no matter if these things tore you apart and put you back together differently, no one will ever see the work you didn't do." Lisa Snellings-Clark 06/17/05

Neil on Lisa Snellings-Clark

2005-12-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

"Knowing Lisa, there could be anything in that box. It's huge. In the middle of the night, it could open, and something -- anything -- could scurry out... Assuming it is the statue and not some scuttling murdery thing, I'll try and put phots of it all installed up here." -- Neil Gaiman 12/02/05

Pink?

2005-12-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

"Friends don't ask friends to wear pink socks" -- Neil Gaiman 02/26/02

All Fiction

2005-12-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

"All fiction is fantasy." -- Neil Gaiman 02/26/02

Elves?

2005-11-29T15:28:00.000-08:00

"You have to write if you're going to be a writer. Because Elves won't do the work for you." --Neil Gaiman 07/29/05

Good Writing Days

2005-11-29T15:26:00.000-08:00

"Tomorrow may be Hell, but today was a good writing day, and on thegood writing days nothing else matters." --Neil Gaiman 04/23/04

If You're a Writer

2005-11-29T15:20:00.000-08:00

"Most people can start a short story or a novel. If you're a writer, you can finish them." --Neil Gaiman 05/02/04

What the Hell is this Site?

2005-11-29T14:34:00.000-08:00

This is my own personal homage to Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors. It is a book of quotations-that-never-will-be. The idea is a simple one. You know those little books that you can buy in the gift section of bookstores, with inspiring quotes from everyone from Confucious, John Lennon, to Pee Wee Herman and Osama Bin Laden? Well, this site is one dedictated (mostly) to Neil Gaiman, and the semi-interesting things that he has to say over on his blog, only in a sort of "high-lights" format. This way you don't have to sort through all the boring stuff about tomatoes, beards, cats, or airports to get to the real gems of wisdom. (Unless there are real gems of wisdom hidden in amongst the bits about tomatoes, beards, cats, or airports). The idea actually hit me because I own a copy of "The Quoteable Sandman" published by DC/Vertigo, and for a long, long while now, I've been "clipping" little quotes here and there from Neil's blog and pasting them up on my own computer desktop to inspire me in my own writing. So I thought I'd ask him permission to let me put a collection together and he laughed in a snide, english way (this is a lie) and told me to take a hike.

Actually he told me that I could do a site, and he'd link to it. There was no snide laughter that I can conclusively prove.

Now, here's the thing: This site will be, for the most part, dedicated to Neil Gaiman quotes of inspiration or oddity. But it will also include quotes that I collect from other writers, artists, and the like, that I can make even the loosest, and tenuos connection to Neil Gaiman with. Cool people. People you should listen to.

God knows, nobody'd listen to me on my own.