Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Sarah -- the Ventad swazzle is the kind of thing I meant, yes -- the
other swazzles were more the proper Punch and Judy ones. I wonder if
people still make them...

Dianna: I hate to say this, but it makes sense. The US edition comes
out on Tuesday. The UK edition -- a sort of soft-hardback -- comes out
on July 5th. This is unfair to the not-Americans but is actually
intentional because that way I can do a signing tour in the US and
follow it with one in the UK, and be in each land for publication date.
The Canadian pub date follows that.

The Australian copies are coming out from the UK to Australia, in big
boxes and, I guess, by sea. August 10th makes a horrid, cold sense.

On the other side -- well, I talked about that in the Blogger. If they
ask for me, they *may* get me. If they don't ask for me they
definitely won't get me.
  

    
Hey, y'all!

Dianna--brilliant idea.  If there's liquor involved someone can read
Being an Experiment....;-)

Dan--oooooh.  We may have very similar views on that old goat Paul.
"Obey your husbands" my foot!

Oh, JaNell, your Appalachian tales aren't boring!  Though they are
making me homesick......

I don't remember if I "got" the symbolism in Narnia as a kid or not. 
It certainly didn't come as a shock when I did get it.  I'm Irish.  I
think we expect everything to be in two worlds...

Speaking of which, DanGuy, you're starting to sound like my mad Mick
priest, who is obsessed with the liminal, good Irishman that he is.  It
is the most fun place to be, isn't it?

Mary (It is hotter than a Texas whorehouse on nickel night in here!) 
(Apologies to Shawn ;-)) 
  

    
E-mail from Jouni:

Neil - Thanks for the kind and wise words :-)

So the book'll be out soon and people who have been waiting for it for a
long time finally get their hands on it. Obviously there's great
expectations towards the book. How do you feel about it? Happy? Relieved?
Nervous?

DanGuy - Hey. That's good news. Kinda reminds me about a conversation me and
Piritta (my wife) had with a midwife (a true veteran) about calculated
birthdates and what happens if the baby is late. She looked at us, and said
very calmly: 'Oh, they'll come out. They'll all come out sooner or later...'

Walker - Loved the lizard story! Truly one of those
some-day-we'll-all-tell-jokes-and-laugh-about-this-if-we-survive moments.

Jouni (who will be 29 tomorrow and is going to get American Gods as a late
birthday present to himself)
  

    
Oooops, forgot to say--

Angelina--cool photos!

Jouni--Happy Birthday!!

Yuck, I used up another post....
Oh, well, hurray for the next topic!  And yay for Martha and Linda!
You guys rock! 
  

    
If there is religious symbolism in _The Silver Chair_, I think
it's more like an inverted criticism of Buddhism -- the Green Witch
trying to get the Narnians to accept the idea that all matter
is illusion and Puddleglum refusing to abandon his faith that
Narnia is real.

I don't remember if I mentioned this to you, before.  When I
was about 11 years old, I wrote to C.S. Lewis and urged him
to write more Narnia books -- since I wasn't really happy with
_The Last Battle_.   He wrote back to me and said "When the story
of Narnia has stopped telling itself to me in my head, I really
can't write any more about it.  Why don't you try writing a Narnia
story, yourself, if you really want to?"

I've always intended to take him up on that offer, and may yet
do so -- irrespective of whether it ever gets published.  My
opening scene is of Susan, reading the letter that tells her
the other Pevensies have been killed in a train wreck.  She
refuses to believe it and returns to Professor Kirk's house --
determined to dig up the old rings buried underneath the tree
and return to the Wood Between Worlds to see what's happening.
  

    
Martha -- That is an extraordinarily cute story.  I love Delany all
the more for it.

Neil -- Is the "Amazon.com sales rank" the number Holly looks at or is
that number something completely different?  It was at 61 when I
checked it this morning.  If that's the right number that I'm looking
at, apparently its star is rising quickly.
     Sounds like a plan.  Or, rather, THE PLAN. ^^

Walker -- Oh my goodness; it ate the cat?  And it knocked him out cold
with its tail?  Wow.

Kristin -- Thank you. ^^

Linda -- Why 2007?  Is it as lengthy and convoluted as the explanation
for why roads are the width that they are?
     Martha has all the luck. =9

Mary -- It really is, yes.  I experience all trips away from home as
liminal periods in which everything is brand new and somewhat slowed
down, which makes me a horrible travel companion as I get all
introspective and philosophical.

Jouni -- Exactly. ^^  This baby isn't about to give in to peer
pressure, it seems.

Lenny -- That's really wild.  I like that idea for a beginning.
  

    
p.s. to Neil -- I'm glad the Libretto L1 was as amazing and beautiful
as was hoped, and bummed about the screen conking out.  That's wild
that they recognized your name and agreed to Fed-Ex it to your house. 
Here's hoping that it was just a defective unit.
     I am eagerly awaiting the good news on Death.


Lori is cramping, spotting, contracting, &c so I'm likely on my way
back home in the very near future.  Here's hoping that it's the real
thing. ^_^
  

    
Sounds like "Congratulations" are in order, DanGuy! 

Stories- Well, I've been threatening to write up the weirdness that
happens around me for a while- but I need to get brave and submit a
children's poem/story/whatever that I've written first; actually, I
need to finish the illustrations, which I'm doing in manic pastels. 

So, Mary Roane, exactly where did you live up here?

Who all is going to Lexington? Roll-call time...
  

    
I almost forgot to blow Neil a VERY BIG RASPBERRY-

"Fine. Everybody and their mother has a copy of the book. People who
weren't even there know the restaurant story, and I can't even get a
clue, and me with one of the biggest mouths ever and therefore great
word of mouth advertising." 

Now I feel better. :)
  

    
GO LORI!  GO LORI!  GO LORI!
  

    
re:  "Good news on death"-- makes me see NY Times headline:
 
   "DEATH SHALL BE NO MORE; DEATH, THOU SHALT DIE"
                               ...more on page A14
  

    
JaNell -- <raises hand> and bringing two more from Michigan with me,
plus picking up one in Cincinnati.

As Neil said, they can get in trouble for selling it early, so they
didn't. But that won't stop me from continuing to try to buy it. :)
It's not surprising that the internet order places are sending them
out. I tend to order anxiously-anticipated DVDs from Buy.com because
they tend to arrive on Monday before the release, or in one case,
Saturday before. I'm terribly torn between ordering from Amazon.com and
buying it at Borders locally.

DanGuy - good luck today!
  

    
Oh, and before I forget...

Neil, I'm sure you're aware that your work is not immune to the
proliferation of internet file-sharing programs. I was, however,
somewhat surprised to locate a copy of the German edition of Neverwhere
("Niemalsland") in PDF format with a file-sharing program by the name
of Morpheus. Also several files from the audiobook of Neverwhere. Talk
about convergence.
  

    
JaNell - I'll be going to Lexington and will have my roommate and
Lurker Steve with me.

Dan - Good luck!

Jen.
  

    
Good luck Dan Guy!!

I preordered AG from Amazon a while ago and I hope it gets here soon.
There are few things better than a fresh book arriving in the mail. And
getting something written by Neil by post takes me back to the days
when I had a Sandman subscription.
  

    
Ahh!  Why is everyone going to Lexington?  Dayton is the place to be,
I tell you!!!

Dan--I'm so excited for you and your wife!  

Just thought I should let everyone know that American Gods is
currently at 59!  I have never been this excited about a book.  I'm
afraid that it is going to be devoured at a breathtaking rate like
Neil's "friend in the UK"...but I'll be sure to read it again, savoring
it and the such.

I considered ordering off Amazon, but recalling in recalling my last
purchase from them, I decided against it.  (I ordered a video about the
Nights Templar, and got a textbook on computer programing.  grr.)  I
think I'll just wait until I can get it from the store.

Okay, I must be off to work now.  I love the smell of chili in the
morning.  <gag>

Angelina.
  

    
Jouni. Happy Birthday.  How do I feel about American Gods coming out? 
Mostly, too busy to think and too stressed about the tour and getting
a fraction of everything done I have to get done before I leave to pay
it much attention.   As far as the book itself it concerned, I'm pretty
confident (hastily touches wood, rubs lucky rabbit's foot, sacrifices
a newt to Dagon and tries to remember the
"Hot-potato-orchestra-stalls..." routine from Blackadder 3 said when
The Scottish Play is mentioned...) -- I mean, it's as good as I could
make it , and it is what I wanted it to be. We'll have to see how it
does.

I'm not very good at the moment when things are actually done and out
though.  I wander around  sort of blankly , wondering why I'm not
excited.

Lenny -- you may be pushing it on the Silver Chair, as the witches
spell is very obviously a spell...  And yes, you should write your
book.

I was astonished -- having disliked the Last Battle since I was seven
(exactly seven -- I had Lion, Witch Wardrobe and dawn Treader when I
was 6, but got my parents to give me the boxed set for my 7th birthday,
went up to my bedroom and read the box...) --reading it to Maddy
earlier this year, to see what a badly-written and -constructed book it
was.  As a kid I'd disliked it, but, observing it had won the Newbury
or something, had always vaguely assumed I simply wasn't fitted with
Last Battle receptors.

And I happily stole from it when I needed to close the skerry at the
end of Game of You.

By the way, I downloaded the Equant program, but it  seems much more
complicated than the manual way of getting in you showed me...

Dan Guy -- it's the sales rank that Holly's been checking. I think 
we're a hair away from the top 50 right now.

Re: Libretto -- me too...

And I am keeping my fingers uncrossed for you and Lori. Good luck!

JaNell -- I am already relying on you to spread the word about
American Gods in the Knoxville area. In fact if anyone within a thirty
mile radius of  Knoxville hasn't heard of American Gods in about six
weeks time, I'll be enormously disappointed.

Bill -- sigh. And the trouble is, people are doing that kind of thing
out of respect and love.

Angelina -- I just brought it up on screen, and Holly came and told me
it was at 53... 
  

    

Dan Guy - Why 2007?  I don't know the answer, but expect that it is indeed
convoluted and full of mysterious technical wisdom peppered with
traditions of cultures long forgotten.
  

    
E-mail from violettumble:

'Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things ^Ö trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a great deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that^Òs a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We^Òre just babies making up a game, if you^Òre right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That^Òs why I^Òm going to stand by the play-world. I^Òm on Aslan^Òs side even if there is no Aslan to lead it. I^Òm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn^Òt any Narnia.'

See, i was worried about saying anything, but now Lenny said good things i can say what Puddleglum said.
Because it doesn't matter where people found their stories and what they want you to think. it doesn't matter because you get them in side your head. you can believe what you want to. if you get all caught up in one religion or other, it's sort of your own fault. And i don't see that any of the christian stuff has hurt anybody, it's so mixed up with everything else anyway. And the main thing is that it is somewhere that isn't horrible here.

hum.

And Neil. You shouldn't go to Birmingham when i have to go to school. It isn't polite.
  

    
I was just reading the posts this morning and thinking how lovely all
of you are and how happy I am to have found this place.

Angelina, oh my god!  I can't believe you cut off all that hair! 
Very, very brave.  It looks AMAZING.  I had long hair my whole life and
a few years ago cut it all off.  It looked great but I cried secretly
about it for months. I'm still trying to grow it back.

I think it's funny that you ordered stuff about Knights Templar and
got a computer programming video instead.  That just further confirms
the conspiracy theory.  Recently I ordered the Poussin painting "Les
Bergers d'Arcadie" (all part of that Knights Templar, Rennes Le Chateau
obsession) from Barewalls.com and received a painting of an ancient
theatre instead.  When I called them about the mistake, they sent me
another, which never arrived.  Upon asking a third time, I was told the
painting didn't exist and they weren't sure why it was on their
website.  RUUUHHHH?   So a few weeks later, this painting finally shows
up in the mail and it's about the size of my palm and impossible to
scrutinize without a magnifying glass.  CONSPIRACY, MAN!!!!

Danguy, I can't tell you how excited I am for you about this baby.  I
can't wait to hear the good news!

Neil, I wonder if you realize how massive Neil Gaiman as an entity is
going to become after the release of this book.  Now, when I say "my
favourite author is Neil Gaiman," Ms.
SnooblyPants-on-the-street-who-has-never-read-a-comic will know who I
mean, and she will agree. 

I have been suddenly presented with a request to direct Into the Woods
at my alma mater.  I don't know why, but I am terrified!!  

-Adriana
  

    
2007 because it adds up to 9, which is the number of endings, right?
  

    
Adriana-- Add more to the conspiracy-- this week I played around with
a cartoon of a bunch of arcadian shepherds happily eating waffles. 
Caption-- "ET IN ARCADIA EGGOS"
  

    
Neil--
I do not doubt for a second that you are 100% correct on the love
part. Respect, on the other hand, is in perilously short supply these
days.
The whole file-sharing phenomenon baffles me sometimes. Most of the
people doing the sharing would rather lop off their own hand rather
than lend it to their fellow man, yet they appear ready to trip over
themselves rushing to the cdrom drive to rip and disseminate the CD
they just blew $15 on.
  

    
Martha is the official interviewer? How cool!

Go Angelina! I did the bald thing once... VERY briefly. (Ok. It wasn't
totally bald, but it was so short it might as well have been. I looked
like a homely peach.)

Ohmygod, it IS next week! I can't wait for my copy to arrive!! (so
much for spending a lot of time with my script!!)

Mary - We just might at that. I tell you what... one of these days
I'll write my essay (book?) on Paul that's been rolling around in my
head for the last four years. I've got a *lot* to say on that
particular subject.

Lenny - I think you're close about the Silver Chair, but now that
Puddleglum's speech has been so kindly reproduced here, I'd have to say
it's more of a critique of athiesm... of the insistence that the world
has no Aslan. I think that writing stories about Narnia is a good
thing, it's the commercial exploitation that I have the problem with. I
think that writing stories about our favorite lands because we love
those lands and want to play in them is a beautiful thing.

Adriana - How exciting! I love Into the Woods, and I'm not overfond of
musicals. I'm sure you'll do a great job should you choose to accept
it.

Dan
  

    
Mary-- on comment #1927 HA!
Certainly no offense taken (great quote btw) but I will say that isn't
a statement to be made lightly. 

Last summer we had, I believe it was, 75 days in which the mercury hit
over 100 degrees. 

I think the highest was 112 or so. It's really quite sad how happy I
am that the temp's only hit 100 once so far this June. 

--Shawn, who envies Nanook...