Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

I just have to report that I finally succumbed and acquired Comet Cursors
where I noticed that they have, among many, many others, several sushi
cursors and a set of Princess Mononoke characters.

I selected the Sea Eel.
  

    
Erynn -- Little Blue World, I think.

Michelle -- I'm writing something for each of the girls. It'll
probably be longer in the version in the tour booklet, at a guess. 

Bill -- tell the truth, I didn't think it was going live for a couple
of days -- there are definitely many bugs to be worked out. Including,
I notice, getting the blogger pages to work properly -- they've not got
anything posted after June 10th, and have lost the archives.

(Nervously, i just went and checked, and everything's still there in
Blogger.)

julia.onder@harpercollins.com is the webmistress, and the person to
talk to.

Linda -- what a wonderful sort of message for 1976. I love the idea of
sushi cursors...

...

So, I'm not able to use the blogger for a few days, it looks like,
which is very frustrating -- if there ever was a time I hoped to have a
window for late-breaking news it was now.

The mail brought three Harry Stephen Keeler books: "The Case of the
transposed Legs" (which I already have), "The Man with the magic
eardrums" and "The Sharkskin Book, or By Third Degree" -- half-sized
print on demand books which I think I may take on tour with me...
  

    
so I checked and www.americangods.com/journal.html is still up and
running just fine. The version of the journal you get to from the home
page is the outdated one. The archives aren`t easily accessible but
they`re still there as well...
  

    
Michelle - in spite of constant mis-spellings, and weird
pronunciations, I LOVE my name. Actually, both first and last names. My
mom, who thought it up, loved it so much that both my brothers were
supposed to be me.

My husband said I "Squealed like a thirteen year old girl at a
Backstreet Boys concert" when I read that it was in there, so I hit
him. Ha.

Did any of you get to attend the excite thing with Neil tonight? I
kept getting bumped off..
  

    
JaNell--
Yep, I got in, even got a question posted. But I didn't win a book.
Damn. Well, I'll have my personally signed copy in about a week anyhow.
Now to determine which older books I'll also be bringing along.

Neil--
When is the NPR interview to be aired? I listen to NPR on my way
to/from work, but that only comprises about 30 minutes of my whole day.
I'd like to be tuned in.
  

    
Bill... check http://www.wcpn.org/ - I think the station may be web
accessible... we'll see next week if I get to do any national NPR
shows.
  

    
Bill -- there are also links to webmasters etc from the MESSAGES
section. 
  

    
Wow! This is so exciting:) Neil, I swear, cool things are always
happening to you, or around you:) I can't wait until the 19th and 24th!
yeeeeeehaaah!

Michelle- Yeah, my cousin worked for Disney for one summer and hated
it. Most of the stories she had were not good ones at all. I had no
idea that they weren't entitled to clean underwear though. Ewww.
Horrible.
  

    
Of course cool things happen to Neil! He has us, doesn't he? ;)
  

    
Heh... didn't have my eye on the ball. We're something like 24 responses
away from the maximum allowed in a topic. I'm going to set one up for the
'gang of 104,' after which I'll freeze this one.

There's another Neil topic coming up June 29 focusing on _American Gods_,
so we'll actually have two topics running: the one I set up today for this
mini-community that as formed, and another for the more focused AG
discussion.

Rock on!
  

    
Neil and Holly - Congrats. American Gods has now reached 97 on Amazon.
You should be incredibly proud.

:-)

Jade Walker
  

    
Wow, how exciting.
  

    
Given the spirit of the countdown and all, <castle> suggested we should
wait 'til you guys have reached the end of the topic! So keep
posting here... when this topic's full, we'll launch the new one!
  

    
Jade -- I think it got up to 51 at its highest -- I'm hoping that when
it actually comes out it'll take another lurch upward. Of course, I'll
be on tour, and Holly will be at Student Council Camp so we may never
know.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380973650 has Therese
Littleton's review. She is a smart cookie and a Gene Wolfe fan, and as
a good a reviewer as you'll find, so I was thrilled she liked it. (No,
amazon.com reviews are not puff pieces.)

The neilgaiman.com message board is having a few problems -- it should
be working by Monday morning though.

I've got less than 24 hours left at home, and time is tighter than
you'd believe. Got to phone Tori and let her know the photos didn't
come yet, print out stuff for the Magnetic Fields gig, HOPE that the
guy turns up to fit the two-way satellite link for the house (they're
now a week late -- frustrating as the main reason for having it
installed was to be able to squirt big neilgaiman.com files to
harpercollins). Get everything done...

I'll miss the garden, the family, and reading to Maddy every night.
Recently she decided that she just wanted me to read her Warlock at the
Wheel,  Diana Wynne Jones's short story. Each night. She now does the
voice of the little girl and the car...
  

    

Neil, do you not bring your family with you when you travel?

So, as Jon said, the countdown has begun.  We've started a new topic and
retired it (which means that it's lying around somewhere inaccessible to
most people, and those of you who are old WELL geeks, please restrain
yourselves!) so that we can immediately put it into action when this topic
fills up.

If you are the lucky soul who tries to post only to be told the topic is
full, please send e-mail to inkwell-hosts@well.com and we will immediately
dust off the new one for you.

So, how many more to go??
  

    
Neil--
Best of luck on the beginning of the tour, and see you, with books and
friends in tow, in Lexington. Now to figure out which older books to
bring along. Perhaps the BBC Neverwhere...
Bill^2, missed his birthyear post, but bagged the HS graduation
  

    
Sooo....I went to make sure a copy of American Gods would get held for
me at my local Borders (which was made a great deal easier by whoever
it was on here that said it was in the computer under "Amer
Gods"...Thank you!).  The guy at the counter's face lit up when I told
him what book I wanted and he said "I just finished reading the preview
copy.  It was fantastic...I would have just given my copy to you, but
I gave it to my girlfriend about half an hour ago."  AHHHHHH!  Why oh
why do I not work at Borders?

Neil--Something for EACH of the girls?  My goodness, I can't wait.  
  

    
Linda -- bringing the family on a tour like this would a) turn
something difficult and exhausting at the best of times into something
approaching the logitstical complexity of the  D-day landings , b)
probably  violate various laws about cruelty to children, not to
mention wives and cats.

Also if I did, they'd never see me... I'm either being interviewed or
signing.

No, they stay home and have a good time and get enough sleep.

The two way satellite installers cancelled. Meanwhile I need to
install compuserve 4.02  on the libretto (for Windows 2000, which means
lots of sighing and scripts and configuring again).

And it seemes perfectly appropriate that the Countdown to American
Gods topic finishes the day before I start on the tour. 

Angelina -- yes.  I can't wait to see them.
  

    
By the way, Amazon has just put up a rather nice SANDMAN page at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/19392/104-3236808-1255949
  

    
I love the new American Gods sight. Was just having fun with the
quicktime movies.

Neil- good luck on the tour. See you soon:) (and by the way, I think
you look gorgeous with long hair)

I heard that the manager of the Borders here was fired (finally) after
recieving many complaints (including about a hundred that I made)
Yeah!

So the new topic is going to be called "gang of 104"? Cool. I hope to
see everyone there:)
Cheerio!
  

    
I'm off to the 11th St. Espresso House, so 'bye, topic. See y'all at
104...
  

    

No, silly, *this* is 104!

The new topic is:

Topic 115 [inkwell.vue]:  The Mob from 104: well.fans.neilgaiman!

So, meet us in 115!

My SO and I are off to the movies.  Nothing I'm excited about seeing - he
wants Pearl Harbor and I don't, so we compromised at Moulin Rouge, even
though I really want to see Atlantis.  What that means is, you may get to
2007 responses while I am out.

So, I'm going to let you in on a secret, but you have to promise not to do
this until this topic is absolutely full:  you can go to topic 115 before
we unretire it by typing s 115 in your shortcut box or at the OK prompt if
you are not using the Web interface.  If you don't have an OK prompt, you
have a shortcut box.

No cheating!  And I will know because all of the posts are time-stamped!

See you when I get home.  %^)
  

    
It can also be located at:
http://engaged.well.com/engaged/engaged.cgi?c=inkwell.vue&f=0&t=115 for
those who are "just visiting".
  

    
Hey all, just posting a pointless post before this topic closes, and
also snagging my graduation year.  (well, I was before bill jumped in)
:-)

Jen
  

    
O.K., I'll snag this year, when AG came out!

Neil--be safe, try to rest and *have a good time!*  I know it's not
all fun, but hopefully you'll get to see some friends & get taken to
good places to eat.

Excited about 115.  See y'all there!

Mary (who got a new perm & new contacts today--I feel like *me*
again!)