Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
(Hey, y'all, this guy might be much more fun to play with any way...)

I was just wimpering from having such an obvious Neil jones... I do
like writers, though, which works out well because I'm the programming
director of ConCat, in Knoxville, TN; and am very proud to have been at
the dinner that inspired the one line about Knoxville in AG.

So, if you're not too busy this Thanksgiving weekend, and you really
are a writer, wanna come be an "Also Attending" at ConCat? You have to
make your own way, but you'll get in free and we'll give you a
reading/signing/panel if you let me know in time...

Martha, you're invited, too...

And of course Neil...
  

    
No, no, JaNell should be made to whimper, and, gosh, even grovel, else
she'll run roughshod right over you.  I'd hate to see your face
trompled into the mud, so I'll just give you a friendly warning.  

"John M. Ford is a genius, I think."  --Neil Gaiman, intro to "Chain
Home, Low," which by the way, Mr. Ford, I thought was one of the best
in the book.  Also one of the creepiest, in a sneaky and foglike way,
twisting itself into weird shapes every time I blinked.  Yet another
set of reasons why you need JaNell Protection.  Even if you are in a
crumbling writer's tower, hundreds of miles from the both of us.  This
is important.  Don't turn your back.  She only looks harmless.  Just
like a ladybug...
But that's another topic.  
  

    
OK, that confirms the major source of my fears and depression today.
  

    
What, the ladybugs?  You can't mean ME??
  

    
No, not you - ME!
  

    
Oh dear, I don't know that self-scourging is the answer (although I'm
sure that some of you, Dear Readers, are bound to enjoy that sort of
thing), here.  Perhaps you should ask your little voice what to do.
  

    
So that's why you've been talking about groveling, whimpering, and
flagellation...
I wondered.
  

    <scribbled>
  

    
Ouch!  Your little voice is *mean*...
  

    
And *you* were the whimpering one, and I never even mentioned
flagellation.  Never.  Not even secretly.
  

    
"...Your little voice is *mean*..."

When needed, yes.;>
  

    
JaNell - (700) That's okay, I think I make up for it by belonging to a
few categories.

DanW - But I *am* a scary stalker. Neil told me he was afraid of me
once. ;)

Burning Man - It's like describing Yosemite. You don't touch the
surface until you go. And every one who goes has a totally different
view of it. But the most generic summary is this. Take a dusty barren
desert, build a city (pop: 25,000) on it for a week, express
yourselves, burn things, remove city, remove all evidence that it ever
existed.

squeaks, who really is scary, but doesn't remember if she's stalking
or not this week...
  

    
Will--just wanted to say--I bought the PAL of Neverwhere (twice--the
first one was stolen) and had a dub made for $10 a tape here (Chicago).
 They play beautifully, and Neil (hopefully) got something out of it. 
I'd buy soon, though.  When I was in London 2 years ago, the guy at
the BBC store said it was about to go out of print. 

Did you get "Circle"?  Is it good?

Mary (reading "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed")
  

    
Email from Kathy Li:

JaNell -- if you wanna kill two birds with one stone (Neil-completism and
finding out about John M. Ford's writing), I'd recommend finding a copy of
FROM THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, where Neil's intro calls Mike "a
writer's writer." It's one of the best-loved books in my library.

Mike -- I've been spacing out the first reads of the pieces in FROM THE
END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, because I don't wanna eat it all up. [I'm
caught between that and the horrid thought that I'll have left some of it
unread before I die.  Wonderful dilemma.] Just wanted to say thanks for
the riches.  My last ration was "The Lost Dialogues" and I think I read it
five times in a row, I loved it so much.  Write lots more stuff, please.

Neil -- I'm back from San Diego Comic-Con, and thought I should tell you
that I told Ivy McCloud a Neil-story-with-Harlan-Ellison-in-it and she
reciprocated by telling me a Harlan-Ellison-story-with-Neil-in-it.  She
was particularly proud that you only featured peripherally. :-)  Also
wanted to say, apropos of the Parker 51: it's lighter to reduce writing
fatigue.

--Kathy
  

    
Email from michaela:

gosh ok, golly - yes .. but WHERE does a word like "yclept" come from?
what does it mean? who thought it up? (whenever you think you know a few
of these quaint expressions a bunch of new ones comes tugging at your
sleeve)

burning man sounds really interesting. too bad it's so far away. *sigh*

will - what was that about the "aenima" cd? tool? are they german? never
heard of them before.

michaela
  

    
Whoa!  John Ford is here!  Damn, the Well just attracts the most
creative and talented people.  Welcome!

Mary- I've been looking for Circle, but have had no luck finding it. 
I did see it live, though.  Besides fifteen minutes there, smack in the
middle, in which he had to backtrack because, well, because the lights
were bright-hot on him and he had to step off to cool down, the show
was fantastic.  He did a bit about Darth Vader, on the Death Star, that
I couldn't stop crying through.  I have the others, though.

Danguy- thanks.  And, well, I'd like to read the story.  Always
looking for new reading material.  And about being jealous; you know, I
see where you're coming from, but *I* wouldn't want the job.  The
source is just some of the most brilliant stuff ever put into comics,
and I'd just become a nervous wreck.

Michaela- Tool is an American band, fronted by Maynard James Keenan,
who also has a side project called A Perfect Circle.  The only reason
the two bands sound even somewhat similar is that Maynard is the lead
singer; Tool is harder, and you might say experimental... it changes
beat-times, and the songs are like logical progressions.  A Perfect
Circle is a bit more mellow, I think, and more radio-friendly.  On
AENIMA, there is a bit that sounds a lot like a Nazi Rally.  It's all
German, and people are cheering, and the speaker sounds more than
disconcertingly like Hitler.  If you listen, though, and know German,
you find that the crowd is getting all riled up over a recipe for
chocolate cake.

Michelle- Kinda makes me wonder what other things scare Neil; I have a
hard time believing you're scary.  Sorry.

All- Darnit, now I want to go to Burning Man.  Sounds almost like the
real life equivalent of the Well.  Only shorter.
  

    
Michelle - what worries me is *which* categories, and besides, I like
to be in one all by myself, and just visit...

Kathy Li - But I like talking to Neil, I don't actually read his
stuff.

Michelle, again - I don't know if I frighten Neil, but I did make him
stutter on a BBC broadcast while he was in England...
;>
  

    
JaNell (msg 700) actually I was just paraphrasing to him the Telegraph
intro. But surely, as someone who is program director of an SF Con,
you'd come under the heading of SF Fan?  (And claiming you read no SF
and are not a fan is no defense. Most of the SF fans who run
conventions do not read SF either.)

Abbe -- I don't think STARDUST is a children's book, but it got an
award from the Young Adult branch of the ALA. I"m not sure who put
their list together for them, but assume any list hat says GHASTLY
BEYOND BELIEF was a novel is having problems.

Abbe -- I hope that Toriamos.com is just going to have access to the
stuff that Tori and I did on camera in London a few weeks ago...

Steve Brust moved to Las Vegas, just as Will&Emma moved to LA. Sooner
or later the winters get to everyone. Eventually it'll just be me and
Mike Ford left, unless I move to Borneo or somewhere.

But, yes, the informal parties in living rooms happen -- more so when
Will&Emma were around...

Will, I said Venn Diagram, but Zen Diagram is much cooler. (Imagines
intersecting circles labelled One Hand Clapping and Sound)

Kelly -- I think that the answer to your question can be found here - 
http://www.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/07/30/gaiman/index.html

John M Ford -- yay! Mike's here! Now we shall have an informal party.

Blythe -- I'm not sure my webmaster is speaking to me these days. (Not
that they're mad at me -- I suspect their plates are full or
something.)  I can try...

your best bet is just to send a note to julia.onder@harpercollins.com
asking for her to ask authorsontheweb to put up a link.


Rebecca -- isn't that a good story? THE SANDMAN BOOK OF DREAMS is
coming out in mass market paperback at the end of the year. (Ed
Kramer's name as coeditor has got smaller, which makes it look to the
cognoscenti as if he did most of the work, which was not in fact the
case.)

Dan -- Michelle is indeed a scary stalker.

Mary -- I don't actually get anything from the BBC Neverwhere, but I
don't like the idea of the thriving trade in bootlegs which means that
no-one gets anything from it, not even the BBC, who at least funded the
show.

kathy -- I love the idea of you and Ivy trading stories.

Michaela -- Yclept means 'named' or called' and is Anglo-Saxon. It's
considered archaic except ina  humourous context, in which case it is
considered compulsory.

Will -- and why do I keep thinking of the Peter Sellers Nazi Rally
cover of the Beatles "She Loves You" (Ja? Ja! JA!)
  

    
JaZilla -- I didn't stutter. I merely hesitated, when asked by a
british DJ on the air if I knew you, as they'd received an e-mail from
you, and picked my words with care.
  

    
Neil- Uh-huh. Sure.

Re: Your Tori stuff:
(From the newsletter)
"Audio from Strange Little Girls
In the coming weeks we will be introducing a new character that Tori
portrays on Strange Little Girls including video interviews of each
character and essays by author and good friend of Tori, Neil Gaiman..."

There was an MP3 of "strange Little Girls" attached, 'cause they're
not as cinchy as *some* people...

And I'm totally jealous of your comment to Kathy; you never seem very
interested in my stories...
  

    
Neil - Are you serious about signings in the South?... but I want to
come with, phooey on Gwenda, nice as she is...
  

    
Woo! John M. Ford is here. Yay. 

BTW, I am going to the evil that is Gencon (in Milwaukee, WI this
weekend) where I can promise you I will see at least 10 girls dressed
up like Death and maybe one or two as Delerium. 

Anyone else going?
  

    
     Kathy -- thank you.  When the Next Novel is published (which,
since it's far from finished, won't be for some time), there should be
a collection on its coattails.  There was a certain amount of friendly
negotiation between NESFA and Beth Meacham as to Which Stories they Got
to Use.

>> [...]the Well just attracts the most creative and talented people.
     Leading inevitably to people like me, looking for their change in
the sofa cushions.
     But the sentiment is appreciated.  (Trying to avoid saying "thank
you" too many times in succession.  Same thought, though.)

     Neil -- party good.  Polishing chapter.  Party necessary.

     Rani -- viewed in long hindsight (the first GenSnore I went to
was over 25 years ago, when it was held in a ten-foot-square room at
the end of a long dark corridor lined with gelatinous -- uh, never
mind), the presence of -any- female human beings there is The
Millennium.
     Actually, I'd like to attend -- several friends I rarely see will
be there, and it's "only" eight hours down the road -- but Not Gonna
Happen. 

     
  

    
Neil- before I forget again, two things; first of all, thanks for the
poems at the Magnetic Fields concert.  I got chills when I realized you
were doing "Blueberry Girl," (it's a beautiful thing, by the way), and
I thought of something; you mentioned doing it as a poster for the
cbldf... what about doing a single, and having Tori put music to it? 
Just a thought...
The other; is "Instructions" published anywhere?  Is there any way I
can get a copy of it?  I *LOVED* that poem.  Just terrific.  Made me
feel like a kid again.
Oh, and I also have a copy of a picture of you with Claudia, if you
want one.
  

    
I'd love to hear Blueberry Girl too, but...