Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Oh, well, you have a point.

My ink cartridge nozzle was clogged, it appears, but I think it's got
unclogged now.
  

    
Neil, it has been mentioned to me that you have written a few plays,
is this true?  
  

    
Amanda -- nope. A number of things have been adapted into plays, but
none of them by me (or to my satisfaction).
  

    
You've got to do it yourself to have it done to your satisfaction.

In your copious free time.
  

    
Is it an area you would like to dabble in?

Oh yeah, how do you feel about Alan Moore's 'The Birth Caul' differs
as a comic rather than the performance? I really enjoyed the comic but
I was wondering how how it felt as an audience member. (I am guessing
that you were there :P)
  

    
Neil, how's the convention going so far? (Neil is Guest of Honor at
Convergence, in St. Paul, Minnesota, this weekend.)  The panel "West writes
about East" looked interesting; alas, I was stuck in d/u/r/a/n/c/e/ v/i/l/e/
the dealers' room all day. What transpired?
  

    
Amanda -- yes, when I get time.

I never saw the Birth Caul -- heard the CD, then read the comic. I was
in the US when it was performed.


Elise -- they are very nice people but I'm pretty fried. Today was
panel, then lunch, then 90 minute panel forllowed by 90 minute reading
followed by 90 minute signing, followed by brain dead author going up
to his room and finding himself without the intellectual capacity to
read a book....
  

    
They're working you too hard!  It's not as bad as a con Greg Cox described
where he was toastmaster and they had him doing like half a dozen things
every day, but it's still too, too much.
  

    
Today is just a panel and a signing, so it should be bearable.
Yesterday was a total of 6 hours in front of an audience, which was a
bit much -- I felt a bit drained by the end of the final signing.

The bit I wrote for Amazon (on the 3rd)  about American Gods and 
when it will be published has so far not showed up. I wonder how long
it will take to appear.
  

    
So do you win a 'Most Valiant' award if you manage to stay on your
feet? Or are they just assuming you share a few similarities with you
poor tortured character of Able? ie. he may be mince meat but give him
a few panels and he'll pull himself together. (sorry about the pun:P).

So what was it you were trying to read?
  

    
How was the Flash Girls reunion show?  Good, I hope.  Wish I could've been
there.  Surely hope you weren't so booked up that you couldn't be there .
. . 
  

    
Amanda -- I read a couple of the short stories that are part of the
fabric of the novel AMERICAN GODS. (Of which I wrote about 10 pages
today, wahoo!)

Laurel -- it was a delight. Speaking as the writer of the song in
question, I found myself peculiarly thrilled to see that PERSONAL
THING, one of the new songs, is capable of causing people to break down
and cry. I knew it worked, but didn't know it worked that well.


The new CD -- PLAY EACH MORNING WILD QUEEN is, on the basis of Emma's
finished guitar & vocals, Lorraine's scratch track vocals and fiddle,
and Robin's finished percussion, easily their best album so far. It
sounds more like THEY do than MAURICE & I does -- that almost
crystalline symplicity.

They do ALL_PURPOSE FOLKSONG, which made me happy, too.
  

    
And the thing I wrote for Amazon.com on American Gods still isn't up
yet. How odd.
  

    
That is odd.  Maybe they don't believe it's really you?  Or, I suppose,
they're really backlogged.
 
Yay! re the Flash Girls show and album.  The Flash Girls list has been far
too quiet, I'd been dying to hear *something* about how things went
. . . so thanks.  Eager to hear the new songs and to hear old faves like
All Purpose Folk Song!  Whee!
 
  

    
I saw you on Sunday, heading out to what was presumably a late breakfast or
an early lunch; I was coming into the hotel for the opening of the dealers
room with Moe, the beadmaking lady. Looked like Will and Emma were in the
pack, too -- unless that was another time you zoomed by, and I've gotten
them mixed up.

Am looking forward to the new CD intensely, but did no get to hear them (for
more than a song or two -- I heard the one about the poisoned tea, as I was
going yon, and caught the final verse on the way back hither) in concert at
the convention, alas. Emma ducked into the dealers room afterwards and said
that she showed the crowd her new necklace, which tickled me; did Lorraine
show you "Three Souls and  Riddle" yet? (Emma took hers as an Artist's
Challenge piece, which means something will get written. Her necklace is
called "The Buddha in Ireland." Bet it'll be a song.) Am very curious about
PERSONAL THING, and will procure the CD as soon as it's real. (Gonna do a CD
release thing at Dreamhaven, maybe?)

Amazon.com works in mysterious ways, they say.

By the way, "Three Souls and a Riddle" was built after watching the movie
"Rouge" -- thanks again for lending it to Mike and me. (That's why I've been
so anxious for you to see it, and why I was so glad that Lorraine got it,
since then I knew you would see it, since in a roundabout way you are the
source of the thing. Midwife, at least. Or something like that.)

Your youngest offspring is growing at a pace that makes me think of time-
lapse photography and my own aging process. I hope those are serious
pumpkins, is all I can say. She obtained from my table a purple satin ribbon
with a mysterious blue bead on it, and agreed to try to figure out what sort
of magic it was. If anything stranger than usual materializes, you might ask
whether she's had any luck with it yet.
  

    
(the lovely and talented Laurel Krahn slipt.)
  

    
Laurel -- it is an Amazon.com mystery -- I e-mailed Therese Littleton
asking her if she can sort it out.

let's see what else I can tell you about the Flash Girls album...
well, it's named after some magnetic poetry. Anne Bobby (of Cop Rock,
Nightbreed and a few other things fame) does backing ghost-waltz vocals
on Personal Thing which is a weird sort of collaborative song -- I
wrote it when I was 17, but rewrote the lyrics about 6 months ago as I
realised that a lot of the words were sort of trite and a lot of the
rhymes were sort of approximate, and I'm pickier now.


Elise -- sounds about right. "THree Souls" is lovely -- and I'm so
pleased you liked Rouge. One of the really good films.

maddy grows and grows and it almost scares me...

Went out to the cabin today to work, but it was 90 degrees and i was
cooking more than i was writing, so I came home, and only got 4 pages
written. Sigh.

Off to NEcon tomorrow for a few days.
  

    
If the Well's <grifter> still worked at Amazon, he could sort it out for
you.
  

    

This is true, but it would mostly involve telling Therese. *grin*

It's probably backlog, although there's a slim possibility that the
people in charge of updating the author comments database didn't
believe it was really Neil. Which would add him to an illustrious
roster including Stephen King and Steve Martin. God, on the other
hand, had no problem getting his author comments up for the Bible.
  

    

Whoa!  Sorry I missed that!
  

    

Anne Bobby!  The universe continues to shrink.  
  

    
Ron - I'm sure that Therese will sort it out (fingers crossed).

Scraps -- it does? There are only 500 real people in the universe and
they all know each other. Once you know that it all becomes easy.

...

NECON was fun, in a nightmarish 200 people in a holiday camp sort of
way. Home again now.
  

    
Do you get to stay home for a bit now?
  

    
But I don't know most of the people you know, Neil.  I think you made them
up.
  

    
I hope your right Martha...It would help me sleep easier...