Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Wow.  At least you get your evenings free.  I hope.
  

    

That was a good interview, I agree.
I just want to say that it's fascinating hearing how you describe the
process of writing your book. (You know, I ended that sentence with both
",Neil" and ",Mr Gaiman" and both sound equally awkward in different ways.
So it goes. What do you prefer, in this forum?) It actually reminds me, more
than anything else, to how I sometimes describe the role playing campaigns
I run. Especially the war bit.
In any case, I love windows into the creative process, and for this I am
thankful for the WELL in general and this topic in one particular. Thanks
for sticking around and sharing.
  

    
Ooh, ooh, I know the answer!  He's gonna ask you to call him Neil.
  

    
hah! After only three hours of intensive hunting, downloading,
building script files, etc, I think I've now got it so I can get on
line through Oslo and Helsinki using compserve and Dial-up Networking.
Trala.

Madman -- that was scary. Martha read my mind. Neil sounds about
right.
  

    

In that case, Neil, here's what I recommend for getting online no matter
where you travel.  

Find out if your ISP offers global roaming.  If it doesn't, go to
www.gric.com and look for an ISP near you that does.  Get an account with
said ISP and sign up for roaming.  Then, download the GRICdialer from the
Web site and install it on your laptop.  Whenever you travel, open the
built-in phone book, enter the country, or city, or state, or area code,
or country or city code and find a local ISP.  Dial in to the local ISP
using your normal login plus the domain name (like neil@well.com).  The @
will let the local ISP know that you are a roaming customer, will direct
your login and password to your home ISP and there you are.  With an
Internet connection, able to check your e-mail, launch Internet Explorer,
whatever.  And no long distance charges.

Why yes, I do work for GRIC.  Why do you ask?  %^)
  

    

Slipped by Mr. Gaiman himself!
  

    
That's useful information.  I'll try to figure out if my ISP does that.
  

    
More and more of 'em do, it's pretty cool.

Glad the NT laptop is being more cooperative.

(Hey Neil-- you know you can always send me your net/computer/web
questions, yes?  Or call me.  Lorraine should have my contact info, if not
you or she can bug me at laurel@windowseat.org or lakrahn@well.com).
  

    
I was going to send instructions for logging into Compuserve
by dial-up networking this afternoon.  Glad it worked out.
  

    
Another question for Neil: Of all the myriad licensed characters and
settings out there, which ones do you wish you could get your hands on?
 This is a fantasy question, of course, you sound like you've got
projects enough to keep you busy, but _if_ you were in need of a nice
juicy project and were offered one character (or whatever) by the Magic
Licensing Fairy, guaranteed creative control and no lawsuits, what
would you pick?
  

    

Ooh. Good question.
  

    
In re 346:  I enjoyed the special "Five Doctors" episode of
Dr. Who, in which Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee trade
affectionate insults.  "Flashy pants."  "Scarecrow."  That
one also has the Brigadier in a significant role.  
(William Hartnell was dead by that time, but they got
a reasonable look-alike to play Doctor #1.)
  

    


A web reader writes:


Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000 19:46:00 +1000
From: Reg <reg@acepia.net.au>
X-Accept-Language: en
To: inkwell-hosts@well.com
Subject: Yet More Questions For Neil Gaiman

In regard to #346, I'm intrigued with what direction you would have
taken Dr Who in. (Almost as intrigued as I am about what the late and
sadly missed Dennis Potter would have done if his rumoured involvement
had come to fruition.) Would you have been more inclined towards the
darker, more gothic horror tinged style of the mid-seventies or the
tongue-in-cheek style Douglas Adams chose? (I doubt you would have gone
for the sheer bloody dullness of the early eighties.)

I can understand your disinterest in being involved in the Virgin books.
I never felt they captured the essence of the series, (even apart from
the fact that being freed from budgetary constraints meant that not
every alien planet had to look like a gravel quarry and have miles and
miles of corridors,) and I think they took the whole, "let's really make
the Doctor strange and alien" concept to the extreme where one could no
longer even like the character.

A couple of other things. I am fascinated by the paralells between the
character of Morpheus in Sandman and John Brunner's Traveller in Black.
Leaving aside sartorial tastes, the notion of the character with "many
names but only one nature", (and I don't think I'm going to win any
prizes for original literary thought by suggesting that Morpheus'
tragedy is his inability to change his nature,) the role of the two
characters as, in Morpheus' case the beginning of stories and in the
Traveller's case, essentially an end to stories, and the very dreamlike
settings of Brunner's stories are al very reminiscent of Sandman, so I
was wondering whether you had taken any inspiration from them.

Finally, my flatmate says to say hello. His name is Shane Morrissey and
he was fan guest of honour at a convention you were at in Adelaide in
the early nineties. You gave him a printout of "Chivalry" which you had
just witten at the time. He was wondering if you'd come up with a better
technique for judging costume contests than his "flipping a coin"
method.

Reg(who does indeed have too little to do)
  

    
Linda -- thanks for the helpful advice. The internationalness of
compuserve is why I've stuck with it over the years -- well, that and
the effort involved in changing addresses. But it's mostly the
internationalness.

But the tip is v. useful...

(Not sure why Windows NT and Compuserve 4 don't get along).

Laurel and Lenny -- also thanks for the advice.

Streak -- none, really, I'm afraid. I'd rather make up my own. 

lenny -- it was okay, although I preferred The Three Doctors, the
original, in which an elderly Hartnell (I think, not the lookalike) is
in limbo as he's not up to acting.

Reg -- I remember Shane! Say hi from me.

Dr Who? Neither. I would have gone from the Troughton/Hartnell period
-- definitely neither tongue in cheek nor gothic. More weird, slightly
paranoid SF, scary, funny. (I have no idea what they were actually
like, never having seen them as an adult, but stories like Web of Fear
(Yetis in the Undergound) and War Game (renegade Time Lord kidnaps
people from every corner of time and has them fight endless battle)
would be my starting point. 

Traveller in Black and MOrpheus? Hmm. I've never noticed that one
myself == although I always felt that the T in B was the literary
grandfather of the Phantom Stranger, and the Stranger is certainly one
of the ingredients that went into MOrpheus. (Not consciously -- I only
realised it when I broght the stranger on for his big scene at the
start of Sandman 24, and discovered they had the same speech patterns
and ways of conveying information.)

And My "u" key on the keyboard is falling off. Argh.
  

    
Went to Munch museum, which was interesting, and to the Emmanuel
Vigeland museum/tomb which was quite extraordinary, a huge tomb to
himself, dark and echoing, the walls painted with women, babies,
couples having sex, and many skeletons and skulls, all life size. The
roof is about 60 feet high, and the acoustics are like something from a
good 70s horror movie, a strange, reverberating susurrus. Also signed
200 hardbacks.

Yesterday I ate norwegian sushi.

Do you know how hard it is to type sushi and susurrus with your U key
falling off?
  

    
Okay - a question for any helpfl techie people. I've a 1999 Dell
Latitde notebook.

The u key is loose. (No longer attached bt still sitting in its spot
on the keyboard. No idea how it got that way -- travel I sppose) Is
there any web page or description of a what a ham-handed writer in a
foreign land with no tools at his disposal can do to puut it back on
properly?
  

    
Not to mention Munch.

The tomb museum sounds amazing.
  

    
The tomb/museum was amazing -- I enjoyed how long it took to get your
eyes to the point where you could see everything, and I loved the 45
second echo...

No keyboard-fixing suggestions  for the recalcitrant U, then?

My hotel actally has a computer bilt in, and I was thinking of
nplugging the keyboard and plugging it into this thing. & who knows I
jst might.

(insert u's as needed in the above)
  

    
That might be the best solution, till you can take it in for
repairs -- or else buy a PS/2 keyboard at a local computer store
to plug in for the interim.   
  
Sometimes a key falls off on
a laptop because the little plastic thing on the underside
of the key has gotten chipped.  You may be able to snap the key back
on by putting it in the right position and pushing, or you may
have lost the little rubber funnel thing that lets the key whoosh
against the underside contact.  On Gateways, it's easy to order a new
keyboard and install it yourself.  I'm not sure about the
Latitude CPis, but if you go to the support.dell.com website and
type in the Service Tag number, you may be able to learn a bit
more.  The service tag number is usually displayed on the hardware setup
screen that you get to by pressing Fn-F1 or Fn-F2.
  

    
LOL!! Sorry to here about your 'u' situation.  It could make the last
half of your book a bit difficult to read....
  

    
        "What I don't understand is why Paul changes his name to Fred
halfway through the book.  It seems out of character."
  

    
So right now Iæm typing on the keyboard that comes with the computer
that comes with the room... which is fine ø except when they put
norwegian characters where I donæt expect them, but at least gives me
my full quota of Uæs even if I really meant to type U's. 

For the first time in five years I left home without floppy disks in
the computer case )where did they go_ I wonder= and now that I could
type on this and transfer to floppy itæs not that easy... probably
simple to write on here and upload, <I suppose, but Iæm only here for
another day and a half.

Doing a surprise Reading tonight )well, it was a surprise to me= but
managed to print out some of the novel anyway. Interesting 00 this
computer is so idiot proof that you cannot do anything once youæve made
a mistake except turn the whole thing off...

Lots of nice people did interviews today. It was fun. And the
signingæs tomorrow...
  

    
Thanks, Lenny ++ Iæm at the Dell site now. FIngers crossed for me.
  

    
i sent them an e-mail. I hope they'll reply.

n

who is working out where the keys  are on this thing now. øæ¤
  

    

Punctuation; is? fun!