Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Yes--it: is.
  

    
Darrien Addison writes:

**
Firstly, thanks to Shira for posting this to alt.fan.thingie,
otherwise I never would known...

Of course, the second thank you goes to Neil for posting here.  So, of
course, I'm going to be rude and ask questions.  At least I'll try to
keep them in order...

#81 - Snow, Glass, Apples
The copy I have of this says it's 5,000 words long.  Are there two
copies and I just have the edited version?

#114 - Regular jobs
Don't.  Ugh.  I suppose, ultimately, it's all about doing something
you love to do, for a company that doesn't make your life hell.  And I
just know very few people who fit that category.  Working for your
muse, whether writing, singing, drawing, almost anything that involves
*creating*, just seems to make people much, much happier.

#120 - Trapping groundhogs
Was this practice, in some way, the basis for "Mouse"?  It made me
think of it since I'd been reading the story the other night before
going to sleep (and provoking some rather vivid and weird dreams),
which in turn reminded me of a rant a friend of mine went on suggesting
the tale was about being Pro-life. I didn't agree with her, but
thought I'd ask you: is it?

#139 - Questions
Nope, I only vaguely recall Hiawatha (in the incorrect version of
events); but then I'm English, so it may be more of a concern for
people on That Side Of The Atlantic.

#223/234/238/242 - Amazon note
Still hasn't appeared, which doesn't surprise me.  Somewhere along the
way they seem to have almost forgotten that the books-side of the
business is the only part that turns a profit.

#364 - Compuserve
I suppose you know they're part of AOL?  I suppose rants by
networking/helpdesk fans aren't appreciated?  No?  Okay, I'll shut
up...

#368 - Keyboard
The external keyboard will work fine... if it's part of Microsoft
"Approved Hardware" list  ;)

To email Dell in the US about it, go to:
http://support.dell.com/us/en/emaildell/cc_opt01b.asp
To email Dell in the Norway about it, go to:
http://support.euro.dell.com/no/en/emaildell/

Conveniently, they seem to have missed out phone numbers for Norway
tech support...


And a few more random questions:

You've mentioned writing "so many pages" in a day; how many words do
you write per page?  I know that the "industry standard" is
double-spaced, etc, but if you're writing this all by hand then that
probably isn't what your using  ;)

Do you write in English-English or American-English?  I'm always
confused by this, since it seems to change depending on where I find
what you've written.  Does someone come along and re-write what you've
written into American-English or do you do it, do you just tailor your
writing for the initial audience and then leave it be?

And I daresay that I'm not the first person to have noticed this, but
I came across a circular coincidence a year or two back between you,
Dave McKean, Tori and the band Delerium.  You, obviously, have done a
lot with the first two, and the last has sampled Tori and always has
Dave do their artwork (and for their Industrial project, Front Line
Assembly).  I was wondering if you know if the Delerium name was a
direct reference to the Sandman character (albeit she's spelled in the
American fashion)?

Thanks a lot for any of this that you get to...
  

    
Sunny has this to say:

>(I doubt you would have gone for the sheer bloody dullness of the 
>early eighties.)

Reg hon, you are about to lose an indeterminable amount of respect for
me, but I have to say it, so prepare yourself:

I love the eighties episodes of Dr. Who!  I watched them as a tot with
my mom, and didn't get around to seeing the others until high school
when the(very cute)editor to our newspaper said Dr. Who was cool (ah
the things we do to get published).  Luckily he was right.  Maybe it's
just because the eighties episodes were the first ones I watched, but I
have a nostalgic fondness for them.  I love eighties camp.

And just so I'm not totally off topic I will ask: Neil, seriously,
what are boiled sweets?  I keep thinking they are either potatoes or
candy.  And here is a question that that I hope is not too much work: 
If you were to be reincarnated, who or what do you think you'd come
back as?

Hope Norway is treating you well.
  

    
let's see


Darrien

Snow Glass Apples -- slip of the finger, that was meant to be a 5, not
a 9. 5000 words.

Trapping groundhogs -- no, this is something I've only ever done this
year. The origin of Mouse was trapping Mice, and hearing the weird
radio call in thing on a radio the builders had left on in the
basement. I would never have known that homosexuals are pro abortion
because they need the foetuses for their evil AIDS experiments if I
hadn't heard that.

I don't think it's a pro-life story. I do think it's an anti American
Way of Abortions story, which is not the same. I remember getting a
SANDMAN letter full of pain and vitriol when barbie talked about
getting an abortion and it not hurting much, about how physically it
was the worst paint his woman had ever experienced. That was before I
learned that most american abortions are done without aneasthetics,
because the aneasthetists are too scared or intimidated or
idealogically opposed to the procedure and the clinics.

When friends had abortions in the UK it always seemed to me that great
care was taken to make it unstressful. In the US, by definition, the
opposite is true.

If it's any help, it was written for an anthology about superstition.

I can't actually get to the external keyboard to plug it in, but <I'mn
using the Norwegian computer now.


When I'm handwriting, I write pages because I have no idea what the
real word count is. SOmetimes I write small. I tend to guess-average
about 200 words a page, but if I'm in a writing small mood it can be
300 or even 400.

I write in English-English on the whole, although American Gods is
hard. I keep having to elide anglicisms I didn't even know I was doing.

Re the Delerium thing - I should ask Dave McKean.

Sunny -- I have to confess that I felt like Dr WHo mostly went out of
focus with Peter Davidson and Colin Baker and only started to come back
into focus with Sylverter McCoy. As is if they didn't know what it
was.

Boiled sweets are clear candies, of the kind that you can suck until
they are clear enough to look through. Blue, green, red, yellow and
clear ones.
  

    
Did Many interviews today. Did a reading and read some of American
Gods that I've not read before -- since it was in a bar, and there were
NO kids, I finally got to read the Hooker and the Nokia phone section,
and since I was in Norway I read them the Vikings and the scraelings
bit. Then I did a long Q & A

Q: Forgive me for being drunk but what is your sexual orientation?

A: Boring, I'm afraid.

and so on. Then another interview. Am now voiceless and ready for
bed...
  

    
Boring!  What an answer.

Did you forgive him (her?) for being drunk?
  

    
I forgave him for being drunk for a while, and then he got irritating
and I ignored him and went off in a huff. All the other Norwegians were
lovely.

Today another 5 interviews, online chat at dagbladet, (it's
http://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/2000/08/14/215201.html  and the photo of
me on the site is 2 years old thus the short hair) Tv interview and a
signing at Tronsmo, the Best Bookshop in the world. Signed 250
hardbacks of the danish dream country, and a bunch of other books. Then
ruined it all by buying 350 dollars worth of books fronm them
afterwards. They're shipping most of them home.
  

    
in the above post, the drunk gentleman went off in a huff. or in
search of more beer. Not me.

<There. Next e-mail will be from finland.

Got a helpful e-mail from Dell technical support, telling me to go and
find a dell office locally to repair the computer.

Meanwhile somehow, by stabbing angrily at the U key after it had come
off, it went back on. Don't ask me how.

goodnight.
  

    
Stop eating directly over the laptop.  Crumbs can become lodged under the
keys, you know.
  

    
Then how do you feed the cat????
  

    
ha!
  

    
I have decided that the 'U' key thing is, in the best possible sense
of the word, a miracle. 

Am in Finland. Am very tired. Was trying to catch up on calls home but
VoiceNet, my calling card, has stopped working -- a call went in the
middle and now it simply isn't picking up.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN FINLAND WHEN the first thing you are given at the
airport is your mobile phone from the convention.

I am, it seems, guest of honour at two conventions at once -- FINNCON
2000 and the Finnish Comics Convention. This means that on saturday I
shall give two guest of honour speeches and do two signings.

Pray for me. I'd hope for a miracle, but I thikn that after the whol U
key thing, two in a week would be a bit much to hope for.
  

    
Oh dear.  Oh dear.
  

    

I suppose you won't have any time for marvelous Finnish classical music,
then.
  

    
Lovely to see you Mr Gaiman, now if you will just split yourself in
half we'll be on our way.....
  

    
am at the finnish museum following a press conference, made
additionally surreal by the bearded Batman and wrinkly Spider-Man
wandering around.*

They have public terminals here. Just thought you'd want to know. It's
as much fun as the instant mobile phones everywhere.

*the Modesty Blaise, posing everywhere with her plastic gun in Jim
Holdaway poses, however, was very impressive indeed. No disrespect to
my Finnish escorts, but if she had a real gun I'd hire her as a
bodyguard any time.
  

    
Must go to Finland, land of public terminals everywhere!
  

    
Darrien Addison writes:

From darrien@rmta.org Thu Aug 17 12:21:19 2000
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 10:56:28 -0400
From: Darrien Addison <darrien@rmta.org>
To: inkwell-hosts@well.com
Subject: Neil Gaiman - SANDMAN:THE DREAM HUNTERS

Hi Neil,

Thanks for the answers, and glad to hear that the keyboard was fixable.
Sounds suitably bizarre, but then, when aren't computers?

Re: UK vs. US abortions... weird year to be thinking of that, given the
current political climate, and me being an Englishman in New York (albeit
New York state, not city, and I like my toast done on both sides).  Have you
ever gotten dual citizenship, or do you stay in the US with a Green Card?

I remember reading once that you planned on leaving the US at some point,
because it "had stopped strange".  Is that the reason for the "Last Angels"
tour; to say goodbye?

Finland sounds, well, strange, although a probable future for everywhere
else with ubiquitous mobile phones.  How did you end up booked for two
conventions and not knowing about it beforehand?

And, sorry to ask if it's rude, but do you get paid for appearances?  If
not, do you just bust your butt for the publicity and/or the fun of meeting
your audience (which I have to wonder how fun it can be when things are
quite that hectic, but chaos can be fun it's own way)?

The imators sound fun.  I can only imagine Modesty walking around, or any
other comic character in the middle of a museum.  Sounds inspiring, in a
surreal way.

Oh, and are you growing your hair out deliberately?  Should we expect Neil
"hi, I'm Alan Moore's brother" Gaiman in a couple of years?  ;)

Darrien
  

    
darrien -- I'm here on a green card. There on a green card. Whatever.
And anyway, it's pink.

No, the reason for the Last Angels tour is that I can't find two weeks
a year any more to tour for the CBLDF any more -- *all* the money
raised goes to the CBLDF, and the tours have raised over 100,000 so
far. But it's more or less my holiday time each year, and I'd like to
take some real holidays over the next few years before the kids get too
old.


How did I end up booked for two conventions? Because, while Finncon
2000 had mentioned that they were getting financial help to bring me in
from the comics convention, I didn't put two and two together, and the
question "So am I actually expected to be at two different conventions
at the same time?" is not one that readily leaps to mind.

The Modesty was astonishingly beautiful and she moved like I've always
imagined Modesty Blaise moved. The others ran the gamut from slightly
silly looking (the catwoman) to astonishingly silly looking (the
bearded Batman).

The hair? No, I just decided when I started American Gods that I'd not
get my hair cut till the book was finished. Unfortunately both the
book and the hair are much longer than I expected, and neither of them
are finished yet.
  

    
Oops. Missed one. No, I don't get paid for appearances. I do it out a
vague and generalised feeling of obligation, I suppose.
  

    

Jonathan Mander writes:


Nice to see you're doing your best to enjoy the
absurdities of Finland, Neil. They make it worthwhile
living here and also gives a good initiative to find
the absurdities of other nations and nationalities.

I didn't realise you were already in Finland, so it
was a quirky example of the internet, when for the
first time yesterday I stumbled through Salon to Well
and saw you commenting on Finland and being here.

The Kiasma (museum of contemporary art) has a pretty
interesting exhibition on Rudolf Steiner, and if you
end up looking at his theories on the universe
(they're in Englsh too) keep in mind that he started
an alternative school system, which is still in use.
  

    
Jonathan -- I'd hoped to go to the Kiasma today, but wound up buying
books at the academic bookshop and buying lots of flavours of loyly for
the home sauna, not to mention wholesale sized boxes of the Xylotol
Salmiakki sweets. 

Had an excellent Sushi meal tonight at a wonderful japanese
restaurant. The owner/chef is a Star Wars fan and came back to show us
photos of him in his stormtrooper costume, and him posing with his
lifesize jarjar binks. Nice man, wonderful food.


I'm pretty familiar with Steiner -- not convinced by the schooling
theories though. They actively discourage children reading young (or
they do at the English one) which left my little sister way behind...
  

    
what kind of a correspondent am I?

I forgot one of the most fun things today. Had a wonderful breakfast
with the American Ambassador. Steve Baxter, Ken McLeod and I, along
with some Finnish movers & shakers, and the ambassador, his wife and
son, and some nice embassy people. And yes, he's a fan. And it was
gratifying to watch a career diplomat at work. 

And had a lovely lunch with my Finnish poblishers Ottava. Good people.
There. Now I'm to bed.
  

    
Publishers. Not poblishers. Publishers. I used to know the difference.

g'night.
  

    


Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 13:21:29 +1000
From: Reg <reg@acepia.net.au>
To: inkwell-hosts@well.com
Subject: Question for Neil Gaiman

Hi Neil.

Thanks for the considered response to my TIB question. Now that I look
at it, I see what you mean about the Phantom Stranger being more closely
related to Brunner's character.

Glad to hear that the "U" problem seems to have fixed itself. (See, no
matter what the tech people tell us, sometimes there is just no
substitute for brute force.) And to put a Pollyannaist spin on it,
aren't you glad it wasn't the "i" key, or that you weren't on your way
to Uraguay?

Now to the obligatory pointless question. I recently attempted to read
Dennis Wheatley's "The Devil Rides Out." I say "attempted" because I
only got three chapters in before violently hurling the book across the
room, cursing it as unreadable.

I was somewhat disapointed, having for so long heard Wheatley's name
bandied about as the father of British occult fiction. What I discovered
was that quite aside from his abominable prose style and
characterisations so one-dimensional as to border on being quantum
singularities, the sheer casual racism and snobbery is almost
breath-taking.

I quite understand that Wheatley merely reflects the attitudes of the
time, (although "magnifies" might be a better term,) and his
contemporary readers would have found nothing wrong with this. I just
find it odd that some popular fiction writers, (Leslie Charteris, for
example,) seem to be abled to avoid these pitfalls, making their work
still seem less archaic and outdated.

My point, (and I do have one,) is this: I am sure that there are an
equal number of pitfalls for a contemporary writer to succumb to. I was
wondering if you, or any of the other writers on the forum, had any
thoughts on what these pitfalls might be. Is there anything that you
make a conscious effort to avoid in the interest of giving your work a
gentler treatment by posterity?

Finally, On a sad note, it seems your Australian jinx continues, as the
other day I found half a dozen copies of the Headline large format
paperback of Stardust sitting forlornly on a remaindered table in a
local bookstore. I am doing my best to find good homes for them all.

Reg