Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Write books, sell books!  Every chance you get!
  

    
So I thought I'd simply uninstall internet explorer from the laptop,
and went to the remove program menu and discovered that that is simply
no longer an option -- not with Windows NT anyway. Pity... I liked the
idea of radical webectomy while I did this final run. Or what I hope is
this final run.

I've found a cheap hotel somewhere I REALLY don't want to be, where
there's no-one I know. And I'm going to ground for a couple of weeks to
get to the end of the book.

Listened to the CD of SIGNAL TO NOISE today -- Dave Mckean's brough it
out. Made me feel proud, mostly.

Time on public terminal (northwest lounge) almost up... 
  

    
And Martha -- well it wouldn't kill anyone to say "Martha Soukup's
latest collection of award-winning fiction, The Arbitrary Placement of
Walls, is available in paperback from Dreamhaven books" at the end of
the piece... and you never know...
  

    
I will behave.

I wish you'd take a cheap hotel somewhere one little measely daytrip away
from some people, just for a change.  But I know how you have to avoid
temptation.  Nice to be able to afford to--but of course you need to.
  

    
Well, the airfare part of this was paid by Dreamworks, as they needed
to fly me in for a Conversation. And then were happy to fly me out for
the second leg of the journey. The hotel is being paid for by me, and
believe me, it's kind of scary. (Actually it's scary enough that I'm
moving out tomorrow morning. The first thing I saw on checking in was a
freshly bruised hooker leading a cop to the elevators, telling him
angrily that "...and he had like nine hundred in cash there, maybe a
thousand...")

I, on the other hand, have just gained a reputation as a Man of God,
because I asked for a replacement Gideon Bible, as the one in the room
was torn up, and I wanted a quote from the Song of Solomon.  The maid I
asked agreed that talking with the lord had got her through some rough
times, and the man who brought it said it was an honour to bring me
the bible, in all the years he'd been in the hotel no-one had ever
asked for one before...

I didn't have the heart to tell them...

And the writing's going okay so far. SOme typing and some shaping.
Current score is 120,000 words typed. There's about 16,000 words to be
typed. Then ??? until the end of the book.
  

    
Hi, Neil!

I understand roughly how you felt.  When I was at the Mormon Tabernacle with
a gay ex-Mormon friend, the well-scrubbed missionaries assumed I was there
to learn about their God.  He really wanted me to see the artwork that has
illustrated the Book of Mormon, because it's so--what it is; but it was no
longer accessible unless you went on a guided tour we didn't have time for.
A young Hispanic Mormon convert from Portland took us through where the
pictures were herself, and she was so moved we wanted to see them.

My friend and I didn't laugh at the pictures.  And when she wrote down two
scriptural verses that had inspired her, with tears in her eyes at the
beauty of it all, I took them very soberly and thanked her.

But somehow, to be praised for your religiousity by employees who see very
little of it seems a more intense experience yet.

I told the BBC to say my book's name.  Because you said I had to.  It will
be played on the web, the story, between 1 and 2 p.m. Saturday, Pacific
time, when I might or might not be home to hear it.  I have to be alert and
coherent at 10 a.m. for the interview.  I need to borrow your experience.
  

    

Please post the particulars, Martha, so we can all tune in!

Neil, I so love this story about the bible.
  

    
They called me at 10 to ask if they could just talk to me live at 1:15,
Pacific time.  I don't know the exact link to audio on the BBC web site.
  

    
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/
  

    
Yow!  That was short.  Nice Colin from the BBC apologized after it cut off,
he said he had no idea they'd end it that early.

I could've sucked worse, but the unrushed Minneapolis interview the other
day worked better.
  

    
Martha -- that's the way with interviews. THey're either too short or
too long.

Changed from the scary hotel to a less scary one, and immediately
started missing the scary one, for at least it had character. Proving a
certain perversity, I suppose.

Am typing Chapter 14 now. May completely rework the structure of
chapters 14-16 when I finish this segment -- very frustrating: there
are things you can do in comics with the nature of time which are easy
and non-problematic, but when you try them in prose they become artsy
fartsy and distracting -- and I don't mind being arty, but I don't like
suspecting I might be yanking the reader out of the book...
  

    
But if you're in a boring hotel, you can't do anything but write.

Good luck with the segment.  I'm not worried about you being distractingly
arty, but you know best probably.
  

    <scribbled>
  

    <scribbled by castle Mon 28 Aug 00 17:57>
  

    
Sunny, please tell your friend thanks for looking up my book!  And for her
kind words.
  

    
Amanda -- Luckily I've never had to stay in a hotel in Brisbane, as
Eddie Campbell (+Anne + thekids) is there and they are hospitable.

Sunny -- I knew about the temple, yes, but I think in retrospect I
probably nicked the rats from Swords of Lankhmar (plus some newspaper
headline that proclaimed that in London you are never more than 5 feet,
15 feet or 50 feet, i forget which, from a rat). It's a kind of
obvious thing to symbolize the underneath of a city: i created a few
dozen different tribes of people for London Underneath, but didn't get
to use more than a few of them. The Rat-Speakers don't really worship
the rats -- they work for them...
  

    
Sorry about the formatting but here's the CBLDF's press release on the
reading tour I'll be doing in October.

..........

NEIL GAIMAN BIDS FAREWELL ON LAST ANGEL TOUR



NEIL GAIMAN's GUARDIAN ANGEL TOURS have always been

special occasions, rare chances to spend an evening with a master

storyteller.  In small, intimate theatres across the country,

Gaiman has mesmerized audiences with poems and tales of the

macabre and the fantastic.  And in the course of these tours,

Gaiman has raised more than $100,000 to support the non-profit

COMIC BOOK LEGAL DEFENSE FUND.



But now it's the end of an era: Gaiman has announced that his

2000 reading series will be THE LAST ANGEL TOUR.  This October,

Gaiman will give readings of his work on a cross-country tour

from New York to Los Angeles in a massive benefit for the CBLDF:



October 16: The Vic Theatre, CHICAGO

(773) 472-0449, or call Ticketmaster at (312) 559-1212



October 18: St. Mark's Church, NEW YORK

call Ticketmaster at (212) 307-7171



October 24: The Aladdin Theatre, PORTLAND

(503) 233-1994, or call Ticketmaster at (503) 224-4400



October 26: Pacific Design Center, LOS ANGELES

call Ticketmaster at (213) 480-3232



Tickets go on sale SEPTEMBER 1 and will also be available online

at http://www.ticketmaster.com.  For complete tour information,

visit the CBLDF web-site at http://www.cbldf.org, or call the

Fund at 1-800-99-CBLDF.



Gaiman first attracted critical acclaim for his graphic novels

and the long-running comic series "Sandman."  In addition to his

comics work, Gaiman is the author of the best-selling novels

"Neverwhere" and "Stardust," and has seen his unique vision

translated for film, television, and the stage.  He is the

recipient of the prestigious World Fantasy Award and is noted

in "The Dictionary of Literary Biography" as "one of the top ten

post-modern writers" in America.



"I've been doing these tours since 1993," said Gaiman.  "I've

really enjoyed returning people to the days when an author would

take his work to the public, when a literary reading was something

exciting, fun, and theatrical.  Dickens did it.  Oscar Wilde did it.

And, in a much lesser way, so have I.



"I feel now like it's time to turn over the reins," he continued.

"We always planned for the Guardian Angel Tours to come to a

conclusion.  The audience wants us to keep doing it, but at the

end of the day, well, I think there has to be an end of the day.

I'm finishing a new novel at the moment, and I'm working on a number

of different movie and television projects.  Finding two weeks a

year to actually get out on the road is getting harder and harder."



On THE LAST ANGEL TOUR, Gaiman will be giving dramatic readings from

his shorter fiction and poetry, including stories from his collections

"Angels & Visitations" and "Smoke & Mirrors."  He will also be
debuting

new, unpublished works and giving fans an early look at his new novel,

"American Gods."  Each reading will be preceded by a private cocktail

reception with the author for Premium Ticket holders and CBLDF
Members, and
followed by a question and answer session with the audience. The
readings begin
at 8 pm, with the private receptions starting at 6 pm.



Tickets for all tour stops cost $20, or $16 with a valid student ID.

PREMIUM TICKETS, which include seating in the front rows and
admittance to the
private receptions before the readings, cost $60.  All proceeds from
The Last
Angel Tour benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.



"While this will be The Last Angel Tour, it certainly won't be the end

of my work in support of the Legal Defense Fund," said Gaiman.  "What

they're doing is more important now than ever before, and I think
we'll

continue to work closely on new ways to raise money and awareness of
the Fund's
mission." 



The Last Angel Tour begins on Monday, October 16 with an evening at

Chicago's Vic Theatre (3145 North Sheffield).  New York City is the

next stop on the tour, with a reading on October 18 at St. Mark's

Church (131 East 10th Street at 2nd Avenue).  Portland's Aladdin
Theatre (3116
South East Street) hosts the tour on October 24.  The tour concludes
in Los
Angeles on October 26 with a final performance at the Pacific Design
Center
(8687 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood). 



The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization
protecting First
Amendment rights in the comics community.  Donations and inquiries
should be
directed to the CBLDF at P.O. Box 693, Northampton, MA 01061. For more
CBLDF
news and information, pick up a copy of "Busted!," the Fund's free
quarterly
newsletter, or visit the CBLDF web-site at http://www.cbldf.org.



#     #     #



For additional information please contact Chris Bleistein at

(413) 586-6967 or cbleistein@cbldf.org
  

    

I wish you were coming to the Bay Area!
  

    
 Sunny writes:
 
 From blueeyedmuse@hotmail.com Mon Aug 28 13:44:06 2000
 Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 13:43:06 MDT
 From: S. A. <blueeyedmuse@hotmail.com>
 To: inkwell-hosts@well.com
 Subject: Neil Gaiman Discussion, thankses
 
 This one's actually for Martha--
 
 Just wanted to tell you that I pointed my friend in the direction of your 
 BIG BROTHER article.  She has been watching BB online since the beginning as 
 well, and wanted me to tell you that she thought your article was fantastic. 
   She is going to look for your book :)
 
 Sunny
 
 PS
 
 Oh wait!
 
 Neil...a thought struck me just at this moment...In reference to Neverwhere 
 and the Rat Speakers, I am just curious as to whether or not you know of the 
 Karni Mata temple in India where rats are worshiped.  Seems like every time 
 someone asks you if you got inspiration for an idea from a certain source 
 that the answer is 'no'...but I've also heard you say that you have come up 
 with ideas out of your head only to discover that they existed in real life. 
   So just wondering.
 
 Returning to regularly scheduled lurker mode...now
 
 
 
  

    

Hello, you are not seeing double.  Sunny asked me to scribble the first
post, remove some sensitive information, and repost.  So, voila.
  

    
Just pretend I responded after she posted.
  

    
        I'm utterly tickled to find out that someone else remembers Fafhrd
and the Grey Mouser well enough to lift stuff from them.  As to the
tour, thanks for the information, hot damn, and I'll see you on the
24th. :-)
  

    

Fafhrd and the Mouser are famous!
  

    
Really.  If they were forgotten already I would despair and despair.
  

    
Martha & Linda -- I'd love to do the Bay Area again -- but I've done
two appearances now at the palace of fine arts, so we picked places
where I'd never done real shows.

Writing and writing. Yesterday was a bad day but a care package
arrived today including kettle and tea and it became much more fun.

Aching shoulders from typing. Decided a massage would be a good idea.
Looked in the yellow pages. Blushed a lot. Decided to try ringing an ad
that looked safe. Discovered on the phone that "strictly professional"
is a phrase that has several interpretations, and the one I had picked
was not the one they had picked. Gave up on the whole thing.