Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

Hello Sunny!  Welcome!

And in response to the request for Icelandic dialog comes this:

Hi Neil,

I have an answer for you.  I spent a year in Iceland and remember a bit
of the language.  If you are looking for a common greeting between
friends you might use "Hæ, hvað segir þú?"  or  "Hvað segir þú gott?"
which translates roughly to "Hi, what do you say?" or "What's up?"
Another alternative would be "Hvernig gengur?"  which means "How's it
going?"  A good place to find Icelandic phrases for future reference is
The Icelandic Phrase page at:
http://astro.ocis.temple.edu/~feeley/icetrans.html

Hope this helps you out.  If I can be of any further assistance, let me
know.

Oh, also while I have your attention.  I was wondering if you had found
an artist for Coraline since Gorey is sadly unavailable.  My suggestion
would be Lane Smith.  He does some wonderfully creepy illustrations.  I
am really looking forward to this book.

Margret
  

    
Margret, you rock. Many thanks. Or even, um, takk kærlega.


Last I heard, the nice people at Harper Collins were looking at
artists and were going to be sending me samples. Dave Mckean wants to
do it, and I'd love him to do it, but he's a bit late with Wolves in
the Walls right now, so I think Harper are a bit reluctant. We'll see
-- he did an illustration of the Mouse Circus Orchestra that was
astonishing.

Back to work.
  

    
Sunny -- it's really too late for research now, except for details
like Icelandic Hullos, and ways to fix hypothermia and such, needed for
page to page writing.
  

    
Jen writes:

Illustrations for Coraline... Would have _loved_ Gorey.  -sigh-  I don't know 
why, but ever since the first time I heard about this book I've for some 
reason had a picture in my head of Coraline looking much like Staring Girl 
from Tim Burtons The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories.  I 
think that sentence may need some punctuation or to be surgically divided and 
rearranged somehow, but I'm too tired.

Yay Sunny for joining!  I want to but am utterly broke.  Must stop going into 
bookstores 'only for a minute...just to look around'.

Jen
  

    
Jen -- it was always meant to be Gorey from the first day I started to
write it. many many years ago. Only he died 3 days before I finished
the book.

...

Am slightly puzzled right now about the whole ticket scenario for the
Last Angel Tour -- I'm not entirely comfortable with all the ticket
sales happening through Ticketmaster. And currently they don't seem to
be listing the Portland one or the Los Angeles one, although they are
up on the CBLDF webpage as if they were there.

Portland is the Aladdin theatre on Oct 24, btw. LA is the Pacific
Design Centre October 26th. Ticket-buying information will go up ASAP.

Chicago and NY are both up on Ticketmaster.

...is there anywhere else on the The Well that we ought to post such
information? Martha? Someone?

..................................................


Life is VERY dull in a good way. My exercise consists of doing down
for breakfast, then walking across the parking lot to the next hotel
along for sushi dinner, and the rest of the time I'm in my room
scribbling and typing.

Right now I'm writing LOTS of sequences at the same time, which is
only recommended if you're in a hotel room with no human contact to
distract you but which means you don't get stuck on one bit and then
gaze blankly at the screen. You just start the next place you know what
happened. Currently I'm multitasking about seven scenes and barely
have enough leftover RAM to ask for some more green tea and oh, yes, I
suppose another bit of yellowtail would be nice...

n


wondering why it is that when people have established that you write
books for a living, when next they see you reading something they
always ask "Is that one of your books then?" and look disappointed when
it's not.
  

    
        Do these same people then scrupulously avoid giving away the endings
to your books, because you apparently haven't read them yet?
  

    
We should put notices in a few conferences, yes.  Let me think about which
ones.
  

    
Neil- 
Good point.  That's why you're the writer, and I'm the reader.  I
would be forever wanting to read all the intresting research instead of
writing the damn novel.
  

    

Maybe the Places to Go topic in g news?  
  

    

Here's the Neil Gaiman topics on the WELL right now:

books.1186            Neil Gaiman's Neverworld
comics.197        L   Neil Gaiman's February CBLDF Reading Tour
inkwell.vue.73        Neil Gaiman - SANDMAN:THE DREAM HUNTERS
socal.242         L   Neil Gaiman's February CBLDF Reading Tour

Maybe add a mention to the February CBLDF Reading Tour topic that's linked
to Socal and Comics?
  

    
Neverworld should probably be Neverwhere.

And wouldn't the February reading tour puzzle people considering it's
in October?

Not trying to be difficult -- honest --

Neil

who finished Chapter 15 today. 
  

    <scribbled by sunnyrose>
  

    
<blush> Whoops...didn't mean to come off like that at all.  Sorry.

I just keep getting frustrated with my attempts to put together a
story.  And it's not for lack of ideas, darnit!  I just can't sit down
and do it!

You're right.  Ideas are easy.  Writing is hard.  So I'll probably
spend the rest of my life reading, and writing silly poems in iambic
pentameter when the frustration to do something with my hands gets
overwhelming.  

Anyway.  Definitely didn't mean to offend there.

Good luck on the rest of the book.


 
  

    
Also should mention it in the regional confs for the areas Neil will be in.
  

    
        Just drop by comics and start a new topic, if you like.  Perhaps it
could then be linked to other confs?
  

    

Darrien Addison writes:

Jen & Sunny - I'm going to be in Chicago for the reading if you want to meet
up, but I have an important dinner appointment the night before <happy
smirk>

Sunny - you're not _Anna_ Sunshine, are you?  Lost contact with her too long
ago...

Neil: Is Wolves in the Walls yours or a solo project by Dave? It seems like
I haven't been seeing much of his work lately, except on the Dreaming.

As for Ticketmaster, well, I work for the closet competition and I don't
think *any* of the options are all that good, frankly.  Ticketmaster may be
expensive, but they're really well known, so they're the easiest option for
most companies.  I could say a lot more, but I'm probably not supposed to.

Amused by the book story; I would be somewhat baffled by a writer reading
through their own book - "Don't you remember what happened?"
  

    
Darrien -- no, Sunny and Anna Sunshine are two very different people.
Sunshine just went off to Venezuela in the last couple of days for her
Fullbright scholarship thing to study beauty contests
anthropologically.

Wolves in the Walls is Mine. A lot of what Dave's been doing recently
is filmic.

Chris Oarr at the CBLDF tells me that they've got current info up at
www.cbldf.org

Sunny -- I'm afraid you scribbled the message that you were referring
to, so I have no idea what you're apologising for.

Another 2500 words down so far today. Chuntering through chapter 16 --
will probably finish it and a bit before I go back. But I still have
The Battle to write.

In three pages I just answered all the questions and mysteries about
our hero I've been ignoring for the previous 470 pages. Hope the text
does not collapse under the weight of revelation.

........................

A LITTLE BIT OF CHAPTER 16 OF AMERICAN GODS


“I trust you,” he said, without hesitation.

“Do you want to know what it’s going to cost you?”

“I’ve already lost my name,” he told her. 

“Names come and go,” she said. “Was it worth it?”

“Yes. Maybe. It wasn’t easy. As revelations go, it was kind of
personal.”

“All revelation is personal,” she said. “That’s why all revelation is
suspect.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No,” she said, “You don’t. I’ll take your heart,” and she reached her
hand into his chest, deep inside his chest, and she pulled it out with
something ruby and pulsing held between her sharp fingernails. It was
the colour of pigeon’s blood, and was made of pure light. Rhythmically,
it expanded and contracted.

She closed her hand, and it was gone.
  

    
Big day for a friend of mine -- having a baby, and it's rather hard to
check in all the time when you're in a hotel room. So I shall keep my
fingers uncrossed for her.
  

    
PS on 492 -- I thought it might be fun to post that bit of American
Gods as it felt very Sandmanny (even more so when you know who the two
people are) -- in a book that mostly isn't Sandmanny at all.
  

    

I love the snippet!!

And good luck to your friend...
  

    

Oh, dang, I guess I showed show my ignorance.  I hate it when that
happens.
  

    
I agree with Linda...thanks for the passage.

Concerning your friend - fingers uncrossed?  
I suppose crossed would make it hard to type...
  

    
Linda -- glad you liked it.

And my friend had a bouncing baby girl. Hurrah.

You showed your ignorance? I missed it if you did...

Amanda -- well, I read once that as sympathetic magic at childbirth
women used to uncross everything they could find around a house, to
make the birth easier...
  

    
Didn't scribble it...
made a mistake and posted the exact same thing twice.

But nevermind I suppose.

Cheers :)
  

    
Sunny -- now I'm really confused. Not that that's an unusual state of
affairs.

...

Over 150,000 words of book written. And had my first human interaction
in 12 days -- saw Teller for lunch. (Yes, he spoke.) Which was very
pleasant. Half way through chapter 16. Half way through chapter 18 as
well. I think I ought to write some chapter 17 now, just so it doesn't
feel left out.

Just got sent a very nice page of photos by the wonderful Stephanie
Chernikowski
http://www.angelfire.com/pop/artpix/SCPix3.html