Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Len -- you're very welcome. This topic occasionally makes me nostalgic
for the glory days of Genie, which was a lot like this but it went on
for years and years. (What was it martha for my topic -- 7 years? 8?)

Mimi -- There will be reports on the signings from here, I'm sure, and
also from the new novel website. (There was excitement yesterday when
Harper had to eliminate a cyber squatter.) (I think it'll be up any
moment now.)

Good on finding the Ribena pastilles: a taste from my youth available
nowhere else in the world... we'll work out a fun exchange or just pay
you.

,,


News... Yesterday I signed contracts to write the Ramayana as an
animated film for Dreamworks; and for the movie rights to Coraline.

Coraline has been bought by a new film company for Henry Selick (who
directed the Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and
a new film called Monkeybone).
  

    
Hot off the wires: On February 22 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT, STARZ! premieres
"Princess Mononoke," Japanese writer-director Hayao Miyazaki's
acclaimed story of the struggle of man against nature...and one
translated by our own Neil :-)

Jade
  

    
Neil -- About the movie news, Cool beans!  Selick does some great
work.  Any idea what kind of movie its gonna be (stop motion, live
action, mix of both)?

Michelle -- I suppose you would need local folk for you to observe the
drinking and reading but there's no reason we all couldn't conduct a
sort of correspondance experiment.
  

    
Woohoo, Henry Selick!  He's brilliant and he needs more recognition, so I'm
glad to hear he's getting Coraline.
  

    
Super cool to hear Selick & Co's (are they still called Skellington
Studios...?) doing Coraline.  I'll keep my fingers crossed that this
one pulls through.  
  

    
And *now* I read 'new film company'.  Whoops!
  

    
I'm afraid to think how long you had your GEnie topic, Neil, because I don't
want to believe I've known you that long.  A long time.  You had the topic
no more than months after you got your house in America.

And I had to tell you how things worked and now you know everything about
computers.
  

    
Selick's studio is now known as Twitching Image.
  

    
e-mail from Mary Roane:

Neil--Alice said yesterday that the new space is too small, so she was
going to check some alternate locations close to the store.  Evanston
(where the new store is) probably has more bookstores per square inch
than most places--certainly more than downtown Chicago.  The Borders on
N. Michigan is probably the biggest in downtown, but it's always
crowded.  It's a hard call--want to just do the Vic again?  ;-)
 
Congratulations on the contracts--the Coraline deal is really exciting!
 
Len--you're welcome.  And I'm at the part where Will & Iorek have just
arrived to rescue Lyra from Mrs. Coulter in the cave.  And I left it at
home today, so all that time I should be reading on the El, I'll just be
staring at the rain that is supposed to turn to snow tonight.  Ick.
 
Saw the very first performance of "The Producers" last week.  It's
terrific!  Nathan Lane & Matthew Broderick are marvelous, the songs are
great and the book is a riot.  It sags a little in the second act, tying
up the plot, but what musical doesn't?
 
Jade--Congratulations!
 
                                     Mary (who is wondering what she'll
do when the Typhoo supply runs out......)
 
P.S.  Neil--been meaning to ask--ant chance you're doing Book Expo?
  

    
I use www.britishtea.com, for what it's worth. No plans for book expo
but who knows?

Daniel -- a bit of both, I think.
  

    
Got an email from Dylan V from afn-g:
---
Hi all,

Good title for the new forum, but what about
http://www.americangods.com?

After initially being shocked by the advertisement with lots of
pastels, the mention of a Goddess and a cover of what looked like a
cheaper version of one of Jackie Collins' books, there is now a nice
Neil splash page, and a hidden journal.

Any chance of it going live?

D
---

Mimi - I'll post you some of the possible photos via email, sometime
over the weekend.

squeaks, whose friends has TOTALLY lost it (clucking like a chicken
and such - totally sober even)
  

    
Hey, everybody, the time has come! We'll be launching a new topic:

Topic 104 [inkwell.vue]:  Neil Gaiman: Countdown to American Gods

and we'll be freezing this one.  We'll do this Sunday night. Look for the
new topic thereafter!
  

    
Dylan -- going live as opposed to... what? We're building it slowly. I
don't expect a point where it's officially "live". It'll just grow
organically from not very much (at present) to lots, by June 19th...
  

    
Ah, you know, after a moment's thought I realised the site probably
went live between Dylan sending the e-mail to Michelle and it getting
posted here.
  

    
...and talking about sites going live, Hot Topic has the first bunch
of stuff (TM) up on their web site right now. It's interesting seeing
pictures of this stuff (TM)... The second round of stuff (TM) should be
even more interesting.

Teenaged daughter is going to Japan next month for ten days, along
with 8 schoolfriends and a teacher. She's excited and nervous.
  

    
She'll have such an amazing time I know.  Man, I was 32 before I got off
this continent!

Going as a teenager, it has to get into your bones.
  

    
Neil - Jealous! I haven't been to Japan *since* I was her age. And I
have relatives there! (used to go every few years). I can't wait to go
back someday. 

And yes, the site was mostly blank when I got that email.

Martha - It's worse when you've been bouncing between continents since
infancy. Especially when you develop a paranoid fear of airplanes.
Then you just get over-anxious about needing to get out of the country,
followed by a lot of panicking on how to do it without getting on a
plane.

squeaks, who thinks Neil should give her an odd _Stardust_ just
because she is taking a plane to New Orleans to go on the cruise in the
first place.
  

    
        I also grew up travelling around a lot, so I know what you mean,
squeaks.  Travel is great at any age, but when you're young and
impressionable it's downright fabulous.  Of course, as a nearly senile
old man of 23, my glory years are long behind me...
  

    
streak - I know what you mean since I have little cousins who are 16
telling me I'm going to be over the hill when I hit 25 in a couple of
months.

And traveling is one of the best things about living.  However,
traveling with people that you aren't necessarily friends with, that's
one of the worst.  :)

Neil - congrats on the contracts.  I loved James and the Giant Peach
and Nightmare Before Xmas, so it's great to hear that Coraline will be
in very capable hands.

Back to work.....
  

    
Neil -- She'll have a great time in Japan.  I got a lot of world
travel in before I hit teenage years and I wish that there had been
more around that time.

Michelle -- I know what you mean about the fear of planes.  Used to be
I got on em no problem, but the older I've gotten the more I prefer to
drive.  I think it's partially a problem with that big metal thing in
the sky.  Although I know the physics behind it work I keep thinking
that one day somebody will say, "Hey, that thing's too heavy to go
hurling about in the air like that."  And then the plane I'm on will
drop like a rock.
  

    
"Jack?"

"Yes, Dierdre?"

"Jack? You're pining, aren't you?"

"Pining, Dierdre? Whatever makes you say that?"

"Oh, Jack. It's that -- that far-off look in your eyes. Is it the war?
Is that it, Jack?"

"No. No, Dierdre. It's not the war."

"Then -- then for heaven's sake, darling, tell me. Tell me what it is.
I'm sure that there is nothing that we cannot bear, together."

"I suppose, Dierdre, you're just going to call me a silly old muffin,
but. Well, it's the end of an era."

"Oh Jack."

"Oh Dierdre."

"I didn't think that whole topic 73 thing would get to you like that.
I should have known. I've been a fool."

"No Dierdre. I've been the fool."

"Topic 104. It. It won't change anything, will it?"

"Gosh no. It won't change us, anyway Dierdre. I just can't help
remembering. It's all going away. Topic 73. There's amusic, you know,
when you say it. It's got a sort of magic about it. Topic 104 -- can
it, will it ever be the same?"

"Jack. There's something I have to tell you."

"What is it Dierdre?"

"I'm -- I'm going to have a baby."

"Oh Dierdre."

"Oh jack. Are you.... are you angry?"

"No. I was just thinking... I suppose we're going to jolly well have
to make topic 104 a land fit for heroes now."

(Stirring music swells.)

This post brought to you by too many old black and white war movies on
wet sunday afternoons in my childhood.
  

    
Neil - you are a strange and interesting man who I will forever
admire.

Jen, who can't stop giggling.
  

    
"And when I make it back to Brooklyn and that sweet little dame of mine,
gosh, the big plans we have for Topic 104!  Yeah, we're gonna--"

(Land mine explodes.)
  

    
Hahah.  That's great, Neil.  :) I wonder who'll get the last post...
  

    
        "Yeah, I remember Tex.  He was from topic 73, but we all called him
Tex anyway.  Now I... I guess he's not gonna ever see topic 73 again. 
Excuse me, wouldja?  I... got somethin' in my eye."