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craigoxbrowThere were returns, so I was able to see Neil Gaiman's reading. (So if anyone wants to try it tomorrow for him talking to Ian Rankin, may you be likewise lucky.)
"Hello!"
(Hello.)
"The plan, and there is a plan. I will read to you, then we will do questions and answers, and to keep things simple you will ask the questions and I will provide answers. And then I will read to you some more, then I will sign things until my hand falls off. How does that sound?" (approving sounds) "You nod as if you have a say in the matter."
"This is a chapter from The Graveyard Book. The shortest chapter, Chapter Five. This book started about twenty-five years ago. We were living above a shop in a house that was... spindly. Every room had stairs. And I had a two-year-old with a tricycle. There was no way he could ride it in the house without dying... so every day I took him across the street to the churchyard, where he would ride around the gravestones happily. And I thought about how natural he looked there. And I thought you could write something like The Jungle Book, only instead of growing up in the jungle with the beasts and learning what the beasts know, he grows up with the dead and learns what the dead know. And I thought that's a proper idea for a book. So I went home and tried to write it... retrieving small child and tricycle as I went.
And I wrote about a page. About a page about these dead people arguing whether to take care of this child. And I realised... it wasn't very good. And I knew the idea was good, and I thought I wasn't a good enough writer to do it. So I put it away. And every five years or so I'd take it out again, rewrite that page - completely, as I could never find the previous version - and decide it wasn't good enough again. And then about five years ago, I realised I wasn't getting any better. I remember being able to write one story then write another and think "that poor foolish child who wrote that last story" but now I'd reached my level. And so I couldn't put it off any more as I was as good as I was going to get.
So I wrote it, and here it is. Chapter Five..."
(I won't try and transcribe chapter five.)
"That was fun. I love reading the people. I don't get to do it enough. Since my youngest turned ten, and we were halfway through... what was it... The Northern Lights, His Dark Materials... and she said 'I think I'll read it myself from here' And that was that."
"Questions..."
Your characters' names are often important and always very precise. How do you name them?
"What a lovely question, a question I've never been asked before. It varies. Sometimes they come with their names, and that's lovely, and sometimes it takes weeks and months.
Richard Mayhew was named after Richard Curtis, who directed Four Weddings and Love Actually, because he has this sort of rumpled charm about him, and women would keep falling at his feet and he'd keep not noticing. And a man called Henry Mayhew, who wrote a book called London Labour and the London Poor, in which he talked to, well, London's poor. And for a book about the underside of London, Mayhew seemed like a good name.
Coraline was a typo. Not in the book, but years ago I was typing a letter to a press officer called Caroline and I typed "Dear Coraline". And I looked at it, and I thought that's a lovely name. I'll write a book called Coraline. It's this weird mirror of Caroline and it's a name everyone would get wrong and it's got Coral in it. So I remembered it, and used it years later. The American author Larry Niven was asked where his names come from and he said "I treasure my typos".
The thing I'm doing next has a character called Jack. And I was thinking of not calling him Jack, because The Graveyard Book has this whole "man jack of them" thing. But I showed it to someone, and he said "I really like this character you don't have a name for. He seems like, how about you call him Jack?" So Jack he is.
And sometimes you get totally stuck, and start looking at everything in your head for a name, and you start looking around and think... "Chair! No, that's no good. Jug? Mister Jugg... Stairs? Mister Stairs." And you think of everyone you meet and go "Thaddeus? You could be a Thaddeus... or perhaps not."
Silas was always Silas. But Bod wasn't for a good long time. I knew I wanted a name which was like an absence, a lack of a name. But it was a while before I remembered the poem I quote at the start Nobody Owns. And I thought "Nobody Owns... Nobody Owens, that could be his name." And he became Bod because if your name's Nobody people will shorten it."
Did you find any issues writing a silent film?
"Ah, yes. Now for those who don't know I mentioned on my Twitter that I'm directing a silent film. And was then told no, they want to make a big announcement about it. But there you go. I'm writing and directing a silent film to go out on one of the Sky channels over Christmas.
And I found writing a silent movie's rather like writing comics. You have to try and get the idea across to the artist, and you can't draw it because you aren't good enough or it would take too long which is why you need them, so it becomes this weird game of descriptive charades. And I haven't directed much, and haven't directed at all for five years. So I thought I can write just about well enough for a starting director...
And it gets me that people ask "what do you mean write a silent film?" like there's no writing involved. When it's something like "we start in a kitchen, on someone making a sandwich. We see jam being spread over white bread. The we see a thermos of coffee being made - coffee powder going in, then boiling water, then semi-skimmed milk. Then we pull back and see the person doing this."
(For something like American Gods you must have done a lot of research. Did it affect your writing?)
"Yes, inevitably, in a way. When you're writing a book that's a quarter of a million words and takes two years you'll find lots of thing and think "ah, that's my book!" But people ask if I had to do a lot of research on the gods, and no, I knew all of that already. I had to research the Eastern European gods, and now if you read American Gods you'll know the sum total of human knowledge on them, there's so little now known.
And then there's sort of second-level research, which is about popping suspension of disbelief, because it's very easy to do in fiction, especially the kind I write, fantastic fiction. What's a good example? The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers. Great book. Americans love. People from the British part of the world often have a problem with it. Around the time the modern American hero goes to Elizabethan London and asks someone "where's Crookback Alley?" and he says "that way, about three blocks". Now, the idea of the city block hasn't reached London now, so... so you want to catch things like that. So if you're reading a book on Victorian funerary customs... as you do... if you're writing The Graveyard Book, and want to make sure you know what people wore to be buried, when they stopped using winding sheets, because someone somewhere will read it and go "hang on, that's not right."
And then as a writer you read everything, or you should. And get obsessed with things. And I keep thinking the history of the Jack Benny radio show will become a story, but it never does."
Favourite Character?
"Ooh. That's like asking who's your favourite child. But I suppose right now, and this is very specific to now, it's Silas. Because there's more to his story that I want to tell. So I imagine the thing after the next thing will have him in it.
If I could have a dinner party of say half a dozen, I could answer that. I'd want Delirium because she writes her own dialogue, I can just give her a straight line and off she goes. (Someone else who your transcriber has forgotten. Sorry.) Mr. Wednesday, I know he's awful but he'd be entertaining. And Mr. Nancy, the version from Anansi Boys, not American Gods.
And I would not want the Other Mother there."
"Alright, finally, I'm going to read you an entire book. It's a very short book. It's the result of a friend being pregnant, and calling the bump the "blueberry". So I wrote this for her. And every time I did it at readings people would ask "can I get a copy of that for my friend who's pregnant?" so I got Charles Vess to illustrate it and make it a book."
Blueberry Girl
"And now we shall go next door and I will sign things, and if we're not done by half past seven I'm told we shall move somewhere else and continue to sign things there."
Note the badge. It's a TARDIS.
Where did the TARDIS come from? asks a young lady ahead.
"I was at a science fiction convention in Montreal and someone gave it to me, said you have to have this. And I doubt it's official merchandise or strictly legal, but I like it. Everyone should have their own TARDIS."
And after an hour and a quarter queuing, I got him to sign Who Killed Amanda Palmer? "It was me!" he wrote.
"Ah, you got to see her at Forbidden Planet."
Yes, and I've had Science Fiction Double Feature in my head ever since.
"Good."
And the pin leads me to ask the inevitable Doctor Who question.
"Oh, ask, ask."
Are you?
"It would be nice, wouldn't it?"
And he chuckles. Sly devil.
"Hello!"
(Hello.)
"The plan, and there is a plan. I will read to you, then we will do questions and answers, and to keep things simple you will ask the questions and I will provide answers. And then I will read to you some more, then I will sign things until my hand falls off. How does that sound?" (approving sounds) "You nod as if you have a say in the matter."
"This is a chapter from The Graveyard Book. The shortest chapter, Chapter Five. This book started about twenty-five years ago. We were living above a shop in a house that was... spindly. Every room had stairs. And I had a two-year-old with a tricycle. There was no way he could ride it in the house without dying... so every day I took him across the street to the churchyard, where he would ride around the gravestones happily. And I thought about how natural he looked there. And I thought you could write something like The Jungle Book, only instead of growing up in the jungle with the beasts and learning what the beasts know, he grows up with the dead and learns what the dead know. And I thought that's a proper idea for a book. So I went home and tried to write it... retrieving small child and tricycle as I went.
And I wrote about a page. About a page about these dead people arguing whether to take care of this child. And I realised... it wasn't very good. And I knew the idea was good, and I thought I wasn't a good enough writer to do it. So I put it away. And every five years or so I'd take it out again, rewrite that page - completely, as I could never find the previous version - and decide it wasn't good enough again. And then about five years ago, I realised I wasn't getting any better. I remember being able to write one story then write another and think "that poor foolish child who wrote that last story" but now I'd reached my level. And so I couldn't put it off any more as I was as good as I was going to get.
So I wrote it, and here it is. Chapter Five..."
(I won't try and transcribe chapter five.)
"That was fun. I love reading the people. I don't get to do it enough. Since my youngest turned ten, and we were halfway through... what was it... The Northern Lights, His Dark Materials... and she said 'I think I'll read it myself from here' And that was that."
"Questions..."
Your characters' names are often important and always very precise. How do you name them?
"What a lovely question, a question I've never been asked before. It varies. Sometimes they come with their names, and that's lovely, and sometimes it takes weeks and months.
Richard Mayhew was named after Richard Curtis, who directed Four Weddings and Love Actually, because he has this sort of rumpled charm about him, and women would keep falling at his feet and he'd keep not noticing. And a man called Henry Mayhew, who wrote a book called London Labour and the London Poor, in which he talked to, well, London's poor. And for a book about the underside of London, Mayhew seemed like a good name.
Coraline was a typo. Not in the book, but years ago I was typing a letter to a press officer called Caroline and I typed "Dear Coraline". And I looked at it, and I thought that's a lovely name. I'll write a book called Coraline. It's this weird mirror of Caroline and it's a name everyone would get wrong and it's got Coral in it. So I remembered it, and used it years later. The American author Larry Niven was asked where his names come from and he said "I treasure my typos".
The thing I'm doing next has a character called Jack. And I was thinking of not calling him Jack, because The Graveyard Book has this whole "man jack of them" thing. But I showed it to someone, and he said "I really like this character you don't have a name for. He seems like, how about you call him Jack?" So Jack he is.
And sometimes you get totally stuck, and start looking at everything in your head for a name, and you start looking around and think... "Chair! No, that's no good. Jug? Mister Jugg... Stairs? Mister Stairs." And you think of everyone you meet and go "Thaddeus? You could be a Thaddeus... or perhaps not."
Silas was always Silas. But Bod wasn't for a good long time. I knew I wanted a name which was like an absence, a lack of a name. But it was a while before I remembered the poem I quote at the start Nobody Owns. And I thought "Nobody Owns... Nobody Owens, that could be his name." And he became Bod because if your name's Nobody people will shorten it."
Did you find any issues writing a silent film?
"Ah, yes. Now for those who don't know I mentioned on my Twitter that I'm directing a silent film. And was then told no, they want to make a big announcement about it. But there you go. I'm writing and directing a silent film to go out on one of the Sky channels over Christmas.
And I found writing a silent movie's rather like writing comics. You have to try and get the idea across to the artist, and you can't draw it because you aren't good enough or it would take too long which is why you need them, so it becomes this weird game of descriptive charades. And I haven't directed much, and haven't directed at all for five years. So I thought I can write just about well enough for a starting director...
And it gets me that people ask "what do you mean write a silent film?" like there's no writing involved. When it's something like "we start in a kitchen, on someone making a sandwich. We see jam being spread over white bread. The we see a thermos of coffee being made - coffee powder going in, then boiling water, then semi-skimmed milk. Then we pull back and see the person doing this."
(For something like American Gods you must have done a lot of research. Did it affect your writing?)
"Yes, inevitably, in a way. When you're writing a book that's a quarter of a million words and takes two years you'll find lots of thing and think "ah, that's my book!" But people ask if I had to do a lot of research on the gods, and no, I knew all of that already. I had to research the Eastern European gods, and now if you read American Gods you'll know the sum total of human knowledge on them, there's so little now known.
And then there's sort of second-level research, which is about popping suspension of disbelief, because it's very easy to do in fiction, especially the kind I write, fantastic fiction. What's a good example? The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers. Great book. Americans love. People from the British part of the world often have a problem with it. Around the time the modern American hero goes to Elizabethan London and asks someone "where's Crookback Alley?" and he says "that way, about three blocks". Now, the idea of the city block hasn't reached London now, so... so you want to catch things like that. So if you're reading a book on Victorian funerary customs... as you do... if you're writing The Graveyard Book, and want to make sure you know what people wore to be buried, when they stopped using winding sheets, because someone somewhere will read it and go "hang on, that's not right."
And then as a writer you read everything, or you should. And get obsessed with things. And I keep thinking the history of the Jack Benny radio show will become a story, but it never does."
Favourite Character?
"Ooh. That's like asking who's your favourite child. But I suppose right now, and this is very specific to now, it's Silas. Because there's more to his story that I want to tell. So I imagine the thing after the next thing will have him in it.
If I could have a dinner party of say half a dozen, I could answer that. I'd want Delirium because she writes her own dialogue, I can just give her a straight line and off she goes. (Someone else who your transcriber has forgotten. Sorry.) Mr. Wednesday, I know he's awful but he'd be entertaining. And Mr. Nancy, the version from Anansi Boys, not American Gods.
And I would not want the Other Mother there."
"Alright, finally, I'm going to read you an entire book. It's a very short book. It's the result of a friend being pregnant, and calling the bump the "blueberry". So I wrote this for her. And every time I did it at readings people would ask "can I get a copy of that for my friend who's pregnant?" so I got Charles Vess to illustrate it and make it a book."
Blueberry Girl
"And now we shall go next door and I will sign things, and if we're not done by half past seven I'm told we shall move somewhere else and continue to sign things there."
Note the badge. It's a TARDIS.
Where did the TARDIS come from? asks a young lady ahead.
"I was at a science fiction convention in Montreal and someone gave it to me, said you have to have this. And I doubt it's official merchandise or strictly legal, but I like it. Everyone should have their own TARDIS."
And after an hour and a quarter queuing, I got him to sign Who Killed Amanda Palmer? "It was me!" he wrote.
"Ah, you got to see her at Forbidden Planet."
Yes, and I've had Science Fiction Double Feature in my head ever since.
"Good."
And the pin leads me to ask the inevitable Doctor Who question.
"Oh, ask, ask."
Are you?
"It would be nice, wouldn't it?"
And he chuckles. Sly devil.
