What Neil Said, part 1
Part one, Saturday's Guest of Honour Speech
12.15 PM Finnish time, Bio Rex
The place was packed with people, first of all. He had the biggest audiences during the con, and no wonder I might say. He greeted us and then moved on to saying that this'll be in English, tell�ng us about the first time he'd been in Finland, in Kemi. They'd had some lady translating his every sentence to the audience, so he'd say one thing and wait while she translated it, until after some time someone from the audience had pointed out that "You know, we do all speak English", so this Finncon speech would be in English, too. 
He was doing a general Frequently Asked Questions type of glance at things, starting from American Gods, which he said he'd started writing roughly a year ago. He also said he's not getting his hair cut before he's done with it, hence the long curls. I'm sure some people who frequent the Dreaming site already know the comment on the Norwegian king, but here goes, anyway. Neil'd been in Norway the previous week and having told them the hair-thing, they noted that they 'd had a king who was like that, one who wouldn't cut his hair until he had united Norway. He noted that uniting Norway was much easier, though. He also pointed out he'd started off with a beard, too, but when he started looking too much like Che Guevara it became apparent he was better off without it.
Mentioning he'd lived in the States 7 years now, he started describing American Gods; about how every race has brought their old gods there and abandoned them sooner or later, so that now they drive taxis or run funeral parlours in central Illinois, like the Egyptian gods, for example, or do whatever keeps them going, all the way to stripping I think it was. In addition to that it's also about the new gods, the gods of mobile phones and "dotcom". He'd promised to write the script for the Death movie after he was done with the novel, but that'd taken more time than expected, so he was saying how he should head to Las Vegas to write it, because there's nothing he likes to do there. He'd lock himself up in a hotel room and just write. He hopes they make a good Sandman movie, but doesn't want to anything to do with it directly. He compared writing a script for that as cutting off the fingers and toes of his baby, trying to squeeze all the things into 90 minutes or so, doesn't want to hurt his baby. With the Death movie he gets to expand the 3 part miniseries Death - The High Cost of Living into a 6 part miniseries in a way, writing its script, so that's different. He continued by telling us about the worst Sandman script he'd ever read, one in which the first thing Morpheus says after he's free again is "Aha! Foolish mortal..." This naturally made everybody crack up, as did the rest, too, as Neil continued; "As if your puny weapons could hurt me, the Lord of Dreams". Apparently it would have turned Lucifer into Dream's half-brother, too. Neil'd hated the script. Obviously, I should say. Dave "Scowl"(? something), the writer of the Crow movie is supposed to be in charge of screenwriting the Sandman movie at this stage.
I'll omit the Good Omens movie story he told, because it's that same old Hollywood experience thing he's mentioned several times in interviews. Look it up somewhere or email me if you want to hear the details of it. The Biggles-codeword for bailing out and his demonstration of how Terry Pratchett had done the flying moves with his arms spread at the sides were funny, anyway, as were his imitations of the American accents the relevant people spoke with. Samuelsons owns the rights to it now, and the Good Omens movie should be next in line after Terry Gilliams has finished directing The Man Who Killed Don Quijote. On the Books of Magic he said he'll just be glad if they don't get Arnold Schwarzenegger to play Tim Hunter. He also said they still have these "What if?" conversations with Pratchett about the movies actually turning out great and things going wonderfully, Neil being the optimistic "What if?" side and Terry telling him "It'll never happen." To which he says "But what if it will?" and Terry goes "It'll never happen" and so on and so forth, finishing with "It'll never happen". But if and when the movie comes out they'll expect to go to the premiere, getting their popcorns and chocolate raisins, happily sharing, he said.
He recommended Princess Mononoke to us wholeheartedly, saying we should go see it in a cinema in any language if we get the chance. The call he got from Harvey Weinstein from Miramax, about how Tarantino had recommended him to translate Mononoke, was also mentioned. He'd loved Princess Mononoke and took the job cause if he hadn't, someone who didn't love it would've, even at the risk of getting blamed for everything as the translator if it went wrong. Someone asked if he's contracted to direct the Death movie, too, and Neil confirmed this. There was also a question about Neverwhere I think, the answer being something about the many times he'd have to write that and how in the end he'd been right and the BBC wrong about it. It was also something I'd run into so I didn't make notes about it.
He got the idea for The Day I Swapped My Dad For 2 Goldfish from his son Mike, when he was 8. He'd said some dreadful fatherly thing like "Go to bed" or "Brush your teeth" and his son had said "I wish I didn't have a dad, I wish I had..." trying to find something to end the sentence with, to think of what other things you could have, finding "goldfish" and storming off. Leaving Neil to stand there thinking "That's brilliant". He said he also has another story for girls, The Wolves in the Walls (?), which he wants to write one day. The girl in it believes there are wolves in the walls, but the adults naturally say it's just mice or something, only she ends up being right in the end, cue trouble.
This and another children2s novel Caroline (? Not sure about the name, first I heard it was Horrorline, but apparently it was that name) were 2 stories he mentioned, Caroline being a children's novel which all the children are ok with but which seems to give adults nightmares. There's a girl called Caroline who goes through a door that's been sealed in her home, ending up in another house that's just like hers, with her other mother waiting for her, with buttons for eyes, wanting to keep Caroline there forever. HarperCollins is supposed to want it as an adults' paperback?
Someone asked about where he gets his characters from and he said that most of them start off as little bits of him. Mostly they just come in when he needs them to help along with the story, to act as go-betweens when something shouldn't lead to the next thing without something or someone in the middle. Shakespeare writing a monologue for someone so another actor gets the time to change their clothes backstage was another point he made in connection to this.
This lead to him bringing up the leprechaun Mad Sweeney from American Gods. Seemingly this leprechaun is 6'4" tall and drunk all the time, so he's like every drunk Irishman you ever met in a bar, even though he's not necessarily even Irish. The character of Delirium also came up, via a question I think, Kathy Acker and Tori Amos mentioned, as usual. He said Tori Amos had felt familiar from the start, Neil thinking "I've written you". He also told a story about how both had finally reached fame and were eating pizza in a hotel room, Tori noting that both were now famous, saying "We must jump up and down and up and down and dance around". Neil: "And then she did." This was probably one of my favourite bits during the con, Neil demonstrating Tori's little dance, saying "Delirium will say that one day" of Tori's words.Time ran out and he had to finish, moving on to the first signing on Saturday. I was lucky enough to have ran into him already on Friday, having butted in to the company of his 2 guides, though I didn't know who they were when I joined them in their table, so I got my Stardust signed already then, but I still wanted my Brief Lives and Kindly Ones signed, too. Cue standing in a queue for 35 minutes. The first day I'd asked for a dedication under my real name, Tiina, but asked one for Nyks this time, Nyks being the name I go by everywhere beyond real world, Internet or otherwise. Neil remarked on the name being different this time and said "Oh that Nyks/Nyx" when I mentioned the Greek goddess of Night. I know he said something else, too, on both days but I was slightly dazed both times and forgot what was said almost immediately afterwards. Bet you're glad I took notes about the rest. ;)
Here's a pic of him signing my Sandmans.
