Neil Gaiman interview

This was a freelance job for "Australian Penthouse" in 2013. I figure it's OK to share the text now on a non-profit basis. Haven't altered or updated anything.

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THE NEIL DEAL

British-born, American-based writer Neil Gaiman has a shelf full of novels, comics, kids’ books and screenplays to his name – each one unique, and each with fans and awards from around the world. The Sandman, Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, episodes of the new Doctor Who…even that impressive line-up is selling him short. We were lucky enough to speak to the former men’s mag journo recently about all things writing-related.


In The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the narrator says, “I liked myths. They weren’t adult stories and they weren’t children’s stories. They were better than that. They just were.” It’s a description that could be applied to your own work. Is it your goal to create myths, and what makes a good one?

It’s definitely not something I actively pursue. I don’t ever think about making a contemporary myth from scratch. The occasional times you do it, I think you do it almost without trying. A good myth… For me, it’s something that has somehow survived, in an almost Darwinian sense, for many hundreds of years, probably thousands, and carries with it a peculiar burden in that you know it was probably once something else. It may have been sacred, it may have been mad, it may have been a story put together to warn other people or to explain a way of behaving. But whatever it was, it was big and important, and what’s come down to us is whatever’s left of that.

Given the importance of these core truths, have you ever finished a manuscript, moved on to something else and then suddenly realised, “That’s not how it would have ended”?

Mostly on issues of The Sandman and mostly when I was up against crazy, crazy deadlines. I remember wrapping up one issue before I went to a convention and not liking or trusting the last few pages. I got back, phoned artist Matt Wagner and said, “Have you actually drawn anything for those pages?” He said no, so I said, “Right, I’m rewriting them completely.” Even though you are always, very literally, making it up as you go along, you never want things to feel carved from rock. You always want it to feel organic.

Are you fussy about your writing environment?

The main thing I like to do is either not write on a computer, because of [the distraction of] the internet, or if I’m forced to do so, to use a program called Freedom and turn the net off for one, two, three hours at a time. Beyond that, I’m not fussy and I can work pretty much anywhere. I’m quite good at writing with ridiculous, noisy, people things going on in the background – I just sort of tune out. It goes back to when I was a journalist. You’re not allowed to have the editor say, “I want that copy on my desk at three,” then turn around and go, “Oh, I just wasn’t inspired,” or, “The tea was the wrong kind of tea.” You do it somehow, even if you think you can’t.

Any examples spring to mind?

I got a phone call once from Punch magazine, which I wrote for briefly in the mid-’80s, and the editor – a nice man named Ian Irvine – said, “Neil, just calling to remind you that your book review is due tomorrow.” And I said, “No, Ian, it’s due on Tuesday.” “That’s right,” he said. “It’s Monday today.” I’m like, “Oh, fuck.” I’d flicked through the book 3-4 weeks earlier and knew it had a distinctive cover, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. I said, “Ian, just out of interest, if I don’t manage to do the review, what happens?” He said, “Well, then we’d have a blank page. So probably what I’d do is print your photo – rather small – with your name, address and phone number, and let anyone concerned about the blank page know who to contact.” I stayed up all night writing an article on what you do when you can’t find the book you’re meant to review, and it was quite a funny piece. But it was definitely a case of “failure is not an option”. People ask me now, “How did you cope with the fear of rejection?” Fear of rejection is a strange and intangible thing; fear of not eating was very tangible. If I didn’t write, I didn’t eat. It was my sole source of income.

Are you a fully-formed-idea-while-out-walking-the-dogs guy or a sweat-and-blood-and-midnight-oil-stained-multiple-drafts guy?

I tend to be more of a know-enough-about-what-I’m-doing-to-start-writing-and-I’ll-figure-out-the-rest-as-I-go-along guy. My editors always talk about how clean and pretty much final the drafts they get from me are, and those are usually just tidied-up versions of my first drafts. I think that has to do with the years I spent writing comics, because you couldn’t fuck around. The January issue is on sale, the comic that’s coming out in February is going through production, the comic that’s coming out in March is being drawn, and you’re writing the comic that’s coming out in April. If you got something wrong in the January issue, it’s too late to change it. Having done The Sandman, I read Dickens novels with a weird shock of recognition. It’s like, “Oh, I know how you’re doing this… Here’s a character that you have a plan for three-quarters of the way through the story, and here’s a character you’re just bringing on as wallpaper. Here’s a ball you’re tossing in the air confident you can catch it, and here’s a ball you’re tossing in the air in the hope you’ll be able to catch it later on.”

Leaving aside Mr Nancy’s presence in both American Gods and Anansi Boys, you’re not a sequels author. Is this more of a personal decision or a matter of circumstance?

It’s definitely circumstance – I have absolutely nothing against sequels. It’s like… On one hand, there’s something I already know how to do, that people are waiting for more of, and for which my publisher would pay a ridiculous amount of money. But on the other, there’s something I have no idea how to do, that no-one’s waiting for, and that no-one’s interested in. I tend to hare off after the second option – in an “Ooh, shiny!” way – because I’m much more interested in things that I don’t know how to do. And I say that even though there’s not a book I’ve written, except maybe Coraline and maybe The Ocean at the End of the Lane, where I didn’t have some idea what happened next.

What’s your take on other famous writers using pseudonyms to escape their reputations and/or dabble in different genres?

When I was a young journalist, I’d talk to lots of nice writers, and some of the best-selling ones would be grumpy because they’d have a book they couldn’t get published. A fantasy author would tell me about his hard science-fiction novel no-one wanted. Or a detective-thriller guy would tell me about this book he’d written about two paddle steamers in a giant race in the 1800s. It was interesting that people I thought of as really successful were trapped, and I just thought, “I’m not gonna do that.” So I’ve been almost obsessive about making sure each thing I do is different. If I turned to my publisher and said, “The next Neil Gaiman book is going to be a pornographic cookbook,” they’d go, “Yeah, all right, Neil. Cool.” I don’t need to use a pseudonym – although, having said that, from the ages of about 22-27, it was Pseudonym City. I was amazingly prolific back then and magazines buying two or three articles from me in a month didn’t want people to know the same person had written all that stuff – and possibly done the book or film reviews as well. Then there was the problem where I might be reviewing the same thing for rival publications. One of the last Future Shocks stories I wrote for 2000AD was about a man who gets his pseudonyms surgically removed...

You’re doing an increasing number of live readings these days. Is your motivation to revive a dying art?

It’s a little bit reviving a dying art, just because you look at all the writers who used to do it, and you go, “Why don’t people do that anymore?” Dickens went on rock star-like tours, where he’d read to audiences every night – that genuinely fascinates me. But I think it’s more a case of “because I can”. Most authors don’t get a phone call asking them, “Have you got a story you’d like to read on stage at the Sydney Opera House? We’ll give you a string quartet and Eddie Campbell doing illustrations.” So you say yes, the tickets go on sale, they sell out, then you do it, people love it and you get a standing ovation. That sort of opportunity doesn’t come along very often and it might never come along again. I used to be terrified [of doing live readings]… It’s not like stage fright ever goes away, but the number needed to induce stage fright goes up. You’re comfortable talking to 10 people, but not 50. Then you’re comfortable with 50, but 300 is scary. Then you’re fine with 300, but 1000 is nerve-racking. Then one day you’re in a shed in Tasmania that holds 5000 people and it’s all good.

How has being married to an international music star – Amanda Palmer – changed the way you think about performing?

The biggest difference is that before you wouldn’t have got me to sing on stage for any amount of money or even at gunpoint. Then, suddenly, I’m living life with Amanda and I’m singing in front of an audience because she thinks it would be ridiculous of me not to. So I just think, “OK, I’ll go with this – it’s brilliant and it’s weird and it’s no longer scary.” Also, I can ask her, “How do you do that?” And I can watch her doing stuff. By the same token, she’s cured any lingering desire I might have had of being a rock singer. I had my little punk group when I was 15 or 16, and I dreamt of famous musician-ness. When you’re in the crowd, you’re like, “Oh, my God, these shows are awesome. Backstage, it must be hot and cold running women, and glamour and magic.” But now I know that, actually, everybody got changed in something that resembled an icebox, shivering and purple in a horrible, sad place with penises drawn on the wall by previous bands. And that the glamorous rock-star life is more about long journeys in vans and buses.

OK, just pretend there’s someone reading this interview who is shamefully unfamiliar with your writing – where should they start?

Well, it depends… If they’ve only ever read Penthouse, they should go to a bookshop, get a collection called Smoke and Mirrors and find a story called “Looking for the Girl”. It was a commission for the 20th anniversary of the UK magazine and one of the first pieces of fiction I sold. It gives you a potted history of the first 20 years of naked ladies in Penthouse, along with a commentary on observation, pornography, power and dreams. Excluding that… If they like a detective plot with some oddness, then American Gods is big and thick and very, very, weird. If they’re after something more delicate, but perhaps more disturbing, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. And if they want something that’s just a glorious adventure – a Narnia on the Northern Line – try Neverwhere.


You can keep up with Neil’s imaginary worlds and real-life travels via his blog (journal.neilgaiman.com) and Twitter feed (@neilhimself). And if you’re a parent in search of a Christmas present for a younger reader, check out his bizarrely brilliant new picture book illustrated by Chris Riddell, Fortunately, The Milk…