Meeting Neil Gaiman

Living near San Francisco has its perks. History. Food. Beautiful architecture. Nearly perfect weather for most of the year. We don’t get over to the city as often as we would like – a few times a year – but when we do, it’s always an experience.

You also never know who you may meet.

So several months ago, our friend Alicia posted something on her Facebook page about writer Neil Gaiman doing a signing tour for his new book, Ocean at the End of the Lane. Neil has sworn to make this his last signing tour, as he’s getting older and the tour grind is beyond exhausting.

One of his tour stops was San Francisco, and thanks to Alicia and the Facebook grapevine, Kristi heard about the event almost as soon as the tickets went on sale.

We’ve had a rough spring and early summer. Hawaii was a wonderful break in the middle of it, but otherwise, it’s been an emotionally grueling slog for both of us. Kristi knows I’m a Neil Gaiman fan, we have an almost complete collection of his books, and she saw an opportunity to do something fun in June. She also knew that I’d been dealing with a writerly mid-life identity crisis this year (will write more about this another day) and I badly needed an inspiration break. So she grabbed tickets as soon as they went on sale. The event sold out within a week.

The Friday of, we drove over to Pleasanton with Alicia, and took BART into the city. We had some lunch at King of Thai on Union and then hiked up the street to the Conservatory Theater.

The line to get in was stretched around the block (that’s my checkered shoulder on the right):

Luckily, Alicia had friends – the same ones who alerted her about the San Francisco signing on Facebook – who had gotten there early to stake out a line spot, which we were happy to avail ourselves of. At 6pm the theater doors opened, we all filed in, got our copies of Ocean and made our way to seats. The three of us settled near the front on the right, good seats with a close view of the front. Event staff milled around with stacks of index cards, taking questions for Neil to answer from the audience.

Thank God for Alicia’s friends.. otherwise we’d have ended up a mile down the street and wedged somewhere in the balcony. Outside in line, conversation turned often to how long these events tended to go on; apparently it wasn’t unheard of for Neil to still be signing books at 2am. We fervently hoped this wouldn’t be us, because BART stopped running around midnight. We didn’t want to have to choose between meeting Neil and going home.

Anyway, just as an aside.. if you enjoy reading but haven’t read Neil’s work, or you’ve heard of him but just haven’t given him a try yet, you’re missing out. So grab a copy of Smoke and Mirrors or Stardust and enjoy. Especially in his short stories, he’s one of my favorites – his style has an elegant lyrical quality that is neither too spare nor too wordy, and his sense of story is one of the best out there.

He’s also one of the very best at spoken readings. Here is Neil at a similar event for Ocean in Washington D.C., a week before ours:

At 7pm the theater lights dimmed, and Neil took the stage. He read an excerpt from Ocean, and then displayed a two-inch stack of index cards – the questions from the audience – and started tackling questions ranging in subjects from the writing life, to nonexistent-but-rumored plans for an HBO American Gods miniseries, to his wife singer Amanda Palmer.

In the midst of it all, he got the ubiquitous “where do you get your ideas” question that all writers get at these functions, and offered the best answer I’d ever heard. Usually this question turns up smart ass answers, because really, it’s a stupid question. But Neil did it well (quotes mostly paraphrased).

“Most often, I get my ideas while I’m working on something else, another project. You stop, write the idea down in your little notebook, and go back to work. Finish what you’re working on, and then go back to that idea.

“But finish. Don’t just chase off after the new idea. Finish first.”

The other great answer, that got a loud laugh from the audience:

“How do your characters find you?”

[ Quizzical look ] “Google Maps, I think.”

Questions wrapped, Neil did another reading, this time a humorous excerpt from his upcoming children’s book, “Fortunately The Milk”. Then the room broke for the signing event.

Like I said, there was a lot of debate among us about how this was going to work. The Conservatory holds about 1000 people, and it was packed that night. Neil said that he planned to sign as many books as he could, to hopefully get to everyone – they’d set up a table on stage and call people up by theater section. We each could get a copy of Ocean signed, as well as one other book.

And our section got called first.

That’s Alicia at the very far left. Kristi took the picture and I’m somewhere around. (I’m just grateful we got some photos.. my phone wasn’t cooperating, and Kristi’s phone has been shorting out her battery at random intervals ever since Sprint/Samsung pushed out the new Android ICS release onto it. At the point she took this picture, the phone had about 15% charge and it was dropping like a rock.)

He signed copies of Smoke and Mirrors, Stardust and Ocean at the End of the Lane for us – okay, for me – and seemed pleased to see a copy of Smoke, since so many people there were all about his book, American Gods. And the nonexistent HBO miniseries. That didn’t exist.

“I can’t wait to see American Gods on HBO!”, said the guy ahead of us in line (baseball cap, above).

“It’s NOT A REAL THING!”, repeated Neil. “Internet rumors. That’s all. Really!”

Like probably everyone else, I really had no idea what to say when my turn came up. He signed our books, and I said something about how his short story “Chivalry” was my favorite of his stories, and that I’d been a fan of his work for a really long time. He smiled and said, “Why thank you – thank you very much”. Again, he seemed genuinely pleased to be complimented on a short story from over a decade ago.

Kristi comes up alongside me and says, “He’s being far too modest. My husband’s a writer, and he needs the inspiration to take your advice and FINISH.”

I love my wife.

We took our signed books and then our minute with Neil Gaiman was over. Of a thousand people waiting that night, we were perhaps in the first twenty. As we headed back up towards the lobby, we passed Alicia’s friends, who had sat closer to the center of the theater’s orchestra level. They were still waiting to get called, and who knew how long that would take?

As we made our way back to the BART station to head home, Alicia texted to thank them again for sharing their spot in line, as well as the early ticket headsup. We have no idea how long they waited for their turns.

For me, meeting Neil Gaiman was one of those bucket list things that you don’t realize is one. There are four or five writers that inspired me to set out on that long, weird journey myself. One, alas, is now dead (Ray Bradbury), and I regret never having the chance to meet him. I’d like to meet Stephen King someday. I met Harlan Ellison at DragonCon back in 1995.

So meeting Neil Gaiman was a significant 2013 highlight for me. Having the chance to see one of his readings live, get a few personalized signatures on some favorite books, and exchange a few writerly words while he was still fresh at the start of the event, that was a very special and rare treat. If this truly is his last such tour, then I’m even more grateful for the opportunity to forge a lifelong memory.

We had a wonderful time that night, and I hope we can do something like this again sometime.

PS. We’ve written here about Neil before, last year when he gave the now-nearly-famous “Make Good Art” commencement speech. We have a Zen Pencils print on a wall in our office. If you’ve never heard it, check it out. It’s worth the time.