my day was awesome, how about yours?
Things that are made of win:
1) I saw Neil Gaiman today at the National Book Festival. \o/
2) I have obtained The Graveyard Book. I read it on the train ride home and it was full of awesome. \o/
3) I got a 'backstage' tour of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History from my friend who works there. \o/
I also saw Salman Rusdie and various other authorial personages, saw the new Oceans exhibit at the Natural History Museum (they have this video presentation projected on a globe, it is tres awesome! also, a giant squid!) and ate yummy food. All in all, a very successful day.
Neil Gaiman talked about the inspiration for The Graveyard Book and read a bit of Chapter 7 and then answered questions. I cannot remember what the questions actually were, but in his answers, he talked about his trip to China and how someone tried to sell him a bit of a human arm bone from an archaeological dig site; how his children had inspired some of books but don't get any of the royalties for them; the awesomeness of writing Good Omens, which he described as the most fun he had writing a book (he also said that he and Terry Pratchett had written it "before he was Terry Pratchett and I was Neil Gaiman", which I found far more funny than it in fact is); his opinion of audiobooks and how he likes recording his own but knows sometimes when he's writing that he just won't be able to do justice to the book; and various and sundry things that I cannot remember just now.
I truly geeked out over my visit to the Smithsonian. I really like to know how things work, so getting to see all the stuff that happens backstage was really cool. Also, I got to see up-close-and-personal dinosaur specimens in the paleontology department! \o/
And now I am totally exhausted, so I am going to bed.
1) I saw Neil Gaiman today at the National Book Festival. \o/
2) I have obtained The Graveyard Book. I read it on the train ride home and it was full of awesome. \o/
3) I got a 'backstage' tour of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History from my friend who works there. \o/
I also saw Salman Rusdie and various other authorial personages, saw the new Oceans exhibit at the Natural History Museum (they have this video presentation projected on a globe, it is tres awesome! also, a giant squid!) and ate yummy food. All in all, a very successful day.
Neil Gaiman talked about the inspiration for The Graveyard Book and read a bit of Chapter 7 and then answered questions. I cannot remember what the questions actually were, but in his answers, he talked about his trip to China and how someone tried to sell him a bit of a human arm bone from an archaeological dig site; how his children had inspired some of books but don't get any of the royalties for them; the awesomeness of writing Good Omens, which he described as the most fun he had writing a book (he also said that he and Terry Pratchett had written it "before he was Terry Pratchett and I was Neil Gaiman", which I found far more funny than it in fact is); his opinion of audiobooks and how he likes recording his own but knows sometimes when he's writing that he just won't be able to do justice to the book; and various and sundry things that I cannot remember just now.
I truly geeked out over my visit to the Smithsonian. I really like to know how things work, so getting to see all the stuff that happens backstage was really cool. Also, I got to see up-close-and-personal dinosaur specimens in the paleontology department! \o/
And now I am totally exhausted, so I am going to bed.