Walking with fangirls

[louiselux]

I met up with ntamara who lives slap in the middle of Oxford. Then foreverdirt and wednesdayschild turned up with cheesy chips, that well-known British delicacy. Then derryderrydown appeared as if by magic, in her flourescent coat. Borders was pretty packed by the time Neil showed up, and considering it was children's book there weren't that many in the audience, although there were a few. I stood in the 'pets' aisle and craned over the most enourmous man in the world's shoulder.

Neil was lovely and funny and I think, no, I know, I stood there with a stupid grin on my face all the time he was reading, and then through the questions, when he was funny and lovely some more.

He read the whole of the Wolves in the Walls. The first question was 'where do you get your ideas.' He was very gracious and said that 90% of authors lie about that and treat it as a joke question, and they'll say things like: 'from a man who comes round once a month with a basket and makes me choose.' Love! But he talked about confluence and things coming together, which is very similar to Stephen King's description of how he gets his ideas.

Someone asked him who is favourite charcters were, so he did it book by book because he said he couldn't choose. Mr Wednesday, the Marquis, Delirium because 'she writes her own dialogue', and Crowley! He talked quite a lot about Good Omens, and about he and Terry plotted the sequel together in a hotel room at 4 in the morning. By this point I was ready to shout out 'tell me the plot, for god's sake! Just tell it me now!' But of course I didn't, and he didn't. A certain forverdirt was tinhatting away madly in the self help aisle by this point at the mention of Terry, Neil and writing each other's Deaths. That's Deaths, not 'little deaths'. Ahem. Moving on, there were more questions but I can't remember them all as my brain was destroyed by the squee. Then we all formed an orderly scrum and waited to get our books signed. It took ages and I had plenty of time to think about how odd it felt meeting an author whose books I write fanfic for. I still feel very very very not-worthy.

I can't remember what I said to him because I had an attack of nerves and my heart went all poundy, but it was something cretinous like 'that's very lovely.' He draws little pictures with his signature! And I was cursing myself that I didn't get a copy of Good Omens signed, even if it was horrible black-covered one.

We went back to pick up ntamara who had run off to go and read some more potterfic. Then derryderrydown took us to the pub, where she showed me her Scottish country dancing shoes. They have tartan straps and they lace up round the ankle! Very fancy. By the time I had to leave, Foreverdirt, who had been driven insane by Neil's hypercool death ray of luuurve, was slashing fenceposts and trees, bless her. Ntamara walked back to the station with me, regaling me on the way with her long improbable Harry Potter murder mystery plot, which she must write.

I had a wonderful time, not only because I met Neil (guh) but because I met meeting such friendly, funny and entertaining people.

Comments

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

He sounded very dubious about it, and talked about how they wrote Good Omens when neither of them were very well known so they just wrote it to make each other laugh. He said that if the sequel ever happened, which he doubted, they wouldn't be also to write it with the same sense of fun. So much as I would love them to write a sequel, it doesn't sound very likely.