American Gods

I am, having read my book three times in three versions in the last three weeks, checking everything, finally feeling very done with it. Noticed some sloppy sentences this time through, ones that Fowler would have tutted at. If I could fix them with a word, I did; if they needed to be completely rewritten, I left them, figuring that perfection can wait. Maybe for the next book. . . .

The first of the blurbs is in. It’s from Peter Straub, who says, in an e-mail to my editor, Jennifer Hershey. . .

Dear Jennifer —

Many thanks to both you and Neil for sending me the early galley of AMERICAN GODS. I think it is a terrific book, clearly Neil’s best to date, and am very happy to offer the following quote:

From his first collection of short stories, Neil Gaiman has always been a remarkable, remarkably gifted writer, but AMERICAN GODS is the first of his fictions to match, even surpass, the breathtaking imaginative sweep and suggestiveness of his classic SANDMAN series of graphic novels. Here we have poignancy, terror, nobility, magic, sacrifice,wisdom, mystery, heartbreak, and a hardearned sense of resolution - areal emotional richness and grandeur that emerge from masterfulstorytelling.

Will that do? It’s a wonderful novel, and I congratulate both you andNeil for bringing it into being.

Peter Straub. . .

Which has me happy as a sandboy. (What is a sandboy? Why are they so happy?) I guess because I really wanted American Gods to be a book that had the power and scale and resonance that Sandman did (and which, by their nature, and not necessarily to their detriment, neither Neverwhere nor Stardust could have had — they were intrinsically smaller, lighter things). That it’s done that for one reader – and that that one reader is a writer of whose work I have been a fan since I read Shadowlands at about 16 – makes me feel like the last two years of hard writing really had a point.

. . .

And an e-mail in from a correspondent who shall remain anonymous:

I’ve looked at some of your journal and I’d never realised the actual effort and workload that goes into it AFTER the book is ‘written’. Nor why it took so long between concept and hardback appearance - until now that is. Is your brain “American Godded Out’ or still on an enthusiasm roll?

Dear Anonymous of New Zealand. I’m still enthusiastic. But I’m very pleased I don’t have to read it again this week.

And I’m pleased that some of the mechanics of taking a book to publication are coming out in the journal. People know that authors write books, and then books appear on the shelves. Some of them are bestsellers, and some aren’t. But that’s all most people know. One reason I liked the idea of doing this journal was being able to explain the stuff that happens between handing in the mss and publication. (That there are no authorial grumbles about either the UK or the US book covers is very unusual — I’m happy with them both and they both look like covers for the book I wrote.)

Someone on The Well asked. Why don’t writers just edit their own books, kinda like musicians who produce themselves?

And the answer to that, Bill Clintonlike, is probably, it depends what you mean by Edit. Edit means so many things. Editors do so many things.

In the US they like to get more involved. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. Michael Korda once told me it all dated back to Jacqueline Susanne, who wrote books that were readable, but all typed in upper case in something that didn’t have a lot to do with English; so editors began getting their feet wet and getting involved in the writing process, making suggestions for things to cut, rewriting where they had to, and so on.

It’s certainly true that UK editors tend much more to look at a manuscript, ask themselves “is this publishable?” and if the answer’s yes, they publish it.