'Neil Gaiman in conversation with Claire Armitstead' & The Ocean at the End of the Lane

 



The date was Monday 17th June, the time is 19:00, the location was the Peacock Theatre in London where The Royal Society of Literature were holding an event called 'Neil Gaiman in conversation with Claire Armitstead' and where I was sitting in the fourth row.

 

Read that last bit over. I was in the fourth row in the same room as Neil Gaiman. Now, imagine my excitement.

 

Neil Gaiman is basically my favourite author/writer/genius/person in the entire world thanks to his amazing writing skills, his endless imagination, witty humour, great works such as Coraline, Stardust, Neverwhere and of course those Doctor Who episodes (The Doctor's Wife is my favourite ever). Neil Gaiman is, in simple terms, my hero. If I could achieve even half of what Neil Gaiman has in his life, it will be more than I could ever hope for.

 

Neil Gaiman sauntered onto the stage at exactly 19:00 and he looked exactly like he does in the photos with the crazy hair and the all-black clothes and the confidence of somebody who knows they are a legend. With the hair and the reputation, I guess Neil Gaiman is sort of to literature what Slash is to music, minus the drugs and the alcohol and the crazy rock 'n' roll antics. I clutched the signed, first edition hardback copy of 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' that I bought with childish excitement and when he read an extract from the book, I made a mental note to remember that moment when I came to that particular part of the book.

 

Overall, the evening was amazing, Neil Gaiman was funnier than I expected him to be and gave hilarious anecdotes that had everyone in stitches, such as his mistake in reccommending Chloe by Stephen King to his daughter while she was still young and Stephen King's advice to him as an author ("Enjoy it"). I also decided that if I couldn't grow to become an amazing author like Neil Gaiman I would grow to be an amazing journalist like Claire Armitstead.

 

Thus far, I have started the new book and am half way through. The words flow like poetry, a characteristic of Neil Gaiman's writing that I love, the characters are intriguing (Neil Gaiman wouldn't say whether or not the Hempstock family are witches), and I can't wait to find out the key to the mystery of the storyline.

 

I will update again when I have finished reading it.

 

(I do notice that I always refer to Neil Gaiman as 'Neil Gaiman'. I tried several times to simply write 'Gaiman' or 'the author' to make sentences sound nicer but he is such a legend to me that I have to write his whole name.)